New Light

I'm fairly new to the Warhammer universe. I've read about 18 books and listened to 2, this being the second. I wasn't really a fan of the Mechanicum before. In other books their depiction came off as more annoying than anything. There were a few individual members that I liked here and there, but as a whole I didn't care for them. This book changed that. Seeing how Mars functions with its Forges and better yet how their War Machines work is amazing. I also like that the story is tied directly to the first three Horus Heresy novels, unlike some others that jump in the timeline.

The narrator is a great fit for the job too. He has the perfect vocal range for the Mechanicum, and does a good job with different voice to help separate the characters out. None of them are annoying, and are distinct.

Definitely a top 10 of 40k books I've picked up so far.

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8 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

great book, essential as well

This book is a pleasure to listen too, and its essential for understanding the nature of the Mechanicus, and its role in The Horus Heresy

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7 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Not bad!

It not best HH book (it is no Betrayer, Know No Fear, Master of Mankind or The First Heretic) but it is also not the worst either (which IMHO is Vulkan Lives...a truely dreadful book). But still...worth a listen! Toby Longworth is a great narrator as always.

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5 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

This entry misses on so many levels

This book is a disjointed mess, with an unlikeable prototypical Mary Sue main character, entirely forgettable supporting cast, terrible pacing and an ending that settled... nothing.

Our protagonist is a mess. She doesn't grow at all during the story. She pops in knowing everything and solving everyone's problems with her near godlike special powers. Some powers simply manifest right when she needs them to fix whatever situation they're in. Everyone loves her and everyone treats her with unearned respect. Then she simply exits the story near the end and isn't seen from again so you spend the last 10% of the book reading about the inconsequential actions of a bunch of side characters, none of which have any positive influence on the outcome of the plot.

The pacing is erratic. You'll be at a high point in the action and ripped away to suddenly be introduced to a new character 80% of the way into the book just for that character to vanish again without a trace by the next chapter.

Many character motivations are sketchy at best, with only the loosest of reasons given for them to do whatever it is they're doing in any given scene, with most of those motivations being "I trust/love/believe in/respect/honor the protagonist" for nebulous reasons. The morality of some characters seem to whiplash between good and evil sometimes in the same chapter.

Lastly, you don't really learn anything new about Mars that you didn't already know tangentially from reading other books in the black library or playing the game and owning the rule books. There's nothing new here, there's nothing shocking here, there's no big reveal that made me gasp and say "I never would have thought that about the Mechanicum!"

In fact, I think you'd be better off buying the Mechanicum rule book for 40k and reading it, even if you don't play the game, because it has more back story and lore than this novel.

I honestly can't remember being as disappointed with the end of a book since I read Stephen King's Tommyknockers twenty years ago.

What truly boggles my mind is that Graham McNeill is usually not this dull and and boring of a writer. In fact, several of his novels are some of my favorite in the Black Library collection. This felt like a pay project for him that he really didn't have his heart in. It was almost like someone handed him a chapter outline and said "Ok, fill this in with words" and that's what he did.

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4 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Must read for 40k

If you like 40k lore this is a must read. it's a fantastic history of Mars

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1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Good start, fumbles a bit toward the end.

Pretty good overall, but Dalia's storyline suffers at the end.

It's rather pretentious to make fun of the damsel trope in old literature when your character is suffering from Mary Sue syndrome with some chosen one trope thrown in.

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1 personne a trouvé cela utile

A tale of Martian Civil War

This chapter of the Horus Heresy was a little harder to follow than previous books, lots of characters, lots of names. Still an excellent story and the narrator is probably my favorite of all the books in the series.

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1 personne a trouvé cela utile

RIP Mars

First glimpse into Mars' civil war, why only 4 companies bro that's way too few and you knew it DORN

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Great Narrator as Always

You can always count on Toby delivering the best to help you delve into the universe of the grim dark.
The story itself was well written if a bit meandering, I felt like there was a lot to juggle in terms of names and places when they all sound similar, but that is how they establish the vastness of the universe, so a double edged chain sword. Overall a good listen!

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A slower burn than expected, but still great

I was very excited for this one, as the hints laid down in the previous books had me salivating for more on what happened to the Mechanicum during the Heresy. Of all the groups to ally with Horus, they seemed the least likely. Even with the rift over the Imperial Truth and the Omnissiah, the logic of all-out rebellion was something that felt hollow. This novel did a great job of explaining the how and why, and even delved into some deep lore of the Emperor, the Omnissiah, and even (maybe) the C'tan. Having been excited, the story did start out rather slow for a book about giant robots fighting each other, and I found myself losing interest rather quickly. Once the it got going, however, it really ramped up and pulled me back in, and I found I couldn't stop listening.

If I had any criticisms - and is it a review if I don't? - it's that the story at times felt disjointed, and even though the narratives were ostensibly connected, it often felt jarring switching between them. I'm not sure how to solve that, and it's a problem common to many epic-scale novels, but it felt pronounced, here. I also would have liked to see some more background on several of the main characters, particularly the various Forge Masters and Fabricator General. This being Warhammer, I'm sure they are fleshed out elsewhere, but having either not read them or (more likely) having forgotten because OMG THERE'S SO MUCH LORE, I'd have liked more a of connection to them other than "villainous villain being villainy." Again, these are minor quibbles and don't take anything away from the experience.

Toby Longworth could make a '77 Dodge Chilton Haynes Manual sound like King Lear.

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