Ok lets rip the band-aid off... I'm a Warhammer nerd. I'd like to back that statement up with a very important clarification - I love my science fiction but I cannot and do not hand paint little figurines and move them about on a board to make tiny, tiny war. I'm a huge fan of the world in which the games, tabletop or otherwise, are set. One of my favorite things about stories from The Black Library is that they are written by many different authors, which makes them incredibly varied in terms of writing style, subject matter and character development, so any time I'm struggling to find something to read that will keep me engaged, I immediately revert to the Black Library. I've got my favorite authors, sure, but with such a richly furnished universe there always seems to be something else that will engage me. I started out reading the novels upon recommendation from a friend of a friend, who does play the tabletop game, and I ended up getting hooked on a particular type of character called an Inquisitor. Basically, FBI meets assassin, meets secret agent, meets PROSECUTOR OF HERETICS and now I've said meets too many times. Think... futuristic, military, space opera. With religious overtones and sprinklings of immortality, magic, and demons. I digress. I started reading the books at a point far flung into the future of mankind without realising there was an entire series of books dedicated to the events that shape the way the universe is presented in the 41st millennium. Things are pretty messed up... the tagline of the 40K universe is "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war." Now, I know what you're thinking. War. Boring. Stabby. Bloody. Unnecessary. Buuuuuut... the characters that bring these stories to life tend to surprise you with just how multi-faceted they can be. Not every book is written from the view point of a soldier, a killer, an assassin, or barbarian - though certainly the many ways in which you could obliterate a life form are extensively explored - a lot of the stories are written from the view point of humans who are just witnessing the events that unfold. Besides the inquisitorial style books, these are in fact my favorites. Reading science fiction is such a joy to me because I can imagine where science could take us as a species, so reading books like these from the point of view of humans, whether they be physically, mentally, psychically advanced, or not, makes the stories more believable and a delight to experience. Mechanicum is Book Nine in the Horus Heresy series covering the events of a galaxy spanning civil war that leads to complete dystopian society. I use the term society loosely as there are many different belief systems, castes, cultures, entire planets of humans who bio-hack and mechanise themselves. Mechanicum itself covers the fall of Mars, which at this point is the hub of all technological advance in the galaxy. At first I found this one difficult to get into as the viewpoint changes chapter by chapter from a young human scribe on Terra (Earth), to some of the leaders of unrest and revolution, corrupted by dark forces no one really knows what to call yet. Except me. I do. Because I read all the books from the future first like an ignorant fool. *no spoilers* It is heavily geared towards descriptions of mechanical automation, ethically-eyebrow-raising invention, cyborgs, technological advance and of course, warfare. My favorite parts of the book were events experienced from the perspective of Dalia Cythera. She comes from a life of mind-numbingly dull repetition and is plucked from obscurity to aid an Adept of The Mars Mechanicum (a technocratic cult) in the invention of an incredible machine that threatens to reveal the machinations of important figures involved in a coup d'éta. Hijinks ensue. The rest of the internet would probably focus on what's happening with the higher ranking figures of importance within the book but I found that all rather dry and difficult to track. Dalia was my jam. She rubbed elbows with interesting characters and everything got a little medieval at one point. Weird but good. The end of the book will not be what you expect for her as a character, but absolutely what you expect for everything else, in all the worst ways you could likely imagine. The author Graham McNeill has written A LOT of novels for the Black Library. I read his books on the Ultramarines a long time ago and when I came across his name in this series I honestly couldn't remember if I had enjoyed his style. Turns out it's a bit... eh. Compelling enough to continue reading all the way through but maybe a little dry and technical for my taste. Having said that, some of my favorite Adeptus Astartes (aka Spare Marines - bio and tech advanced soldiers of the Imperium of Man) are the Space Wolves and they're as animalistic as you can get - think Vikings in berserker mode with insanely good senses. Final verdict - 7 out of 10
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