Hey, folks. SinSynn here.
So here comes another winter.
Blah.
Pretty soon, it's gonna be too cold to push around miniatures in the Ultimate Rival's gaming garage. Although I'm sure we'll take a few trips upstate to maybe catch a game or three, or perhaps him and I will hit some tournament or whatevs. Nevertheless, our active 'gaming season' is coming to an end.
Pretty soon, I'll be spending my hobby time painting stuffs (lotta catching up to do on that front, actually), repairing a bunch of my existing stuffs (unbending bent gun barrels and re-gluing broken off fenders and whatnot), and reading.
I've already gotten a jump on the 'off season' by hitting a bookstore and grabbing the second and third Night Lord novels by Aaron Dembski-Bowden.
Author's Note: Look, I love the guy. I follow him on Facebook, even. But I refuse to type his name out more than once. From here on out, I'll just refer to him as ADB, 'k?
Anywho, I luvs me some ADB Night Lord action. Talos is my man. And Xarl. And Cyrion. And Mercutian. And yeah, I luvs Uzas too.
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| *Sadly, their helmets cannot fly* |
It's been a while since I've purchased some new Black Library books. When I got into Flames of War, I felt compelled to devour a buncha World War II books, but I gotta tell ya, you really don't need to read a ton of those before you kinda get the point- spoiler alert: the Allies win by pretty much out-manufacturing the Axis, throwing unbelievable amounts of men and materials against an enemy with extremely finite resources and wacky leadership at the top. There ya go.
And so, I made my happy return to the grimdark novels. Ok so, fine- they're a mixed bunch. Some are really good (like the Night Lords books), some are downright awful (never read Sons of Dorn. Ever), and then you've got the Horus Heresy books, which I suffer through for the most part.
The only Horus Heresy novel I've really, really liked was ADB's the First Heretic, actually. I love the Word Bearers, thanks to Anthony Reynolds deliciously dark trilogy, and ADB's book kinda provides a preface to alla that. Good stuffs.
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| *I promise, you will TOTALLY wanna sacrifice something to the Dark Gods after reading this* |
Prior to hitting da bookstore, I re-read a couple of Henry Zou books: Emperor's Mercy and Flesh and Iron. I very much like Henry Zou, even though these two books could reliably pass as generic Sci-Fi by switching around a few words, like ADB he pretty much avoids the cliches that drag down a lot of the 40k novels.
You know what I mean. Somewhere in the first couple of chapters of any Space Marine book, you get 'the speech.'
'Brother, we are Adaptus Astartes of the [insert chapter name here]. We know no fear. For the Emperor and our Primarch!'
Blah, blah, blah.
Some of the dialog (or whatever passes for dialog in a Space Marine book) is so awful it hurts my head. The bulk of Black Library writers seemingly can't resist including 'the speech,' with Graham McNeill probably being the biggest culprit.
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| *Is it wrong to read a book hoping all of the main characters die?* |
Most Space Marines seem to do nothing but repeat what they've read on Imperial motivational posters.
It's pretty annoying after a while.
I'll admit that when I first saw Soul Hunter on the rack at the bookstore, I bought it simply because it was a Night Lords book. The pages coulda been completely blank and I still woulda bought it. I'm dumb like that.
'Ooh! Night Lords! SOLD!'
...don't you judge me...
I was happily surprised to read a Space Marine book that not only eschewed 'the speech' entirely, but actually featured dudes in power armor that were actual 'characters,' with like, personalities and whatnot.
Prior to Soul Hunter, the only Space Marine book I've read that did a decent job of that was Dan Abnett's Iron Snakes. Note- 'decent' may be something of an overstatement...
Yes, yes...Garviel Loken and Nathanial Garro are pretty cool cats, but...meh.
Sorry, Loyalist Space Marines just don't do it for me as 'characters.'
I often think that if anyone, ever really, really needed to either A) get laid, or B) smoke a big ol' spliff, it was yer average Imperial Space Marine. You just know that afterwards, they'd be all like, 'Holy crap! What the hell have I been doing with my life?!?'
...and then they'd prolly go renegade...
Which, come to think of it, is prolly exactly how a large percentage of renegade marines ended up that way...hey, it's gotta start somewhere, amirite?
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| *Kids, take it from Throatripper here: Winners Don't Use Drugs...or fool around with loose women* |
Yep, Sgt. Honorable hooked up with a frisky deckhand, who blazed a fattie with him before taking him to see a Slayer cover band. They fooled around in a dark booth at the back of a club.
He shows up two days later at the Munitorium (or whatever 'orium' building is convenient), having covered his armor in strange symbols with some futuristic version of a Sharpie Marker, and is currently sucking bong hits outta his modified bolter.
The Apothecary claims his gene seed is corrupted, so....
...
Lemme not give it all away. I expect the Black Library will be calling me any minute now.
:)
Until next time, folks- Exit with catchphrase!
-SinSynn
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