#wh40k novels

[vvictuss]

as the resident Hot Mortarion Truther, i have a sort of headcanon that his hair went from black (confirmed in The Buried Dagger) to thinner and white as the Nurgle shit progressed. At first it's thought the change is a direct result of Nurgle's effects but it's actually from the pure levels of stress he was going through. absolutely nothing to do with Chaos's physical mutations

[magnifigal]

The Lord of the Unfleshed from the Uriel Ventris Novels. Big BIG thanks to Jackbolger18 on twitter for commissioning me and giving me the opportunity of letting me expand my skills.

[simonbreeze]

Time to visit the grim, dark of the Black Library once more with a Tyranid invasion story, Leviathan.

'The dream.... it is a portent... of the end.'

A decorated Lieutenant of the Ultramarines recognises the signs of an imminent Tyranid attack and launches a desperate counter-offensive to save Regium, a proud Imperial world.

I didn't find this story as entertaining as I was hoping for. With the book being tied to the 10th edition launch of Warhammer 40,000, I guess I was hoping for.... more.

The writing is good, however the characters and the story felt lacking scale and depth. One element particularly really niggled me. The Tyranids from hive Leviathan in the Warhammer 40,000 universe have evolved beyond other Tyranids and therein is the rub. I expected the Tyranids on this story to be like the raptors from Jurassic Park, outsmart in the humans in ways that they hadn't considered and being really clever and terrorizing and something to actually fear. Instead, what we got was 'dumbed-down' Space marines being out maneuvered by Tyranids consistently throughout the story. There's even a scene where the Tyranids went left instead of right and the space marines always assume they go right, to make if worse, there's scenes before this happens where it's been established by the Space Marines that the Tyranids have adapted and evolved are using new strategies and tactics. But, belligerently the Space Marines still continue doing the same old same old and the constantly surprised and caught out by the Tyranids. I found this element really frustrating to read, and it is a shame, because the rest of the stories okay, and there are some interesting characters. If you want to read a good Tyranid story, go grab a copy of The Great Devourer. It's a fantastic read, and it's one of my favorite Warhammer 40,000 books - it leaves this one in the dust.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

[bastard-pyro]

Newsflash, the Admech have an augmentation to make them more racist.

Alt text:

An excerpt taken from Fire Warrior, by Simon Spurrier, and published by Black Library on September 2003. The text reads as it follows:

of sophistication. Like some energistic equivalent of the gantry surrounding the powercore, the ship's logic engine was a structured gem: a perfectly aligned arrangement of operative tiers and commands, symmetrical and cohesive. Had his sense of awe been complete, he suspected, he might actually be impressed by the technology's complexity. As it was, the puritens surgery released a stream of disapproving endorphins into his mind, filling him with revulsion and making him all the more aware of the xenogens blatant disregard for the proper obeisance owed to the Machine God.

[colonel-crab]

The Last Chancers series written by Gavin Thorpe

13th Legion (2001)

Kill Team (2001)

Annihilation Squad (2004)

Armageddon Saint (2019)

This is a good book series if you want to try out 40k material but are intimidated by the immense 40k technobabble and nonsense in like most of the novels, lol, easy to pick up from an outsider's view

[petterwass]

Just finished reading the first part of the Book of Martyrs (Sisters of Battles anthology) and found it to be surprisingly good!

Things I really loved about it while trying to keep spoilers light:

1. The description of Sister Ishani's Hospitaller gear; how incredibly advanced it is and also fitting for the Imperium, how incredibly stupid.

Her augmentic eye does both the equivalent of MRI and Cat-scan, she does advanced chemical analysis on the fly, she conducts advanced emergency endovascular surgery in the field with only the gear she carries on her back and in her vambrace. She seals open wounds with a mixture of mulched communion wafers and sacred oils. It suggests appropriate prayers for her to sing while doing first aid.

2. The Sisters of the Valorous Heart, black-armoured badasses all. Complete disregard for their own suffering in the face of the foe.

We have one Sister getting her bolter hand and part of her arm cut off, she simply picks up her bolter with the other hand, steadies it on her spurting stump and continues firing.

Another good example is a Sister being impaled on a huge Tyranid limb, cut open from belly to sternum. Once she realises she's dead her reaction is to clamp down on the killing limb with both hand, knuckle-deep in her own viscera; keeping the alien fixed so her Sisters can escape.

3. This fucking thing

Who needs a chainsword when you have a bonesaw on your wrist? I lost count of the number of Tyranids that this whispering instrument of mass amputation maims or kills during this short novel.

3. Facing down a Lictor with two rounds of bolt pistol ammo and two syringes of morphine-derivate between three Sisters.

4. The Immolation Cell mechanism. Hopelessly archaic, dumb, and cool. Perfect for the Imperial aesthetic.

5. Palatine Gundred, and how she's described as being a absolute beast of a woman. No specifics are given but she's huge. She's described as a "gray-haired tower" among other Sisters and "filled the bench with her enormity".

Love that.

