Atlas Infernal Review

[wittdooley]

Another really great review, courtesy of Eldargal. Rob Sanders had soured me a bit after his....mishandling, perhaps...of Redeption Corps., but this review certainly has me looking to give him another shot. Oh, those quirky inquisitors!

Atlas Infernal Review (http://wp.me/p1Cyjr-6J)

Enjoy!

[eldargal]

I tried to inject a bit more personality into this one, while still keeping it concise. Constructive criticism welcomed.:)

[CiaphasCain]

I can't argue with the review, because Eldargirl has a good sense of these things, despite how I feel about the Eldar and filthy xenos in general (I feel that Eldar fans overrepresent them in their aspirations for Eldar fiction and rules.) but casting aspersions on the earlier Doctors? For shame, Ms Eldargirl.

I've never seen, nor been a fan of the earlier Who episodes, but even the earlier shows deserve a look into. *Sigh* it's like so many who want to forget the early GW books. Enjoy the controversy, because it may never be this creative again, GW or Dr Who fans.

[eldargal]

I wasn't casting aspersions at earlier Doctors, I was comparing Czevak favourably with them and poking fun at the lat three Doctors who run around a lot and are a bit over excitable.:p

What do you mean by Eldar fans over-representing things, out of interest?

[Gotthammer]

I really enjoyed it - just as informative as your Seer review, and like that it convinced me to pick the book up (tomorrow). It was much more fun to read though, with much more personality to the writing :)

Only niggling points are the opening review could be spaced better - I'd put a break before "To cut a long story short" and "The antagonists are all depicted". Probably also space the score out to make it more visable too.
Adding who it was by would be good - as it says guest review but no credit is given!


A suitably Doctor Who introduction for a Rubric Marine of the Thousand Sons, and a suitably Doctor Who exit.

He kills it with a sonic screwdriver?

I've really got to do my Hive of the Dead and Path of the Seer reviews...

[plawolf]

I am going to go against the flow here and say I found the book only slightly above average.

It has some superb elements, but the gaping flaws more than compensated for them.

The author clearly has a case of over ambition - that in his desperation to make the situation as dire and deadly as possible, he has cornered himself and have to invent some frankly laughable superweapons to get his band of misfits and idiots out of the impossible situation he has created for them.

The Altlas inferno, in addition to being a better map of the Eldar webway than what the Eldar themselves have is also an anti-Eldar superweapon? Since when has Pariahs ever been able to WTFPWN psykers as he described it? They just cancel out and disrupt warp powers, they don't kill psykers like a freaking death ray.

The Culexus Assassins are as potent a pariah as there are, and even they need extensive training and a bigass piece of highly specialized war gear - the Animus Speculum, to use their powers to kill. If His fluff is to be believed, all they really needed to do was walk onto the field butt naked with zero training and laugh as all psykers explode around them. Pathetic.

It's also far too silly that the Harlequin hunters would patiently wait their turn instead of pouncing on them on one of the numerous times he has seen traces of them before the final showed. And that showdown itself was just a massive let down.

Some of the situations themselves seem pretty pointless and could have been avoided altogether with the smallest application of common sense.

Like his silly incursion into the Inquisition fortress. He went there to steal another randomly made up anti-psyker superweapon, but be seemed to have decided to bring the merry band along just so they can trigger and alarm and all get killed. But if he didn't bother to bring them, the alarm would never have been tripped, and he could have walk out with what he wanted without a massive fight. And the fight just seemed to have been thrown in to allow his characters to kill some Grey Knights to show how ace they are. Pathetic.

The fact that he does even have the good grace to kill off one of the band only bolds ill for an obvious sequel novel as he obviously has grown far too attached and also probably doesn't feel confident about being able to create new, equally good characters to fill the void if he kills some off. SO we will just end up with this same band of idiots blundering along into impossible situations only to be saved by the plot-superweapons he handily places in their path.

Decent marks for ideas, but terrible execution and he really needs to follow well established fluff instead of making sh!t up as he goes along.

[eldargal]

I do share your concerns about the Atlas Infernal. How was an expedition of Custards and Sisters of Silence and whatnot able to map out a galaxy spanning labyrinth when the Eldar who have been using it for ten thousand years since the Fall changed it don't have that kind of knowledge? It struck me as very contrived.

In spite of that I enjoyed the book, it was very early Doctor Who and I love the early Doctor Who series'.:)

[Psychosplodge]

A not unreasonable review, though it seems a bit late?
Only real issue I can see is too Dr. Who-ey. (sorry hate Dr. Who. as if you can save the world with a police box and a screwdriver!)

Hope that was constructive enough...

[Shadow Walker]

Great review Eldargal, bring more of them :). As to AI - I am big fan of Ordo Xenos and Czevak but that book was horrible. Sanders writing style, especially his battle sequences made AI almost unreadable to me. His short from Age of Darkness is also bad. Maybe in the future Czevak will have better author to write his tale.