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Slaughter at Giants Coffin by L.J.Goulding

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#1 ·
Black Library & Warhammer Digital - Slaughter at Giant's Coffin (eBook)





Slaughter at Giant's Coffin

A Space Marine Battles novel
Devastated by the tyranids, remnants of the Scythes of the Emperor Chapter gather at a Chapter outpost to regroup. But the relentless menace of the hive fleets is close, and the battered Space Marines must rally for what might be their final stand…

READ IT BECAUSE
It's something quite unusual – a story about battered and bloodied Space Marines on the back foot. Their world lost, their command structure demolished, can they hold themselves together in the face of utterly destructive aliens?


THE STORY

Mere days after the loss of their home world Sotha, the Scythes of the Emperor stagger to the Chapter outpost at Miral Prime to lick their wounds and formulate a campaign of vengeance against the tyranids of Hive Fleet Kraken. Devastated and leaderless, these Space Marines now look to their only surviving officer, the reluctant Captain Thracian, for guidance. But the psychic shadow of the xenos is growing in the warp once more, and the bastion atop the Giant’s Coffin mesa may yet become the site of a most ignoble last stand...

Written by L J Goulding




Looks interesting, may have to get it.
 
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#3 ·
READ IT BECAUSE
It's something quite unusual – a story about battered and bloodied Space Marines on the back foot. Their world lost, their command structure demolished, can they hold themselves together in the face of utterly destructive aliens?
I think I read this exact blurb when they came out with Rynn's World, for very obvious reasons. Whether they altered it or not since then wouldn't surprise me. (They did)

Looks interesting, may have to get it.
Guess you made the decision pretty quickly, it barely took you two hours to read the thing.:laugh:

The to many unanswered questions you found by the end of the story, @Brother Lucian, seems to be a not uncommon trend in space marine battles books. I mean, it is rather difficult to put in the level of character/plot development of other stories when the point here is to cram an entire major event into one or two average length novels. At least in my opinion, writing novels is not my profession.


What kinda gets me is the thought of Thracian being a reluctant captain. Is he so because he was elevated to that status by dint of deed or honorific? Is he a brand new captain given the rank because he was there, not because he earned it? Is he reluctant to commit the remnants of his chapter because they are crippled? It feels like there are quite a few other words that could have been used there.
 
#4 ·
I think I read this exact blurb when they came out with Rynn's World, for very obvious reasons. Whether they altered it or not since then wouldn't surprise me. (They did)


Guess you made the decision pretty quickly, it barely took you two hours to read the thing.:laugh:

The to many unanswered questions you found by the end of the story, @Brother Lucian , seems to be a not uncommon trend in space marine battles books. I mean, it is rather difficult to put in the level of character/plot development of other stories when the point here is to cram an entire major event into one or two average length novels. At least in my opinion, writing novels is not my profession.


What kinda gets me is the thought of Thracian being a reluctant captain. Is he so because he was elevated to that status by dint of deed or honorific? Is he a brand new captain given the rank because he was there, not because he earned it? Is he reluctant to commit the remnants of his chapter because they are crippled? It feels like there are quite a few other words that could have been used there.
Regarding the unanswered question, read at your own peril:
 
#5 · (Edited)
Oh I certainly hope not, that would mean altering the only other existing source of information regarding the Scythes (from Orphans of the Kraken.)

He is supposed to go on and help lead/found the salvation teams. But if what you think they are hinting at comes to pass then thats the rewriting of a good character.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Hrm, Been re-reading Orphans of the Kraken. Looks like a major editor fail. OotK names the last captain as Thrasius, whom succeeded Thorcyra post the Slaughter. When in Slaughter he is called Thracian.

Ootk also says the salvation teams is Thrasius' idea. Hadrios had a couple lines as a messenger, nothing more.

Spoiler related to Slaughter and a thread to OotK.
 
#7 ·
Hrm, Been re-reading Orphans of the Kraken. Looks like a major editor fail. OotK names the last captain as Thrasius, whom succeeded Thorcyra post the Slaughter. When in Slaughter he is called Thracian.
Personally I want to chalk that up as a chapter tradition, taking a different name.

Ootk also says the salvation teams is Thrasius' idea. Hadrios had a couple lines as a messenger, nothing more.
Thats true, though Hadrios is also supposed to be Thrasius/Thracian's subordinate. So when setting the teams up some of that work would have had to fall to Hadrios, since Thracian had the remnants of a chapter to look to and guide.

