Casey V. Roberts

Like a playdate with your hobbies friends

Revisado: 05-05-24

Great to see/ hear these three together in the same podcast. Very casual and conversational and a lot of fun.

Hope this sticks around for a long time!

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11th verse, same as the first (but slightly worse)

Revisado: 04-15-18

There's two ways to address this book, the first being a short cut into the series- it spends a brief time recapping the story and wrapping up a lot of the main story arc. This it does well enough and is going to be a pretty typical Space Marine versus Ork story. It's no Helsreach, but not much out there is.

The second way to approach this book is as the 11th book in the series and it fails for two reasons. The first is the lack of Coorland and the second is the revisionist history out it's recapping the previous stories.

Space Marines are typically one-dimensional and boring charactersk it's the imperfect humans that are the interesting ones. Not so with Coorland, we see him fail, learn and grow, and try again. We see doubts in him, frustrations, and how her ultimately becomes worthy of his position. To have him replaced by Thane who has been completely one-dimensional up till now and continues to be only "the toughest dude bro of the dude bros" is a step back in terms of narrative.

But that narrative gets rewritten white a bit at the end. Over the series we see the Imperium throwing all the forces or can muster time and again at the beast with only marginal success. We see them try to adapt and those efforts also being frustrated. This book waters it down to the idea that no one had ever fully committed the forces of the Imperium. They them go on to recommit the same assault as had been done twice before expecting new results. For the reader of the whole series it pays off as repetitive and done better previously.

So make this the first book of the series, not the 11th and you will like it just fine otherwise be prepared to be bored and somewhat annoyed that the authors didn't share notes well enough.

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The other half of the story...

Revisado: 04-09-18

It's hard not to talk about this book without comparing it to book 9-very simply it's the second half of that book.

It also solves some problems 9 had. The cast is reduced so that the Death Watch members are unique. There's also several smaller plot lines that were long over due to be wrapped up that are (abruptly) finished which was gratifying to see. The book is a running battle but there is still time for characters to breathe and be themselves, not just another bullet hose holder. Now there is a lot of plot armor for the main characters which makes sense for a series like this, there is no way many of them should have survived this book when all they talk annoy is how suicidal this mission is going to here.

This extends to the ending... it's certainly not a bad ending and actually pretty decent for this series (which I'm going to finish out of a need for completion) but I feel it was a waste of a character. The last two books could change my mind but as it stands right now I feel like this was an odd finish. But I will give the book points for surprising me.

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Great half a book.

Revisado: 03-11-18

Aargh, they did it again! This series has a bad habit of writing only half a story. I honestly believe that some authors simply can't fit a whole story in less than 300 pages. The real pity here is that there is a genuinely good story here if only they gave it room to breathe a little. Once again we see pieces of the crusade confronted by the current state of the Imperium but we don't get the time for more than just lip service.

The performance was average at best. We spend a decent amount if time with a small squad of marines from various big name chapters and the of the them are virtually indistinguishable- Even just showing down their conversations would be nice, but we seemed bound and determined to blow through this half of the story as far as possible.

On the plus side there are some fun action pieces, and over all the characters act reasonable. The good parts make it that much more frustrating that it gets cut short.

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Wacky but fun.

Revisado: 03-03-18

Ok if youre this far into the series a review isn't going to change your mind.

but the story in this one goes into B level scifi- and I mean that in the best way. It's wacky, silly, over the top, and keeps rolling. Everyone had plot armor, does overly heroic stuff, and they even do some silly renditions of Shakespeare. This book isn't art, but you're going to have fun with it.

The performance is a bit lacking. the reader had trouble keeping the voices consistent across the whole book... but it's somewhat understandable when there's some huge conversations going on. But there are some other times when the inflection doesn't match what is being said. It's not constant but happens enough to be noticeable.

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An improvement for the series.

Revisado: 02-26-18

After the previous book I was seriously considering dropping the series. This book was a marked step up.

The story is nothing revelatory- it's about space marines looking for Vulcan, nothing more and nothing less. This is both good and bad. some sort of twist would have been appreciated however the focus on the main narrative remains tight... Thus I will give it a perfectly average rating.

The narrator is the same as always. Is you like him from the east of the series you will continue to like him. I still find him a bit too fast, by dialing the speed down to .9 works well for me. There were no really grating voices so it was pretty easy to listen to.

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The series low point

Revisado: 02-17-18

The trouble with this story is that it feels completely rushed and very little happens.

The space combat between ships is muddled and makes no sense. Compare this to earlier entries in the series (The Emperor Expects) that did an excellent job. The characters had to keep telling the audience who they were and what they were about over and over. Combined with the reader had the worst voices to the pint of being comical and distracting.

in tend of plot you can read the synopsis and get everything you need-cause believe me, the book doesn't go into any more depth. I'm serially consisting quitting the series after this.

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Best Black Library audio book I've had yet!

Revisado: 01-22-18

Listen to a number of black library audiobooks and this was by far the best one yet . The reader was excellent and put a emottion and feeling into each voice throughout the entire book . The story itself was much better than I thought it would be and was in fact excellent.

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Kick off point for the series.

Revisado: 11-14-17

As the third book in the series I feel this is where things finally get good. Books one and two are really more setting the stage and this book starts to pay off. Unfortunately this isn't a place where the reader can jump in at as books 1 & 2 are required reading.

The narrator is fine, if a little too fast (but a slight tweak to playback speed fixed it) and really sells the ships officers.

“AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY”

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