The Colonel's Monograph, Graham McNeill

Boy, I think I might've left this too long. It's been over a month now since I read this one, and though this seems to have been a bit beneficial for my opinions on it, I confess I can't remember much on the particulars of it. Maybe that's for the best, because what I do remember is that I was quite annoyed when I finished the story.

Recently widowed archivist Teresina Sullo has been invited to catalogue the personal library of one of the heroes of the imperium, the late colonel Elena Grayloc, the valiant commander who led the only surviving Astra Militarum regiment out of the madness of the infamous Dark Suns campaign.

She travels to Grayloc manor, where she is aided by those left behind after the colonel's apparent suicide. But it swiftly becomes clear that there is a mystery at work in Graylock Manor and darkness and danger besides. Gripped by the deepening mystery of the colonel's past Teresina follows up on the mad ramblings of the last archivist to work at Graylock manor, and she fervently begins to search for the tome that is rumoured to hold all the answers she seeks: the colonal's secret Monograph.

The main problem I had with the Colonel's Monograph is that it is the first of all of the Warhammer Horror stories, both the novels, the short stories, and the middling length fiction I've read so far, that seems to validate the arguments directly against a Warhammer Horror label, the idea that these stories wouldn't differ so much from the rest of the Warhammer fiction, and that there was no real warrant for a special Warhammer Horror branch.

It's not so much that the story isn't horrific, but rather that it feels terribly run of the mill. It is a story that pretty much goes exactly the way you expect it to go. The kind of story that I believed would inevitably be put out in this range; "Warhammer but specifically Horror!".
The Colonel's Monograph is the kind of hack writing that seems to validate general reader opinion that all that Warhammer fiction is is this kind of derivative throw-away fiction , filled with sensationalist elements, that is written specifically to cater to a juvinile and immature audience that hasn't read all that widely.

I'm being unduly harsh, but it's also pretty much the way I do see it.

There's a place for this fiction, and I frequently do enjoy it, but it would be nice if we could just get better.

Derivative is underlined above because it's my main problem with the story. Maybe it's just that it adheres so much to classic horror and gothic fiction, in such a way that it feels less like a pastiche and more just of a straight up copy of what's come before. Sure, the elements are 40k, but pretty much nothing else is original.

I have read some reviews of this one on Goodreads and apparently this is precisely what the audience wants: It wants those tropes and familiar situations, but just set in the Warhammer settings, and all I can do is shake my head in annoyance.

Another problem, one with 40k fiction, Warhammer fiction/ lore, in general, is that there is so little that is mysterious and will continue to remain mysterious. These are massive universes, that have articles, lore books, game rules and what-have-you dedicated to conveying as much information as possible, and of which more are put out every so often, and, as a result, everything that is being written is required to adhere to certain rules. Originality does not thrive here, and so horror as well can not really thrive. There's always a usual suspect, there's always a name that'll dispel whatever tension has been built up...
Whatever evil is afoot in the Warhammer Universe, whatever phenomena, whatever terrible and mysterious thing there might be crawling in the shadows, needs to fit in a familiar mold.
And there's already some definite precedent for the evil in the Colonel's Monograph.

-----

Honestly. it's really not that bad. I actually was going to write something way more positive, but I think I just wanted to vent a bit about the nature of Warhammer in General.
Sometimes I get too serious about the dumbest things.

Icky October Book Haul

*BOOM*

     Told you this one'd be big, didn't I? Here it is then: The Massive October Book Haul! 

You'll notice that it is (almost) a nice mix between books and comics this time, and that pretty much all of it is horror except for a few fantasy titles and the obligatory Judge Dredd comic book.

-----

Let's start from the top, which is also immediately the book I'm reading right now: Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted, which is technically a collection of (or at least, the back-blurb says these are going to be) 23 short stories connected by an overarching narrative in which 18 or so wannabe writers answer an ad to go to an exclusive writer's retreat and who are then surprisingly locked in a building for three months. They're being treated alright, actually, but most of them wish that the situation was a bit more harrowing, and so pretty much all of them start to sabotage the group's supplies and their surroundings and, as a result, the situation quickly begins to become more dire than anticipated. Or at least I think so. I've only read a fourth of the book at this point.

     Palahniuk might be familiar to some of you. His big mainstream success came when his novel Fight Club got adapted by David Fincher. I watched the movie, became obsessed by it and eventually got around to also giving the novel a go. And honestly it was okay but on the whole I just preferred the movie. Palahniuk's writing style is one of those that goes in one ear and out the other, so to speak; nothing much sticks at the end except the idea that this is one man who doesn't like society much.

