Customer Reviews

Titanicus (Warhammer 40000)

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I never played the tabletop Warhammer 40k Game. I got turned on to it when my brother-in-law gave me the "Dawn of War" video game back in 2006. I enjoyed the game and then saw "Brothers of the Snake" in the new Sci-Fi section of the bookstore a few years ago. I purchased it and got hooked. Since then, I've consumed the Ultramarine Omnibus, all of the Horus heresey novels and all of the Gaunts Ghosts novels.

I have three reservations about this novel that prevent me from giving it five stars. I've listed the reservations as least concerning to most concerning.

First, Dan Abnett's books always tend to get the action going pretty quickly (within first 30 or 40 pages) and the action stays at a high pace until literally the last page of the book. Unfortunately, this sometimes makes the end of his books feel rushed. I had that feeling in Titanicus as well. During the book there were many good and detailed descriptions of Titan versus Titan combat. However, near the end of the book, there is an epic battle against an enemy force of over sixty titans. This "historic" battle is described almost at a high summary level over the course of just two or three pages. I would have liked some more "blow by blow" coverages of this battle.

Second, Dan Abnett likes to juggle alot of characters in his books. This has worked well in the Gaunts Ghosts novels mainly because there were a few characters in the initial books and characters were slowly added over the series. The reader to a new Gaunts Ghosts novel is already familiar with most of the characters. In Titanicus, there are alot of characters, all of whom are new to the reader. It was alot of characters to try to keep track of in 400 pages and I sometimes found myself asking "Now who's this guy again???"

Third, and most annoying point: Dan Abnett will often use terms or phrases that he doens't define. He did this in "Legion" as well, but would often embed the definition later in the book. In many cases, he used terms that were never defined anywhere in the book. I found myself wondering "What is a noosphere?" "What is the manifold?" "Which one is bigger, a warhound or a warlord titan?" "What is a skitarri?" "What's the MRU?" Since Titanicus deals with the Mechanicum, there are alot of technical terms and processes, none of which are really described. I found this to be very distracting. Maybe someone with experience with the tabletop game or the background material might have a better understanding of these terms and this might not be such of an issue to them.

If someone were to ask me about this book, I would say to read Dan Abnett's other books first. I would not recommend this book as a first read for someone new to the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

[Disclaimer: I am prepared to receive an Eye of Terror's worth of spam and malign threats from the BL "true believers," but I want to be honest in my review in spite of the inherent danger that comes with that honesty.]

Titanicus was a robust and filling read with some interesting twists that ultimately satisfied, but it was not Mr. Abnett's most engaging or clever book.

It is not a bad book; it just is not the "must read" kind of book that I have come to expect from Mr. Abnett.

One of the things that has brought me back to the Black Library time and time again are the snippets of insights into the universe of Warhammer 40,000.

Titanicus reads more like a juvenille than most of Mr. Abnett's books. The plot is straight-forward, and the characters are largely flat compared to most of his books.

It might be a timing issue. Titanicus comes on the tail of the Horus heresy books in which many secrets of the WH 40K universe were revealed.

There is nothing new in Titanicus. It is about Titans, but Mechanicus covered that angle a few years back. It is about some interesting bits of mis-direction and plots within plots, but Eisenhorn covered that niche up nicely a few years back. And so on ...

I read the book from cover to cover, but it is not a book that I read in one sitting, nor would I read it again as I often have with other tomes from the BL.

In the end Titanicus is satisfying, but unspectacular.

In service,

Rich

[...]

Titanicus takes a break from the normal lines of battle that make up the wealth of 40k fiction. This story follows Legio Invictus, a Titan Legion thats deployed to Orestus, a vital forge world supporting the Sabbat Crusade (which is pretty much Abnetts Dark Tower at this point) to help defend the planet from a sudden incursion of Chaos Titans and skitarii. This helps to illustrate the dichotomy between Imperial nd Mechanicus, as one seems to have all the power in the universe, and the other is essentially at the mercy of that power.

The storyline fatlers slightly by trying to branch together two separate plotlines, involving a stray squad of auxillary PDF with the Titan Legion engagements. While I'm a fan of ground pounders, and Abnett can write that incredibly well, it was hard to hold the squad members in mind, and I kept losing track of who was doing what why, and who was augmeted and who wasn't. The Titan battles are incredibly well written, and the technology at the disposal of the Mechanicus was both impressive and disheartening, in that its knowledge lost that can't be regained.

