Fiction Fans

Bonus: Warhammer 40k with Resident Expert

• Lilly Ellison

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0:00 | 57:57

Your hosts are joined by staff artist, spouse, and resident Warhammer expert Daniel for a follow up conversation about The Infinite and the Divine, a Warhammer 40k tie-in novel by Robert Rath. They talk about how the reading experience is different for someone who actually plays the game it's based on, and Danny teaches them a little bit more about 40k. They also debate the most important question: can robots kiss?



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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License


Lilly:

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily.

Sara:

And I'm Sarah and I'm very pleased that today we are being joined by resident Warhammer, expert in the family Lily's husband Danny, to talk about the infinite and the divine with us.

Danny:

Hi, I am Danny. Thank you for having me. I will be resident war hammer guy.

Lilly:

That's just how I introduce you normally anyway, so it's nice that it's relevant. Now, before we get into that though, we have our three intro questions first, what's something great that happened recently? Sarah? Wanna kick us off?

Sara:

I baked scones this morning.

Lilly:

Ooh, that's fun.

Sara:

Yeah. I have some extra buttermilk leftover from the holidays and I'm trying to use it up. So I've made two batches of buttermilk scones.

Lilly:

Anything in them or just straight? Pure, I

Sara:

the first batch was candied ginger and cranberries. And this batch is blueberry.

Lilly:

yum.

Danny:

And do you have, did you make like cream or anything to go with them?

Sara:

No.'cause that's effort.

Lilly:

Baking scones is effort. I don't think that argument works.

Sara:

Yeah. But, but baking, baking scones is like base level effort for making scones. Additional effort of you know, making cream or, or a nice glaze or whatever.

Lilly:

Fair enough. Danny, how about you?

Danny:

Am I allowed to have two?

Lilly:

No, but you're not on very often, so we'll bend the rules.

Sara:

Cheating.

Danny:

so the most recent one is that the Seahawks beat the 49 ERs soundly. So that was fun. But more importantly is that my wife's pregnant and that's nice.

Lilly:

So you had a long term and a short term Good thing that I think we can make an allowance for that.

Danny:

excellent.

Sara:

we'll allow it.

Lilly:

I almost said not allowed because you're bringing football into this, but this is already a war Hammer episode, so I don't think I can be a purist. Are there any football books that you can coerce us into reading next?

Danny:

would never. I wonder if Blood Bull has, okay, so Blood

Lilly:

take it back.

Danny:

Well, it's the combination of football and Boor Hammer, so they, there might be a book out there for that, but I can't promise it's well written.

Sara:

there actually a combination Football Warhammer thing.

Danny:

That's Blood Bull.

Lilly:

Yes, but it's war Hammer with football Rules, not football, where everyone is dressed up like War Hammer,

Danny:

Yeah, that's true.

Lilly:

which would've been

Sara:

Less fun.

Lilly:

Yeah, I was imagining like lingerie football, except it's cosplay football.

Sara:

Is

Danny:

no,

Sara:

is blood, you said it was Blood bowl.

Danny:

that's right.

Sara:

that officially sanctioned by

Danny:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's under their fantasy branch. So, I, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say yet, but today we're looking at Warhammer 40 K, which is in the future. Warhammer Fantasy is kind of, their fantasy branch of it. Debatably also in the future. But that's left up to, I dunno, the viewer.

Lilly:

And now this is ironic because the book that we just read is mostly spells and time magic, and they're telling me that you're telling me that that is their non fantasy version.

Danny:

That's right. That's sci-fi baby. That's math. Math, magic.

Lilly:

hmm hmm. All right.

Danny:

But I jumped ahead, I'm sorry.

Lilly:

What is everyone drinking? Oh, wait, no, my good thing, we went to a potluck yesterday, a soup themed potluck. It was very nice. I ate way too much soup but it was lovely.

Sara:

is there such a thing as way too much soup?

Lilly:

Yeah, because there were like eight-ish different soups and I did not get a small enough bowl for each one. I think there were two that I didn't try. One of them was the one that we brought, and my excuse is we took the leftovers home, so I'll have it today. And then there were a couple of vegetable stews and I only had two out of the three. And the last one I was like, I can't, I am simply full of too much soup. What is everyone drinking today?

Sara:

I have a mystery black tea from China that my father brought over when he came to have lunch today.

Danny:

makes it a mystery?

Sara:

well, besides the fact that I, I can't read Chinese,

Danny:

Ah

Sara:

I am assuming that it was given to him by our relatives there, but I don't actually know for sure. I don't know anything about this tea. He brought it over. He said he received it six months ago. it's in a box covered in Chinese characters.

Danny:

finally aged.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

A valuable gift. Which is a funny joke because we have a bunch of really cheap green tea that on the individual packets they say a valuable gift, which is, I just, it's really funny to imagine giving someone a single tea bag. I am drinking ginger beer. Danny's also drinking ginger beer.

Danny:

You could argue I'm drinking reed's, ginger beer, and you're drinking something else. And then like gross people, we mix them together.

Lilly:

Uh, Yes. The Timber City Ginger that I, I think I had a couple episodes ago that has zero sugar in it and then reads ginger beer, which has too much sugar in it. So we mixed them together and now it's, it's probably the right amount in my opinion.

Sara:

Sounds delightful.

Lilly:

And has anyone read anything good lately? Extracurricular from podcast reading?

Danny:

Am I allowed to say if I haven't finished the book yet?

Lilly:

Yeah, absolutely.

Sara:

That counts as reading it.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Danny:

there we go. I'm working on small gods, I believe from Terry prt, and so I'm liking it so far. It's a totally different narrative voice. And I think prt, I mean, this is the wrong audience to preach to, obviously, but PRT is harder to get into, I think, than a lot of authors. And so, switching between the two has been interesting.

Lilly:

Yeah, he plays with prose a lot more in a way, whereas wraths prose in the infinite and the divine was much more straightforward.

Danny:

He started a paragraph with the third thing that you notice about a guy and I normally read at night. And so, I had to like double back and check and make sure that I didn't like zone out'cause you know, sleepy reading and miss, you know, in the previous two chapters, whether or not he was, I I, you know, I had missed those things. But no, he was just starting at three for no, no good reason. And I was like, alright.