     And he's right of course, but that doesn't mean I want to read about it. Palahniuk's stories are infused with grime, with the baser elements of life and sex, and on the whole frequently comes off as mean-spirited. It's good for an outraged chuckle or two, but I still don't believe this is the type of literature that'll stand the test of time. Yuppie-infused capitalist nonsense of yesteryear. Kind of like American Psycho. And realizing that immediately makes me think that I might just be wrong about Palahniuk's books not withstanding the test of time.

At least the cover is glow in the dark, which is something.

I bought this one finally because I had it listed somewhere on the books I'd like to give to a friend, purely on hearsay, as the novel frequently tops best of lists in the horror category. So far it's been both hilarious and annoying, but no scares as of yet. Or even anything that one would constitute as horror reading, though I guess it does have a certain queasiness factor going for it.

-----

Next up, an overpriced novella, which I had to pay import taxes on for more than half the price of the book itself. 20 euros for 'formalities' on top of the 3.50 or so of actual income-tax... Modern Highway Robbery I tells you.

     This one'd better be good, is all I'm saying.

Don't know much about it except what the blurb told me, and that a writer who I still have an entire unread trilogy of lying around was the one who wrote it.

     So, a venture of about 50 euros for a huge big question mark of a story, written by an author you don't know anything about, Levi, what possessed you to do such a thing?

     Well, snooty reader, have a look at the blurb of the thing.

ENTER THE EXECRATION,

WHERE THE DAMNED AND THE DESPERATE

COME TO PRAY TO THE MAD GOD…

It is two hundred years since the deity known as the Absolved went mad and destroyed the Kingdom of Alnachim, transforming it into the Execration, a blasted wasteland filled with nameless terrors. For decades, desperate souls have made pilgrimage to the centre of this cursed land to seek the Mad God’s favour, their fate always unknown. 

Now a veteran warrior known only as Pilgrim, armed with a fabled blade inhabited by the soul of a taunting demon, must join with six others to make the last journey to the heart of the Execration. Allied with a youthful priest, a beast-charmer, a duplicitous scholar, an effete actor and two exiled lovers, Pilgrim must survive madness, malevolent spirits, unnatural monsters and the ever-present risk of treachery, all so that the Mad God might hear his prayer and, perhaps, grant redemption. But can sins such as his ever be forgiven? 

Set in a world where demons and gods walk the earth, A Pilgrimage of Swords is a dark and exciting fantasy adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of the Raven’s Shadow and Draconis Memoria trilogies. 

     Yeah, exactly.

I don't know about you, but I got some serious Hyperion-vibes from that.

     Mad Gods, a pilgrimage-type quest, demons, religion, darkness... Sounds bloody awesome!

And to be fair to the book's price tag: It does look quite nice. And it's limited too!

-----

     Yes, in the Book-Pile photo at the top you'll see that there's a few more books in there than I'm actually giving attention to, which in every case is because those individual books and comic books all have already had their time to shine in another of this month's posts. To whit: after I had read The Light is The Darkness, by Laird Barron, And which is in the picture up above, I immediately went ahead and ordered the short story collection I really should've picked up ages ago by now: The Imago Sequence.

     It arrived pretty quickly too, and I have begun reading it already, as I had a bit of waiting time at the doctor's today. It's immediately become clear that Barron's work is more inter-connected than I thought. Bare pages in, there are already organizations and names intimately connected with some of the elements in The Light is the Darkness novella. His protagonists also come across as pretty bad-ass, which is very much to my liking. Apparently this is called Hard-boiled.

The book  itself is actually the winner of the 2007 Shirley Jackson Awards for Best Short Story Collection, so, you know, that sounds pretty cool. Even though I'm not one to put much stock in popular opinions, or jury-based decisions of any kind.

What an odd thing to say, no?

Almost as if there's more to say there...

-----

Next up; the latest Michael Fletcher novel.

I haven't read anything by him since Beyond Redemption, though I compulsively buy everything he puts out.

     I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'm a compulsive reader, and a slow reader.

Which means that if the story isn't finished by the time I've read the first book in the series, I'm very likely to be side-tracked by other stuff, and in the end I usually don't go back to the series at all.

     Reading takes a lot of time for me. Which is why I just purchase the stuff I know I'll like when it comes out, and then wait for the series to be finished before I dive in.

It's a problematic and selfish position to take maybe. But I've been burned a few times too many to look further than my own capabilities on this one.

     The one idea that informs all of my thinking on this is that there is so much good stuff to read still, and 95 percent of which has been finished decades ago, if not generations ago, and it's whole and complete and guaranteed to satisfy.

     Read the world's classics, for God's sake people. Stop diving into the very next buzz-worthy thing. Half the stuff you're reading right now will not last a decade. There's too many writers out there right now, and most of them don't add much to the art.