Spoiler related to Slaughter and a thread to OotK.
While I can't say anything towards the book, it is possible that the cache going missing might have something to do with the deathwatch. The Scythes do gain a significant amount of geneseed at some point and one of the two major rumours pertaining to how is that it was given to them following permanent seconding of a significant number of their own to the deathwatch.

Its possible that this rumour gets expanded on and it turns out that Hadrios has it given to the inquisition to keep the chapter legacy safe and then the inquisition turns around and blackmails the chapter.

Kinda like that better than the other rumour anyway.
 
#9 ·
Well then fuck me, definitely looks like they are going to take him down the less honourable route.
 
#10 ·
I was half impressed and half disappointed by SaGC for a number of reasons.

What I Liked:
-Culmonios was a great character whose increasing rage and bitterness towards the universe, and dislike of the future he sees his Chapter is now bound to, really made the highlight of the novel. His disdain for the "trogs" like Hwygir showed the typical Sothan arrogance, but unlike Tiresias he developed a bit of respect for them after witnessing their capabilities. Still it wasn't enough to give him hope for the future, and it was interesting to see through him the perspective of a Space Marine who has lost everything and doesn't see the point anymore.

-Thracian was an interesting character let down only by his association with Hadrios. But it was cool to see a Scythe who realised what a total and complete f*ckup Thorcyra was and took matters into his own hands. His interactions with the lieutenant of the Heart of Cronus were quite interesting as well, showing a real humanity and connection to the people of his homeworld that most Space Marines do not have, a real contrast to the end where it's clear that he is essentially condemning the remnants of the Sothan people into slavery for his Chapter.

-The battle scenes against the Tyranids really captured the futility of the entire Miral campaign. It was doomed from the get-go and you can see it in every battle where the Tyranids just keep coming, no amount of casualties inflicted stopping them or even really being worthy of note. The Tyranids won Miral the very instant they decided to move towards it, the Scythes were merely a bump in the road. By the end it was clear that the entire slaughter was caused by vanity and an unwillingness to admit defeat, which cost the Scythes dearly at a time when they could not afford to lose anything more.

What I Disliked:
-Chapter Master Thorcyra. In his entirety. A poor character with zero leadership skills, and a bad depiction of a Chapter Master overall. I find it hard to believe that this idiot could have risen to the Sergeant rank, let alone leading an entire Chapter. He learned nothing from the Fall of Sotha, regardless of whether or not he was there he should have seen the ravaged remnants of the Scythes and realised that they needed to do stuff differently, like Thracian did. And the worst part, for most of the novel he doesn't even lead. He lets Culmonios do it?! What the hell?! Marneus Calgar didn't let random Brother Donatos lead the Chapter during the Battle for Macragge, there was no conceivable or believable reason that a Chapter Master would let a random battle-brother lead his Chapter in a good situation, let alone the extinction event that the Scythes were facing.

-Everything about Brother Hadrios. He came out of nowhere, made no sense about anything, brought a nonsensical and pointless side-plot into the story, and had no real characterisation beyond being mysterious and willing to kill battle-brothers, if he was even a Scythe. This was the weakest aspect of the story because it was utterly meaningless, Hadrios comes in and the reader learns there is a mystery afoot, something happened at Sotha and it's connected to secrets in the Chapter. Ok, cool. What might have happened there, what hints can we be given?? Uh, well... nothing. Something happened at Sotha, and a random marine is the only one who knows. The reader doesn't get a hint, or even a clue as to what might have gone down, why on earth the gene-seed was connected to it, why Hadrios does anything that he does in the book. A mystery for the sake of a mystery with no real meat to it, supremely disappointing.

-The shortness of the book and the lack of short stories. Not only was SaGC half the size of a regular SMB book, which on it's own would have been a real shame, it was coupled by the fact that some time ago it was mentioned that SaGC would contain some of the Scythes short stories that LJ Goulding penned, like Helios, to add some more story to the book. That did not happen, and it just means that SaGC feels short and the events feel rushed. Never a good thing.


Can only really say this book was average, it had good parts and bad parts.


LotN
 
#11 ·
I looked forward to this novel and while it wasn't written horribly by any degree, it simply wasn't good. Learning curves and stepping stones. Definitely better than anything i could create, but more work was needed with the entire story feeling very rushed.

 
#13 ·
I am confused here a bit because there was planned release for some kind of anthology named Scythes of the Emperor including short story of the same name + Slaughter + other stories. But that did not happen?

And now it seems even Lexicanum list is now outdated. It is quite hard to keep track of all those novels, anthologies etc in this series.
 
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