Thursday, May 29, 2008

GENERAL: Bi-monthly book update

I've done pretty well to curb my book buying instincts over the past couple of months so my reading pile has diminished a bit.

Of course I had to buy the latest 40k codex, Chaos Daemons, especially since I already owned numerous models for the army. I thought that the background information and stories were well written and informative and I certainly approve of the extra space that GW seem to be allocating to this in their codices.

I also had an hour to spare in town so I wondered into Forbidden Planet and found the Brothers of the Snake paperback by Dan Abnett at a reduced price. I hadn't even realised it had been released so I bagged a copy. That will be my next read.

It's evidently going to be a big Dan Abnett year this year.

I just read two new Dan Abnett books back to back; Only in Death and Legion. I really enjoyed both. The Gaunts Ghosts book had a great 'haunted house' atmosphere and racked up the tension only to release it in an orgy of bloodletting. I'm already looking forward to the next GG book which includes the Blood Pact once more.

Legion picked up the pace of the Horus Heresy books after they started to flag with Descent of Angels. It proved to be a real eye-opener with some big twists at the end which seriously re-write what we know about the Space Marine Primarchs, the Heresy and of course the Alpha Legion itself. Highly recommended.

Dan Abnett also had a hand in the Inquisition Sourcebook. I've had this for a while and the fact that it has taken me so long to complete it gives you a clue as to what I think of it; it's a stinker. I really don't understand what GW were trying to do with this book (other than make some cash).

The entries are arranged alphabetically which led me to believe that it was going to be an encyclopedic trawl through the GW archives on the Inquisition. I was rudely disabused of this idea when I came to Jac Draco's entry which is thirty one words long. Thirty one words! That's all we get for a trilogy of books which admittedly are based on old background material, but the Black Library is still selling. In contrast the Ravenor and Eisenhorn books are covered in great detail with even z-list characters getting more attention than the entire Inquisition War trilogy.

So it's not a comprehensive A-Z publication drawing together all of the Inquisition source material. It must then offer us some other insights into how the Inquisition is organised and operates, and give us some new background fluff. Nu-huh. The only new stuff I spotted was Abnett's explanation of psyker's. He splits them up into disciplines (such as Biomancy, Pyromancy, etc) and then each has a level (called an Assignment - these are the alpha, beta, gamma levels that Abnett has included in his novels). Other than that the book is simply a skim through of the most recent Black Library publications. For completists only.

I haven't posted any full length book reviews for a while because I have been reading later books in a series and it seemed pointless to review them before the earlier books. Why review Legion when I haven't reviewed Descent of Angels, for example. My solution was to go back to the old books and re-read them, reviewing them as I go. But where to start? Gaunt's Ghosts? Horus Heresy?

Having read Ravenor Rogue recently, and thus completing the Ravenor trilogy, I decided to go back to book one of the Ravenor trilogy and re-read the lot from there. Of course it's not the same as reading the novel from scratch as I already know where the story is going. It's mainly just a skim through to fix the plot points in my head and scribble a few notes to get the feel for the book. Hopefully this shouldn't impact too much upon my 'real' reading time. Expect the Ravenor review very soon.

Onto the updated list.

Books bought.
  • Chaos Daemons codex
  • Brothers of the Snake (paperback)
Books read.
  • Only in Death
  • Legion
  • Chaos Daemons codex
  • Ravenor
  • Inquisition sourcebook
Here's what I already own and still need to read:
  • Imperial Armour Three: The Taros campaign
  • Liber Chaotica
  • Storm of Chaos
  • Imperial Infantryman's Primer (Damocles Gulf edition)
  • The Life of Sigmar
  • Faith and Fire
  • Storm of Iron
  • Dark Apostle
  • Cardinal Crimson
  • Warriors of Ultramar
  • Dead Sky, Black Sun
  • 13th Legion
  • Kill Team
  • Annihilation Squad
  • Space Wolf
  • Ragnar's Claw
  • Grey Hunter
  • Soul Drinker
  • The Bleeding Chalice
  • Crimson Tears

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