Lilly:

Just making it complicated.

Danny:

Yeah, but I'm liking it so far. I mean, I usually do.

Sara:

I do think that small gods is one of his absolute bangers. I mean, they're all good, but

Lilly:

You know, there's definitely levels.

Sara:

the there, there are levels. But small gods is one of my favorites.

Danny:

Well, I'm excited to finish it.

Lilly:

I have not done any extracurricular reading. In fact, I am behind on this week's podcast book, so,

Sara:

Luckily it's a novella.

Lilly:

yeah.

Sara:

I also have not done any reading up to and including this week's podcast book, so

Lilly:

Yeah. Danny, you're beating us. Oh, no, not, oh, no. You're allowed to read more than me, and it's just unusual.

Danny:

Yeah.

Lilly:

All right, so the infinite and the divine, we started our main conversation, or I should say original conversation with just Sarah and I talking about how familiar we are with the Warhammer ip, because this is of course, a novel set in the Warhammer universe. Warhammer 40 K universe. Did everyone hear Bard just thunk onto the floor?

Danny:

Oh

Sara:

did.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Danny:

He is a loud thunker.

Lilly:

And our answers were varying degrees of zero, although I knew, I know a little bit just from eavesdropping on you, Danny, and your friends. Yeah.

Sara:

I, I think that you have absolutely had more exposure to it, even if you haven't gone out and actively sought it out.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

Whereas I have zero knowledge, essentially,

Danny:

It's starting to bleed through the cracks, I think in a lot of social media and stuff, I think it's becoming more and more popular and widespread compared to Yeah, mainstream, if you will, compared to like 15 years ago. So, yeah.

Sara:

I mean, I've at least heard of it, like I'm, I'm familiar with it as a franchise. I just didn't actually know anything about it.

Lilly:

I know, like I definitely know, or I recognize the major faction names. I don't think I could list them all off in a vacuum, but you know, when you say El Dari, I'm like, okay. I kind of have an idea of what that is. Now. I can't like backwards engineer that when someone says like, soar a pod writer. I don't go, oh yeah. Obviously that's an El Dari.

Danny:

A sub faction of the ELD Dari at that? Yeah.

Lilly:

So, now Danny, what would you say your familiarity level is?

Danny:

I mean, I haven't been reading a ton of their books, but I've been playing since like 2000. So I've got 25 years of knowledge up in the brain. And I'll usually read, like with each of the rule book releases, there's stories within them that you get to read, and then all of the codexes for your armies, there's stuff that you get to read. So I do read all the short stories in those, and those are kind of fun. And then, yeah, 25 years of osmosis or, you know, learning

Lilly:

Mm-hmm. I didn't realize that there was like actual like fun flavor text lore in the rule books.

Danny:

So much. I'd argue of the, maybe I'm gonna get the number wrong, but I wanna say like 400 pages of the rule book. 75 to 80% of it is just lore.

Lilly:

Oh, that's cool. But you mentioned Code Xes, and that's a rule book that is for a specific army.

Danny:

Yeah, sorry. Definitely and so I started in third edition and we're up to 10th edition now. So I've got seven different Code Xs of the Tyranids and, you know, seven different Code Xs of space, Marines. And they slowly evolve the narrative over time. And so, about every edition they'll say, oh, something new happened and we're gonna update some of the stories or introduce a new story. And they'll still have some of the old bangers from the originals in the Codex. But

Sara:

So would you say that your knowledge is very heavily skewed towards specific factions? Like

Danny:

yes, definitely,

Sara:

you, so you know more about the faction that you play than you know about the other factions?

Danny:

a hundred percent, yes. I play in a group that's large enough that we cover most of the faction bases. And when we're playing we'll ask each other questions about, you know, like, oh, that's a weird name for that gun. What does it even do? And then they'll, you know, tell us, oh, it de atomizes you. And so I have some information on what, you know, the nron guns do or r versus the Tyra guns that shoot seed pods that turn into big riding. I dunno, things that wither and die seconds after being fired. It's, everyone's got their own fun thing.

Lilly:

Just that right. There was more description than I think in the entire novel.

Danny:

They talk about atomizing in the novel.

Lilly:

Yeah. But there's not a lot of visual descriptions of things.

Sara:

I, yeah, I did think that it kind of expected a certain level of base knowledge for what things did. And it didn't, like you said, it didn't really describe visually for those of us who are not familiar with.

Danny:

That's unfortunate and that was one of my worries going in having not read it and then reading it kind of at the same time as you guys. I had my mom read one of their books a long time ago the Last Chancers, which is about a penal colony of convicts that get one last chance at redemption by going on a secret mission to go do a thing that's almost certainly gonna kill them. But if they survive, they, you know, get to be reintegrated into society. And she hated it because there was no explanation at all for what anything was. Yeah.

Sara:

I mean, so this is not the first book in the series. I don't know what number it is, but it's not the first. So I don't necessarily think that it's unreasonable for them to not provide some of that description and for them to assume that you are familiar with

Danny:

I

Lilly:

Is the series chronological like that?

Danny:

Is infinite in the divine part of a series?

Sara:

Well, I just meant that like the war hammer books, it wasn't, it wasn't

Danny:

supposed to be a standalone,

Sara:

but it wasn't, it wasn't published first. Right. Like in, in terms of publication order.

Danny:

Oh, not at all.

Lilly:

I think it's like forgotten realms though, where like, yeah, there's a lot of books, but that doesn't mean they're all like, you're, there's not like necessarily an order. You have to read them in.

Danny:

no. Not at all. Yeah. And that it's a bunch of different authors too.

Sara:

still expects a certain like. Level of familiarity, like why are you gonna, why are you gonna go out and buy this book if you are not a fan of War Hammer 40 K?

Lilly:

Because you're married to one

Sara:

Right. Obviously, obviously we have reasons why, but, but I, but my point is that I don't think it's unreasonable for the author to assume that someone reading this does have some kind of level of knowledge about what the, what the guns do and

Danny:

I guess it is a little disappointing though.