But if you find one you really like, you should stick with them.

Michael Fletcher is my one thing.

-----

So then, on to comics!

First up is the latest Junji Ito manga hardback, which now completes my Junji ito Horror Library.

Though I guess I could still buy the Dissolving Class Room manga, if I really crave some horror manga, but it isn't likely.

Manga is very miss with me, and barring Berserk and 2 of Ito's stories, almost never a hit.

I loved Uzumaki, or at least the concept of the thing itself, but there were elements that just couldn't help coming across as silly, the whirlwind-flyers for one (boy, was that stupid...), but there is a certain draw to these things anyway. And I'm of the opinion that one should probably go and explore the top of each art form one comes across. And the top in Horror Manga is Junji Ito.

But if I'm very honest, I'm happy that I can close this particular chapter of Manga exploration quite soon. It might just not be my thing entirely.

-----

Here's the last Hellboy trade ever.

Hopefully.

What can I say about this one that won't drip with annoyance and ill will?

     Hellboy was such a great character and had some really damn good stories, and it all went to shit when the BPRD went and became their own thing. Storylines that would've worked fine in the hands of Mignola himself went to other writers and artists, and it almost never worked. This is my opinion of course. I'm sure most people love the BPRD storylines but I have come to actively loathe them.

     And here then, in Ragna Rok, is the story that's supposed to end 25 years of storytelling, and a whole universe worth of comics and properties. And it just sucks.

It's all so rushed that it actively pissed me off.

     What's bizarre though is that it does get really really good there at the end, you know, when Mignola's the one doing the drawing. And even I have to admit that it's really one hell of a way to end the series. I'm not sure if I've ever seen anything done like this before.

     But does it work though?

I really liked those 5 final pages. But when they were done, I felt just kind of deflated, and disinterested. Some of these characters got such a raw deal, and the landscape is just unrecognizable.

     I suppose the name of the game is that this really has become an almost alien world now, and that humanity's day has drawn to a close. And my beef isn't that 'I can't identify with this' or something, no. Hell no. Fuck humanity, kill them all.

     No, I loved the fact that this was an unstoppable apocalypse and all. But it felt just so hollow, so rushed and poorly executed. You gave the annoying plague of Frogs 14 trade paperbacks of story, Hell on Earth got 15, and the Apocalypse itself only gets 3 trades, and when Hellboy shows up to finally do the thing he's been having to do since issue 1 and then you don't even make him feel like Hellboy?

     No. My guess is that somebody got tired of the whole thing, and it all needed to be wrapped up as soon as possible.

     The problem with this is that there's no desire for pre-quels or spin-offs either. I was reading Crimson Lotus and I was wondering why I was doing so. There was build up here for the grand finale, and it annoyed me, because the grand finale itself ultimately had proved itself to be disappointing. It was all pointless. Ugh.

Man, I have a lot of annoyance and anger on this one. Might eventually come back to it, but on the whole, I'd rather just forget about Hellboy right now.

 Moving on.

-----

     Here is one I am very much curious about. 

There's something abstract about these covers, something that teases without even showing anything.

There's black, blue and 3 spots of red in a scene that just screams that there's something going on here, but because we're so far away there's also a sense of peace and quiet about it. Some sort of hidden darkness.

     And then the highly suggestive title, somehow connected with that pitch black warehouse door... this one looks very, very enticing.

     Somehow I've been able to keep completely spoiler-free on this one. I solely picked it up based on the name of the comic itself, the writer associated with it and the kind of art-style that the cover has. There's no guarantee that this one'll be good, but at the very least the whole series, 12 issues in total, has been collected between these two trades.

I'm itching to dive in.

-----

Here it is finally.

Terminal Diagnosis.

This is likely Harry Absalom's final outing.

He'll likely die here, though I hope not, but if he can give a good poke in the eye of the powers that be I'll be more than happy either way. Hopefully there'll also be some more hints to Gordon Rennie's Cabbalistics universe, which there was a playful reference to in one of the earlier Absalom volumes.

The story's one that the groundwork's been laid for in the previous Absalom stories:

To keep him in line, the forces of Hell have kidnapped and imprisoned Harry's grandchildren and put them in 'The Mills', and now, with Harry's final days approaching as his much-stalled cancer is taking the last chunks out of his system, he's putting a team together to get his grandchildren back.

I'm gonna miss the old bugger.

-----

Another one from the pages of 2000AD.

