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Hail the Omnissiah
Jan. 18th, 2018 07:24 pmEpic is hard. Think about every book or movie you've experienced that was described as epic. Many lose the characters in the vast setting, others fail to establish the wide scope of setting and action that makes a story truly epic. It's a fine balancing act.
But I just finished an omnibus trilogy that absolutely lives up the idea of being epic. Forges of Mars, by Graham McNeill. Yet another entry in the sprawling Warhammer: 40K universe, on the surface this is a series of novels about Adeptus Mechanicus, the mysterious tech-priests of Mars. Paying lip service to the God-Emperor, the adepts of the order worship the Machine God, the Omnissiah also known as the Deus Mechanicus.
Tech-priests show their devotion by replacing weak flesh with iron and circuitry. For many of the order, their brains are the last thing human about them, and even the brain is enhanced and altered. An adept will wear the hood robes with a variety of robotic tentacles, artificial limbs, and weapons system sticking out as needed.
But they are still human, and that drives the story.
Archmagos Lexall Kotov has fallen from favor. He has lost control over his forge worlds and been stripped of his power base. But he holds two aces in his mechanical hand. He controls the Speranza, one of the fabled Ark Mechanicus, a starship kilometers long capable of transporting legions. His second hole card is he believes he has found a trace of a Mechanicus expedition that vanished 4,000 years ago in an area of the galaxy's edge known as the Halo Scar. He means to find this lost fleet and the secret of why time is misbehaving inside the scar, and return to power in the order.
To accomplish this, the Archmagos gathers a small fleet to escort the Speranza and loads the giant ship with the best the Empire has to offer. A detachment of Space Marines from the Black Templars; A regiment of the Imperial Guard, the 71st Cadians, known as the Hellhounds; Mechanicus troops known as the Skitarii; and even a Legio of Imperial Titans; towering ancient war machines capable of leveling cities.
Along for the ride is the crew of the Rogue Trader Renard, led by Roboute Surcouf. They get to be there because it was Surcouf who found the clues that show the way to the lost fleet. Chasing the fleet with the intent of stopping it is an alien Eldar ship, where a Farseer has foreseen that this mission could undo everything and end the universe.
Epic enough for you? The books are filled with epic battles and sights, dying worlds and overwhelming odds. But where McNeill is a master is in making sure that all the characters, almost without exception, are people. You get to know them. From the bickering archmagi on the bridge of the Speranza who sound like professors arguing minor points to the bondsmen slaving in misery to keep the ship running. These books have about two dozen characters who play a major role, and each one is a unique figure that you come to know.
This closeness to the characters makes the epic scenes even better. When a group is fleeing a hopeless battle in a damaged grav sled, you care because you like these people. We feel what the characters feel because we've come to know them. Even if they aren't likable.
This is a solid entry in the Black Library. I give it five penguins out of five. But there is one note of caution. This is not a book for people unfamiliar with the WH40K universe. It makes any number of assumptions of knowledge on the reader. I'd recommend starting with the first Gaunt's Ghosts: The Founding. This is a better introduction to the universe and some of its concepts.
A final thought. The WH40K universe is steeped in superstition. People believe in "machine spirits" and offer prayers and holy oils to get machines to work. Sounds silly, but these novels have many characters who link directly to various machines, and they can feel the machine spirits, and even judge their "mood."
Since this isn't a belief but direct experience, I have a theory. Functional artificial intelligence is anathema to the Empire of Man, but most of these systems are centuries old and controlled by expert systems that we can even imagine. It's entirely plausible that over the ages, these expert systems could achieve a rough form of sentience. A Leman Russ tank would be aggressive after 300 years of responding to orders to attack and destroy. Even newer materials would get code packages that contained the thousands of years of "experience" entered into the machine that compiles code for new machines.
So it's not entirely superstition. Any big, complex machine probably has feelings and a sense of purpose if not a sense of self. Smaller things like lasguns and communicators probably lack machine spirits, but when the habit is there, you pray for your rifle to function.