Lilly:

I, I got similarly mad at the Firefly novelization, not novelization.

Sara:

tie

Lilly:

that's tie in. Thank you. Be for the exact same reason. Now I did know, like I had the background knowledge so it was fine. But I don't know, writing a book that's only for existing fans feels. Unnecessarily limiting,

Sara:

But why would non and like. Not existing fans go out and buy it

Lilly:

because it's a good book.

Sara:

and read it. I mean, yes, like I did enjoy this. I'm just saying that you have to read it to know that you're going to enjoy it and like you wouldn't necessarily pick it up just randomly.

Lilly:

Yeah. It's interesting with Grim Dark, we talked a little bit about this in our, uh, first conversation, how it is it has taken on its own life. It feels although it was coined by War, hammer, universe, and what I associate with that genre or phrase, I did not actually feel applied to this novel much at all. Danny, now you coming at it from a Warhammer angle. Did this book feel grim, dark to you?

Danny:

Well, I'm not sure I have enough knowledge or just reading books in general to understand the finer points between grim Dark and I, I don't know. There's a whole spectrum right between the bright. Nope. I, I was gonna try and I should add the graph up. There's a graph somewhere about the different levels of grim, dark to noble bright and all that, all that good jazz. But I mean, I think. At least part of it is how quick sudden and okay with violence or death, the books can be, and that's part of grim Dark, right? Where it is just violence and war. And so I I I do think that, that it had quite a bit of that. Even if it's didn't make you feel bad at the end, it's still like, I'm not sure you're, well, this is nons spoilers, huh?

Lilly:

Okay,

Danny:

Hard to get into it. Nons spoilers e but certainly bad stuff happens throughout this cataclysmic events even. So I don't know. And it's, is laissez-faire the right word where they're just very, you know, go about their day about it. So,

Sara:

Yeah, I mean, I, I have thoughts, but they are kind of spoilery. So I don't know if I can, if I can talk about them.

Lilly:

we'll hold onto it. My, I think my final question for Danny is, have you played war hammers since you started reading this book? I don't think so.

Danny:

No, I only get to play maybe three times a year.

Lilly:

That's not

Danny:

I, it's been a little more lately, which is nice. And then I, I, I figure with baby on the way, it's gonna be a lot less for a bit,

Lilly:

That's true. Really, this is the extinction burst. You're getting it all in now.

Sara:

Are you going to get baby into War? Hammer 40 k.

Danny:

I think that's just gonna happen. Yeah, for sure.

Lilly:

Are you kidding? Dad and all his cool friends hanging out and playing this game with like weird guns and stuff.

Danny:

Yeah. Painting minis, spending a lot of time doing it, it's good. Will I let them paint my stuff? Ooh, good question. I don't, I don't know.

Lilly:

There are a couple dads in your group that play, and I think they, it sounds like there's the set aside. These are the pieces that my daughters are allowed to paint. These are the pieces that dad paints

Danny:

Yeah,

Lilly:

from what I've heard.

Danny:

with the rise of 3D printing though we could definitely print up some. Oops. You can paint this. And.

Lilly:

Yeah. Um, Anyway, we, this is planning for not on the podcast. Uh. Well, we talked about who should read this book from like a general reader perspective, but Danny, in your opinion, for a war hammer player, do you think that this book would be, is more interesting for Nron players or that it would be appeal to anyone who is involved in War Hammer?

Danny:

I think anyone I don't wanna get too into it, but I think initially from the outside you have a pretty narrow or limited view of how you view other factions. You have yours and yours is always the coolest, doesn't matter who you're or what you're playing. And then there's the other factions that are like, oh, those are just undead metal terminators and they're doing dumb stuff, just being robots. But then, I mean, I think. This book, at least made me think about Nephrons in a different way that are super interesting just as far as character building goes. So I, for this one specifically, I think any person who plays War Hammer would like this book for sure.

Sara:

And how many, I know you said that you had read all of the rule books and things. How many of the actual novels have you read?

Danny:

Very few. Basically just the last chancers in this one. yeah, I haven't done the Horace Heresy, but that's a, I don't know, like a 56 book slog that I'm not touching.

Sara:

A lot of books.

Danny:

some, I mean, there's various short stories that I've read, but I don't, that might be like part of other books, but I, I rarely go out and read full novels. I've, done Tic and Felix, which is, oh, is that right? I dunno. There's, there's a, a dwarf book, but that's part of the fantasy set. So. Oh, I hear Sif. I think

Lilly:

Yeah. Listeners, the cats are running in between where Danny is recording and where I am recording and they are causing a ruckus. It's pretty good. But so any, any Warhammer fan do you think that it's, would maybe be more interesting for a 40 K player versus a fantasy player? Are there people who only play fantasy? It feels like 40 K is the default, but maybe I have a biased impression.

Sara:

I didn't even realize there wasn't a there. There was a fantasy option.

Danny:

fantasy was first. And I think it was out five or 10 years before 40 K started. And I think you might find people that like fantasy more, but I doubt you'd find too many people that are strictly one versus the other.

Lilly:

Yeah,

Danny:

I said, I mean, it's still probably 10% of the four hammer playing population. That might be only one.

Lilly:

well, yeah, you can't speak for everyone. That's fair. war hammer players and I mean, it, it is a good book. It just leaves you out, out to dry a little bit if you don't have some technical knowledge.

Sara:

not in a way that means you can't enjoy it. Like, I still enjoyed reading this book. But there, there were points where I felt my lack of knowledge,

Danny:

A hindrance. Yeah. That's.

Sara:

not, not that I felt it was a hindrance, just that I felt,

Lilly:

You noticed

Sara:

yeah, I, like, I, I noticed that I didn't know a thing. And the book didn't try to make me know the thing.

Lilly:

I noticed it mostly, like I said, around descriptions of weapons and units, which I know is a name for a war hammer, but it's one of the little dudes like the, you know, there were the, um, lich guards,

Danny:

Mm-hmm.

