Adeptus Ridiculous - SOUL HUNTER | Warhammer 40k Book Review & Discussion

Episode Date: August 7, 2021

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Adeptus Ridiculous Podcast, book club edition. My name is D.K. Diamantes, and today we are going to be talking about Soul Hunter. But before we do, if you enjoy today's podcast, have it over to patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous, and consider supporting the podcast if you enjoyed today's. I think I just repeated that. Whatever, it doesn't matter. It's early. You'll get access to bloopers, behind-the-scenes stuff, the Discord, HD posters.

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Make sure to check that out at Orkidate.com or description of this episode. and DK I have I got a statement for you sir statement I got I got some great news Oh give give me the news Everyone in this podcast

Is going to die Oh no I don't That's not that's not a great statement To start off with That's a that's that's Oh it was a reference Oh

Oh really What what do Bricky Oh yeah Did you actually not recognize the reference? Um, I would assume it had to be something from Soul Hunter. It would have to be something from Soul Hunter. But I was like, everybody didn't die in Soul Hunter.

A lot of people did. So the Atrementar is trying to mess up the ritual of reawakening for Malkarian. Oh, right, they do. And they just ghost town after that. It was cool. It was cool scene. Anyway. Vrawl.

Vrawl. You want to know a good way. to die in Soul Hunter. A really good way. Listen to it on an audio book with a giant fucking bottle of vodka next to you. High Russian graham. And every time someone slowly says, Talos,

take a fucking shot. You're going to get so fucked up. So destroyed. Please understand. If you follow that meme, you're going to get so fucked up. Talos. Talos.

Talos. So, I'm there. So some people have been telling us that, because the book club is a book club, having it split between like spoilers and non-spoilers seems kind of redundant. I guess so, because like everybody's known for like a month and they've had a month to like prepare and get ready for spoilers and talk about spoilers. So I guess I always kind of worried that there's going to be like that influx of people

that didn't hear that we were going to do it and they're just dropping by to sort of, hey, is this worth getting? You know? That's a good point. Then again, that's their fault. And, you know, sucks. So, but this is the warning they get

is that this episode will be spoiler-heavy. We're just going to go all out into it. It's a pretty popular 40K book. Not as popular as like Gant's Ghosts, but it's pretty up there in terms of people who know about it. Oh, it's very dope. I thoroughly enjoyed Soul Hunter. Normally, I try to just, like, blast through these and just like, oh, yeah, let me get, like, halfway done in, like, two weeks or one week or a couple days. This one was, like, some big shit would happen. Like, Talos would order that the bridge of the ship that he's on be blown up so he can get off. And it's like, okay, I gotta stop for a second and process this. and not try to consume this whole book in like three days, because it's,

it's pretty easy to binge it. It's paste incredibly well. Everything flows into each other very well. It's just, it's well, it's well-paced. And it's like a thing that's hard to describe, like how can certain TV shows or books have you be just going through them

at lightning speed? Or how can, say, a three-hour-long movie, like an interstellar or something? Can you watch that and have it not feel terrible? It's generally because it's pace so dang well. We should talk about what Soul Hunter is about. I guess we probably should talk about the prophet, my prophet. Is that my thing?

Do I talk about who? Yeah, I think you give the general overview. Also, it's night lords. Yeah. That's all you. Yeah. So Soul Hunter is the story of 10, 10th company First Claw, which is the squad of night lords way during,

I think, the modern time, way past the horse, Harry Seenol, and it follows our main character Talos Valcoran, who is not technically the sergeant of First Claw, but definitely damn feels like it. And he is afflicted by a very similar curse to his father, Conrad Curz, where he can see the future and all that shenanigans. and is a very impressive way to make the night lord surprisingly understandable. I don't know if I'd go as far as to say sympathetic, because they're pretty dastardly.

Yeah. But you still root for them regardless. Yeah, you definitely root for them. They are, they're underdogs, I'd say. It sure feels like they're underdogs. They're like getting their shit pushed in everywhere. They're, they're like the dark horse, which probably suits them, right? Because they're not weaklings.

They're not to be underestimated. They're a little low on numbers, though. A little bit. They have like, what, 39 Astardis on the ship? Yep, yep, something like that. It's not many. And then when Vandred lets, what, does Vandred let an entire claw go? or something and he's like ah it's no big deal

and Talos is like what not a big deal there's 30 of us man I think yeah I think this is when they fought well so they fight a goddamn warhound titan which is insane by the way which is just insane and they win

they do granted with the help of a ton of missiles from a flyer land raider and melta bombs but it wiped out seventh claw because they they took in Mercutian from Seventh Claw

Into First Claw You don't get a lot of Mercutian He's like near the end of the Not maybe like the second half of the book But he doesn't have a whole lot Yeah Because First Claw It's weird because you looked at Gant's ghosts

And we kind of had the brothers in arms feel And First Claw has that But they all hate each other They do They really do Especially fucking Ouzas Man Usass is just

He's like the big dumb one That's his whole shtick. And he's corrupted by corn. Yep. Yep. Towards the end, I think right before they were going to go on cry, or something, and Ouzeses is just like, blood for the blood, God.

