Non 40k but very good book for 40k fans...

By Professor Tanhauser, in Deathwatch

Ok, one nice thing about gamers vs. "most people" is that mos gamers tend to know how to use a book now and then. <_<

So if I find a good book I think people here may enjoy I don't see a problem with recommend it to my brothers and sister(s) here. This board seems pretty sensibly ran so I can hope no one complains about this, I don't think anyone will.

Anyway, there's a good book that 40k fans might like to read. it's called "Crysis:Legion" be Peter Watts.

It's based on the "crysis" FPS game series and was written as a novelization of "crysis 2". Peter Watts is a very hard SF writer who does good stuff. My first experience with him was when he wrote a short story based on John Carpenter's move "The thing". It was called "The things" and was told from the titular character's POV. It was a good read and got me into peter watts' work.

Crysis: legion is about an ordinary marine who is sent to new york to rescue a scientist during an alien attack on the city. (The aliens are really alien, BTW. Not just humans in weird makeup)

He ends up being rescued and stuffed into an experimental super soldier armor suit that basically makes him a superhuman warrior who has to save NYC and the world from aliens who don't mind using advanced biological WMDs to clean out a planet. The armor, a "nanosuit", has it's own AI and uses nanotech to literally bond with it's wearer, physically and mentally, not only making him faster, stronger, better protected but making his mind work better. The wearer finds himself literally becoming smarter, and in all ways better than human, while at the same time becoming no longer human.

So, a guy stuffed into a super armor that not just protects him but makes him all around superior to a human, but no longer truly human, fighting a horde of truly, incomprehensibly alien horros bent on eradicating the pest known as humanity....Hmm, now why would I think that would appeal to 40k players? Oh, riiiight. It's basically the story of space marines.... ^_^

The book uses lots of NSFW language, the main character's a marine and talks like one at first. There's a lot of violence and killing, and children are not immune. Also, you absolutely will need to keep a tablet handy to look up a lot of words the writer uses. Real words, scientific terms even I didn't know. (Little personal secret: When I was a kid they tested our reading levels every now and then. In fourth grade I was reading at college level. No kidding. And even I had to look up a lot of words in this book.) The writer is, I believe, a Ph.D scientist who isn't afraid to use his Ph.D vocabulary and expects you to come up to his level, he seems to be trying to pull the reader up a little, not come down to his level. I commend this.

So if you can snag a copy of Crysis legion and like a good SF action/combat story, read it, just keep your smartphone or tablet handy. I think you'll like it.it's as grimdark as 40k, but actually kind of easier to believe in a lot of ways, and oh, yes, there is action, combat and alien horrors a'plenty in it.

Other things about the book:

the main character is much more relatable than most 40k characters. You can actually like this guy mostly.

If you like power gaming, this guy could beat up a kill team and take their lunch money.

The suit has a nice vindecare meets eversor assassins feel to it.

Don't forget the predator cloaking device.

Oh, this guy hates the alien invaders too. And I could relate to his hate much mkore than I could the hate some spess muhreen feels towards xenos filth for committing the crime of existence. I mean I'll play a deathwatch muhreen sometimes, but when i read the fic about them wanting to exterminate the tau because "they exist", I personally would cheer for a tau commander in a battlesuit to walk up to Mr. Spess Muhreen and give him a kick in his plasteel codpiece so hard that his useless family jewels shot out of his ears so fast they blasted out thru the sides of his helmet and left that xenocidal maniac with a voice so high pitched it made dogs whimper 3 miles away.

This guy hates the alien ceph because they are massacring millions of people, and using a bioweapon that melts people down while making them feel some weird religious ecstasy. His hate I can feel wholeheartedly.When he decides to go on a rampage and kill every ceph he can get to, you understand it.

Very well written novel even if it is based on a FPS game.