Guest Review: “Promethean Sun” by Nick Kyme (Black Library)

Reviewed by Abhinav

The Horus Heresy series has proven to be rather spectacular, right from the very beginning with Dan Abnett’s game-changing opener, Horus Rising. As an exploration of the entire origin-mythos that defines the Warhammer 40,000 setting, the series has done well in exposing how this galactic civil war happened, and how all the players reacted to it, each in their own way. Being a multi-author series (projected to go on to roughly 50 full novels and anthologies, plus additional novellas, short stories and audio dramas), the quality hasn’t been entirely consistent, and there have been some let-downs, or books that don’t seem to fit into an ongoing arc.

Two years ago, Black Library changed the game once more, by offering direct exclusive limited-edition novellas set as interstitials within the larger narrative at work. Being limited to a select few thousand copies, these hardback stories with extra content (such as special faux-skin and illustrations) gave way to a lot of controversy with regards to pricing for the series. This was compounded last year by the publisher’s inexplicable decision to change formats mid-series and offer books in hardback and hardback-sized trade paperbacks before the regular and familiar mass market copies were made available.

As such, novellas like Promethean Sun and Brotherhood of the Storm among others have had to field quite a bit of negative criticism completely unrelated to the actual fictional content within. And that’s what I wanted to focus on in this review. Promethean Sun was re-released a few weeks ago as a non-limited hardback with an accompanying eBook, which is what I got. The two-year wait in between definitely didn’t hurt my enthusiasm.

So, on to the review itself. Here’s the synopsis…

As the Great Crusade sweeps across the galaxy, the forces of the Imperium encounter a world held in thrall by the alien eldar. While the Iron Hands of Ferrus Manus and Mortarion’s Death Guard battle against the hated xenos, it is the Salamanders who brave the deepest and most deadly jungles, encountering monstrous reptilian beasts and foul witchery along the way. Ultimately, it falls to their primarch Vulkan himself to thwart the sinister designs of the eldar, if the Legions are to liberate this world and bring illumination to its inhabitants.

On Meeting Other People’s Expectations… [A Response]

Over on his website, Abhinav (a great fellow who I have got to know as a reviewer and friend these past couple of years) has written another good post about reviewing and being a part of the online book community. I agree with most of the piece. There was, however, one comment he made that I have long had issue with – he is by no means the only person to have articulated it, but he was the latest to use it. It is also something I think needs to be addressed (and, hopefully, purged from reviewers’ and prospective reviewers’ minds…)

The comment in question:

“You often have to meet people’s expectations of what you should and should not be reading, reviewing, discussing, and so on. I’ve gone through this several times, and is something I’ve blogged on about as well. Because we put ourselves on a pedestal, it gives people the license to call us out. I’ve seen plenty of cases, personally and second-hand, where these instances have gotten out of hand. Not a fun thing to deal with.” [Emphasis mine.]

The text in bold I disagree with. Not because bloggers and reviewers don’t think this, but because they really shouldn’t think this, or approach their blog through other people’s expectations.

See, Shakespeare knew what he was about.
[Image shamelessly pinched from Abhinav’s post…]

“Prince of Thorns” by Mark Lawrence (Voyager/Ace)

Review by Abhinav

“Before the thorns taught me their sharp lessons and bled weakness from me, I had but one brother, and I loved him well. But those days are gone and what is left of them lies in my mother’s tomb. Now I have many brothers, quick with knife and sword, and as evil as you please. We ride this broken empire and loot its corpse. They say these are violent times, the end of days when the dead roam and monsters haunt the night. All that’s true enough, but there’s something worse out there, in the dark. Much worse.”

From being a privileged royal child, raised by a loving mother, Jorg Ancrath has become the Prince of Thorns, a charming, immoral boy leading a grim band of outlaws in a series of raids and atrocities. The world is in chaos: violence is rife, nightmares everywhere. Jorg has the ability to master the living and the dead, but there is still one thing that puts a chill in him. Returning to his father’s castle, Jorg must confront horrors from his childhood and carve himself a future with all hands turned against him.

As I remarked in my review of Mazarkis Williams' The Emperor's Knife, I rarely do negative reviews. I fully support doing negative reviews, but I try and do as few of them as possible, since I’m far more interested in telling my readers about the great books that I’ve enjoyed reading. Mark Lawrence’s debut novel from last year, Prince of Thorns, unfortunately falls in the category of novels that I did not enjoy reading at all. It wasn’t as tough a read as The Emperor's Knife, but it was quite close.

“Before Watchmen” Third Month (DC)

Reviewed by Abhinav Jain

The second month of Before Watchmen releases was 50/50 for me, as you can read here. Len Wein’s Ozymandias #1 disappointed me as much as Brian Azzarello’s Comedian #2 did, while Darwyn Cooke’s Minutemen #2 was great, as was as his co-authored Silk Spectre #2 with Amanda Conner. In August, the new round of Watchmen comics got their first 5-issue month in which we were also introduced to Brian Azzarello’s and J. Michael Straczynski’s second titles, Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan, respectively. So let’s see how the month went...

Reviewed: Night Owl #2, Rorschach #1, Dr. Manhattan #1, Minutemen #3

“Before Watchmen” Second Phase (DC)

Reviewed by Abhinav Jain

Last time I talked about Before Watchmen, my experience with these prequel series had been largely positive, with the exception to Brian Azzarello’s Comedian #1, which I rather disliked. The other three, Minutemen #1, Silk Spectre #1 and Nite Owl #1, I’d really liked and couldn’t wait to read more. You can find my review of them here. So it was with quite a bit of enthusiasm that I dipped back into the Watchmen-verse this month.

Reviewed: Ozymandias #1, Silk Spectre #2, Minutemen #2, Comedian #2

“Before Watchmen” First Phase (DC)

Reviewed by Abhinav Jain

My prior experience with Watchmen is limited to the 2009 film adaptation. I remember that it was an extremely weird experience, as I had no prior familiarity with it and I was rather confused for the whole of it. My friends helped fill in a few blanks later during dinner and then that was that. As you can no doubt tell, I was not motivated to go pick up Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ graphic novel and read the source material.

Recently, however, I’ve been getting back into comics after a rather long break, and when I heard that DC was planning a prequel phase, the Before Watchmen series, I was mildly curious. I like the idea of prequels, especially for things like these. To give but one example, Tolkien’s Silmarillion is one of my favourite novels ever; although it is almost entirely prequel stories set in Middle-Earth and in Valinor and our heroes of the original trilogy barely feature in it.

So when the Before Watchmen comics started releasing last month, I picked them up one by one: the first issues of Minutemen, Silk Spectre, Comedian and Nite Owl. I still somewhat prevaricated on this, and didn’t read them right away as I had some other reading commitments to get out of the way first.