And Talus is like, shut up! And he just smashes his head against the fucking bulkhead. There's the part when he's fucking, when they're underneath the Titan, and Ousis is firing his bolter at it. And he's just like screeching a bunch of demonic names. And then Talos punches him. him like nine times to knock him out

and then drags him behind Rumble. I forgot that Uzes was sitting under this giant warhound titan just blasting away like he thought he was going to do shit to it. It's interesting too because Uzzas is the very obvious. So first clock consists of

Talos, Zaro spells X-A-R-L if you didn't know that. When they pronounce it, I could have sworn it it was S-R-A-S-A- R-L with the way he pronounced it, but yeah, it's... I thought it was Z-A-R-L at first, like a pretty classic Zarl, but no.

There's Zoro, there's Sarihan, who is our quietly chaos-tainted, um, yes. Uh, funny man. He's our, he's our technically comedic relief. Funny man, air quotes. It's, it's mainly just really dry, dull humor, but, In a book of pretty sad, depressing shit, he's a welcome edition. Usas and then it's Mercutian now.

It's the main members of First Claw. That's right, because Ademar is, he's no longer with us. Yes. Adamar, right? When I was rereading it, I didn't get far enough to remember how he died, because I don't remember it being particularly exciting. He tried to bum rush a dream. red knot. Oh, right.

That's right. He got fucked up with the Blood Angels dreadnought. He tried to... I was like, man, what did you expect? That's right. That's right. He didn't have... Yeah, he didn't have a long period time.

Because that's the big five. Mekritsi and Syrian, Uzaz, Zaral, and Talas. Well, it was actually a sixth one, but he doesn't come until Blood Reaver. Okay. His name is Vario, and he is a treat. Saying that about a night lord That's got to be some special shit It's some good shit

He's a treat oh really But the book is Very good It's paced well The voice acting really elevates it He's very slow Andrew Wincott Because this is written by Aaron Dembsky Bowden

And narrated by Andrew Wincott and Andrew Wincott, obviously, I'm not Russian, I don't know how good the Russian accents are, technically, from a technical standpoint. But every word, every sentence feels so punctuated. Oh, yeah. Everything. Very deliberate, very methodical, yeah. Yeah, it feels like every single word he's saying has some major import, which is pretty cool. And Aaron Dembsky Bowden is written a lot of books.

he wrote Betrayer, which is our Latara Serrin book. Oh, nice. He did write that as well, so, you know, good on him. But he's really good at getting that narrative. It's weird. He kind of gets rid of natural convention when it comes to books quite often. For example, I was telling you this before, near the beginning of the book,

they're going to go get what is now Octavia, what used to be Eritusy. Right. And he spends a good, like, half chapter, maybe not that much, but a decent amount of time, just describing Cartonsign. Everything about his ship, the maiden of the stars, and all about him. And he just fucking dies. He does. You get his whole life's history, how he became a thug, how he, and it's just like, you're gone. Then over the box, you get the same for Octavia, but she's an important character.

True. And then you get their catchphrase, We have come for you. And they just die in like 50 seconds. But it's neat seeing the power struggle kind of going around because the Legion is damaged. You have the Exalted, who is, I believe, pledged to Zinch. Because he kept saying, like, changer of fate. So I think that that's a waiver of fate.

Yeah. Weaver of fate, sorry. Yeah. And he's, so he was originally Captain Vandred, who was obviously well respected and is now got a demon in him. And Syrians like, yo, I got chaos taint too. And let me tell you, Van Tred is not happy in there. Oh, man, when he's like, yeah, I can, I can hear chaos. And, you know, when I listen to the exalted, oh boy, all I hear is Van Dred's suffering and mourning and in the most brittle, terrible agony you've ever.

heard and that is what I hear whenever the exalted speaks and it's like oh oh no and Zarro was like I could have lived my whole life not knowing that he's like TMI bitch I like how whenever he

talks with Zorro he's got this like really like I don't care what you do at this and that house he's very like grindy with his words he's Batman no no he's not

Batman Zorro's pretty far from Batman. I guess. Isn't he like a rape? I mean, they're all Batman, right? Wasn't he like, wasn't Zara like a rapist at like 12 or something?

Isn't he fucking awful like the rest of them? So I always get Zaral and Syrian, was Zara the one that was with Talos's friend. Okay. Yes, I think he was. Yeah.

And then Talos killed a shopkeeper because they were trying to loot and rob him blind and he came out. after them, so Talos was like, well, I guess you gotta go. And then he shanked him between the ribs at like 13 years old. Yeah. Oh, boy, Nistramus, great place.

Such is life on Nistramos. Yep, oh, Nistramas. Speaking, well, I guess not, sort of speaking of Nistramas, I love it with a covenant of blood. That setting. Oh, just the endless night. Yeah, it's like its own character, right? Just like Nistramo was.

Just like Nistram, I was trying to remember what place you had said. It was like, oh, this is really great because it's like its own character. It's right, it was Nistrama in the Nightlord episode, but you should go watch on YouTube. Great Dean Kaman. Excellent Dean Kaman. He would be proud of you. Thank you. But, yeah, that ship has a lot of personality.

