‘Tattershield’ & ‘The Strange Demise of Titus Endor’
I think we can all agree that it’s never too cold to curl up with a good book; it is literally what warm, fluffy blankets were invented for. We’re having a bit of a heat wave here though and I can confirm that yesterday was far too hot to curl up with a book, good or bad. The title gives it away a little bit though… I’ve watched more films, than read books, over the weekend (more on that in another post) but I did get a couple of Warhammer 40K short stories under my belt; one from a book that I picked up on Saturday, one from a book that has been stuck on my shelf for far too long…
‘Tattershield’ – William Crowe (Black Library)
Page Count: 24 Pages
Under the leadership of the indomitable Sergeant Taikon, the Kasrkin squad known as the Tattershields forms the elite core of a desperate defence force on a world all but lost to Chaos. When an opportunity presents itself, Taikon leads the Tattershields in a valiant attempt to eliminate the traitor commander and bring disarray to their ranks.
Something snapped in me, over the weekend, and I decided that just for once, I was going to be in at the start of a series featuring the Imperial Guard. I’m pretty sure there are still ‘Gaunts Ghosts’ books that I haven’t read yet and I’m already way behind with the ‘Minka Lesk’ books. Sorry, ‘rant over’ ;o) That’s why I came home with a copy of ‘Veterans of the Fall’ and I’ll be dipping into it over the next couple of weeks. And where better to start than with the first story in the book? Nope, me neither ;o)
‘Tattershield’ is very much about introducing readers to the Kasrkins so don’t expect too much in the way of plot here. Luckily for us, the Tattershields are fighting to keep the planet 04-Gavaine under the rule of the Imperium, and their latest mission just might tip the odds in the Loyalists favour. And if that wasn’t enough, every dead traitor is a small step towards restoring the honour that the Tattershields left in the rubble of Cadia. Plenty to chew on here then :o)
The end result is very straightforward but as explosive as hell at the same time. The state I was in yesterday (hot, tired and a bit grumpy), that was a trade-off that I was happy with. And while Orrich looks like he has an interesting arc ahead of him, I will be sticking around for Gunner. He is the star of the show already.
‘The Strange Demise of Titus Endor’ (Black Library)
Page Count: 34 Pages
Former contemporary of the legendary Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn, Titus Endor always thought he was destined for greatness. However, after a bout of unfortunate events and even more unfortunate decisions, Titus finds himself at the backwater edge of the galaxy, tracking an elusive heretic that will bring about his strange demise, a very strange demise indeed...
I’ve always been interested to see what happens in the rest of the Imperium, once you leave the front lines behind; typical really that it has taken me so long to finally pick up Dan Abnett’s ‘The Magos’. Anyway…
I really need to go back and re-read the ‘Eisenhorn’ books but the beauty of this collection is that you can jump in and out of a number of stand-alone tales. I will always head straight to a title that starts with ‘The Strange Demise of…’ and…
Damn that was not what I was expecting at all. I thought the title had given it away but it turned out to be something completely different and very powerful in its eventual reveal. I’ll be honest, ‘The Strange Demise of Titus Endor’ is still working its way through my head (maybe I should have left this post for a couple of days...) but it was an amazing read and I had to say something about it now :o) Abnett takes a very ‘present day’ issue and makes an already grimdark setting a little more grim, and dark, off the back of it. Read ‘The Strange Demise of Titus Endor’ if you get a chance.
‘Tattershield’ – William Crowe (Black Library)
Page Count: 24 Pages
Under the leadership of the indomitable Sergeant Taikon, the Kasrkin squad known as the Tattershields forms the elite core of a desperate defence force on a world all but lost to Chaos. When an opportunity presents itself, Taikon leads the Tattershields in a valiant attempt to eliminate the traitor commander and bring disarray to their ranks.
Something snapped in me, over the weekend, and I decided that just for once, I was going to be in at the start of a series featuring the Imperial Guard. I’m pretty sure there are still ‘Gaunts Ghosts’ books that I haven’t read yet and I’m already way behind with the ‘Minka Lesk’ books. Sorry, ‘rant over’ ;o) That’s why I came home with a copy of ‘Veterans of the Fall’ and I’ll be dipping into it over the next couple of weeks. And where better to start than with the first story in the book? Nope, me neither ;o)
‘Tattershield’ is very much about introducing readers to the Kasrkins so don’t expect too much in the way of plot here. Luckily for us, the Tattershields are fighting to keep the planet 04-Gavaine under the rule of the Imperium, and their latest mission just might tip the odds in the Loyalists favour. And if that wasn’t enough, every dead traitor is a small step towards restoring the honour that the Tattershields left in the rubble of Cadia. Plenty to chew on here then :o)
The end result is very straightforward but as explosive as hell at the same time. The state I was in yesterday (hot, tired and a bit grumpy), that was a trade-off that I was happy with. And while Orrich looks like he has an interesting arc ahead of him, I will be sticking around for Gunner. He is the star of the show already.