Lilly:

what came up a lot. And I was like, ah, yes, that is, that is a unit in Warhammer, I can tell.

Danny:

Yeah. Well, I don't wanna be cynical, but it felt a little bit, and I think this came out around the time that the neons got a range refresh, and so sometimes it feels like a book comes out to try to sell miniatures and be like, look how cool this guy is. Don't you think you want a few of them in your army?

Lilly:

were were there also, like rules and game mechanics that you noticed in the book or was it just Yeah.

Danny:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well kind of, you know, like cloak, I'm pretty sure. Well, I don't want to get into spoiler territory, but yeah I think

Lilly:

Okay. Let's get into spoilers so that we can actually answer these questions. This episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by sotia.

Sara:

That's our zine. Each issue has a different theme that celebrates genre and genre blending in a new way.

Lilly:

PDF and EPUB versions can be purchased on our website and Patreon, supporters of all levels get free digital copies.

Sara:

You can find all the issues and more at patreon.com/fiction fans pod. Thank you for your support.

Lilly:

The remainder of this episode contains spoilers so, or can control time and trein maybe about halfway through the book gets a cloak that lets him kind of counteract Oregon's time manipulations and do it a little bit himself. Is that re-rolling?

Danny:

I mean it certainly could be. Yeah. War hammers played with dice. You roll a lot of dice. I don't specifically know'cause I don't have the neon codex all of his stuff, but he does fucky, stuff like that. So yes.

Lilly:

Can you actually play as Trazyn and Orikan?

Danny:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Axel. My friend who plays neck rounds and why I know about them at least a little bit, usually uses both of them, I think in his army,

Sara:

Are they always. Rivals. I mean, I guess if you don't know that much about nephrons, you might not be able to answer this, but

Danny:

well, we're in the spoiler section. I think by the end they're kind of friends.

Sara:

Well, but, so that's, that's my question is because in this book they do their relationship does evolve, right? And they do kind of become friends, and then we get this relationship reset at the end almost where they are each keeping secrets from each other about the things that they have taken from the final battle or things they have gotten out of the final battle. And essentially kind of, sort of planning on trying to kill the other again. And so it did feel like their relationship backslid. And for me as a reader, I was left wondering if that was just because of the way because this is a, like a tabletop game and the relationship between characters might be set in stone somewhat. I was wondering if that reset was because PRAs and or are rivals in the, the rule set and so you can't necessarily make that relationship evolve and, and stay evolved.

Danny:

That's fair. No. Whenever that, whenever something like that happens, they just go, oh, well you were actually playing 10,000 years ago, and you make it work in your head. Yeah.

Sara:

Okay. So it it just, yeah, that was just the book then, not due to constraints of the

Lilly:

I, I still think there was space for the evolved relationship to be. Now they're pulling each other's pigtails instead of genuinely trying to murder each other. Although that might be me coping and not actually on the page.

Sara:

I don't think it's on the page. I think that we could have, if there was a second book about the relationship, we could see that. But I don't think that we get enough of their motivations at the very, very end to say that that's the case.

Lilly:

I would've liked 10 fewer pages of final fight and 10 more pages to establish that, like the actual vibes of their relationship at the end, because

Sara:

Yes.

Danny:

I like. I like that they kept it ambiguous enough. You knew that they still, you know. Wanted to screw each other over. You got enough in there?

Sara:

Yeah. But do they still want to kiss?

Danny:

Mm, definitely. But they have no lips, but they must kiss.

Sara:

They have, they have mouths though. They, they can, they can just mouth box.

Danny:

there you go.

Sara:

That's like pug kissing. I did

Lilly:

say that everything was plugs, right?

Sara:

I did say that. I was gonna imagine everything as pugs.

Danny:

hmm. And that's a lot of imagining going on because that so many different words that Yes.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

So for, for the factions that we see the most, which I would say are the neons of course, and the El Dari, we end up getting more descriptions of them over time. And I actually think the El Dari, well, I had pictures on the front for the neons, which I'm gonna be honest helped. But we did get some descriptions of the ELD Dari, and so I, I was able to build a mental image in my head for everything else. If I hadn't seen like Cody's ork Army or, you know, all of those hundreds of examples of miniatures for a visualization, I would've been completely lost. So I think. The, what we call the cameos, were much harder to follow.

Danny:

And I mentioned this, but I think you guys had a fair amount of pushback as well, that if there's a proper noun that sounds like it's probably a thing, you can almost certainly Google it and see what the model looks like. But that's extra work that you shouldn't have to be doing, and they should do a little more work explaining it to you, but.

Lilly:

I call that homework and I shouldn't have to do homework to read a book.

Sara:

maybe this is because I'm not a super visual person. I didn't mind that there was not a lot of description like that. I can't necessarily visualize what a Lich guard looks like or what their specific guns look like. What that, that was fine for me. It was more where I felt a little lost was more when they would talk about like the El Dari cataclysm. And then just move on. Like, what was that? I don't know. I should, it feels

Danny:

the book about the El Cataclysm now.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

They needed footnotes to say, to learn more about this read novel, blah, blah. Those were the ones that I did end up asking Danny. I would ask, like, it kind of sounds like they're describing this. Am I getting that faction right? then I would ask, is this thing like the ldo cataclysm, like, is this the thing I have a vague idea about because I listen to you guys talk about stuff so much and then I would say I was right maybe half of the time. No. My biggest issue was that the book introduces the dinosaur, like lizard people. And then I just assumed that that was a major faction. And I think for the first 20% of the book, every time a new person was introduced, I was convinced that they were a lizard. And Danny had to go. Nope.

Danny:

It's ELs writing lizards. It's different.

Lilly:

Yeah,

Danny:

The real bummer is that, that I think they've confirmed that the exudates are basically never gonna get a range of miniatures, so

Sara:

Which, which

Danny:

The eld Dari Exudates, those are the colonizers that the ldar have that come to New World to do their thing. They kind of, match whatever level the planet has. They're like the truest form of colonization, I guess. Because they'll kind of try to mesh with whatever the current, you know, civilization or planet has and not interfere with it. They, they kind of get into that where they're like, and then the humans came and the humans had the big smoke stacks and the smoke stacks started, you know, destroying the atmosphere. And the orks came and they drank all the water where the ld a r kind of like mesh with whatever's currently there. And so the exs are, they're colonizers. And so the planet had dinosaurs, the exudates rode the dinosaurs and kind of meshed in with the whatever was currently existing there.