And the fact that it's like, the Exalted is like hardwired into it. So he knows, like, everything. thing, like he feels it, he feels it breathing. It's like a part of him. It's, ooh, and boy, does he, the exultant runs that ship ragged. He is, he is not a fun man to be under. And you know what I kind of like? I like how the Atramentar, the Terminator elite, don't, like, they don't necessarily pick sides.

Like, my job is to protect the Exalted, that's what I'm going to do. Yeah. Like, I don't need to like him. but I'm going to have to be careful about it. That's the interesting power struggle that goes with it. The whole book, I assume that the big climax was going to be like, okay, Talos is finally going to be like, okay, the Exalted has gone too far. He's been tainted by chaos.

Chaos has overwhelmed him. He's making some shitty decisions. I may not think that I should lead 10th company, but God damn it, something has to be done about the exalted. Like, I thought that was going to be like the climax, like the big final battle. No. It's out.

Not really. No, the exalted actually gets on their side. Yeah, I was, that really, like, I was kind of taken back when he was like, oh, yeah, we need to defend the ship. And I believe Talos, he is, he's my brother. And I was like, wow, really? Okay. Well, yeah, because it's like, it's like, he obviously doesn't, he,

hates Talos, obviously. But at the same time, he's thinking to himself, well, he still has the good of all of us in his head, technically. And he was right to do what he did, which was get the fuck out. But it was kind of badass when Van Tread was like doing really well at Void War at Spaceship Battle. And you're like, okay, I believe. It was written very well to like, I believe that Van Derrude was a damn good.

captain. Yep. Well, even at the, at the very beginning, they really plant the seeds that, like, Void War, that's where the exalted specializes. He might not be, you know, boots on the ground, but you get him in a spaceship battle? No one better. Like, um, when, when they took out, like, those two main ships, uh, orbiting cry, I forget what the first one was called, but the, and they took out the sword of the god emperor, like they did that fucking Tokyo drift. Oh, yeah. Right next to it. Like cornice dive or something. Yeah, it was great.

And they just blast holes in it. They leave first company in there and they overload the shields. That fight in the Sword of the God Emperor has one of my favorite moments. And we talked about it before. But they're like, all the slaves are running from all the decks. And it's like, oh, look at the uniforms. They're like from the gunnery deck. And Zarl's like, I don't believe you.

Grab civilian. What deck are you from? Is it the guttery deck? And I love the fact that like the way it's written after he does that, the next line is the the, the civilian. Now obviously death. His speakers to full volume. Yeah.

And now deaf, he fires his last pistol at Zarl's head. It ricochets off his helmet and he brains himself. It's actually I think it's an auto pistol because it's a, because it's a bullet bullet. Oh, okay, yeah,

it was a last pistol would just like dissipate because it's laser. But, but yeah, he just, that's like the small bit of actual genuine comedy

or like he defends this guy and he shoots him in the head and he just kills himself. It kills himself, yeah. And then they're all like throws him into the like the fleeing slaves or the fling crewmen.

Doesn't he like kills several people by throwing a slave? Well, they're like trudging through people running away from all the problems, which is obviously interesting because they're running away from running towards night lords and they prefer that. And Ouzas is in the back like ha ha ha ha ha.

He's having a blast. Yeah, he's a kid in a candy shop Ouzas is. Their strategy for getting out of that ship is wild. Let's just blow off the bridge and then jump. Come out into space. Can we have a, can we have a, fucking Septimus Simp moment

Yes, Septimus is incredible Septimus is God, he's the real hero of this story He kind of is And it's obvious that he's him and Octavia

are trying to You know There's Of course There's a lot of that going on But it's kind of Besides the fact that I think Octavia's a little

She's a little underwritten and also I don't want to call her whiny because then I'm like Just except being a slave Fucking loser Just be a slave

Yeah And it's like Not only is she a slave But she's a slave to a traitor legion When her whole life She is totally believed In worshipping the god emperor So it is the worst

Possible worst in her opinion To get caught by like The Night Lords And turned into the eighth slave Octavian. Yeah. But at the same time, I'm also, I feel like she never fully embraces her predicament. Oh, yeah.

And, look, if she was constantly being, like, fighting back against Talos and stuff, that would make sense. But she's constantly giving Septimus shit. And I'm like, ah, come on, is Septimus. I like Septimus. He's kept you alive. He's helping you out. He gave you the, um, the, the medallion that keeps you safe so that nobody on the covenant of blood

will shank you, hopefully. Hopefully. Hopefully. Besides the fact that those crew decks are just vile and creepy. Yeah, they are. I was surprised that there was a crew deck that was like, oh, yeah, this is the crew deck, this is where all the mortals are. It's as bad as Nistramos, and it's like, oh, okay. Why do you have civilians here?

Why are there civilians on your Covenant of Blood Astardi's battle cruiser? That's actually pretty common. Most imperial and non-imperial cruisers have a large amount of civilians or like crew like that on it because the ships are literally cities well the starry crews are smaller than most but the sword of the god emperor is like multiple city spires of thing

of ships I suppose that's true whenever I do see a picture of like in a starty ship it's got like spires coming out of it and cathedrals hanging off of it so well I guess that's I guess that's fair it just seems weird that like a battle cruiser meant for war is like yeah let's have

a city of civilians here and it's like maybe true but it does kind of embrace the like I always think of it like the metro games where in metro when you go underground into the metro there's like a crappy kind of late Soviet looking like market down there

and everyone's like hey Artium hello and the kind of thing like that and so I always assume that it's similar to that where it's dark and drengy and it's got all the corruption of of chaos, but at the same time, it's, it's like, it's very much a black market. I mean, doesn't they call it black market?