Tales of Telguuth collects the comic adaptations of Steve Moore's Telguuth short stories, and as I've read about a third of it now I can already say that I'm going to go and get the Tales of Telguuth collection from Strange Attractor Press as well. These tales are dark, and nasty, and pretty unique as well. Sorcery, Gods and monsters, and some tits thrown in for good measure. The artwork is gorgeous and pretty similar across all the tales in here, which is perfect for someone like me who can't stand it if the art veers between too different styles. 

Now, I've read a bunch of sword and sorcery stuff but there's a very strange taste to these stories, and I can very well understand why the most often used adjective to describe them is 'perverse'. It isn't exactly that but the word does seem to sum it up best, as they all seem to end badly for their main characters, and pretty much every time there's a sick delight in watching this unfold. 

I recommend you pick this one up.

-----

Dreddy's number 24 outing.

It's been pretty good. Not much to say though.

-----

I do have a lot to say about this one.

Note the paws?

     I've already read three chapters, and though the edition featured above is gorgeous of course, and quite hefty, though not heavy, I was a bit on the fence about recommending the Top Shelf edition of From Hell as I thought there wasn't any introduction or explanatory piece in here, but last night I discovered the appendices at the back of the book and: ehh... maybe there's not even a need for an introduction?

     Well, let me put it this way.

There's this bit in BBC's Luther where a girl is reading a comic book, and Luther asks her what she's doing, and she responds with, "I'm reading a Graphic Novel", and Luther scoffs and says, "Call it what is, it is a comic book, I don't know why the youth always have to pretend that things are bigger than what they are. Go read a real book, might do you some good", or something. There's a lot of disdain there for this idea of wanting to call comic books graphic novels, as if that can 'legitimize' an art form that's pretty much just dumb entertainment to the people that love reading actual novels.

     This pretty much was my position as well, for the longest time, and when I began reading comics I always called them comics, but From Hell has made me realize that you just can't call this thing a comic book; In some ways it IS a novel, and if you go into this one expecting to breeze through it you're gonna fall flat on your face. And the funny thing is that when I tried to think of other comic books one should be calling graphic novels the only ones I could come up with (and that I'd read) were those that had also been written by Alan Moore: V for Vendetta, Providence (though not Neonomicon), and From Hell.

     So what's the difference, why are some of these 'higher' than others?

I guess it's about what's in it, behind it, what brought the thing about.

Anyone can tell a story (though not really), but what I'm trying to say is that this one is of a different class than anything else in comics. When I look at it, I just can't understand that anyone crafted it. It is whole and complete, exactingly pre-determined and then meticulously executed. It's laborious and perfect. There's so much that's in it, that it can not have done anything other than consume the artists working on it, and From Hell did do that of course. Moore came out of this one a changed man.

     Anyway There's over 40 pages of notes in here, indicating which elements have been fictionalized and which elements came about by research and speculation, and it's dense and quite heavy to read. And it almost obviates the need for an introduction.

Here's the girl that those paws belong to.

Saffy's got a good home, let me tell you, and she knows.

Oh yeah, I can recommend the Top Shelf edition.

I'm going to take it slow reading this one, as it really is quite a lot to digest.

-----

And here's the last book on the pile: the American Vampire Omnibus.

Strangely, there's no news on omnibus 2 even though the story isn't completely collected in here.

There simply might not be enough issues to constitute a new volume but I'd like one anyway, even if it's half the size of this one.

Nothing to say about this one either really, as I'm going to hold off reading until at the very least I have the whole series in one form or another.

Oofh, I'm exhausted now.

Crimson Lotus

   

The Crimson Lotus comic was a dud in pretty much every way except in the art department. The art is phenomenal, but that's pretty much all the good I have to say about this one.

     The writing, though relatively good in micro, absolutely sucked in macro. I enjoyed the characters, the two spies and their banter in particular, but the story didn't go anywhere. Though we start out with a revenge plot it peters out almost immediately after the first issue, leaving its plot threads dangling in the wind. Then, it seems as if it wasn't a revenge plot at all, but rather a sort of relic hunt with some serendipitous vengeance thrown in. We're kept in the dark pretty much every step of the way and pretty much nothing gets explained. The climactic battle is resolved with a deus ex machina, and with a completely unsatisfying open ending that can't do anything but adhere to the status quo.

     One of the problems of the Mignola-verse comics is that after a while not a single one of them can be enjoyed on their own, without prior knowledge.