‘The Strange Demise of Titus Endor’ (Black Library)
Page Count: 34 Pages
Former contemporary of the legendary Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn, Titus Endor always thought he was destined for greatness. However, after a bout of unfortunate events and even more unfortunate decisions, Titus finds himself at the backwater edge of the galaxy, tracking an elusive heretic that will bring about his strange demise, a very strange demise indeed...
I’ve always been interested to see what happens in the rest of the Imperium, once you leave the front lines behind; typical really that it has taken me so long to finally pick up Dan Abnett’s ‘The Magos’. Anyway…
I really need to go back and re-read the ‘Eisenhorn’ books but the beauty of this collection is that you can jump in and out of a number of stand-alone tales. I will always head straight to a title that starts with ‘The Strange Demise of…’ and…
Damn that was not what I was expecting at all. I thought the title had given it away but it turned out to be something completely different and very powerful in its eventual reveal. I’ll be honest, ‘The Strange Demise of Titus Endor’ is still working its way through my head (maybe I should have left this post for a couple of days...) but it was an amazing read and I had to say something about it now :o) Abnett takes a very ‘present day’ issue and makes an already grimdark setting a little more grim, and dark, off the back of it. Read ‘The Strange Demise of Titus Endor’ if you get a chance.
So "The Magos" is a collection of short stories, about Eisenhorn related stuff? Or is it like the first book, a collection of a short story, then a novella or two?
ReplyDeleteIt's a little bit of both :o) You get 12 short stories that act as the 'Casebook' for Eisenhorn's career, followed by the 'Magos' novel which leads into the 'Bequin' trilogy. I'm only good for short reads this week so it seemed like a good book to go with.
DeleteTalking of which. Reading your last comment... How do you maintain that posting schedule (two weeks ahead)? I'm in awe over here...
Good to know. The whole Death and Duty short story once a month thing is working wonderfully for me (thanks for introducing me to that anthology by the way) for keeping my interest in WH40K alive without me burning out on it. Grimdark is a hard genre for me to stay in.
DeleteHow that came about is a bit of a story, but if you don't mind reading a long comment, I don't mind writing a long comment :-)
(the original comment is too long according to blogger, so I'm breaking it up)
Back in '19 I went from a land survey company that was giving me maybe 35hrs a week to one that was giving me 45hrs a week. I could tell that I was going to be exhausted after work and that the weekends were going to be my prime writing time now. I was following another blogger at the time who mentioned that he scheduled his posts 2 weeks out so that if anything came up or if he just didn't feel like writing one week, he always had posts going live. I asked him how he did it. His advice was to start out with one week. His formula, for starting, was to stop posting for a week, but to keep writing and schedule the posts for a week in advance of when they were written. He said with some discipline you could write an extra post or two on the weekend and thus increase your buffer slowly. Eventually you'd have enough posts so you could schedule 2 weeks in advance. It sounded like a good idea since I knew I wouldn't have the energy to write a post after a 9hr work day, so I began. Of course, because I'm me, I did the whole 2 weeks right away thing, hahahahaa. I let my followers know I was going to be silent for posting for two weeks and then began.
DeleteIt was a massive change for me, as up to this point in time, I'd blogged by the seat of my pants, that's just how you did it. It also changed how I reviewed, as I had to be more aware of time as a whole so I didn't mention something in the review that had happened two weeks ago. It made my reviews less "immediate" but that was ok. For example, If I read a book during our Independence Day (July 4th), I wouldn't talk about that in the review, since the review wasn't up until July 18th. I saved that immediacy for the more personal, non-book review posts. Because those I don't write in advance, just for that reason.
It was a struggle though, scheduling when my feelings were strong on a book and not getting an immediate rush of getting the words out there. And I'd go from 12 days out to suddenly back to 5. Eventually, I have worked my way up to 3-4 weeks. It helps that I do the Magic card posts every monday, so those I can do all in one weekend and suddenly I have a whole month of monday's taken care of. But there are times I simply don't feel like writing, so I don't, and I get back down to 10-14days. Then my writing desire comes back and boooom, I write like 8 posts one weekend. But scheduling keeps things "looking" like its all very even keeled and just marching on, even though in the background I'm more like the hare who races and sleeps and races and sleeps :-)
Now, that is all me. I'm a very organized person, which helps tremendously. It also helps that I'm not on a computer for work, or sitting at a desk. I'm out in nature or suburbia, battling the elements, so when I'm done, it is a relief to sit on the couch and stare at my computer screen. If I had to stare at a screen all day for work, I KNOW things would be different. I don't know how, but they would be and I'd have to figure out some other kind of schedule.
So that's how I do it. I'm currently in a very productive mood, so I've actually got June all taken care of except for 2 "in the moment" posts, but even they are scheduled on google calendar.
Oh, right. Google calendar. THAT is one of my biggest tools and it helps tremendously. I'll write down a book title on a date in one color when I start reading it, then when the review is written and scheduled, I'll change the color so at a glance I can see what is being released when. It also helps me from scheduling things at the same time by accident :-) My "Bookstooge" account is just book stuff, so my g-calendar only has that on it when I'm in this account.
I realize that was a monster comment. Would it be helpful to write that as a post kind of thing? Would it be easier to process? or is this good enough for you? Let me know either way.
Cheers!