Yeah. Yeah, which is ironic. Because it's really dark. Really dark. Yeah, well, the mortals actually trade lamp packs or batteries for lamp packs, right? That's one of the things they trade, yeah.

Among, obviously there's no money, so it's all barter. Yeah. Because I think Septimus shows up and he's like, oh, would you like to buy a lamp? Oh, it's Septimus. I guess I probably don't need to peddle this to you. Damn it. whatever, what do you want? It's kind of funny about Septimus is that

like, they might gloss over if you don't remember, but it's very, like he's described as a very attractive man. The dude's got like a dusty flight jacket, some medium blonde hair and like a blonde shizzled beard

and two Las pistols, which is pretty, which is pretty baller and then half of his body gets shanked off. Oh, yes it does. Which is very upsetting. The robotics that he gets sound very cool, though. He's got like an emerald eye and like part of his face is all metal and his arms metal.

And you got himself fucked up. Which speaking of that, another instance of let's give a whole backstory to a criminal and just watch as he gets carved in half by heavy bolters. Oh, right. When they're trying to assault the Thunderhawk. Right, right. but before there's the big meeting with um oh with abadon with abadon with abadon talos is summoned by abadon after they've gotten the the two cruisers out of the way and they can make landfall and cry then there's ooh the despoiler wants to see you the ward chief wants to see you it's like oh yeah and guess i'll go see

him honestly um just the conversation between the two of them does more credit to Abadon that I think any of our reading has done. Yeah. Because, like, Talos does kind of shit all over him. He really does. Which is pretty cool, to be honest. But at the same time, like, Abandon's fucking terrifying. Yeah.

Abadon loves flexing that horace claw and just cutting the air with it and just like, hey, look, this could be you. This could be you. And it's like, oh, you are a horrifying man. Like, I know you're the display, but Jesus. And Talos shows him no respect. Absolutely none. Zero respects.

He doesn't give a little fuck. Doesn't, like, right to his face, doesn't Talos be like, yeah, you know you're known for, like, being a complete fucking failure. And you've never succeeded at anything. I don't know why you think I give a fuck who you are. You're just a big, limey failure. And it's like, whoa, Talos, please. He does kind of go off. in the sense of like, hey,

like, though your Black Crusades have all failed. I'm not interested in your offer. Go away. It's like, whoa, Delos. I don't know if that's such a smart thing to do. Well, it wasn't. Then he immediately got shot. With a bolter full of gas or something, right?

Yeah, he got shot by the storm bolter on his arm, apparently wickedly fast because they described it's not even reacting to it. Yeah. And then you got, it was like a gas grenade. or something and that was when this is actually probably the part of the book I wasn't a big fan of was him being tempted by the Four Powers. Yeah.

It felt a little, it dragged a little. Yeah, I loved the voice acting that was great. That was great for each of the different sort of I guess they were like avatars of the chaos gods because they weren't the chaos gods themselves, were they?

Yeah, they were never referred to as like Slanesha Nergel. They had like their own Well, the voice acting almost made it clear enough because Nurgle was very Blah Blah Blah. Yeah. So you got like, oh, okay, this is Norgle. I got it. It was kind of cool to see like the stark difference between like the way corn, well,

corn, Corne didn't even get his full chance to talk to Talos before he came out of his little deep sleep. And I mean, we don't need another ooze us. No, God, no. We really, really don't. I think doesn't the Sinch one. be like, oh yeah, by the way, did you know, I'm in Syrian?

Fuck you, bitch. No, it's the Slanesh one. Oh, the Slanesh one, right, right, right, right, right, right, because he hears the suffering. Yeah, Sleeneche thing, isn't it, yeah. Syrians tainted by Slanesh, which is not a good thing. No, no, yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's, it's at least interesting to hear all of the avatars of chaos, even though Talos is like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, you're all fucking, you're all fucking

losers. I don't want any part of you. Bye. And then just dips out of the I almost wonder if it was because they wanted to get the four avatars of chaos for like the reader to understand. Maybe. There's like, hey, here's the four chaos gods.

Here's their schick. As opposed to as opposed to like, I don't know, trying to work it in the story because obviously we know but it could have been for like a new person type deal so you can truly understand. Yeah, because I guess if you're a new reader you've been hearing a lot about how Vandrit has been corrupted by chaos.

You've been hearing about how Uzis has been tainted by chaos with all of his crazy corn shit. So I guess it's nice to have like sort of a little introduction to all the chaos factions and all their gods and their avatars and whatnot. Which speaking of, we haven't really discussed why it's called Soul Hunter. we haven't have we no so I mean so obviously the book's called Soul Hunter Talos is known as Soul Hunter but the he was also known as the prophet because of his affliction but at the same time we don't really know why he's called Soul Hunter other people know but we're not fully told until the end basically the end of the book or at least a damn close to the end of the book yeah it's like the last four chapters is

when you find out why he's called Soul Hunter. Yeah, it's a double climax. Because the climax of the book is them fleeing the battle at Crives away from Abadon. Yep. And also repelling Blood Angel borders. Yep. Which was kind of cool. And then the other climax was the flashback to what actually happened.