Lilly:

Mm. Instead of wiping out the native lizard population, they coexisted with them. Yeah. So all of the ELD Dari that we saw were from the exudate sub faction of El Dari.

Danny:

Correct. Yeah, but they're never gonna get models, which is too bad. I mean, you can take the Warhammer fantasy stuff and put ldar on them,

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

Danny:

which is what people do, but it's a little silly. Oh

Lilly:

So did you have a mental image for most of the stuff? Like,

Danny:

yeah.

Lilly:

I think orcs were the hardest for me.

Danny:

That's interesting. Because to me Orks feel like, well, okay they are and aren't. It's weird the portions of language that the different armies use to try and get you to understand Necro dermis being the nron skin ne necro nron instead of dead, although they are still kind of dead and then dermis for skin. I guess that makes sense. A lot of the orchestra stuff was just like kill buzz saw and yeah, buzz saw is probably like a big saw that does killing or they've got a hunter killer missile strapped to their back for them to do flying and you go, well, hunter, killer Shooty kill and then missile, it's a rocket on his back. That makes sense too. But slugger, that's gonna be a little harder to understand. So that's a good point. Anything else there that were tough words for you? Now that you're done reading it?

Sara:

I mean, slug wasn't, so, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't slugger just like related to slug, like, like a bullet kind of thing?

Danny:

That's right. Yeah. So it's a pistol, an ORC pistol.

Sara:

So like you, you can get there still.

Lilly:

But a slugger is someone who punches. That was my confusion.

Danny:

a SL with an A at the end.

Lilly:

Yeah. But I, I definitely got like brawling versus guns all mixed up there, which I probably would've figured out eventually. But they didn't. They didn't get enough page time for me to actually connect those dots. Whereas some of the, the factions that we saw for longer did,

Danny:

Well, orks, they gave you some breadcrumbs and then they come up like three times I think.

Lilly:

yeah, like a couple.

Danny:

Yeah.

Sara:

Circling back to your point about grim dark. So for me, what made this feel not like grim dark is that even though yes, you're right, there's a lot of cataclysmic stuff that happens.

Danny:

The death of a planet?

Sara:

Yeah. But none of it happens to our main characters and they are not horribly grim and depressed about things that are going on. So, and I think for me, that's one of the differences, like the viewpoint was not everything sucks and we're all gonna die. Even though yes, like this planet dies, lots of people die, civilizations die, et cetera, et cetera.

Danny:

Yeah. Oh, I, I think because it's, and they're deathless, so they. Live forever. Even if they die, they come back. Unless you're at the heart of this planet, apparently. They, I dunno, just have a different view on how everything works. So it not grim dark to have an attitude that the death of a planet doesn't matter? I mean, that feels I don't know. Pretty metal.

Sara:

But yeah, like also they would maybe care more about one of their own planets dying, I guess. Technically this was one of their own planets, wasn't it?

Lilly:

But clearly they only care about the tomb, right? They're like, yeah,

Danny:

all the stuff on top is nothing.

Lilly:

and they do care about the stuff on top when it's the other guy destroying it. Which was extremely hypocritical in a way that I thought was mostly funny, which is maybe also why this didn't strike me as groom dark.'cause I was just laughing at the characters for being so wrapped up in their own shit that they don't realize that their own actions have consequences.

Danny:

What's kind of the fun thing about the character building with the neons that I was talking a little bit about earlier in that they are all screwed up in some way, or long story short, millenniums ago race of people traded their flesh bodies for metal bodies and then went into a big sleep for a long time. And throughout that big sleep various things happened. Like solar flares and stuff on the planets, and then. Throughout that mi micro changes and stuff screwed up their personality matrixes and stuff. And so you have all these turds of people walking around once they finally wake up. And I think that's pretty cool. You have all these, you interesting, terrible people that live forever. Yeah. I don't know. It just, I, I like that aspect a lot and it made me relate to it a lot more, or to Nephrons to be able to be like, oh, these guys are interesting. And they're not just mindless killing machines. They're, you know, they've got these stupid personalities and all these social hierarchy things they're still trying to play to while sucking

Lilly:

Turd is the perfect way to describe them. And I loved how Wrath made Sure you know it.

Danny:

Oh, right from the start.

Lilly:

Yeah. There was no like gray area and I compared this a little bit. I, I've brought up the Space Marines a couple of times in our first conversation just because I feel like that is a lot of what pop culture at large sees about War Hammer

Danny:

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Lilly:

do. Do you get the same impression?

Danny:

Oh, for sure. That Space, Marines drive all of their sales, so 90% of their new model releases are Space Marines. Despite having, I don't know, like 13 factions at this point,

Lilly:

Is that a lot or a little

Danny:

I, I, I'd argue it's a lot. It's a lot to maintain imbalance for sure.

Lilly:

Oh, oh, sorry. So you're saying that that out of all the 13 factions, they clearly have a favorite.

Danny:

Yes. 90% of everything is Space. Marines one of those 13. Yes.

Lilly:

So what I've noticed in pop culture conversations is sometimes people miss the fact that space Marines are not good guys.

Danny:

Yes.

Lilly:

And it really felt like wrath wanted to make sure that that did not happen with the characters in this book.

Danny:

Yeah. He stole the heart of the ELD people in the first 10 pages or whatever. Absolutely. Smashing their civilization.

Lilly:

And the pros does not make apologies for him. There's just like, that was a dick move. It doesn't quite say that on the page, but it practically does.

Sara:

It basically does. So Danny talking about the cameos in this book Lily and I were discussing in our previous conversation about how the. Final, like the, the climactic battle didn't have as much of an impact because we don't know these factions or these, these characters.

