Bookworm Speaks!- Tech-Priest by Rob Sanders

Bookworm Speaks!

Adeptus Mechanicus: Tech-Priest 

by Rob Sanders

***

The Story: The disciples of the Machine God, the Cult Mechanicus are on the front line of the Quest for Knowledge. Tech-priests lead their forces of augmented warriors and battle-automata into battle with the Omnissiah’s foes in defence of His secrets. Magos-Explorator Omnid Torquora orchestrates war against the Iron Warriors for control of a long-lost forge world. With skitarii legions and maniples of battle-servitors and robots at his command – not to mention the mighty god-machines of the Titan Legions – victory is within his grasp… until treachery threatens to end his dreams of conquest.

The Good: The epic storyline begun by Rob Sanders continues in the continuation. The second volume continues the story that was revealed by the twist ending of the previous volume. Rob

The contrast between the cold, hard, steel of the Mechanicus and the more organic nature of the chaos corrupted Iron Warriors is a great detail and really illustrates the nature of the conflict. The Mechanicus praises logic and order and the Iron Warriors forces seem to consist of monstrous hybrids of flesh and machinery, at least in a manner more mutated and disease-ridden than the monstrous hybrids of machine and man that make up the legions of the Tech-Priest. 

What this book also does well is show the other side of the coin when it comes to war. The previous book, it showed the perspective of a front line, field commander, fighting the war first hand. In this volume, we see the perspective of those in charge of running the war. Omnid Torquora, is the one in charge and sees the whole war from a larger perspective. The immediate objective is always compelling but to see the ultimate objective is also helpful in understanding why they are fighting in the first place. 

In the case of this book, it helps the reader to better understand the mindset of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The assignment of numerical designations and regarding the whole war in terms of statistics, fits with the mechanically inclined Tech-Priests and let us be honest…a lot of wars are ultimately about numbers…especially in the Imperium of Man. 

Thankfully, it does not get too technical. There is still plenty of emotion to be had amongst the logic driven servants of the Omnissiah. Torquora even delivers a speech to rouse his followers for a great battle, even though none of them cheer afterwards. There is plenty of metaphors and Torquora is a thoughtful character. 

We see great expansion into the lore, which is always a treat, in seeing the new machines and weapons utilized by the forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The robots that are introduced are particularly intriguing. In the majority of Warhammer 40k Lore, robots are known as Abominable Intelligences and are banned by the Imperial Creed. Hopefully, the readers will see more of the Cybernetic legion in future tales of the Black Library. 

The Flaws: The main flaw, Bookworm felt with this volume is the main character of of Torquora. The key to making a protagonist work is to make the reader root for them. It was hard to root for Torrquora. He was the hero of his own story…no doubt about that but he was not much of a hero for the story of the book. The main problem is that the Bookworm did not find him to be a very sympathetic character in how he uses his forces in such a callous manner. This should not be surprising considering the mindset of both the Imperium of Man and the Cult Mechanicus, but again…it was not presented in a way that made the reader support Torquora. 

The main problem with Warhammer 40k and the Black Library is that the main imperative is to maintain the status quo of the lore. The powers that be at GamesWorkshop, build up all of this stuff, (the Golden Throne Failing, Abaddon having enough blood to complete the ritual, The Omega Vault) and what comes of it? Nothing! 

This comes into play definitely within this book. Near the end, some scheming and politicking comes into play and the ending is left ambiguous, a favorite of Black Library writers. More than likely…nothing will come of it. It is very frustrating when you get invested in all of these characters and organizations and they never seem to go through any changes. 

The Geller Bomb could most likely be a devastating weapon against other forces of Chaos and the Black Crusade but it would appear that near the end the Geller Bomb is hidden away or destroyed. 

Finally…no spoilers but the author did grant a wish Bookworm had for the last book but not in a way Bookworm liked. It really was a let down. 

Final Verdict: Ultimately, while well-written, Tech-Priest was not as memorable as Skitarius and thusly was lacking. Rob Sanders is still a terrific writer and Bookworm eagerly awaits more volumes of his work. 

Four out of Five Stars. 

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