Monday Open Thread – Warhammer 40k Book Review – Night Lords Omnibus

*Remember Games Workshop owns everything Warhammer including the Black Library which is named after an in-game location and is their publishing arm.

Many of the stories of the battles, wars, campaigns and daily life of the galaxy are told from the side of the Imperium (the good guys – if the continuum of good and evil could be reproduced in shades of the darkest black).  Well, here we have a collection of 3 books into the Night Lords Omnibus which was written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. This omnibus edition contains the novels Soul Hunter, Blood Reaver and Void Stalker, plus some additional short stories.  I have completed the first book and am about half way into the second, but I wanted to go ahead and share a bit about the books.

The link to the book page is here.  But you may be able to find it elsewhere, like any place you would normally buy books.

The books are set just before the Fall of Cadia when Abaddon the Despoiler is about to begin his 13th Crusade.  Which means nothing to most of you, and actually, you do not really need to know any of that lore to enjoy the story which made this easier to talk about, but I will provide some lore to help with the backstory.

Each legion of Astartes are created from the geneseed template of their Primarch, with the Primarch of the VIIIth Legion being Conrad Kurze, The Night Haunter.  He earned this name on his “home” world of Nostramo, remember the Primarchs had been kidnapped by the Chaos Gods when they were children in their cryo pods as they had just finished “baking” (my term for creating a clone or complete organism artificially).  Each of the Primarchs were designed for a specific purpose with them being given traits to help with their purpose.  Kurze was to have been the Supreme Judge of the Imperium and was gifted an enhanced sense of justice, logical mind, little emotion to cloud his judgement, and the ability to see the future and even saw his own death, and the person who would commit the assassination.  Nostromo was a dark world as the atmosphere let very little light reach the planet, and that darkness helped to hide the corruption, violence and predation of the rich and the gangs on the average citizens of Nostromo. Kruze survived all on his own from the moment he woke up in the broken cryo pod.  With his sense of justice what he witnessed as he grew up, enraged him and he started a one man army on the criminal elements, starting at the bottom till he worked his way to the top and then he just took over (there is more about this in the book).

So the book takes place more than 10,000 years after the Heresy and the Night Lords, well they aren’t doing so well.  Low on Astartes, on manpower, weapons, ammo, and armor, they survive by scavenging the battlefields of weapons and armor to have their slave/serfs repair or replace their own weapons and armor.  One of the Night Lords is Talos of the First Claw, who is the anti-hero of the book.  His squad or claw contains 3 others, Cyrion, Uzas, and Xarl.  All 4 completely hate each other after being around each other for 10k years, but they also completely trust each other in battle.  Or do they.  Talos is known as the Soul Hunter and as the Prophet as he has the Primarch’s gift of foresight, although to a weaker degree and not without it’s own price.  All of this is from the Chaos viewpoint, as well as detailing why they hate the Empire and also detailing what prices the ruinous powers force their champions to pay for their help and power.  There are also two slave/serfs – Septimus and Octavia and their discussions and actions give some slight hint to what a mortal’s life is like under the rule of Chaos Astartes.

The book so far has been very descriptive, really evoking what being around the feet of a Titan is like during battle in the second book.  The first book is pretty much to set up all the conflicts to come, but the dialogue and action still make it a very welcome addition to the Warhammer Universe.

Sports tonight:  Playoff hockey?  Interminable baseball?  Sport fucking? (Read a comic which had no nudity but was about Robin (pre-Nightwing) convincing Wonder Woman that sport fucking was real and challenged her to a match.  She kills him after his ruse is exposed, but after being revived in the Lazarus pit, he is addicted to sex with WW.  Pretty funny)

Have a good evening and a pleasant tomorrow.

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ArmedandHammered
Mid 50's geek/nerd, avid reader of Science Fiction and Fantasy, manga, Chinese Web novels, and British mysteries, cult movies are my thing (have you seen Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter?)
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Gumbygirl

Boo’s Kraftwerk post sent me down a weird rabbithole, and now I’m hopelessly addicted to space music.
https://youtu.be/-YUYLbjl7Sk?si=jRIb8FDjNW0kGFwC

rockingdog

Found a funny:

My body is a Machine 🤖

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Horatio Cornblower

Hey, honey, what do you want to do for our annivers…Oh, never mind, the Canucks have decided for us.

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Don T

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Gumbygirl

The Onion always gets it right!

Horatio Cornblower

As does the Blair Witch.

Don T

I don’t wanna google “sport fucking” on my cel. But I gotta ask if pine tar is legal there.

Horatio Cornblower

Required? It’s suggested!

Horatio Cornblower

Hymen’s on the ice, so you know we’re getting a busted play soon.

(I regret nothing)

Last edited 6 months ago by Horatio Cornblower
SonOfSpam

You get a cherry on top!

Sharkbait

Don’t You Forget About Me as a goal song is a choice. I half expected John Cusack to show up like a bat signal

Horatio Cornblower

Hold the phone in Vancouver, eh!?!?

Doktor Zymm

Note to self: biscuit dough is delicious, but dense. Roll it out thinner next time I use it for quiche crust

Horatio Cornblower

I’m sorry, if you have 13 shots going into the 3rd period of a Game 7 you do not deserve to go to the next round.

Unless you have 13 goals on those 13 shots, in which case you are the USWNT playing Thailand and you should’ve knocked it off 5 goals ago.

SonOfSpam

Yes but it’s 13 more shots than Hartford’s had this decade.

Sharkbait

comment image&ct=g

Horatio Cornblower

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Brick Meathook

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Horatio Cornblower

Love the follow-up stories where they “can’t find the guy”

Like, no shit. He’s buried in an unmarked grave with two bullets lodged in his skull.

blaxabbath

How the hell you gonna find THAT GUY in China?