The other sideplot, which ties nicely to the recently released HH novels was also a good side tag, that helped to round out the ending, and allowed the Mechanicus characters to display more than their normal level of humanity, although it came dangerously close to tossing GW's holy status quo out the window.

All told, the book is great, and only suffered from one very weak thread. I'd happily heard another installment of Titan warfare, but it would probably start to bleed to Mechwarrior at that point. The God Machines don't work well with others, either. Heres hoping the manage to work it into future HH novels as they did here.

Background - I played Warhammer and Warhammer 40k for a couple years in my early teens. The games use miniatures, dice, a huge set of rulebooks and were generally very complicated but enough fun to warrant the complexity. When I came across "Titanicus" by Dan Abnett, I felt a littl nostalgia for the rich and detailed world depicted by the Warhammer 40k (or Warhammer Epic) game, so I gave it a shot.

First off, there must have been a lot of new material released since I played the game over a decade ago. A lot of the terms were unfamiliar to me. The familiar space marines I saw pictured on the cover were nowhere to be found in the novel. For the first couple hundred pages, I swam against a strong current of techno-babble trying to get to the point where I could put my feet down and wade my way through the thick plot and dozens of characters (yes dozens). Fighting both the terminology and a narrative that constantly switched between more than half a dozen different related stories was a true challenge. However, I eventually did reach a comfortable familiarity with the ranks, vehicles, weapons, and other descriptions that so frequently pepper "Titanicus." Once I found my sea legs, the story really captivated me and I found the second half of the book infinitely more enjoyable and overall justifying the whole endeavor.

So, if you're somewhat familiar with the Warhammer 40k universe, I can easily recommend "Titanicus." If you are new to WH40k, you might become hopelessly lost in the action...try something more approachable first. My only major criticism of the book is that there were too many divergent stories following way too many characters. I feel Abnett could have shaved at least a hundred pages off of this book and edited it down to something much more powerful. In particular, the Samstags' arch felt weak and disappointing. Though some of the tertiary characters (Zink, Zember, etc.) provided welcome context and flavor.

This isn't your usual ground troop battle. Sure, there is some of that, but the big focus is the Titans, the gigantic war machines. If you have no idea what a Titan is, think along the lines of MechWarrior; they're gigantic, vaguely human shaped tanks which can deal out unimaginable destruction. Unlike the Battletech mechs, Titans are not controlled by one pilot sitting in a chair, they're so big and complex they have a crew and are piloted by a dedicated "captain" who is permanently encased in liquid filled pod so he can be connected to a machine and experience everything that the machine experiences. This setup improves his performance by making it an extension of himself, however also opens his body to physical manifestations of injuries the machine takes as well as creating a separation between him and his crew.

The story centers around an attack on a forge world. The plant has been pumping out weapons for some crusade that is being waged by the Imperium. However, the general in charge of that war has pushed too far ahead and taken too many of the forge's Titans for his war, leaving the forge world a relatively small defense force, ripe for the forces of Chaos to attack. Fortunately, a battle group of Titans en route to the front lines is able to divert and render assistance. I'd go into more detail, but it would introduce spoilers. I can tell you that this is the only book I've read so far that shows the friction that underlies the relationship between the Mechanus (Mars) and the Imperium (Earth). It was fascinating to get a picture of what actually holds the empire together and how fragile the relationship actually is.

One of the strengths and weaknesses of the story is that it covers multiple fronts of this war. You are dealing with the namesake of the book, the Titans obviously, but you've also got side plots running involving the support forces for the Titans, the Mechanus working to provide intelligence on the enemy Titans, the survivors of a destroyed tank squad, the remnants of essentially a National Guard deployment, and to lesser extents a brain damaged gardener, a toy maker, the husband of one of those National Guard members, and the Imperial Governor's office. It jumps around a fair amount, making it all a lot to keep track of as you're reading.

