Priests of Mars (adeptus Machnicus trilogy book 1)

[Jmaximum]

Awesome read!!
This book really embodies the inhumanity of the Mechanicum, and their complete disregard for life (and safe working conditions) in their pursuit of knowledge.
Just finished the book, and heading out to get the second one when I am done with this post.


I do have a couple questions, though, so:
*****************************SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS****************************************** ************************************************** *****************
Page 218, towards the bottom: "His footwork was that of the great swordsmen of Cheoms..." Um, in M42, wouldn't Chemos (the home of the Emperor's Children, iirc) have been expunged from all records after the Heresy? If the records have been redacted, then this would imply the Mechanicum has easily accessible records on pre-heresy legion homeworlds, specifically the Emperor's Children. This little nod is also supported by Lucius, who I believe has been portrayed as THE best swordsman amongst all of the legions.

Page 391: The Speranza (A Mechanicum world-ship in all but name) mentioned to Kotov that it had once been known by many other names, including Kaban. The Kaban machine was a Dark Mechanicum short story detailing the growing self-awareness of a synthetic conscience (which is mucho verboeten, at the time) inside a death machine, that wiling goes to work for the Dark Mechanicum in the beginning of the heresy. Had the Kaban machine consciousness been installed in the Speranza, perhaps? The same page mentions that the Speranza was built by the Men of Gold, which vastly predates the heresy, so, there's all sorts of confusion here. At least for me.

Page 404: last line of the story is: "Second star on the right, and straight till morning." <--- Isn't this a Captain Kirk quote????? Side note, I am a computer wonk, and I am most likely reading in to this, but a 404 error implies the internet resources queried by the browser have not been found. At the end of the first book, have yet to find what they are looking for. Nice techie nod there.

[completeHook]

It's a great book, I really enjoyed it.

What worked really well was while the factions all conformed to type, they were all made up of unlikely individuals. I loved all the stuff with the Titan maniple, all feral machine spirits and animalistic Princeps being wheeled round in giant fish tanks.

Lords of Mars is a great read too, the next one is out in November so not long now.

[Aaron LeClair]

Haven't read the book but plan to but to your first one remember the Mechanicum is its own empire, and so most likely Imperial records where wiped not Mechanicum ones.

Wars have been fought against the Mechanicum by over Zealous imperial commander when they found out they don't see the Emperor as a God.(tho not sure if that is still cannon been a long time since I read that story)

[Darren Richardson]

Page 404: last line of the story is: "Second star on the right, and straight till morning." <--- Isn't this a Captain Kirk quote?????

Nope it's from Peter Pan, it's the directions to get to Never Land.