Annoyed Book Haul

I am bloody annoyed.

I'm going to be talking about two of my purchases: The Tales of Heresy of the Horus Heresy Hardback range, and the special edition novella The Life of Sigmar.

I haven't been sharing much of what books I'm buying these days. (primarily because there's so much of them...)

Either way. Long story short. I needed a calendar for my work, so I can mark down hours worked each day.

Last year I got a Black Library calendar from my brother. And though I normally don't actually have a use for the damn things, they're so damn pointless and I don't have much going on the way of a social life, I smiled and said thanks. But the Black Library's calendar has these rather large squares for each day,  for noting down appointments or birthdays or some such.

And because it was still going to waste when I started my new job in May(?) I decided to instead put it to some good use and note down my working hours. It was a decently good idea. Nothing much to comment on here, it does exactly what is required from it.

If you need to write down beginning and end times for several work locations visited in a single day, coupled with name of the client and location itself, large squares are a rather good thing.

So, with my vacation swiftly running out (I begin again on Wednesday, the day after tomorrow), I ordered the 2018 calendar off of the Black Library site. And here it is, already in its place. Apologies for the picture quality.

And a close up of January's artwork with Lord Fulgrim taking pride of place.

But of course, because I'm filthy, hoarding, collecting sort of scum I went and ordered a couple of Horus heresy Hardbacks I didn't yet have.

The Lovely Nemesis, together with the okay Tales of Heresy, together with 2 other novels which I haven't read yet. I'm a completist and I was always going to get these.

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Now, here comes the ire part of the post.

I've got an issue with one of the Heresy Haul here, and the other issue I've got is with a purchase off of Ebay that arrived at the same time. (See picture at the start of the post.)

What's bothering me about Tales of Heresy, you ask?

Well for a Heresy fan, the hardbacks are interesting because, besides having 4 internal black and white illustrations and a new author's foreword, they come with a removable dust-jacket that, once removed, showcase the artwork specifically created for the novel by artist Neil Roberts.

I'm not a huge fan.

Specifically his faces bother me. His scenes and art style are gorgeous, but those faces... no, slap a helmet on that puppy quick as you please, sir, and we'll talk no more about it.

But, imagine my shock when I removed Heresy's dust jacket and found, instead of one of the few faces that I actually liked, angry Angron grinning at me in a manner most distortedly.

It's hard to tell on the picture maybe, but Angron's face is distorted sideways. Stretched, like a tiny pancake that wishes to be part of the 'big' pile.

This effect, is in fact, applied to the whole of the artwork. Note Stretched-Angron's ham-fists or the marine at the back, and compare them to the original artwork.

And that's another thing. Why in the name of all that is god-heresy is this zoom effect even here?

This isn't bloody necessary but I've noticed that it's present in some of the older Heresy Hardbacks that I've checked too.

Maybe it's because they'd like the primarch of the hour (novel) to be more present on the cover or something. Or maybe it's to account for that little extra space the artwork wraps itself around on the back of the cover.

Whatever it is, I don't have much anger for the zoom effect. But that Stretched Angron thing is something that is inexcusable.

Bad and lazy, Black Library.

For a second I thought you'd mended your ways but this is damn poor quality control.

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Now on to number 2.

Which immediately took the cake of the Angron Debacle and wiped it clean off the table, smeared it on the floor, twitchily shitting itself all the while, before proceeding to wipe its ass with the hard little biscuit things at the centre of the smeared-out cake, and giving me the finger before slamming the door on its way out.

The Life of Sigmar is a 2005 novelette that I was aware of but never actually got around to purchasing. I saw one last week that was not insanely priced (and this might be why I'm relatively calm and not bleeding from my nose), as these things usually are, and went and ordered it off of the quite reliable seller: World of Books.

The indentations are actually presented to you, compliments from your friendly neighborhood postal service, the bastards.

Indentations on the back too.

Besides that, all kosher. No rips, no tears, no filth of any kind.

Inside looked good and with insanely good production values. And I'll show you once I do a review or write-up or something, one of these days.

Everything was perfect in fact.

 Until I took a look at the final page.

I...

I have no words for this.

My subdued reaction (even now, half the day later) is mystifying to me though. I'm not even that angry. I'm just baffled.

Maybe it's just shock.

No words, except to say to whoever did this...

Your handwriting is impeccable, sir or madam, but your morals leave something to be desired. And I hope in the days to come, that you softly choke on your Singapore fried rice and chicken balls, you monster.