#mird reads warhammer 40k

[clevermird]

Review: Harlequin (Inquisition War book 2) by Ian Watson

When last we left Inquisitor Jaq Draco, he and his retinue were confused, disillusioned, and on the run. The discovery of a vast conspiracy within the Imperial Inquisition had led Jaq to seek the help of his ultimate master, the God Emperor, only to discover that the man was a fractured, confused shell of himself with no clear advise to offer.

Harlequin picks up a hundred years later. Jaq, the shapeshifting assassin Meh’lindi, and the psychic Navegator Googol awaken from the stasis pods where they have been hiding for the last century and begin to seek news of what has transpired in their absence. Although the hunt for them has died down, all is not at peace within the Imperium of Mankind and our heroes find themselves again searching for the mysterious harlequin man whose presence put them on the scent of the hydra conspiracy in the last book. Allies and enemies both new and old all seem to be headed for one destination – a dead world where the alien Eldar are gathering to conduct a mysterious ritual. 

The best I can say about Harlequin is that it was slightly better than Draco. There are fewer gross-out descriptions and less awkward attempts at humor that don’t land. While the descriptions of anything remotely sexual still feel grimy and uncomfortably masturbatory, there is no one scene that is quite as over-the-top as the Slaanesh planet scene from the first book. And one of my favorite characters from Space Marine shows up in an unexpected crossover that improved the last segment of the story significantly. 

This, however, is where the positivity ends. The plot of Harlequin is noticeably more complex than Draco’s, featuring conspiracies within conspiracies and characters with shifting and unclear allegiances. In the hands of a stronger writer, this could have been extremely rewarding, but in this book it just becomes confusing. Characters move from location to location and task to task, but rarely is there a clear line of logic between what has already transpired and what they are doing now, leading to a book that, despite the obvious through-plot, still feels like a string of disconnected scenes. The prose is still clogged with an excessive volume of adjectives and rhetorical questions and the story’s use of Warhammer 40,000 lore still stretches believability frequently for those who know anything about the setting. The last one can’t necessarily be laid at Watson’s feet – this was, after all, the early days of the setting and much that the story contradicts wasn’t even established yet at this point – but it does make the story even more of a chore to read for those who are familiar with 40k’s later installments. 

The most frustrating aspect, however, was how underutilized some of the better ideas in the story were. The hydra conspiracy from the last book seems mostly forgotten about and the Eldar, despite being built up fairly heavily as antagonists, feel strangely like window dressing. While the finale takes place in their domain and one of their artifacts becomes key to the plot, most of the scenes that involve them have them are so distant and generic that the enemies in question could have been humans and nothing about the story would have changed.

Meh’lindi gets the worst of this. She was the side character in Draco with the most potential, and initially I was excited that she was going to get her own storyline in this book. Unfortunately, said storyline turns out to be so easily resolved and straightforward that reading it felt like a waste of time. The emotional effects of resolving one of her key character struggles from the first book are eluded to, but not developed in any way, and the whole thing feels more like a way for Watson to write himself out of a corner and fill page count than a sincere effort to progress the character. What remains is that the only female character with speaking lines exists in the story only to kill people and be sexy and while it’s hard to say that any of the male side characters fare significantly better, it does add to my overall annoyance with the series. 

While Harlequin might not have quite as memorable of lows as Draco or Space Marine, there’s little to recommend it either. And that is, perhaps, it’s greatest sin: it’s boring.

There are better Warhammer books and there are better space opera series and the only reason to pick up this one is if, like me, you’re an obsessive completionist who wants to see the Inquisition War trilogy to its full conclusion or to experience every Warhammer 40,000 book in existance. 

Warnings: Like its predicessor, Harlequin contains plenty of graphic violence and light body horror. There are vague references to sex slavery and two rape scenes, one of which is extremely violent, but ends quickly, and the other of which is longer but discussed in vague and ambiguous terms. A character makes frequent references to their desire to entirely genocide an alien race, specifically including the small children, although this does not wind up happening on-screen

Rating: 3/10

[clevermird]

I'm reading Harlequin now

The good news: there's not been any poop or farting in this one (so far, at least) and the weirdly homophobic homoerotic subplot from Space Marine doesn't seem to be repeating here

The bad new: holy crap, did they take the misogyny up to eleven in this one

[clevermird]

I have somehow wound up spending my evening making some progress on my reading of the Inquisition War trilogy and I keep finding myself astonished that someone was paid to write this.

[clevermird]

I finished Draco last night

I was expecting it to not be as bad as the fandom reputation it had. Turns out it is exactly as bad as the fandom reputation it has. Review incoming next week, but I gotta think about this train wreck first

[clevermird]

Review: Draco (Inquisition War 1) by Ian Watson

Hoooooo boy.  So, recently I undertook a project to read every single Warhammer 40k novel in release order. The first of these was a book called Inquisitor, which was later renamed to Draco when it was re-released. It has developed a bit of a reputation among 40k fans as being bizarre (and not in a good way). I thought going in that surely it couldn’t be that bad – fans do tend to exaggerate these kinds of things, after all. I was wrong. Draco tells the story of Inquisitor Jaq Draco and his retinue, who have been dispatched to a hive world to covertly oversee the cleansing of a genestealer infestation. But just when he thinks that everything is safe, he discovers a mysterious alien threat and a man who seems to be able to subvert the sacred divinations of the Emperor’s Tarot. This book was bonkers. The “alien threat” turns out to be a semi-ethereal tentacle monster that can give you orgasms. There is a point where one of the inquisitor’s retinue is tied up by some bad guys and for some reason, the narration thinks it’s important to note that he was tied up for so long that he crapped himself. A bit character wears “alien fetus earrings” for no apparent reason. At one point, they travel to a planet that has been corrupted by Slaanesh and we are treated to descriptions of pulsing, genital-shaped buildings and a giant, bloated woman who slowly deflates when her nipple piercings are removed. Sure, the last ones can be explained by “planet corrupted by the prince of excess”, but the whole thing together gives off a grimy, gross, horny-and-not-in-a-fun-way vibe. Furthermore, the writing itself isn’t that good. Draco is stiff and emotionless, his shapeshifting assassin companion is interesting but underdeveloped, and the navagator and the squat that fill out his retinue seem intended as comic relief, but fail to do much of anything funny. The story lurches from plot point to plot point based on revelations that often aren’t sufficiently explained and while I wasn’t expecting the ending to the first book in a trilogy to wrap everything up perfectly, the last chapter rendered the entire last several chapters pointless. Even as a 40k novel, it’s of limited use – there’s only a few direct contradictions with later lore, but there’s enough things that are weird or just really unlikely that you’re not gonna get much info about the setting from it. The prose is incredibly overwrought in places as well, making it a bit of a slog to read even beyond the content. And to top it all off, there was a sexual assault included that really rubbed me the wrong way with how it was handled and how cavalierly it was treated by the narrative.  The only saving grace the story has is that the base premise with the alien creature and the mysterious harlequin-man is actually not a bad idea and there was some moments where the overly-flowery description managed to hit the right note and suck me in, capturing the baroque nature of the setting quite well on its best days. I’d say that Draco is really more useful as an interesting bit of 40k fandom history than it is as an actual book in its own right. Might be fun to read drunk with a friend, but other than that, I’d skip it. 

Warnings: As previously discussed, one of the characters is raped in the book, although it takes place off-screen and is not discussed in graphic detail. There’s also plenty of 40k’s typical over-the-top violence and light body horror.

Rating: 3/10