And, D.K., would you like to tell the people why he's called Soul Hunter? I think it was also amusing because it was Malco. That's the revived dreadnought? Macador is Emperor's sage friend. Oh, right. There's so many M names, man. Malkarian. Malkarian, right.

The war sage, who has like a quote every chapter. Yeah, because he was like, oh, yeah, Conrad told me why you were called Soul Hunter. And when he told me, I laughed because I thought he was joking. That's right. I thought it was comedy. It was one of the few times I genuine laugh,

but he was serious. He's called Soul Hunter because he would hunt for one soul. When all of his brothers turned their back on vengeance and allowed Conrad Kerr's assassin Emshen to flee and leave, it would only be Talos that would hunt down that one soul of Emshen. And he was.

He was the only one that wanted the, the revenge for his gene father. Everyone else was like, no, Talos, you can't. This is what Conrad wanted. Don't be a bitch. And Talos is just like, nope, I'm not listening. I'm gonna get it. And I thought one of the most amusing things,

the only reason his Knight Lord brothers were like, oh shit, we gotta go help Talos, we gotta go get Emshen, is because they realized that Emshen had looted Conrad, Kerr's corpse and that they had taken night lord relics and they were like oh shit I want that I didn't think it was the I think it was the relic if I was because she had his head so I don't know when I read the book it seemed like uh towels like oh yeah once once everyone's like oh god they took his crown they took his sword they and they wanted it for like themselves

and that's the only reason they were like spurned on to go after that's what it sounded like maybe maybe she had that I know you're definitely right in the same since the night lords just kind of wanted to loot the body. Yeah. Which I don't remember if she had it or not. I know she had his head, but she might have taken some of this stuff. I think she had like a crown and something else. I forget what it was.

But yeah, she took a bunch of relics with her too. I thought it. But regardless, Talos absolutely was not in it for the loot. He was in it to murder. Strictly revenge. And I forget when you told me this, but you're like, oh yeah, Mshend put up a really good fight. And she did.

Yeah. She was like a ballerina dodging bolters, dodging everything. But man, when Talos gets his claws in her. It is actually really good writing because all of what he does to kill her has been set up between the Blood Angels, I think it was the Blood Angels blade,

or was it a chain sword that he killed her with? I think it was a I want to say it was a chain sword because I don't think he had Orham at the time I don't quite remember or because it's pretty quick after the heresy Well regardless They said it up in the sense that

Obviously they were dealing with Eldar At the same time He barely He barely killed an assassin who lost her arm Because she 1v5'd Eldar That's right she did That's right The Eldar kind of showed up out of nowhere

Was that part of her? escape plan? Because that kind of threw everything in the chaos a little bit. I think it was just bad luck. Yeah. But the point being is that, you know, he fights her and she's just dipping and dodging every bolter shot, basically. But they set it all up, which is really good because setups and payoffs are important in all kinds of media. And like, hey, in the beginning of the book, I'm the sword of the god emperor, he runs

into a room and just screeches at the top of his lungs and deafens everybody. Everybody, yeah. And they set up the Astardis having acidic spit. And so he spits in her face and boils her eyes out and then screams and deafens her. And then it's like, well, Assassin's now blind and deaf. Now I can shake her. Yep. And she's still putting up a fight.

Even when she's blind and deaf, she's like, oh, I bet he's going to be here. Let me lunge at this spot. And she's right. Yep. Oh, she's like feeling the vibrations in the floor when he's moving. And she's right. And it's like, oh, my, your eyes, she, like, it literally describes, like, the feeling of her eyes burning out of her socket. And she still has the wherewithal, like, feel the vibrations and do that.

It's insane. And the whole time before that, she's like, oh, Astardis, I don't give a fuck. I'm an assassin. This guy is nothing to me. And I'm like, whoa, lady, look, I get that you think you're a god killer, but wow. to think of and a starry so low is like and what sucks is that she backed it up the whole time she was quite right

oh my god she's just dabbing on this man it's crazy but yeah that's I guess I wasn't expecting the whole M-Shen part to be in Soul Hunter but it makes sense that it is because that's his name you didn't expect Talos to be the person that's true I didn't expect Talos to like be the one that actually went and got Emshed.

You didn't think that the book, the main character of the book would be so important. Oh, yeah. You know, you normally, because it's always like a side character or something, but yeah, and right after, right after Kerr's,

it's just like, Talos, you think I give a shit what happens to any of you when I die? I don't care. I just don't. That quote is in the book, too, yeah. Yeah. That might be like the next quote that they get.

It's a really, it's a solid quote, or it's like, Do you honestly think I care what happens to you after I die? And I'm like, world's best dad mug, broken. I'm about to be vindicated in death. Do you really think I care what happens to you, idiots? It's like, oh, dad, come on, we love you.

Yeah, interesting, how much they love their Conrad and how much he hates them. It's such a hard one-sided relationship. And everybody in the night lords is still just like. Like, they hold Conrad in such reverence that it's like, you know he didn't like you, right? You know, he literally blew up Nostromos because you guys are such idiots, right? So it's weird. I think it's that feeling of like, not only did we get betrayed by the Imperium, but we failed, we failed at stopping the Imperium. And not only that, but we failed our father, who also hates us.