I wasn't familiar with the author before this book, but looking around Dan Abnett comes extremely well recommended by reviewers on Amazon. I can see why. While the story wasn't the best I've ever read, the writing was just superb. There are details to print a vivid picture, a bit of levity here and there, characters you can actually care about, and enough suspense to keep you reading. I loved the last Warhammer book I read (Cadian Blood), but I'd read maybe 20 minutes, do something else, come back and read some more. With this book, I started reading and when I stopped it was over an hour later. I was so taken with the writing style that before I'd even finished this one, I ordered one of the Warhammer Omnibus books he's written.

The ending is pretty weak, just sort of trailing off like the author ran out of room, but the book is satisfyingly long, weighing in at a little over 600 pages and well worth the price. It's almost required to include this, so here goes. If you don't know at all what Warhammer 40k is, if you've never read any other books, or if you hate everything about the BattleTech style mech fighting with a vengeance, then this book will probably not be what you're looking for. Even if you're like me and you've read a few of the other books and kind of like it, you'll be searching online a lot for what certain terms mean or for more background on things, though you really can figure out just enough of what things are by context to still follow and enjoy the story. I'd strongly suggest giving the Warhammer Dawn Of War real-time strategy game for PC a try. It's probably the best crash course in the story that you can get without getting into playing the miniatures game.

So those of you who read my reviews know that I always start off with a sort-of prologue in order to set the stage for my critique. In short, I am a novice Warhammer/40K/Online reader, and in general, I have a lot of issues getting through one of these books for various reasons. Just when I think that I can't read another, I run across Titanicus, and wouldn't you know? I'm hooked... at least on this one.

Titanicus is the only Warhammer/40K/Online book I've read that has the three things I'm interested in: 1) good plot, 2) enriched characters (well shoot, let's be honest, in these books, I'm just looking for any characterization beyond 1-dimensional), 3) doesn't need another book (or several) to read to understand what's going on. Hopefully, I'll run across more like this in the future--maybe shorter though. This book is 400 pages long!

Plot: This book takes us into the worlds of Orestes (good guys) and Mechanicum (bad guys) and develops the story around the Titans of these worlds. Titans are gigantor-sized mechs, crewed by human/alien crews, that walk the battlefield raining destruction around them. Abnett goes into great detail with the two cultures from how they view and interact with technology to politics to language (although, to me the language got a bit old because at several times there wasn't enough context to figure out the slang). The Titans are further developed by their status in either the Imperial Legions': Legio Tempestus and Legio Invictus, along with their respective Chaos counterparts, who oddly enough never had a banner to which all of them fought. Ultimately though, this is a WAR story--Abnett does a remarkable job involving everyone (both combatant and non, veteran and rookie, etc) during the war and the aftermath.

Characterization: Abnett does a great job introducing and developing characters in the first third of the book. There are a lot of them, and very few are relatively undeveloped (except for those in the two or three subplots). It is interesting to me that some of the characters who aren't the Titan drivers are developed in such detail (dignitary and a military newbie to name a couple, and then the bad-ass Skitarii in general).

Overall: This is the only Warhammer/40K/Online book to receive four stars from me. I didn't give it five, because some of the parts still seemed lacking (see subplots). It is well defined, as are the characters, and although a bit tedious in the beginning due to the 1/3 of the book setting the stage, the remainder of the book is an absolute rush to read (even if it is 400 pages long). Go out and get it today!

I recently wrote a review of Iron Company, a book set in the Warhammer universe. I was under-impressed and had decided to not read further Warhammer books. I am glad that I decided to see what the Warhammer 40,000 universe was like. Warhammer 40,000 is fundamentally different. It's not just yet another story of humans vs. dwarves vs. elves. Imagine instead a division of races based upon those who enhance their bodies through, sometimes extensive, mechanical enhancements, and those who look with great discomfort upon such modifications. For 10,000 years after The Schism, peace has been maintained between these groups through a controversial interpretation of a key religious tenet. Titanicus takes place at a time where that 10,000 year-old understanding stands at a precipice. Add to that the invasion by an equally well-armed and ruthless foe, the Archenemy, and you have a lot of material to work with as an author.

More importantly in the case of this book, author Dan Abnett had done an excellent job of creating a well developed plot line, some very interesting characters and in bringing up subtleties that are, unfortunately, beyond the ability of many authors in the fantasy/sci fi genre.

Perhaps the most interesting element of this story to me was the relationship between 'principi', the symbiotically connected drivers of the war machines and the machines themselves. The war machines, each over 10,000 years old, have a primordial personality. They were designed for war, and their rage must be held in check by the principi, until it is time for the shooting to start.

