Mechanicum

This book by Graham McNeill is the ninth book in the Horus Heresy series, which I am doggedly working my way through, and oh boy this one is a doozy. Here we have a completely new angle on the events unfolding across the nascent Imperium, as we follow developments among the technology-deifying civilisation on Mars once the ripples from Horus's heresy make themselves felt across the stars. So yeh - other than a very brief glimpse of Rogal Dorn there are no primarchs in this one (we do get a fairly decent lore-dump about the doings and sayings of the Emperor himself though - and a fleeting appearance in a historical prologue), and no Adeptus Astartes at all; instead we have a diverse cast of tech-priests, Titan Legions, officials high and low, corrupt and loyal. The main character though is an ordinary human - the first, and if you ask me realistically probably last, female protagonist in the series so far - one Dalia Cynthera, a scribe with an abnormally good memory and a knack for being able to figure out how things work. Dalia is summoned to Mars by Adept Koriel Zeth, who has some hardcore secret experiments underway while simultaneously navigating tentatively through the ongoing religious schism between the Mechanicum and the Imperium. Of course, once the heresy takes root on Mars everything falls apart very quickly, and long-forgotten esoterica, blasphemous machineries and good old turf wars all play their part in driving humanity's oldest forge-world to the brink of absolute promise and utter doom. I'll be honest, this was probably my favourite one of the whole series so far - I kind of just love the Mechanicum, they're so weirdly not-quite-human but with such distinctive foibles; also Dalia was a much more compelling protagonist than the stoic, distant Space Marines who have stood at the gravitational centre of most of the books prior to this one.

American Fascists

This book by Chris Hedges seemed topical for some reason.*

    If you are even halfway familiar with the actual biblical ethic of Jesus Christ and the actual political ethic of modern-day American 'Christianity', you do not need me to tell you how grossly divergent these things are. The roots of this go pretty far into the past but since the latter decades of the 20th century have metastasized into something truly dangerous and that I can only imagine how much God grieves over. Hedges, who studied at Harvard Divinity School before becoming a foreign correspondent, goes into great and granular detail about how the intricacies of personal faith are distorted and manipulated by the nationalist right-wing of American political actors, and just how far so-called 'Christian' leaders have either been complacent or wholeheartedly capitulated to this scheme of outright power-grabbing.

    This is not an easy read for a Christian as it so depressingly and thoroughly shows how the fabric of our faith can be manipulated for truly hateful ends. The lengthy anecdotal passages in this book are just as harrowing as the insightful theoretical explanations of what exactly is going on. I know I am too young and thus too late for a blogpost about this book to have any meaningful impact on future politics, as we have already swung far enough that I genuinely fear there may be no coming back for American democracy. The only way in which I would thus recommend this book is if you want to salve your confusion by knowing a bit more about how exactly the religion of the world's superpower became so co-opted by capitalism, racism, anti-intellectualism and so forth, that we now face ANOTHER FOUR FUCKING YEARS with the "leader of the free world" being a draft-dodging, tax-evading, bigoted rapist who prior to his entry into politics was most famous for telling people on reality TV that they were fired - ugh, but yeh, if you want a fragment more insight into how American Christianity became so horribly un-Christlike, this book would be a good place to start. If only my blog had a large-ish readership and I'd read this when it came out nearly twenty years ago - then at least this post would have maybe had some kind of impact. Now it just feels like a whinge.**

* I actually meant to read it the first time Orange Fraudster Man was running for president, but never quite got round to it. This time however I beasted the whole book in a day out of desperation to understand a bit more about how a country could be so utterly dumb.

** Assuming I have readers - which is a stretch in itself - but assuming any of you are American - if you have them, please take close care of your LGBTQ+ friends and family in the days to come. Their fears are by no means illegitimate. Remember even Hitler came for the trans community well before any concerted attack against the Jews.

Battle for the Abyss

This book by Ben Counter is the eighth Horus Heresy novel in the series, and the first to feature precisely zero primarchs! Outrageous! Where are our oh-so-flawed demigods? Trust me when I say this book proves you don't always need one around to have an adrenaline-fuelled violent romp through space. In this instalment, the recently (and essentially, secretly) heresy-aligned Word Bearers have received from the shipyards of Jupiter the largest spacecraft ever commissioned in the Imperium's history - a ridiculously big behemoth called The Furious Abyss - and, surprise surprise, they plan on using it to lead a sneak attack on the Ultramar system, a core of loyalist Imperial worlds under the protection of the Ultramarines Legion, so crippling a vital centre of Imperial control before news of the heresy has even reached Terra yet. Events conspire to draw the Abyss into conflict with a loyalist cluster fleet, and a chase through the warp ensues - with a small contingent of the loyalists managing to infiltrate the Word Bearers' ship but with little they can do to stop it from achieving its goal. A haphazard, uncoordinated but determined series of efforts between Ultramarines Captain Cestus, Space Wolves Captain Brynngar, World Eaters (apparently this book takes place before their legion goes full heretic) Captain Skraal and Thousand Sons psyker Mhotep is all that stands between the Abyss and Ultramar - the stakes may not be as high in scope as they have been in most of the previous novels; no allegiances are being traded here, everyone stays standing where they stand - but it's the first sign of the heresy metastasizing past the watersheds of Isstvan and becoming a full blown civil war spanning the Imperium.