Yep, yep. It was funny at the beginning of the book when they're like first, they first introduced. do Septimus and they're like, oh yeah, you know, I'm, I'm walking through the halls. Oh my God, this place is, so he keeps talking about like his master, because they hadn't introduced fully Talos yet. And they're like, oh yeah, my master is this and my master is that. And then he starts talking, I think Syrian and Sarling is like, oh yeah, his, his visions are playing him again. My master's visions are haunting him. I'm like, yeah, it's the main fucking character this book, Conrad? Like, what the fuck is going on? Like, because he has the same prophetic visions

and it's just, he seems very Conrady at the beginning until they're like, oh, yeah, my name is Talos. I'm like, oh, so he's not Conrad. Okay, cool. I know the setting of this book now. Great. I now understand it. Yes, now I get it. I get your, I get your plot.

Cool, cool, cool. This isn't like a flashback to the night before Conrad Kurz dies or something. It's a rather interesting situation that the book puts you into because they get into areas where, like, you can tell that Talibur's. legitimately gives this shit about Septimus. Oh, definitely, yeah. He's still slave and all that, but he definitely cares. But it's really impressive seeing the, like, the heavy genuineness of him going after Octavia, after the criminals get to them.

Yep. Because not only is it just, it's really grim to listen to. Because the narrator is talking about that, and they're like, he's like, Oh, we're inmates. We've been backed by the Black Legion. And they told us they killed a slave on there. And guess what? There's a woman.

And I'm like, oh, my God. Oh, yeah. Oh, God. I forgot about that. Yeah. It's so nasty. It's so grimy and gross. And then Talos is just like breaks into a full sprint to go save her life.

Yep. And it's like, I know why he's doing it. If she didn't matter, he wouldn't care. But it's still kind of cool to see. It feels, it feels like weirdly honorable and kind. Oh, definitely. Even though it's Nightlord. Also, when he kills those inmates that captured her, holy shit.

One of them, he rams the bolter into his mouth so hard that he breaks all of his teeth. And then he shoots him. Before shooting him in the head. The other one, he boltors him in. in like the stomach and he explodes, but he, like, his torso is still kind of intact, and he survives for a whole 12 seconds just after. Just like wailing. Yeah, and it's like, oh.

And I find it funny because at that point he's talking to Ruvin, the ex-night-lord sorcerer on the Vox or whatever. And then as soon as the guy stopped screaming, narrators like, Talos was upset because he certainly enjoyed the sound. And you're like, oh, that's right, night lords. That's such a night lords thing to enjoy. It's like, ah, yes, the sweet, relaxing music

of the death howls of someone's suffering. It's like, oh, Talos, just step on his head or something. Jesus Christ. It's part of that are super cool. Like when Octavia says thank you to him, And he's like, Talas didn't respond. The feeling was, the, the statement was too unfamiliar. Yeah.

And I'm like, that's really, that's, that's like some emo shit there, but it's, it works. Yeah, it's, it's, it's so telling of, like, what it's like to be a night lord. Because who would say thank you in the nightlords? Like, who would express gratitude like that? Like, nobody. It's, it's not a thing. It's your fucking night lords. And you're a starty's, so, you know.

Yeah, even, even doubly so. Yeah. That's a fucking double whammy. What'd you think of, what'd you think of Deltrian? The, uh, the tech priest? Yeah. He's, I, he's, he's weird. He's so, he's, yeah.

He's weird, man. He's great, man. I love him. He was great. I mean, didn't he get cut in half by Vrol? He got injured. He kind of crawled away. Right.

He doesn't have a lot of organs left. Yeah, I mean, he's a tech priest. He probably wants to be 100. percent not human if at all possible. I just really like the, not only that, the voice acting where Talas is like, thank you,

thank you so much for helping us, tech priests. Like, I appreciate it. It's like, you have ruined the ritual of awakening with your thanks. Cease communication.

That's, that's true. That's true. I forgot the, um, the part where, um, Talos is thanking him and he's like,

oh, that's not part of the ritual. What do you do? Tallas is like, did I, did I ruin it? And he's like, no,

it's, It's fine, but... Yeah, he spurs out, like, garble bits of binary static. Which, it's just, it's like, it's like his verb of a grunt. Or he's like, er. And so it's kind of like, that's him smiling or something. It's really weird. And that's while they are trying to revive the dreadnought,

which is weird that what's his face? Because it's another M name and I'm getting them all confused. He was Malkarian. The war sage Malkarian, exerting from his work, the teneprous path, repeated like ten times in that book. Yep. There were... Talos is reviving him because he's like, God, we're fighting on Criveth, and we're only fighting the Adeptus Mechanicus. And we're night lords.

We're supposed to use terror. That's our greatest weapon. And we're fighting these fucking robots that don't feel anything. We're wasted here. And we're fighting Titans. We need a dreadnought. If we're going to do boots on the... We need a fucking dreadnought.

And boy, the Exalted really doesn't want that. He really doesn't want Malkador waking up. Malkarian. Malcari. Jesus. Whatever. I know. I know. The dreadnought.