Also interesting was the whole new vocabulary you will learn. This was my first Warhammer 40,000 novel, so at the beginning of the book, the new vocabulary got in the way of my enjoyment. After a very short time however I caught on and actually enjoyed the color and nuance that the linguistic aspect of the novel offered.

I take off one star because there were a couple of transparent plot devices used. That being said, I would recommend this book whole heartedly to the scifi/fantasy crowd.

After Graham McNeill's very disappointing Mechanicum I was reluctant to pick up this semi-sequel. I'm glad I did. Abnett remains the most reliable of the Black Library's authors and he delivers the goods this time around.

In the Warhammer 40,000AD universe enormous combat robots called Titans dominate the battlefield like gods of war. Tanks, infantry and even fortresses are just dust beneath their feet. On the world of Orestes traitor Titans clash with loyalist ones while ancient secrets are brought to light.

In a story where robots the size of buildings smash one another it's easy to lose track of characters but Abnett does an incredible job of capturing the ordinary humans who swirl around the Titan's feet. He gives us a toymaker hoping to make a fortune with wind-up Titans, a young wife called up in the army reserves, an archivist delving into the forbidden history of the traitor legions and many other memorable characters.

But he doesn't skimp on the giant robot action either. His Titan battles are thought through to offer tactical insights and sudden reversals of fortune.

Like most 40k books this one will be hard to follow unless you're a dedicated fan. Abnett just assumes you know the differences among Warhounds, Reavers and Warlords and does not take much time to explain the terms. As with many of Abnett's books the ending seems rushed but with 600 pages (200 more than his usual Gaunt's Ghosts books) it's not as bad as usual.

But if you are a fan of 40k and of giant robot action this is a solid read.

Abnett's Titanicus concerns giant military machines approximately 38,000 years in the future. Mankind has spread across the Galazy and is ruled by a God-Emperor, and opposed by forces of Chaos. The world of Orestes is a fairly newly settled world -- a so-called forge world which is dedicated to manufacturing war materiel for the Emperor's war against the forces of Chaos.

In this age, humanity has advanced far in many areas, but has also forgotten technology as well.

The giant war machines or Titans are huge machines, apparently for all of their advancement in weapons systems and targeting functions, they are crewed by humans and powered by some kind of engines burning fossil fuels. However, this is perhaps appropriate since much of Orestes seems to be dedicated to extracting petro-chemicals.Despite a lot of flying and tracked vehicles, the juggernauts dominate the battlefield of this era. The empire is dominated by two groups which have almost become subspecies of humans -- magi who at heart are technicians who have come to worship the machines they serve, and the command structure of the military and its representatives who rule some planets on an almost feudal basis.

Orestes, despite its importance, has been left relatively unguarded, and is attacked by the Archenemy. In this Warhammer 40K adventure, one sees very little of the character or motivation of the forces of chaos. Rather the novel focuses only on attempts to save the planet, although war devastates it.

In view of the attack on Orestes, Legio Invoictus deviates on the initiative of its commander Gearhart (a pun perhaps?), the "Red Fury" to support the beleaguered planetary forces of Orestes. The book is an entertaining story on two levels -- the blood and guts fight of Legio Invicta and the colonists against the forces of the Archenemy, and also intrigue and distrust between the Princeps Gearhart and his staff versus the technical class.

I would not recommend this book as a first step into the world of Warhammer 40K because the author assumes much of the cultural background is known and explains relatively little. Nonetheless, it is rewarding adventure fantasy dealing with a dark vision of humanity's future among the stars. Although the book seems as large as the machines it describes, along the way once finds several characters who could have been more enjoyable if more of the plot had been devoted to them.

RECOMMENDED FOR READERS FAMILIAR WITH THE WORLD OF WARHAMMER 40,000.

This book started out like a titan at warmup - s-l-o-w...but then quickly got going as the action started and the fightin' began. Abnett paints an admirable picture of life with the gigantic war machines, called Titans, used by the Imperium for immense ground combat. He intersperses stories of the average soldier attempting to eke out survival in a world filled with such immense machines, and manages to both tie it all together and make it all interesting. After the first 50 pages, I couldn't put the book down, and read the entire thing in one sitting.