     To make it worse, the writers have come to take it for granted that the reader is completely aware of what their big revelatory scenes mean, as if everyone who reads these stories has a lore bible in their heads that can be accessed whenever necessary, as if catering to the die-hard fans is what'll sell these stories. Stupidly enough I know I am one of those people. I have read all of the Mignola verse trades, except for Ragna Rok, and that is winging its way to me right now. I know it'll be disappointing, I know I'll think it'll be rushed and not well written, that it's just going to cement my opinion that the Mignola universe stories just thrive on brand appeal rather than actual quality story-telling. I hear you ask: But why, if you loathe this universe so much, are you still collecting and reading it, why have you gotten this far at all, Levi?
BECAUSE I'M A CONSUMERIST WORM, I guess. But let me rant a little more, please. There'll be spoilers for the Crimson Lotus comic next.

     Every supposedly standalone comic in the Mignola-universe, spin-off or "origin story" has these panels where all of a sudden the laws of known reality are upturned. In Crimson Lotus, what was a relatively straightforward spy/occult magic thriller all of a sudden becomes something with practical superhero-powers and demons: Vril makes an appearance and anyone not in the know will be scratching their heads because why is this Chinese lady shooting fucking lightning out of her hands all of sudden? As someone who Loves, Loves capital L mind you, Lobster Johnson I was surprised to see the Lotus using Vril. What is going on, could she do that when she met the Lobster? Have I forgotten this? Nothing is explained here, damnit!
     The climax of the story has, completely out of the blue, the little Russian-doll-girl/demon show up and deus ex machina the story to completion and I'm just wondering if anyone still cares about crafting a story that can actually be satisfying all on its own.

     The Mignola-verse has just gotten too unwieldy to get away with these types of spin-offs. Sure, given where the series actually ended up, they don't really have a choice other than to go back into the past to flesh out some of the side-characters' stories, those that'll appeal to the buying masses, but if you're doing that you should at least make it stand on its own. Give us enough information within the comic itself, seed hints and clues throughout so that when something happens we can slap our heads and shout AHA, THAT IS SATISFYING rather than just sinking deeper and deeper into a well of despondent acceptance sad and angry that this is considered "a comic to pick up".

     Good art though, it must be said. There are some genuinely awesome, and genuinely brutal, panels in here. Mindy Lee is a damn fine accomplished artist.
     John Arcudi on the other hand... I love Lobster Johnson, I love Sledgehammer 44. But this, Abe Sapien and the mainline BPRD stuff has just been monumentally badly paced, and have all left me unsatisfied.
 

Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter

This is the limited edition of the Konrad Curze novel, the latest in the Primarchs series, which are a bunch of short novels dedicated to explore some of the mysteries behind the greatest of the Emperor's sons; their origins, philosophies and characters in a way that the Horus Heresy series, already having these characters active as a part of the ongoing Heresy story line, sometimes had to gloss over.

With this novel included, I have only read two of the Primarch novels, mainly because I do not have the money to buy everything I want and never enough time to read them in. The Primarchs series also didn't appeal to me so much, because I'm a collector who needs to read what he collects, which would mean 18 new novels, of questionable quality, which would inevitably include some duds. 

As such I just went after the ones that interested me the most; Angron, because I like the insane rage of the legion, because my first models were World Eaters and because Kharn is a badass. Hell, even my PSN name takes its name from the legion. Lorgar, because of his religious background and reactionary faith in the Chaos Gods, is very close to me, given my own past and struggle with my faith. And of course Konrad Curze, because Night Lords are cool, Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Night Lord trilogy is the best complete story to come out of the Black Library, their colour scheme is awesome, their doctrine is radical, Konrad is the most tragic figure in the Heresy and so on. Needless to say, I was very much looking forward to this novel.

The edition is simply gorgeous. It of course helps that my favourite colour is blue.

The embossing is of course a little over the top (see the first picture), I mean the lightning and skull with wings are on point and pretty cool, but the ropes and bones, and the hooded cloak are just a bit much. But then this is Warhammer, isn't it, a frequent byword for over-the-top baroque ornamentation, grimdark excess and a cool-factor that pretty much is always paid more attention to than decent, surprising storytelling.

The artwork of Konrad is really nice; Mikhail Savier has delivered probably my favourite artwork of the Night Haunter. He looks as noble as only a Primarch can look, yet with a slant to his expression that makes him look as cruel as only Curze can be. This is Konrad at the height of his nobility, but I do have to say that those lightning claws are really unimpressive. Doesn't matter that they take their cue from the Forge World model, and aren't Savier's design, I just don't really picture those when I read 'Lightning Claws'.

But. The novel itself has the very worst of what is derided about the Warhammer license: Excessive gore, violence and brutality to the point where it becomes immersion-breaking, a depiction of evil and insanity that is laughable, a sorely lacking depth of character and a story that reads more like a linked series of event/character-vignettes; it is a novel of the Night Lord Legion's greatest hits. You'd think that this sounds good but, if I'm honest, I'd rather have not read this one.