Danny:

Yeah, I felt it was a little weird. Sorry. I'll let you finish your question, but

Sara:

yeah, no, but, but that was my question. Like, as someone who is more familiar did they have more of an impact or did you sit there reading, going like, I don't know who some of these guys are.

Danny:

I knew who all the guys were. I was excited reading it. This is only slightly tangentially related, but I was waiting to see who all would get introduced. And one of the factions I play is Gene Steeler cult. So I was excited when they finally showed up. But I thought it detracted a little bit from some of the world building that they had already done specifically the Astro Militar or Imperial Guard, the, the humans that they showed up or said during the final battle treason basically as poke balls. And they capture moments in time that he puts into his special medium. And he is able to release those at various points that he wants. And one of those that he captured was an imperial guard heavy weapons battalion or detachment. And the fact that. In the final battle was like, oh, good, they're here. I don't even need to worry about that. When these people are, terrible bigots and don't respect the power of other, other civilizations. I thought it was weird that he would then be like, these guys are gonna take care of it, these fleshy stupid humans that we don't know or care about. Yeah. So I was, it was, a

Lilly:

Stroking the ego of people who play that sub faction kinda.

Danny:

I guess. Yeah. And it felt wrong there because I don't know against, they would hold up against their mighty necro technology fighting one of their gods. I don't, I don't know about that.

Sara:

Especially for or who proclaims earlier in the book that he like, just doesn't care about anyone besides the neons.

Danny:

Exactly. So I don't know that I didn't like that, but I understand maybe that's just because this is my faction that they had respect for the Tyra Ns. The Tyra Ns going hard and doing big fighting, but then they were just maybe stroking my ego. But I think either even other people would accept the Tyra Ns being weird, alien and fast that they'd go, oh yeah, okay. Maybe, you know, you can just kind of let that go over there and we don't have to touch that section. But yeah, I didn't, I didn't like the Imperial Guard part. The humans

Lilly:

I didn't realize, I think every time there was a new human on the page, I was like, is this one a space Marine? What about this one? Is that one a

Danny:

there was, there was none Space Marines

Lilly:

None. But every human, I was like, well, this one surely is a space Marine.

Danny:

Yeah.

Lilly:

There's even a maritime defense. Something, something. And I was like, oh, marine, maritime. No. Still no. Okay, so resin would like freeze and capture these people. Like huge battle scenes and then recreate them perfectly in his crazy like psychopath museum. And I realized, well, I was reading it that, that reminded me so perfectly of the gorgeous dioramas that we saw at, is it actually called War Hammer World? That's not actually the name of it, is it?

Danny:

that is the name of it.

Lilly:

Oh, great. The, but the games workshop headquarters, when we had the chance to visit and I was like, oh, Treist is recreating all of these fun battle scenes exactly the way that the games workshop, like Crafters did for their museum. For their museum. I, that connection was fun. And just kind of like a little, just a little Easter egg almost.

Danny:

They're very cool. Look up pictures or go if you're interested. But that's quite the trip just to look at some minis. So

Sara:

Well, it depends on where our listener is from.

Danny:

That's true.

Lilly:

It's in Nottingham. Yeah.

Danny:

Yeah. Yeah. I, I think that's a great point and very accurate. I wonder how on purpose that was

Lilly:

Well, and just even his, his comments about like posing them perfectly gave me flashbacks to you. Like you have to glue the models together. Like they don't come always in one piece. Right. And so you decide what pose they're in. And so like Reson was building War Hammer minis, and that was maybe a little meta, but one of my favorite parts or at least it made me connect with it. And maybe that's just because the most I interact with War Hammer is usually the crafting process because that's what I tend to care more about.

Danny:

I think that the artistry of it, for sure.

Lilly:

Yeah. So it was either fighting or miniature building. Those were the two war hammer aspects in this book. And. Surprising. No one. I liked the miniature building more than the fighting, So did you have a, a favorite and a and or a least favorite moment in the book?

Danny:

Well, my least favorite, I kind of already went over the Imperial garden. It kind of breaking the I don't know the view that I had of work. And,

Lilly:

Yeah.

Danny:

Favorite moment though was, let's see,

Lilly:

Was it the Tyra Nets?

Danny:

well kind of, I, the Gene studio called Uprising when it started, when they were in the Opera House. And Orkin turns to him and he is like, dude, this is an uprising. What are we even doing here? And Trein says It had really good reviews, though.

Lilly:

That was one of my favorite scenes too. And I think because it wasn't just big fight. This person A shoots person, B person C shoots person D for four pages.

Danny:

I mean, that did happen though.

Lilly:

Well, yeah, eventually, but at the beginning there was, there was subterfuge, there was a plot happening in the background. It wasn't just big hits.

Danny:

A creepy song. Ooh, did you guys already play it, by the way, for the podcast? Are you guys gonna do that? And

Lilly:

I did,

Danny:

okay. Excellent.

Lilly:

why I asked you to send me the link.'cause I could not for the life of me find it when we were recording

Danny:

Oh, mentally. How do, maybe this is more of a words or weird thing. How do you pronounce the name of the planet at the end? Could you just call it Serenades

Sara:

I.

Lilly:

I, Sarah Nade,

Sara:

Yeah, I, I said serenade.

Lilly:

but that's how I pronounce that word.

Sara:

Yes, same.

Lilly:

I could see someone with a different accent, maybe pronouncing it differently, but I think that's

Danny:

well sure, but it's a fantasy name because it's the name of a planet, so I dunno. What about you guys least and most favorites?

Lilly:

One of my favorites was the Nron politics scene where the like temporary court, that's not what they call it, the temporary like leadership count. Counsel.

Danny:

Yeah. Yeah.

Lilly:

is trying to decide. This is pretty early on actually. Trying to decide if Trayson and or, or if Trayson has no if or stole from Reson.

Danny:

Mm-hmm.

Lilly:

That was Reson accuses or, and that's also when we first start to see, well, it's not the first time or affects time I don't think, but it's the first time that we get like. Many versions of the scene over and over again. And so that was really cool just from a reading experience perspective. And also we get a lot of, or andreson interacting, which is the highlight of the novel. Their bitchiness was so much fun and it just doesn't come through when they're punching each other.

