A couple quick book reviews

Ciaphas Cain does it again - The Emperor's Finest by Sandy Mitchell

This book is a prequel of sorts chronologically, jumping back to before his time with the Valhallan 597th, after the events of Perlia and taking off directly from the short story Shadows of the Tomb (as in the short story could well be the first chapter for this novel).

Whilst obstensibly dealing with Space Marines, they are more background characters, with only three ever being named and the book focusses more on Cain's dealings with them and their mannerisms.

The writing is some of Mitchell's best, and a great improvement over Cain's Last Stand, who's "lol Necrons show up and kill everyone (again)" ending was particulary weak. Emperor's Finest, however has a great ending, and some of the sharpest dialogue yet, with Cain meeting his match in Mira, a governor's daughter who proves his equal in many ways. I personally found their relationship arc very well developed though (highlight text to read spoilers):

I thought the very last scene was rushed. For Cain to be so easy going about what had been a rather long relationship ending seemed odd - not that he wanted out but I expected Cain to be a bit put out he was replaced so easily.
I also felt Mira moving on so quickly to be strange as she took a while to truely warm to Cain and it semed to be more than her hunger for status driving her relationship with him (and his with her - he does comment repeatedly about missing her etc).
Probably could have done with another page there, but nothing major.


Only criticism of the book is that the footnotes, one of the series' signatures, were fairly lacklustre and often, to be frank, pointless. Many were simply explaining Cain's military acronyms which are used only once. When the acronym is only used once, and there is no witticism from Amberly to acompany the footnote, having it abreviated and noted seems silly rather than just spelling it out in the first place.

But, a minor quibble - I still rate the book highly amongst the Cain series, and this one gets bonus points for a hilarious Casablanca reference.

9/10



Die For The Emperor - Dead Men Walking by Steve Lyons.

Again, while the book's focus is on the men of Krieg, they are only observed and never the focus for the narative's perspective. The perspective mostly comes from an attached, and somewhat jaded, Commisar; the planet's Governor and a pair of seperated lovers.

The book is flat out one of the best Black Library books I've read. It doesn't stuff around with nobody knowing what the Necrons are (well, the civilians don't, but the Guard do), there's no achingly long battle scenes that don't advance the plot (there are battles, but they provide character development), and the characters are all unique and have little overlap in function.
It is brutal and bloody, but not needlessly so as to feel cartoonish or ghoulish but successfully conveys the horror and confusion of the Necron attacks.

My only criticisms are that some of the dialogue between Arex and Tylar was rather odd - they were talking in a slightly crazed manner and totally different to everyone else. It wasn't bad, and worked in the circumstances, but it was never really explained.
The other would be the overuse of the word 'flensing'. No cutting, slicing, carving - it was all flensing, all the time.

Also, when I first read the name Arex all I could think of was Team America (probably because I've been watching 30 Rock recently and whenever the credits are on and Alec Baldwin pops up on I say 'Arec Barwdwin' to my girlfriend).

Now for a couple of spoilery points (highlight to read):

Arex's relationship with Tylar felt a bit forced to me, but I'm not quite sure how to put it into words. I think it might be because of the very last scene when Arex is hit by the bottle and Tylar scowls at the crowd. That just seemed like such an odd reaction, for him to react the way it was put. Their connection was based on going through the shared trauma of enslavement and Arex notes that where she was leaning on him before (and still holding out hope for Gunthar) they were later relying on each other for mutual support and she resigned herself that Gunthar was likely dead (I saw it as a mirroring of her hope that Tylar's strength was reflection of Gunthar's, and seeing Tylar's spirit broken made her lose hope that the more timid Gunthar could have survived).

When they were leaving it seemed to return to the position of Tylar being 'the strong one' in the relationship, protecting and scowling and all that, it felt like a quick recovery for him. It was also a very douchey thing for him to do, as previously he'd been very sympathetic and caring, and now he's scowling at people being left behind? The same guy willing to blow himself up with a grenade a few chapters ago?

That weird out of character moment probably made Gunthar's seeing them together more painful, along with his one man last attack at the end. I'd been hoping all book that he would have won out, or Arex would have at least learnt of his efforts (for instance she got to the Krieg HQ and heard of Trooper Sorensen going missing in the attack or somesuch). Personally I would have had Arex and Tylar learn of Gunthar's efforts, and maybe even see him at the spaceport but not have Arex and Tylar together - something like Gunthar manages to give Arex the ring in the crowd, but she's pulled away by the Krieg guardsmen onto the transport. More bittersweet than the somewhat depressing ending as is, but that's GRIMDARK for you.


All up though, a great read and one of my top 40k books.

9.5/10

WiP - Wyches in Progress

The Wych squad is proceeding quite well - they are however much more time consuming than the Warriors with all the skin and such.


Pair of Hekatrii:


Both have a blast pistol and agoniser (I'm using the swords instead), but one has a phantasm launcher.

Group shot of the squad:



As opposed to the warriors I'm giving them yellow tabbards rather than black, mostly so they're visable at a distance rather than looking like a black smudge.



Hope to have them done in the next couple of days, then on to some Reavers.

1st Warrior Squad Complete

Here is the squad:

They have an extra Sybarite due to my fiddling around with the kits. First Sybarite:

I painted the skin under her fringe as if it had been badly scarred (and addd some scar lines on the right side of her face) - I'm imagining she wears her hair like that to hide her disfigurement, like Meg Ryan in Captain Planet.

Second Sybarite and Splinter Cannon dude:


This Sybarite is made from a Raider crewman body.


Warriors:

Warriors... come out to play!

Very happy with how the colour scheme turned out. I obviously went for black tabbards with yellow stripes - I tested the reverse and it was too overpowering for the purple. Next up I'll be doing a Wych squad and finishing off my Lelith counts-as.

Raaarg, Gotthammer smash GW! and why I don't like mixing paints

So I went into my local GW to buy some more small drybrushes and some more Tentical Pink, since mine is looking a bit gluggy.

Games Workshop no longer makes Tentacle pink! What the hell guys?

If I was female, a lawyer and a superhero I'd have done this and wrecked up the place.

The minion there informed me that they're cutting a few lines from the range, not just the pink I need as the final highlight for my entire Dark Eldar army. Probably some of the twenty shades of green they have.



I find this personally very annoying as, despite the minion helpfully telling me I could mix some purple and white, I hate mixing paints.

I really do - it ends up wasting a whole bunch and I can never get the colour quite right again, something important when it's a main colour for your army. I guess it is easier from GW's point of view that they have to make/carry less colours, and make more from selling multiples to mix, but the draw for me of citadel colours has always been the good range of shades available.


I'll probably stick with the pink I've got and thin it a bit (even though that makes my brushes taste weird), but later i guess I'll make a bottle of Liche Purple/White blend so everyone gets the same colour.