Now, Konrad Curze is fascinating. He is the Primarch that let himself be assassinated just to make a point. He is a practical demi-god, gifted with prophetic powers, driven mad and cruel by his knowledge of his eventual death and the epic brother-war that would rip the newly blossomed Imperium of Man asunder. He is the lord of the legion of fear, grown into adulthood, friendless and alone, on a planet governed by crime syndicates and gangs, that he rose to be the ruler of, solely through a one-man guerrilla-war of terror and violence.

And the novel does tell some of this, but the way in which it does this, is fragmented. It is disconnected, delivered to the reader as Konrad remembers his past and regales it to an audience of one: A meat-statue of his father, molded together from spit and the bodies of slaughtered underlings.

This in itself is hard to swallow, as it is fucking silly and pretty much constitutes a child's depiction of evil and insanity.

Insanity in the Warhammer universe is frequently given a raw deal, with any exploration or investigation into the origins of that insanity usually relying on the Deus Ex Machina of the malign influence of the Chaos Gods.

And though of course, this is somewhat true here as well; Chaos as the influence that gifts Curze with his gift of prophecy, thus eventually leading him down the path of extremism, Konrad's insanity has always been about his visions having driven him insane, and about his benign and noble Primarch nature having been ruined by a complete lack of nurture and a life of cruel and violent adversity.

But this is simply not what Guy Haley depicts. Haley writes the tale of an insane and cruel child. A superhuman psychopath from birth, who was always fucked up, but who was driven over the edge, into the realm of the ridiculously insane (and I mean that both ways), and who only at a certain point in his life was cursed to see the coming brother-war and his own horrible ending. 

This does not stroke with everything I have read, seen and thought of Konrad Curze.

I'm being too harsh. I know. This is because I am extremely biased. I love this primarch. He is Batman and the Predator rolled into one. He is the rule of cool trumps all, an absolute a fan-favourite character who rose to crazy heights of popularity with Aaron Dembski-Bowden's depiction of him in his Night Lord series. And that is probably the problem: Fan-sentiment.

There is always a problem when one starts to reveal the mystery behind a beloved character. The audience will have a bunch of associations and preconceptions in place already, and will frequently find those upturned by whichever writer has been chosen to tackle his origins. This is pretty much what always happens. It is what happened with me here. So, this is on me. Maybe.

But there are other problems; some are fundamental, some are here because this is how Guy Haley chose to deliver his story, some are here because of a blatant unconcern with how the laws of reality work, but the most important one: the worst failure of this novel is that this story and this character that are based on the ideas and questions behind an immutable fate, free will and the gift of prophecy, should have been a god damn masterclass in storytelling and structure, and this novel simply isn't it.

If you love it, however, then you go ahead and enjoy yourself. Good on you for settling for the easy fare, for the third rate fiction, for the vapid and fleeting stories that you enjoy so much.

Just know that it's because of you that I can't have nice things.

Seriously though. It's not quite this horrible, but I genuinely am disappointed and annoyed.

Annoyed Review: The Tower of Living and Dying, Anna Smith Spark

I'm not sure if I have read a book before that I enjoyed less than this one. certainly not within the last few years. This is in large part down to the style... It quite simply might just not be for me.

I suspect that a large part of my ire and irritation with it comes from me not being a native English speaker. I can read it very fluently and I speak it just as well (sort of). But when a novel goes against the grain like this one does, when you have a style that wavers between poetry and stream of consciousness writing it can be incredibly jarring, and so it better make god damn sure it does it right.

And for the most part it just simply does not. The poetic style that Anna-Smith Spark is so lauded, so known for, isn't quite so present in this novel. There are beautiful flashes of it throughout but on the whole it seems to me that what people are so very insistent to call 'her poetic style'  are instead 'the limitations in her writing style trying to masquerade as a conscious choice to make it more poetic'. Taken on its own, that's pretty great: take your weaknesses and turn them to your advantage, make something new, something to make you stand out among the barrage of post GoT grimdark fantasy writers.
But it is quite frankly sorely lacking in its execution.

I've always been of the school that you should write as you wish. There is no single homogeneous way of writing. Experiments should be encouraged, but the damn fact of the matter here is that this novel just comes off as rough, as a draft that needed more work, more time. Because, again, there's really good parts here, but they are few and far in between. And in between there's a lot of irritation: self-contradictory information (to the extent that things contradict each other within paragraphs), logical fallacies, massive inconsistencies within points of view, grammatical errors that can not be accounted for by choice of style, switches in point of view within a single line (multiple sentences within a single line; one of those is in first person, the second in third), too vague almost minimalist-type description and yet, at the same time, description that is too tainted by hyperbole; poetry driven to extremes, to excess, without bounds, without good sense, to the extent that you get to have colours rather than pictures... it's vague-speak is what I'm getting at, but this might again be part of that non-native-English-speaker background so, you know; fine, this one's one me.