Danny:

That's fair.

Sara:

Yeah, I think like you, that was one of my favorite scenes just because I really liked and we do see or manipulate time, but previously, but here we get to see him like really committed to getting the right. And it reminded me of save scumming in Baldur's Gate three, which is something that I do constantly because I always want the exact right outcome. So I was like, you know what? Or I get it. And also it was fun to see how his choices kept going wrong until they don't, you know, until, until he finds the right one. But it's, it's not just, he's not trying it with the same person over and over. He, he tries different people in different arguments and because he hasn't actually thought anything out. It, he keeps getting tied up. They both do.

Danny:

shit. Can't do that. That gets us both killed.

Sara:

So I really enjoyed that, a least favorite scene, probably all of the fight scenes just because there were a lot of them.

Danny:

It's a lot of words you don't know.

Sara:

It's not, it's not even that. Like I could handle that, but it's just, I like reading this book made me realize that I just don't care about protracted fight scenes. I can handle one or two, but when they make up 85% of the book, I get a little tired of'em.

Danny:

That's fair.

Lilly:

There also wasn't something else going on at the same

Sara:

Yeah. It was just fighting.

Lilly:

Yeah. And it's like, I know, I know Resons not gonna get killed in this fight. It's not the end of the book yet.

Danny:

Well with Trein, he do get killed all the time.

Lilly:

Well, okay, but then he's gonna come back. I think that was, they were fight scenes with no consequences. So I was just like, I'll, I mean, I read them all, but I definitely zoned out on a couple of them, maybe a lot of them, and skimmed a little bit. And so I got to the end and was like, okay, what, what was the outcome here?

Danny:

I mean, part of what's cool of that for me anyway especially with Trein, is, I mean that's character building, right? He doesn't have to fear consequences like that for doing those sorts of things so he can be even more of an asshole or do whatever because he always has like a get outta jail free card. So, you know. Both establishes that lore and then explains why he's so much of an ass

Lilly:

Yes. So maybe that was a bad example, but I did have a favorite fight scene though, because I didn't hate all of them. The one where we find counselor que ick, and that might be a Galaxy Quest character.

Danny:

quel. I, I'd have to have the book in front of me to,

Lilly:

Cus sounds right when, when they find he has become a sort of mutated creature down in the bowels of the planet. And so there's a fight scene with him there, but there you're also discovering like there's some like who he is and what's going on. And so that kind of balance of yes, there's action, but there's also plot progression. I was much more engaged.

Sara:

It is indeed Alka.

Lilly:

So yeah, my favorite fight scene was that one and then also the one where resin. Barry Orkin and thinks that or is dead for good. And he had put the, like breadcrumbs so that he could teleport out even though he usually can't, because that was also kind of a turning point between them. And also when you start to see, I mean, we knew there was something hinky going on, but that's when you go, oh, there's, there's something actually very, very wrong with this tomb.

Danny:

Mm. Yeah.

Lilly:

So those were my two favorite fight scenes. My least favorite fight scene was definitely the climax of the novel, is a bummer. That's supposed to be the most exciting and compelling part.

Danny:

well it's kind of cool that he fights shards of a God that they killed and they're the God killer people, so that's fun.

Lilly:

Yeah, that could have been two sentences. That right there was the cool part. It didn't need to be 50 pages. I'm not even exaggerating that much.

Sara:

I

Danny:

was

Sara:

would've liked it more if they had made me care more about, like, if they had focused more on, this is a shard of the, you know. Gods who fucked everything up for you guys. Like they, yeah, they, they

Danny:

A deceiver.

Lilly:

deceiver.

Sara:

they just didn't go into that enough for me.

Danny:

I

Lilly:

Un.

Danny:

it a little bit at least,

Sara:

Yeah. Like, like they talk about it a little bit like you, you know, you know, it's a big deal, but you don't, like, there's the implication at one point that Orkin didn't want to give up his body and really fought against it. And also Reson says that he did, and Orkin like says, no, you have my memories. And that's never really fully explain. And so I felt like they could have, there could have been more there.

Danny:

True. Well, part of that is the, again world building around the neons and how they have glitchy data banks. And so yes, he was experiencing seeing Oregon protest. Got it. Confused that it was him because he was the one throwing or into the the fires which is, I don't know. That's fun world building to me.

Lilly:

That is, but they don't go into it at all. I. I liked that moment, and I actually think Treyson handled that very well. He doesn't like, I don't know it, I don't remember exactly his reaction, but he did something like,

Sara:

I mean, he,

Lilly:

it is possible. I misremembered and I'm very sorry that I like that I did that to you. Like no equivocating or trying to make excuses or anything. And I was like, oh, that's very emotionally mature and I did not expect that from you, reson.

Danny:

And let's be honest, people do that on their own with I don't know, 20, 40 years of things that happened that long ago. And so these guys are, you know, thousands upon thousands of years ago.

Lilly:

I want more of that though. Like talk to me about how unreliable their memories are. What are their safeguards and methods for preventing that or working around it? Like I wanted more of that instead of. Here's half a paragraph and now we're gonna go fight some guys.

Danny:

Gotta fight some guys. It's war Hammer baby.

Sara:

like why, why did they realize, when did they realize that the deceiver was deceiving them? And, and why did they

Danny:

What made it a deception?

Sara:

yeah. Why did they, why did they rise up against him in the first place? And so why is it important that they fight him now?

Lilly:

Mm. That sound, that feels like nephron origin story.

Sara:

I wanted more negro origin story in order to care more about about the final fight.

Danny:

it's possible, yeah. That I make some of my preexisting lore knowledge with, or using it to fill in the gaps that are upsetting you guys about it, and so I can totally see that.

