#mird reads warhammer 40k

[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