Because I think he outranks him. Because he was the captain of the 10th. I don't know if being the captain of the ship means more, but no one likes the exalted anyway, so... Yeah, nobody really does. But the... But it's weird, because once he wakes up, he doesn't really try and be like,

oh, yeah, everybody listen to me now. I'm the best. Burp, burp, burp, burp. I'm floating an amniotic fluid. He just kind of listens to be... That's true. Because Ma'Karian didn't want this. Yeah, he didn't want to be...

I don't think he wanted to be, like, put to sleep, and he definitely didn't want to wake up. He didn't want to be in tombs. He wanted to die. Right. And I think what Deltrian said that he had been tried, they tried to wake him up many times before this. And I didn't realize you could refuse being woken up and put into a dreadnought, but apparently you can. You're still like you. And the only reason he woke up is, and I quote, I heard Bolter fire. And then he just like incinerates the Atchementar with his Reaper Auto Cannon.

Yep, he blows the shit out of wrong That's right, I forgot his reasoning for waking up Was I heard bolter firing just The slight bits of levity in this otherwise rather unhappy book Yeah, but the moments of levity are pretty hysterical When they do happen Zorro yelling at the guy is the top one for me It's so good

That is chef's kiss I howled when that part The VA did a good job because he was actually yelling He was very cool Where are you from? Is it the gallery?

Tunk It's like Oh Jesus Ah damn it throws body He's dead I really like Zarl a lot Because he's like He's like their champion

So he's I think their best fighter Technically Oh yeah Was it Zar or Syrian That had like The really good shot. Oh, that'd be Zarl.

Okay, right, right. Oh, that's right. And when he was fighting the, um, when he was fighting Vrawl, he loses his arm, doesn't he? Uh, yeah,

he gets, or something. He gets it shanked off by the Vral's lightning claws. Boy, those lightning claws, they're fucking spooky, man. He runs in that room and he just starts breaking shit and people.

Yes, he does. That's fucking Terminators, man. They're, oh. They're, they're not.

to be messed with. No, definitely not. I love that when they were waiting for Rala's like, oh yeah, there's no way even a Terminator could take five of us Astardis. It's like, holy shit.

There's only three of them. I think there's only three of them actually. I think. Oh, yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah, he's like, oh, even a Terminator couldn't 3V1 us, right? Proceeds to get 3V1

and only saved by an awakening dreadnod. Yeah, yeah, basically. Granted, they were on their way. They were hurting him. They were, like, messing with his joints. They stabbed him in the stomach. Yeah. But, yeah, I wasn't quite getting there.

But then, yeah, thank you, thank you, Dreadnought for, thank you, dreadnought. Blowing him into pieces. I like a, I like a lot of Malkyrian's quotes. They're very, they're very telling of the mentality of the Eighth Legion, how they hate mostly, mostly hate demons. and they're like, they definitely feel like they're very into the concept of

I have been betrayed by the Imperium and now I, I, like, reap its civilians in justice for their betrayal. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're still not good people, but, you know. Yeah. I was kind of surprised that they still help the Black Legion

after Abidon essentially completely betrayed. them and tried to destroy their thunder hawk and tried to corrupt tallows. Well, the exalted. Well, I guess that was the exalted plan to get rid of tallows, right? The exalted plan was to kill the slaves. Right. Yeah, so it was kind of both their hand.

But I mean, there's still, it's still like the overall war effort. Yeah. You know. It also shows how not unified chaos is. I mean, I knew they weren't. But it's like, man, you guys, if you guys could put aside your differences and actually come together as like a whole unit, you guys might actually win some stuff. You know, actually? But I guess it's kind of like the orcs.

If they actually fought with each other, they'd be like unstoppable. But that's the point. They don't want a unstoppable villain faction that just runs a rough shot over the Imperium. No, and they actually don't give chaos a whole lot of fun in the lore anyway. they're constantly like don't mess with us chaos fans we'll do a little bit of damage before you ultimately beat us. Poor chaos fans. It is good to see the infighting though.

It kind of continues to show the issues just like how in the Infinite Divine we saw all the necrone politics and how long it took to get anything done. Right, yeah. So it was nice to see it was nice to see that the infighting and how they went against each other. It also, and it's good to see the difference between the legions. It was kind of cool seeing the Cockney British accents and the Black Legion. Mm-hmm. That was really fun, where all the Black Legion Terminators are looking all the Nightlord.

It's like, nice knife, night lord. I was that a fucking pun? Oh, the other moment of levity, I think, Talos was going down to cry and like the prison that had like the million people in it and I think he was trying to turn off like the shield generator

and he was looking at the controls and he was like God, why is the Imperium so fucking stupid? Like this is a prison planet. This is a prison planet with millions of people that are slated for execution, death or worse and you have a shield to prevent

the place from being bombed Yeah, yeah. What is wrong with you? Why other void shields on this planet? What a fucking waste. What an absolute waste. The hubris and arrogance and stupidity of the Imperium. God, what a bunch of losers.