Nonetheless, past the novel's halfway point I found myself  hurrying on to get it over with rather than give it the benefit of the doubt anymore. At a certain point, you've lost my good will, my attention and my patience.

Regardless of anything you could say to explain or explore Anna Smith Spark's style, this book needed some serious editing.

God damn how annoying.
How about I say something good, instead?

Okay then: the psychological aspects are very good. They feel real.
The characters make a very human kind of sense: Driven by emotion, tortured and inconstant, always ready to be altered by the fears, the paranoia and the joys of the moment. They aren't remarkably intelligent or have anything to make them stand out (I'm talking psychologically here) from the common herd of humanity, they feel part of them. And yet Spark wants to marry the myth of larger than life characters; A practical God of Death and Goddess of Life, to a very grounded human narrative and for the most part, despite the deeply counter intuitive goals of the former, they do come across as (mostly) believable. They come across as very fallibly human, their actions and responses are pretty much always inspired by selfish motives, driven by self-destructive urges, by lust or greed.

And in fact, I quite love a lot of what Spark puts out here. The context is pretty great, it's just the wrapping that sucks.

I do know she has dyslexia. This is fine, as I said, this can be worked with. And then you have the beautifully poetic prose. Fine, this is a choice, can be molded into something stunning.

But you need to be aware that these things together do not allow for a good editing process. Poetry is something that is incredibly hard to edit. It's called "poetic license" for a reason, after all.
And then sneak in the errors, and who is to say these are mistakes?
Fine. You accept it as it comes with the territory. So you gloss over the style, because it does indeed deliver occasional poetic beauty amidst the mud of errors and grammatically flawed sentences.

Because the contents are there, the promise of grimdark destruction and violence is there. And when it is delivered it is interesting to behold, though the originality of its delivery, its inventiveness, isn't as gripping or surprising as it once was, but there's probably better to come, right?
But past the halfway point. our principal protagonist, his actions, no matter how vile, have become rote. You see, there is another glaring problem here: Despite the darkness, despite the violent actions that are taken, none of these seem to come as a surprise. They are completely inside the remit of our main character, and as such they are expected.
The problem is that Marith doesn't have a baseline, no status quo to start from. He's not any one thing. Instead he is all the violence. Instead he is all the love and all the adoration for Thalia. He is the golden boy. He can't die. And he is so fucking boring and everything to do with him is boring. He isn't interesting, and yet he is the plot.
And then a lot of the actions he takes lead directly to failures, and the ways in which those failures are responded to do not make any human sense. I understand what is being said, what Spark was going for: The Iron Men and Saints type of faith and fervour, the heights that belief and love and faith can drive us to, the actions they can make us take, but the problem is that I don't believe it for a second. I've read, seen and felt better than this and this book can not convey what Spark wants me to see, feel and believe.

Thalia is just as problematic. Believable and yet, rote. I suspect this is because both she and Marith are supposed to be two sides of the same coin, light and dark, life and death, a dichotomy made manifest in two people in love. They are characters second, first they are the writer's intent. It's what makes them dull, what makes them predictable. Book 3 in the trilogy is called the House of Sacrifice... is it just me or can just about anyone guess from this paragraph where this all is leading to?

The Sorlost plot and characters are interesting, and the best parts of the book take place here, but it is an incomplete and unsatisfying narrative that absolutely needs a continuation. It's also absolutely nothing new, this has been done before, in wildly varying shades, if not shades exactly like this one. The only place it really differed from what I had seen before, was in the relationships between particular characters.
And that's pretty much the only place where the book shines; the relationship between the principal character of the Sorlost story and his lover was pretty riveting at certain points, to the extent that I felt that the book had scored a few points in a way that I hadn't seen done before. Except, of course, it doesn't really go anywhere, doesn't end up anywhere concrete or justified within the bounds of the novel.

Ugh, fucking hell. I'm done with this.

The Tower of Living and Dying is not well written. Its story is not well considered.
This book will not be remembered in the fantasy genre. And it shouldn't.

-----

I'll buy book three. I'll read it. Because that's just what I do. If I start reading something, I will finish it.

But if I don't like it then the blog post for it will consist of a single fucking line, ire condensed into a single sentence of dismissal, and to hell with any valid points anyone might make. To hell with seeing the good behind the bad. Some things just aren't worth it, there's way better things out there.

A personal niggle

Brought about by Van Horstmann and the idea of canonicity.

-----

Am I the only one who compulsively needs stories that exist in a pre-determined and shared world to line up exactly with each other, or at least not contradict one another at any time?