Sharkbait

Superior Court of the City of Vancouver 11:15 am tomorrow morning:

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Dunstan

“Stupid Vancouver fans, you’re supposed to riot when you win a championship.” — Habs fans

Canucks fans glare angrily.

“Oh, right.”

Senor Weaselo

Leave it to Vancouver to get beat down by the Pals.

Horatio Cornblower

Canucks now deflecting their own shots away from the net.

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Horatio Cornblower

That’ll do, Vancouver.

That’ll do.

Sharkbait

That’s goodnight Vancouver right?

SonOfSpam

That was Billy Joel’s unsuccessful follow-up to the Saigon song.

Doktor Zymm

Finally got around to trying the caramelized onions in the slow cooker yesterday. Today I have no-effort caramelized onions! I am a fan. Putting some in a quiche with pre-made biscuit dough crust and asparagus that I just popped in the toaster oven

Gumbygirl

How did you do this? I love caramelized onions, but I hate how long they take. Too much stirring, I get bored [stoned] and wander off.

blaxabbath

Don’t forget to roll that doll thin enough. Storebought dough, especially, is pretty dense.

litre_cola

Vancouver may want to get shots on net.

Mr. Ayo

4 minute power play and outshot. Incredible.

Sharkbait

Hot Take: That was not a good looking power play.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

Careful, you’ll melt a hole in the ice with a take that hot!

Horatio Cornblower

The Vancouver goalie should sue his teammates for failing to support him.

herodotus450

Ok but I bet you cant name me a second NHL goalie named Arturs…

Dunstan

Irbe!

Sharkbait

Deep cut

Horatio Cornblower

So deep.

fleshwound_NPG

i love that all of his equipment is probably old as mecomment image

fleshwound_NPG

as someone that played driveway hockey with pads all duct taped up n shit, even using a baseball glove (that also was held together with tape) he was a god to me

Game Time Decision

Does he drive the Zamboni too?

Senor Weaselo

Well, cue the Yankee fans trying to run him out on a rail, Clay Holmes has given up a run.

Mr. Ayo

Tridents 🔱 Up!

Horatio Cornblower

Then what happened?

Not a fan of Holmes. He’s not as bad as some fans say, (look, we’re just not getting another Mariano, and you sort of have to accept that), but Holmes tends to nibble around the strike zone, he frequently loses control, and he can’t finish a strikeout.

Senor Weaselo
fleshwound_NPG

if a hockey player misses a game 7 you KNOW the injury is the equivalent of a gunshot wound. to the head.

Senor Weaselo

You mean upper body injury!

fleshwound_NPG

probably dead

Redshirt

.

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Horatio Cornblower

I would pay several American dollars to see this.

rockingdog

That would be Rocking!

fleshwound_NPG

aliyah boston KNOWS the score

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fleshwound_NPG

boston/clark/bueckers would be unstoppable in 3-4 years

fleshwound_NPG

PLZ let this wnba game go to ot so i can not just see or hear, but FEEL the salt flow from angry old hockey men being forced to watch wimmins sports

fleshwound_NPG

british baseball fans gotta love this

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Horatio Cornblower

Those City Connect unis are the worst. In this case the hat’s worse than the jersey.

King Hippo

Agreed and AGREED. Whoever (HINT – Rob Manfred) thinks that MLB needs to adopt the worst aspects of the NBA and NFL (ie, putting games on multiple streamers – HINT #2, there’s a REASON that only the NFL gets away with shit like that) needs to be taken out back and shot.

(also shoulda been Fredbird SUPPORTING TEH POLICE)

Horatio Cornblower

If the ICC put out a warrant on Manfred I’d drive him to Geneva myself.

Yeah. I said “drive”; no one’s getting out of this one, Manfred.

Senor Weaselo

The jersey is bad, but the cap is awful.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

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BugEyedBoo

Looks scary. I’m worried.

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ballsofsteelandfury

Whoever created that brand has a great sense of humor.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

I thought they took that off the market after all those hillbillies went blind.

BugEyedBoo

Still the only thing you can buy with scrip down there.

Gumbygirl

Horatio, Gumby claims he has a girl sex dwarf! He follows her on instagram, @lolavegass

ballsofsteelandfury

Is she union, too?

Horatio Cornblower

When worlds collide!

fleshwound_NPG

caitlin clark: i wanna go to the wnba

wnba: we want caitlin clark

*monkeys paw finger curls twice*

fleshwound_NPG

not dead?

fleshwound_NPG

indeed not dead!

Brick Meathook

Going through my photo archives from way back, I found this image from May 30, 2019.

It was definitely made for posting on DFO, and I’m trolling Ayo for some well-deserved reason.

I have no memory of why. And so it goes.

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Game Time Decision

You may want to check the gap on that one

Mr. Ayo

Don’t remember what I did, but I definitely deserved it

BugEyedBoo

By popular demand, Kraftwerk’s full show last Friday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP6yNH6pv3k

ballsofsteelandfury

Robin addicted to fucking JUST Wonder Woman?

Seems like more of an obsession as opposed to an addiction…

ballsofsteelandfury

I would also love to know the rules of sport fucking. Are there kickoffs? Penalties for high-sticking? Is there VAR?

Game Time Decision

Penalty for no stick

ballsofsteelandfury

Along that same vein is what I would call “Competitive 69ing”.

You both go at each other until one is so overcome with the pleasure provided that they stop servicing the other.

King Hippo

Burying the lede here…ROBIN fucking a GIRL?????

King Hippo

I mean, that sure ’nuff is putting the BI back in BISEXUAL!

/h/t Buddy Cole as that vampire guy from the Leafs game

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

More like NightWANG amirite?