Priests of Mars

[SotonShades]

Thanks to my FLGS celebrating their 21st bday, I've managed to get my hands on a copy of Grahem Mcniel's Priests of Mars. Good news is that'll just about give me long enough to read it and write a review by the time it comes out

[isotope99]

I've read it. Normally I wouldn't go for hardback books but I'm doing a mechanicum force so I decided to risk it.

There's some good descriptive stuff in there about the mechanicum explorator fleets and their obsession with rediscovering lost technology at any cost.

If you've read Storm of Iron, there is the return of guardsman Hawke on fine form. There's also a fair few female characters sprinkled in for those keen on equality. As usual for 40K fiction, character development takes a back seat to describing the world and conflicts.

There's a good undercurrent of class war going on with different groups vying to express their perceived superiority and a sub-class of toiling engine room staff basically enslaved from the worlds the mechanicum passes through (suitably grimdark).

Without wanting to give away any spoilers, there is a frustrating lack of resolution for many of the plotlines, like it's setting up a sequel I'm not sure we'll ever see. I think this is partly because of the sheer number of different players in the book that they can't all get the time they need:

Mechanicum
Rogue traders
Black Templars
Titan legions
Cadian guardsmen
Skitarii
Bondsmen & servitors (slaves)
Biel-Tan Eldar
Mysterious enemy?