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Sorry for the necro, but I pre-ordered the book ages ago and it;s been sitting on my 'in' pile for ages and over the last couple days I finally sat down and devoured it.
I loved it! But them I'm used to negotiating multi-track stories with flashbacks and whatnot woven in. Seven-thousand pages of Peter F Hamilton has made it so I think it's weird when there's only one plot thread to follow.
The story was dark and twisted and chaotic, which fit the tone nicely. It was brutal and disjointed and not everything got answered to the asker's liking, but there weren't really any loose ends. It was a story about a brutal, disjointed place.
That said, it was super grimdark, chock full of grimdark, wrist-cuttingly grimdark. In short: everything I expect from 40k fiction not involving Commissar Cane or the hijkinks of Deff Skwadron.
And like LtoN, I don;t really care for non-Cain guard books, but this one was as brilliant as it was brutal.
I'd even suggest it to people I know who know very little about 40k as a great intruduction to the setting.
If anyone wants to talk about it I'm up for it.
PS: This has me looking at guard again...can't decide if I want to do tau'd up renegades or come up with some specialty Arkan stuff (not sure how you'd do the knights though...allied marines? Sisters?)
I loved it! But them I'm used to negotiating multi-track stories with flashbacks and whatnot woven in. Seven-thousand pages of Peter F Hamilton has made it so I think it's weird when there's only one plot thread to follow.
The story was dark and twisted and chaotic, which fit the tone nicely. It was brutal and disjointed and not everything got answered to the asker's liking, but there weren't really any loose ends. It was a story about a brutal, disjointed place.
That said, it was super grimdark, chock full of grimdark, wrist-cuttingly grimdark. In short: everything I expect from 40k fiction not involving Commissar Cane or the hijkinks of Deff Skwadron.
And like LtoN, I don;t really care for non-Cain guard books, but this one was as brilliant as it was brutal.
I'd even suggest it to people I know who know very little about 40k as a great intruduction to the setting.
If anyone wants to talk about it I'm up for it.
My only complaint is that they didn't vaporize the Sea Spider's little floating empire from orbit on their way out...but then being left to rot without any fresh blood is probably a fitting fate for the sick SOB. Everything else seemed to tie up. Some concrete answers we may never get, but shady unverifiable answers will have to do...Was Reve really Lomax' daughter? Seems likely but we'll never know for sure...neither will Holt. I like that, helps me identify with him.
And then in the end where it all ended up being futile and circular...it was just the perfect expression of the nightmarish and brutal circuity of the 40k universe. no matter where you go there you are, stuck in hell because the 40k universe is a terrible, shitty place and it will never, ever have a happy ending. Every time you think you've saved the day and broken the cycle you find out it's all part of the same bloody death spiral. Raven and Cutler were trying to stop the demon that ravaged Trinity from escaping again and instead they ended up creating it. A giant kick in the balls right at the end...what else could you possibly expect in the 40k universe?
Also, was I the only one who knew Abel had to be a Tau? 'Abel' described 'Si' as being ancient...which he is, for a tau but no high-ranking human would see an octogenarian as ancient.
And then in the end where it all ended up being futile and circular...it was just the perfect expression of the nightmarish and brutal circuity of the 40k universe. no matter where you go there you are, stuck in hell because the 40k universe is a terrible, shitty place and it will never, ever have a happy ending. Every time you think you've saved the day and broken the cycle you find out it's all part of the same bloody death spiral. Raven and Cutler were trying to stop the demon that ravaged Trinity from escaping again and instead they ended up creating it. A giant kick in the balls right at the end...what else could you possibly expect in the 40k universe?
Also, was I the only one who knew Abel had to be a Tau? 'Abel' described 'Si' as being ancient...which he is, for a tau but no high-ranking human would see an octogenarian as ancient.
PS: This has me looking at guard again...can't decide if I want to do tau'd up renegades or come up with some specialty Arkan stuff (not sure how you'd do the knights though...allied marines? Sisters?)