Hail the Omnissiah
Knowlege is Power
But I just finished an omnibus trilogy that absolutely lives up the idea of being epic. Forges of Mars, by Graham McNeill. Yet another entry in the sprawling Warhammer: 40K universe, on the surface this is a series of novels about Adeptus Mechanicus, the mysterious tech-priests of Mars. Paying lip service to the God-Emperor, the adepts of the order worship the Machine God, the Omnissiah also known as the Deus Mechanicus.
Tech-priests show their devotion by replacing weak flesh with iron and circuitry. For many of the order, their brains are the last thing human about them, and even the brain is enhanced and altered. An adept will wear the hood robes with a variety of robotic tentacles, artificial limbs, and weapons system sticking out as needed.
But they are still human, and that drives the story.
Archmagos Lexall Kotov has fallen from favor. He has lost control over his forge worlds and been stripped of his power base. But he holds two aces in his mechanical hand. He controls the Speranza, one of the fabled Ark Mechanicus, a starship kilometers long capable of transporting legions. His second hole card is he believes he has found a trace of a Mechanicus expedition that vanished 4,000 years ago in an area of the galaxy's edge known as the Halo Scar. He means to find this lost fleet and the secret of why time is misbehaving inside the scar, and return to power in the order.
To accomplish this, the Archmagos gathers a small fleet to escort the Speranza and loads the giant ship with the best the Empire has to offer. A detachment of Space Marines from the Black Templars; A regiment of the Imperial Guard, the 71st Cadians, known as the Hellhounds; Mechanicus troops known as the Skitarii; and even a Legio of Imperial Titans; towering ancient war machines capable of leveling cities.
Along for the ride is the crew of the Rogue Trader Renard, led by Roboute Surcouf. They get to be there because it was Surcouf who found the clues that show the way to the lost fleet. Chasing the fleet with the intent of stopping it is an alien Eldar ship, where a Farseer has foreseen that this mission could undo everything and end the universe.
Epic enough for you? The books are filled with epic battles and sights, dying worlds and overwhelming odds. But where McNeill is a master is in making sure that all the characters, almost without exception, are people. You get to know them. From the bickering archmagi on the bridge of the Speranza who sound like professors arguing minor points to the bondsmen slaving in misery to keep the ship running. These books have about two dozen characters who play a major role, and each one is a unique figure that you come to know.
This closeness to the characters makes the epic scenes even better. When a group is fleeing a hopeless battle in a damaged grav sled, you care because you like these people. We feel what the characters feel because we've come to know them. Even if they aren't likable.
This is a solid entry in the Black Library. I give it five penguins out of five. But there is one note of caution. This is not a book for people unfamiliar with the WH40K universe. It makes any number of assumptions of knowledge on the reader. I'd recommend starting with the first Gaunt's Ghosts: The Founding. This is a better introduction to the universe and some of its concepts.
A final thought. The WH40K universe is steeped in superstition. People believe in "machine spirits" and offer prayers and holy oils to get machines to work. Sounds silly, but these novels have many characters who link directly to various machines, and they can feel the machine spirits, and even judge their "mood."
Since this isn't a belief but direct experience, I have a theory. Functional artificial intelligence is anathema to the Empire of Man, but most of these systems are centuries old and controlled by expert systems that we can even imagine. It's entirely plausible that over the ages, these expert systems could achieve a rough form of sentience. A Leman Russ tank would be aggressive after 300 years of responding to orders to attack and destroy. Even newer materials would get code packages that contained the thousands of years of "experience" entered into the machine that compiles code for new machines.
So it's not entirely superstition. Any big, complex machine probably has feelings and a sense of purpose if not a sense of self. Smaller things like lasguns and communicators probably lack machine spirits, but when the habit is there, you pray for your rifle to function.
Hail the Omnissiah
Knowlege is Power