Now, with the Warhammer universe this can be a bit of an unreasonable thing to ask.
There's several sources of information that will build up this timeline after all; you have the codices, of which there were eventually 8 editions worth of, with every edition having at least a few each, one for every different race and/or army (in general); you have the fantasy flight games stuff which reproduced exacting background books and games for pretty much anything they could think of, and then of course you have the novels.

And unfortunately for me, it's those I am most interested in. And I say that's unfortunate because those always end up getting the raw end in any Games Workshop deal, both from the point of view from the company itself, and frequently from the reading audience, who might not enjoy their favourite tabletop characters doing things that they feel might be out of character, or that they be contradictory to already given information in the codices.
Warhammer has been around since 1983 and as such it has an incredibly rich background, supplied by dozens and dozens of writers and artists, and as that massive body of art and information is brought about by the investments of a company expecting to make a profit, it necessarily needs to be fluid and not-static, if not progressive, in order to lure in more players. And this needs to happen at a reasonably fast pace. The books are a part of this. They are a glorified marketing ploy.

As such, It's not great literature, I know. And sometimes I feel as if I'm terribly wasting my time. Especially since I take so long with reading novels in general. Why do I read this, which will be dust and forgotten in a hundred years, when I could instead be reading books that will stand the test of time?
But I like it nonetheless.
It's fun, it's good old pulpy fun. Swords and maces, axe and swords. Dark gods, desperate odds, violence and bloodshed.

But after so long, after reading so many books, all set in this shared world, I've been presented with a problem that might eventually shoot the legs out from under the whole thing: after so many books, which are still Canonical?
I've read from Genevieve to Sword of Justice, from Trollslayer to Tainted Blood, Fell Cargo to van Horstmann, and the cracks are starting to show.

(I could've found better comparisons to perfectly illustrate the contradictions but, bloody hell, I've already spent way too much time on this as it is...

OOH FINE! : from Drachenfels to Retribution, Zavant to Witch Killer, and from the Heart of Chaos to the Age of Legend. Fine, good, are ye happy now???)

I should be just having fun.
I focus too much on this; the idea of overlapping canonicity, a perfectly depicted world operating with greased-cog-efficiency, and I know it. And yet I fell in love with the world at one point, while taking bite-sized mouthfuls. I've always been compulsive about most of what I do, so, provided with enough time, I'd eat up the whole buffet. I've stayed away from the models (mostly), and of the game, and focused pretty much always completely on the story side of things.
And since I love it, and since I am me; I need all of this to make sense. To have, as is advertised, these stories exist on the same plane, the same universe. I give it my time, I give them my money, so I want that in return.

There's obviously several eras in the fiction that stand out. And maybe I just need to divide these up into their own type of realms, easy picks would be; Oldhammer (Genevieve, Orfeo, the Wolf Riders, Konrad, ...), the adventure age (Blackhearts, Slaves to Darkness,...), The Grimdark era (End Times and Swords of the Empire ...) But the writers base themselves on whatever they have at hand. So these things are a grey area all-round.

Take for instance Gotrek and Felix, which have been through every iteration, but which could inhabit their own bubble inside of the larger Warhammer idea, together with Ulrika, Thanquol and the Laughter of Dark Gods... At this point, with the upcoming continuation they really do stand quite apart.

To form a catalogue of Warhammer fiction, perfectly inter-canonical on the basis of mood and continuity is insane, and yet... it has appeal... so, To be continued?

Or if anyone has a list somewhere handy already, I could go with that instead. Don't be shy, comments welcome.

Here, by the way is a link to Wikipedia's Warhammer Fantasy novels list.

-----

I, in general, spend way too long on pin-pointing the canonicity of the Warhammer novels I read, because I want to root the story in its correct place in the overal timeline. It took me a while but now that I have, here with Van Horstmann, I find that it's pretty uncontradictory; in terms of Altdorf, its great fire, the rise of the Colleges of Magic, and the End Times, and even the novel's emperor Eckhardt the third isn't outright refuted by anything that I've read. Everything seems to fit neatly. And yet, it is a neatness brought about by strain.

Everything fits, but only just, without room for organic evolution. The story feels slotted-in into a bare availability rather than existing flush on its own.
These are the dangers of tie-in fiction. You're writing, and reading, second fiddle.

This obviously isn't always the case;  take Gaunt's Ghosts for example. But fiction like this, sprung forth from a trademarked playing field, inevitably has its restrictions, bounds out of which it cannot venture.

I'm not saying much new or interesting, I know.
It's just a lament.
I wish it could all just be better.

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.

-----

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.

-----

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.