Lilly:

And, and so that's a really interesting part where I know, I don't know what those guns look like or what those vehicles do. And so I can just kind of accept like, oh yeah, that's a missing piece of information, but this background knowledge and lore and emotional investment, like I bet someone who plays nephrons and has trades in an Oregon in their armies just has that builtin investment in everything that happens in this book that I simply don't

Sara:

Yeah. And that's, that's the bit that I felt was missing for me. Like, I don't care if I can't visualize something. Like if everything's pugs short, that's, that's fine. I don't, I don't care about that. Because like I said, I'm not necessarily a particularly visual reader to begin with. But feeling. That emotional connection, having that background knowledge so I could fill in some of these gaps about why something was important. That's what felt like it was missing for me. Again, you don't really need it to enjoy the story. I enjoyed the, the book just fine. I had a great time reading it, but I think that I would've had a better time reading it if I had had more of a background in the neons and their history.

Lilly:

It made it a lot more surface level of an experience for me than I I think it probably was for you, Danny, or another

Sara:

Yeah.

Danny:

Yeah.

Lilly:

Well, my. Summary of my reading experience is that it was fun asking you questions and how excited you were for me to read this book. Do you have a favorite or least favorite question I asked you? Not that you were keeping track, so maybe that's an unfair question.

Danny:

Yeah.

Lilly:

Lizards,

Sara:

was there something you were expecting Lily, to ask you?

Danny:

ooh, hmm. No, nothing in particular. So that's not a very fun answer. All of it, really trying to see. Well, I wanted to know, and you guys said, now we just glaze over descriptions of stuff, but Yeah. So it was gonna be the descriptions, no, not of the fights, but of the things in the fights stuff like.

Lilly:

Mm.

Sara:

yeah. All, all I need to know about a gun is that it shoots something. It doesn't matter whether it shoots bullets or lasers or, you know, light, like it doesn't pug heads it, it doesn't matter. It shoots a gun.

Lilly:

You would care if a gun was shooting decapitated, PugHead, Sarah. Don't even.

Danny:

Well, but as far as I understand, if everything's pugs, then the pug heads shoot into guys that rips them into micro pugs. And so that's

Sara:

not, it's not decapitated pug heads. These are, these are the germs that grow into full formed pugs.

Danny:

Like a, like an ork. There

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

Yes. A fungus.

Lilly:

Well, did this make you want to read more War Hammer novels?

Danny:

Me or you guys.

Lilly:

Us The answer is split perfectly between no, and I would read one with you.

Danny:

Nice. Yeah. Well we have that ork one specifically. So I'm done to read that. And was the split Sarah does not want anymore.

Sara:

Well, so it's, it's not that I would refuse to read more war hammer novels because I enjoyed this one. Like if we're going to read another one for the podcast, sure. I would do that. I wouldn't, I wouldn't argue against it or anything, it's just that because I am not particularly interested in Warhammer. Like as a franchise, and I don't have anyone around me who is I'm unlikely to go out and proactively read more, but I'm not like refusing to read more.

Danny:

You heard it here first. We're gonna do the Horace Heresy

Lilly:

all all 60

Danny:

it live. Yeah.

Sara:

this is actually gonna turn into a War Hammer podcast.

Danny:

There we go.

Lilly:

I really did appreciate this book for allowing me to interact more with War Hammer without me having to play.

Danny:

There

Lilly:

So,

Danny:

It's a long game.

Lilly:

yeah. I could probably read this book in the time it takes for you guys to play two games. So it, in that sense, that was a, a huge benefit to me. And I mean, that's just, yeah, I, I, I appreciated it. I don't know, I don't know if I would read more novels, but more lore. I, I bet there's just collections of lore out there al almost might be more interesting.

Sara:

I mean,

Danny:

the short stories.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

I would go out and read the Wikipedia pages maybe,

Lilly:

Yeah. I could see myself getting into a wiki hole.

Danny:

There's also War Hammer specific Wikipedia of course, or multi-hour long YouTube videos, if that's your, uh.

Lilly:

absolutely

Sara:

but no, no.

Lilly:

But yeah, all in all, I'm very glad I read it and enjoyable reading experience. Although I can see gaps where it probably could have been more enjoyable for someone else.

Danny:

So I'm curious, you guys are kind of, more well read than I am. Certainly. I thought this was written pretty well. Did you think the the pros and everything was up to par, or are you just being polite and humoring me for or hammer book?

Lilly:

If any other book just said the name of a thing with absolutely no context for what that thing was, I would eviscerate it.

Danny:

Yeah.

Lilly:

So that is a, a huge allowance I'm giving to this book because it is a tie in novel for this other thing. The pros itself, I thought was fine. Yeah. And I, and not fine. Like in a acceptable, like it was, it was well done.

Sara:

yeah, like I, I thought the pros was enjoyable. I am, like Lily said, giving it some leeway for some of the choices it made or some of the choices that that wrath made. But I think that's just related to it is a tie in novel. 99.9% of the people reading this do have some of that background knowledge and don't need those gaps filled in like I do because this book ultimately is not written for me. It's written for someone who is a Warhammer fan.

Lilly:

And someone who wants those fight scenes, because that's what War Hammer is. It's fight scenes.

Danny:

if you glazed over the most grim dark part of the novel, is it really not grim dark?

Lilly:

I, I just, violence is not, to me anyway,

Sara:

Violence is not the only thing that makes grim dark. Grim dark.

Danny:

Certainly.

Lilly:

It's, it's the pessimism, it's the, there's, there's no way out of this.

Sara:

Yeah, it's, it's the attitude as well.

Danny:

You're gonna want a novel from a human's perspective, not a space Marine. It's just some lowly grunt and I, I'm sure there are some of those, but from God killing immortal robots, you're probably not getting as much pessimism.

Lilly:

to specify, I'm not particularly a fan of Grim Dark. I was really glad that I opened this book and was like, oh, it's silly. Okay. I'm going to enjoy this process.

Sara:

Yeah. I do, I do think that I enjoyed the book more because it was not grim dark.

Lilly:

Yeah. I just think it was worth addressing. Like that is probably the big literary crossover is the groom dark genre term being coined from this world, and so it was interesting to me how separate they were. But I was grateful for that Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Sara:

Come disagree with us. We're on Blue Sky and Instagram at Fiction Fans Pod. You can also email us at fiction fans pod@gmail.com or leave a comment on YouTube.

Lilly:

If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Sara:

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.

Lilly:

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye.