Genefather by Guy Haley | Book Review | Warhammer 40K

[@CommissarDorothy]

I enjoyed this book a lot. What I found interesting was that the short story you mentioned is in the special edition, which I have, and weirdly enough it’s at the very end of the book as well. Felt like it should’ve been something to start off with and I wish I could’ve known that going into the book. It’s whateves, I agree with this review and I’m eager for the next sequel

[@barthelloren]

Oh that's very weird, but at least nice they included it :)

[@CommissarDorothy]

@@barthelloren so true, bestie

[@jamesmacken9501]

I don't agree that the trilogy has been retconned the Vessalius was mentioned several times along with butcherbird, there's an unnamed voice updating Bile on the Vessalius' voyage which may be Wolver, the consortium mostly disbanded by the end of the trilogy with only a few choosing to stand with Fabius against the dark eldar and don't appear again in the final chapter in his base of operations after the time skip, his multiple clones operating throughout the galaxy are mentioned, Fabius is still going to create monsters for the forces of chaos as he swore with half his motivation in this book being to get Abaddon of his back and the newmens explicit involvement in the book would be odd if they wanted to retcon the whole trilogy. It was sad to see no mention of Saqqara, Igori/Melusine or the House of noise. The scene of Fabius using a risky set up to examine his memories is incredibly odd as in his first book he had developed a mechanical mind worm to extract memories without having to kill the patient. I find the development of Bile wanting a king to lead the newmen as the strangest development considering his opinions on the primarchs. There's no elaboration on Biles activities with the custodes and sisters of silence captured during the War of the Spider which was disappointing to see. While Biles knowledge of webway travel are mentioned there's not mention of his wraithbone experiments and Bile once again seems to require others to initiate consciousness transfer which is mentioned when he speaks to Porter during the memory sequence instead of relying on his wraithbone upload. I think it's less intentional retcons and more that Haley didn't do enough homework before writing the book.

[@arcangel1172]

True but nonetheless, this is how the story is going to continue. I would also say that Hayley intensionally ingored the slaneesh bits in fabius's story.

[@jamesmacken9501]

@@arcangel1172 Which bits in particular could I ask?

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

​@arcangel1172 the author of the original trilogy has flat out said that the outcome of his Slaanesh scene is up to interpretation.

[@jamesmacken9501]

@@Gustav_Kuriga Hard to know he keeps nuking his social media and QnAs

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

@@jamesmacken9501 It was a while ago, so it probably isn't up anymore, but I've seen that answer from him before.

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

I never even heard of To Speak as One and I had no issue following the plot. What exactly is it supposed to be essential for?

[@shadowshandbro]

Question! I was in a twitter spat about FSM in 40K, and a felliw argued with me that there are Female Space Marines in this book. Is that correct? If so, where in the book is it loacted?

[@barthelloren]

Oh boy this again lol So the thing is this. Bile has created/bred a couple of strains of humans such as the Gland Hounds and New Men. Similar to a Space Marine these are stronger than humans, faster than humans and altogether better at combat. And because these are bred they exists both as male and female. However while strong humans, these have absolutely nothing to do with Space Marines. Just for an example they do not wear power armor, don't use Marine weaponry (which would be too heavy for them) and generally need to group up to take down a single space marine. They also do not have a chapter but live as tribes similar to the Beastmen. Funnily enough while they were created by Bile they are also highly chaos resistant, which Space Marines very much are not. By the logic of them being Space Marines because they are stronger humans, things like Psykers, Tech-Priests, Genestealers, Navigators, Assassins and Ogryn should also be called Space Marines. So in my opinion you really have to be a special kind of dumb to read female space marines in this book. But I also feel like this is a take mostly spread by content creators and then propegated by people who don't read the books. Because this was an argument that showed up already during the first Bile book (of the trilogy by Reynolds!). Bile himself repeatedly states that he considers the Space Marines and the Primaris brute and flawed creations. He says he could easily replicate them if he wanted to but instead wants to make something different, something better. This then results in the New Men and Gland Hounds.

[@TheMustardTiger99]

I bought it on a whim because I'm trying to get more into 40k but now I regret it.

[@arcangel1172]

The novel was good but Its a big shame how they retconned fabius's story.

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

What did it retcon? I've read all three of his books, and I noticed nothing