I have been reading a lot more now to help me get away from computer monitors when I am trying to wind down before bed, I have been reading a lot of the Warhammer 40k novels and have been satisfied both by the quality of the writers and by the stories in what has become my favorite Science Fiction setting. I have knocked out a few books recently during my break from WoW and I thought it might be cool to talk to other denizens of WRA about what we read recently and what we enjoyed (or hated), and maybe give readers with similar tastes some ideas.
The Eisenhorn trilogy: These have been my favorite so far. Dan Abnett is often cited as the best writer in the Black Library narrative staff and I have to say I agree. The series in tone is almost a mix of spy thriller, Victorian upper crust social intrigue, detective story and bloody sci-fi action. His crew are generally likable characters all filling tropes found in “elite squad” stories where each member is an expert in a certain skill, their interactions with Eisenhorn and the rest of the team really display their personalities and are often the source of humor and conflict within the book. The book is written first person largely from Eisenhorn’s point of view and he himself is a fairly enjoyable character. I could almost describe him as a mix between Soloman Kane (the witch hunter from Robert E. Howard’s books) and James Bond, a skilled fighter with the intelligence for investigation and, charisma to navigate the Victorian social politics of the sector he’s protecting. Overall, if you like Warhammer 40k, or are interested in experiencing the setting from a point of view other than Space Marines I would totally recommend this book.
I’m currently reading all the Conan short stories. They have a reputation for being, ah, less then enlightened when it comes to race and gender, which I think is basically true, but man do I wish WoW would fully embrace some of the premises of some of those stories, like breaking into a tower for no other reason than its there and there’s treasure inside.
I am a big fan of Howard’s works but he is most certainly a man of a very different time. I think I like Solomon Kane a little more than Conan only because its just a different character. A protagonist, heroic puritan Witch Hunter is really a rare thing in fiction and considering the history of the US it is justified but I thought it was kinda novel to make a traditional villain to a hero.
Currently reading Book 8, Path of Daggers, in Wheel of Time. Been working on this series, off and on, for a couple years now. It’s weird because I do really love the series, but it’s not often I finish one of them that I feel like I have to start the next one. So, it’s taking me a little while.
Himmelstrand, by John Ajvide Lindqvist. The author is kind of Sweden’s Stephen King.
I love Swedish horror. When the characters go crazy and start screaming and shooting guns, I just think it’s so much more intense because that’s way out of the normal for Swedes, who are normally so reserved and quiet, whereas yelling and guns might be a sterotype for us hootin’ and hollerin’ Americans (not as intense).
I’m reading it partly also to keep up on my Swedish. I’m an American who lived there for a few years and learned a little of the language.
Not reading, yet. I’m on the prowl for the Warcraft novels, but only 2nd hand.
Which would you guys recommend? Personally trying to find Lord of the Clans, but I’ll take any I can get. There’s plenty of bookshops in this city.
This patch got me to pick up my old Weird Fiction reading list again, and I reread The Ballad of Black Tom, which is a fun re-telling of Lovecraft’s Horror at Red Hook.
It’s a fun little novella. Definitely would recommend.
I’ve been doing another read-through of my favorite series, The Clone Republic. I’m kind of a pop culture trash girl who has never been able to “latch onto” more serious books because I have such a hard time managing my expectations. It’s hard to find a serious sci-fi novel when I can just grab one that says “HALO” in big bold letters on the top; even if the quality isn’t as good, I at least know what I’m getting into from the start.
But The Clone Republic and its sequels have always been my major exception to that. I randomly picked up the first one on a whim because I liked the cover, and just found myself hooked enough to read the next nine books in the series. It’s about a unified Earth government that has reconfigured its entire concept of society based on the American concept of representative democracy, but also the premise of Plato’s Noble Lie from “The Republic”, that the only way to truly earn the loyalty of a citizen to their society is to convince them that their whole life up until that moment has been an illusion.
And so in this society, they have a dedicated ruling class of politicians, but more directly relevant to colonizing the galaxy, have bolstered their military with the use of clone soldiers who are created and raised in government orphanages. It’s no secret that they aren’t real orphanages, but in order to prevent any revolt, the clones are mentally conditioned from birth to be fully aware that everyone else around them is obviously a clone with brown hair and brown eyes, but whenever they look at themselves in a mirror, they see themselves as having blond hair and blue eyes under the belief that they are some impossible exception, the only “real” orphan among millions. And if the programming and years of indoctrination don’t keep them from questioning that story, the stress activates an artificial gland in their bodies to release a neurotoxin that triggers a “death reflex.” In addition to those precautions, no clone soldiers are ever promoted out of the enlisted ranks to become officers, as those positions are reserved solely for natural-born recruits.
The story follows Wayson Harris, a top-scoring candidate from his orphanage who grew up knowing that he wasn’t a clone because, ironically enough, he can clearly see that he has brown hair and brown eyes (alongside being physically taller than everyone else by a few inches), leading him to suspect that someone in his family must’ve been part of the original genetic template when they designed the original clones. Yet despite his obvious potential, he finds himself inexplicably assigned to the most disreputable outpost in the entire galaxy right out of the gate.
Over the course of ten novels, the emotional journey of his character is so genuinely fascinating in a way that it doesn’t try to make him the hero of anything. Other characters often treat him as such because he is unreasonably difficult to kill and his actions often align with their goals, but from a pretty objective viewpoint, he is just a sad and broken man who can only understand the world through the lens of military-sanctioned violence and grows more resentful with every time he is forced to confront the fact that his society treats him more like a bullet than a person- something to be used and expended because it is a material resource.
Basically, if you ever watched Star Wars and didn’t like how it completely glossed over the implications of how insanely messed up it is that the Republic bought itself a slave army without so much as a blink, you would probably love how this series tears that concept apart.