And it's like, oh my God. It's true, though. Like, why would you want to protect that with void shields? There's no reason. Yeah, it's weird to have that much effort put into a penal colony. Yeah, where they're all going to die anyway. It was interesting learning about the backstories for some of these criminals. One guy's like, I was completely

innocent of what they had me for. I did murder five women and two men. That was not what they got me for, though. I'm innocent, except for all the murder, but that's not. There weren't even my charges. Come on, man. I mean, I should go without saying

huge recommendations from the both of us. Oh, yeah. Absolutely sparkling. I think this might be overall probably the best. best book that I think I've read so far in our Warhammer stuff. So it's number one of three, basically. Yeah.

Even more than Infinite the Divine? Yeah, because, like, Infinite and Divine was, like, it was funny, it was trolly. It had a little bit of series, but it was mostly funny. I felt like this had a good, like, mix, right? Like, it was, it was dark, it was depraved. But it was also, like, it had moments of, like, levity and, like, a music. that night lords were being so quirky. So I actually liked it a little bit more than the Infinite and Divine.

That's impressive. And I think Soul Hunter is the weakest of the three. Oh, boy, that's a... That makes me very excited for the next two. I forgot how many characters aren't in the first book that I really like. Oh, really? That is Varyl. There's Lucorophy.

There's, there's Maruk There's a lot of characters that I actually... You get a ton more deltrian which is wonderful. Good, good, good, yep. There's actually a lot of other characters

that I really like that you don't get a lot of in the first book. So we discussed this prior to the episode and we're playing on doing this just to give Shy more work because we love to do that. We didn't know what to do for

next book if because it'd be kind of weird to be like hey we're going to read the first book and then but not the trilogy yeah it's kind of hold off so what we're going to do is we're going to have a doubled up book club we're going to do blood reaver and we're you're going to have two weeks to read blood reaver we're going to we're going to do the blood reaver episode halfway through august and then we're going to after that do void stalker and have that be the book club in the beginning of September. Right. So then we can have all three, one after the other, no no issues in between, and then we can get onto, I haven't decided if we should do, because after three books of Night Lords, which is something fun. I was thinking either Brutal Cunning or Kai Kai-Khaefas-Kane hero of

the Imperium. You know, like even for me, maybe we should do Caius Kain just because I've heard so many people talk about it and so many people like, hey, D.K., have you heard about the, what is he, a commissar? That just luxes his way into success. And I'm like, no, but I've heard the premise of the book about a million times. So maybe we should just go

into Caiaphas after, uh. We'll probably do that. So it'll be blood. It sounds great though, because it sounds like an orc book, and that's got to be fucking hilarious. I actually haven't read Brul Cunning either or Caius Cain. So both books are good for me. Okay. Um, as

for the next one. So it'll be Blood Reaver in two weeks. Make sure you get Blood Reaver. I personally think Blood Reaver's the best. You get a lot more Delchina. You get a lot more Septimus. Hey, okay. Both great characters, sure. Pretty good. Oh, you get to meet Hound.

Oh, I'm happy. All right, cool. Is that an actual dog? No. And then Voidstalker will be after that. Anything, any parting words you like to say? Because we basically just said that Book is the greatest thing ever. and...

Yeah, we did. You know, so anything else that we should state before we end the episode? Nothing specific. Oh, forgot to mention

that while Talos is prophetic, his visions don't always come true and they didn't come true with Uzass killing Syrian and ripping off his armor

and using it to replace his gauntlet. No, no why that just came to me. I don't know. That literally just came down. I was like, oh, he didn't talk about that. That was kind of sort of important that his, he's not all seeing and all knowing and his visions don't always come to pass.

But yeah, great book. It's very good to see that it's not all perfect. Very similar to the Knight Hunter himself. Because, you know, it was kind of his fault sometimes. Yeah, he didn't want to admit that. I need vindication because I'm not a monster. It's destiny. No, no, he is. he is a monster, which is why he must be vindicated.

Yeah, that's true. But he's not the kind of monster that the... Conrad Kerr is, for all of the memory, involving that Sigma male, is, there's, it's very in-depth, and I like it. Anyway, thank you very much for listening to this fun little episode of The Book Club. I like these. They're a lot more chilled and just kind of off the cuff. Yeah.

They're fun. I like them, too, because, like, in the normal episodes, you know, I kind of have to sit and wait until you tell me about stuff until like I can chime in. But these, it's like, we both kind of have the same knowledge. So it's a lot easier to just jump in and like make it a conversation the whole way through too. So it's fun. Yeah, it's very fun. So anyway, mine's been Bricky.

Make sure to read Blood Reaver. We get to meet some wonderful characters. And I'm excited to reread it again. You find me at Bricky everywhere you want. It's great. It's fantastic. Bricky, hello. DK, where can they find you?

DK. Diamante's everywhere, Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, and fuck Instagram, because, you know, that's, that's kind of like my brand now. It's just, you should make fucking Instagram shirts. And you can find Quiet Shy at either Quiet Shy or Quite Shallow.

I literally don't know what's what anymore. I think it's called The Quite Shallow. On Twitch, yeah, it's the Quite Shallow. The Quite Shallow. She's art streams every weekend, so give that a look. And, uh, and D.K.'s always there, too. I'm not always sometimes I am but not always and yeah okay

goodbye everyone Ave Dominus Knox Oh yeah we didn't even talk about I well too late Hail to the Lord of Night