6. The Lictor. Though a complete asshole, it's also very very cool. As a Tyranid afficionado, I approve.

7. Borvo the cyber-cherub.

8. The pre-battle prayer scene sent chills down my spine. I'm a sucker for well-written religious scenes.

I have no idea if the rest of the anthology is as good, but for me, the Martyrdom of Sister Ishani is in itself worth the prize of the book.

[ghostinthegallery]

Letting me reread Infinite and the Divine was a mistake, because now I have context and that leads to thoughts like what the hell is this???

Obviously Imotekh was not dead, so what happened here?? Did someone hide his sarcophagus? Did Orikan hide his sarcophagus? How much of Imotekh's rise to power did Orikan predict or just straight up orchestrate?? Orikan "would fist fight the sun if it looked like it was trying to tell him what to do" the Diviner actually choosing a Phaeron to run the dynasty is wild to me. The fact that he cared enough to take an active hand in deciding who would lead the Sautekh at all! And choosing Imotekh. I mean that makes sense, I've talked about the two of them before. Imotekh might be the only necron in the galaxy Orikan would willingly following (with only minimal sass). Dead gods GIVE ME JUST ONE SCENE OF THEM TOGETHER PLEEEEEEEASE!

[consideratepig]

a collection of drawings I did feat everyone's favourite commissar from earlier this year

[general-grey]

chewing on sanguinius a lot these days. putting that man on the dissection table.

i crack him open. yuri spills out

[magistralucis]

Obsessed with the fact that despite being in the middle of an ork invasion, already a highly stressful situation for his fringeworld, Oltyx had the will to orchestrate a warboss fight just to showcase + show off for his boyfriend. Lauding the Razor's glory was that important to Oltyx, even when he was tired to breaking point, even when he feared things weren't the same as before. What a starstruck kid. A smitten kitten. An angy little meow meow

[ask-valerian-40k]

Greyfax's first meeting with Celestine is so funny in this novel

she is down so bad and hates it

[vvictuss]

Silence's Song

Intro for a work-in-progress fanfic inspired by a single line (included at end of post) in The Buried Dagger by my favorite WH40k author @jmswallow.

Setting is on Barbarus before Mortarion is found by the Emperor. Took some liberties with Silence's description and Barbaras’s worldbuilding, as in adding a single tree, I guess. I'm still new when it comes to lore too so apologies for any conflicting points. (also I know my writing isn't perfect, pls forgive the odd mistake and lmk so I can fix it lol)

======

A glint of pale light bounced from her cold metal as Silence sang. 

She was beautiful as ever, polished in blood. Well cared for, the instrument cut through Barbarus’s pestilent sky with harmonious joy, like a spring bird delighting in the sun. Ichor pooled at the edges of her steeled blade at the conclusion of fading translucent streaks, then dripped from the toe’s end with a quiet pattering, like a distant drum beat to accompany her tune. 

So much more than a tool, Silence brought a crescent omen of end, whose handle was grasped firmly by her hooded maestro. The young man wielded his instrument with the reverent steadfast and command of a conductor readied at the podium. Delicate, yet sharp, precise, dictatorial. Silence’s snath curved out like a crane’s neck captured in elegant Barbarusian willow wood. Shoestring strips of paled leather wrapped her grip and stem, darkened and indented where his hands had laid day after day -- worn, sculpted by time and strength. Silence fed on the crops gleaned by the Reaper of Men with grace and obedience -- in return, he respected her service through harvesting what evil had been sown before them. 

Together, they danced. There were times Mortarion entertained the thought of humming along as his deadly companion serenaded their damned enemy. Ever since he heard that beautiful noise from the villagers on Barbarus the first night spent free from Necare’s prison, no sound met his ears without being composed into song. Everything was music, when he finally learned of its existence. Wind blasting through the valley as a deep horn’s bellow, noxious fog plucking its wheat strings, percussive cracks and pops of the village’s nightly fires. 

Most of all, though, he heard it with the swing of his scythe. 

She was an orchestra. She was an ensemble. She was a choir to rival that of mighty cathedrals. Named Silence, yet she trilled when her chine’s blade split skin and bone as effortlessly as a knife through paper, like the smoothness of breath pushed under a woodwind’s reed. 

(Quote from The Buried Dagger and more below)

The inspiration:

"'Silence' was still moving, coming around, and the Death Guard heard the air sing as the blade cut again before the guardian could register that it had already been killed."

I loved the imagery of this whole scene, so vivid and fantastical yet grounded. Easy to follow, exciting, and James Swallow's technical writing skills push me to improve. I've tried to pay attention to the way he keeps the flow going while still taking the time to set the scene and immerse the reader.

It's been less than a year since I let myself pick up writing again and I'm proud of the direction I'm headed. Obviously I have a long way to go, if anyone has critiques, please comment or shoot me a DM/ask! I'd appreciate feedback very much.

[dont-drink-paint]

I have participated and this years Warhammer Big Bang and drawn this, for CoaxionUnlimited

If you want to know what is going on in this picture, read all about it here!

Also consider taking a look at the other works in the big bang!

[rhysgore]

he overdose on yaoi cocaine

[bastard-pyro]

What time is it? Oh boy, time for more Fire Warrior excerpts.

An excerpt taken from Fire Warrior, by Simon Spurrier, and published by Black Library on September 2003. The text reads as it follows:

The neural interface was supposedly unconnected to his pain centres. It should, in theory at least, be possible to lop off his mechanical limbs, fire bullets into his chassis, electrocute or burn or maim or behead the unit, without him feeling so much as a twinge of discomfort. In theory.

In practice, a veteran user of Crisis XV8 technology often developed ho'or-ata-t'chel: sympathetic ghost-pains. Phantom reactions to external damage.

He'd seen shas' uis so traumatised by losing their sensor-cluster "heads' they'd spent kai rotaas in a coma. He'd seen a shas' vre who, shot in his biological leg by a lucky armour-piercing round, couldn't understand why he was unable to walk normally when he exited the suit, since its lowest (...)

Really like the thing of how the mech suit interacts with their nerves and can leave someone deeply traumatised, this is something that should be explored in more T'au novels.

Another excerpt taken from the same book, in three screenshots. Text reads as it follows:

The Blademaster Tikoloshe was mad. He knew it.

He concentrated and somewhere deep in his fractured, buzzing consciousness a command was dispatched. Ancient, rust-corrupted servos growled, tangled power cords tightening brutally.

His legs moved, a creaking werewolf cackle of protesting, unoiled joints and unnatural ossified growths shattering and grinding against one another.

His mind rolled over and lost itself, briefly.

Three thousand years ago: On an unnamed desertworld claimed by the Daemonlord Tarkh'ax he roars in silence, grappling his razor-talons against the shimmering wraith sword of a fiery Eldar monstrosity, its blazing eyes roaring with endless smoke—

The links of his upper left limb locked briefly, too long out of service. He snarled without making a sound and overpowered the motors, shattering whatever desiccated impediment blocked their progress and venting a stinking serpent of purple-blue smoke.

His thirteenth birthday, on far Cthonia: The Mountain Angels in their shining armour choose him above all others and take him away to their Summit fortress. In seven years he will be a Space Marine-@@ Light caught at the blades of his limbs in a wave of flashing reflection, a thousand razor edges to slice and de-tendon any unprotected meat. They pockmarked his shell like fish scales; ancient gobbets of carved flesh crumbling away in powdery necrosis.

Six thousand years ago: He awakes from centuries of blood-dream slumber to answer the call of Gilgalash the Carnator. For a century the hiveworlds surrounding the Kreel Nebula face the Black Crusade of Sicklefell. Before it is sundered, thirty-three worlds will be systematically murdered, one by one by one—

And the claws... ahh, the claws. Unoiled, untended, untreated by cunning artifice or ridiculous machine-god acquiescence. Their razor edges were maintained by a higher power, and they slid with a sorcerous glow from his vast energy-venting forelimb, emerging with a silken rasp that curled his dead features into a skeletal smile.

Ten thousand years ago: Terra. The great betrayal. Ripping apart the palace in unquenchable fury, hacking at every horrified loyalist that dared face him. Even then, before his internment, he preferred the slow, dragging edge of a blade to the inelegant thunder of a gun—

*****

Some of his circuitry was fused, delicate tech abused and twisted by the centuries of heresy. He flicked through optical sensors hungrily, seeking prey, ignoring the shattered or flimsy niters that rendered him blind and focusing on the glowing points of light that meant: Enemy.

Back to his youth: Techs chant and pray and push their instruments into his brain, preparing him for the final biological manipulation before his graduation as a Marine. His mind is a hypnotically sealed crypt of Dogma and Imperial worship. This will change—

The machine tomb responded to his commands with growing success. The movement of its limbs became familiar once more, insanity applied crudely to sensitive thought stimuli, manipulating and articulating its extremities. Limbs and life support filters squealed in protest and again his dead lips, locked deep in the machine's black core, curled in a sneer.

The first change he'd made to the dreadnought Skaarflax, all those millennia ago, had been to rip out its pain centres.

Back to the crusade: He murders sixteen of the false-Emperor's Space Marines in a single day and witnesses firsthand the fiery cataclysm that claims Forgeworld Barnassus. Mortally wounded in the bloodswamps of l'Ycklahl, his internment is ordered by the Carnator himself within the Dreadnought-hulk Skaarflax. Its previous incumbent is torn from its guts before his eyes, atrophied muscles spasming, left to shriek and ooze its fluids from ruptured connectors into the scarlet marshes—

Now this? A dreadnought losing his mind, jumping from memory to memory as he tries to get his surroundings after leaving an Eldar-built warp prison? And not being the dreadnought's initial occupant and just having been stuffed inside after the first died? Good stuff I might have to admit .

[ectogloom]

my partner recently (last year) got into warhammer(40k) and i am v normal about tyranids and necrons ,,,,