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Appreciated. lol.

I'd forgotten the Barbed Pen story (How did you know I called it that?). Heh, now I'm getting shown up all over the place. ^^; I need a copy of the first edition rulebook, I don't actually have any loyalist references prior to Codex: Imperialis.

Nor have I really looked at the FFG stuff, although I keep meaning to. Dark Heresy's where I flex my AdMech muscles more.

Good quotes, though. Thanks!

The FFG stuff is great, but it has its flaws. Especially in equipment.

It's still roughly 9,001 times better than anything the codices have put out in recent times.

I dunno if its been mentioned, but what about the Shira Calpurnia novels from Black Library?

Boring as gak. I bought the Omnibus, returned it to Barnes and Nobles after a week of not being able to get past the 40th page.

A shame, she was a bit of a badass.

Its certainly not as exciting as some 40k novels. Its more a crime drama than a war novel. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It's gotta be better than Eisenhorn at least. I'll have to look it up.

Heretic. I loved Eisenhorn.

Well, no. I liked Bequin and wished she had a bigger part. >> But still.

You have to be in the right frame of mind to read Enforcer, but Blind at least is good. I keep meaning to read the rest of them but always get distracted. ^^;

I'm afraid I must agree with Miko. Eisenhorn was excellent.

For me, it was really,really slow and I just lost interest every time I tried to read it. Which is weird, because I've liked numerous other slow books. But meh.

 Melissia wrote:

 Serevor wrote:
Western societies have been shaped mostly by Christianity. And Mary is the second most important figure of that religion.

My mind.

She is blown.

You mean, all these times that people have use the bible to attempt to try to tell us women to get back in the kitchen didn't actually exist?

Yeah can we not try and defend religion by making things up in here? I'll get banned from this forum as well.

Heaven forbid I start quoting verbatim from the old testament again, facts that make Christians look bad are a bannable offense to some of dakkas devout mods.

But seriously, go read the old testament, Google the American taliban, listen to a devout American senator, or ask the head of the American Catholic league what he thinks about women, and then come back and tell me with a straight face how wonderful monotheistic belief has been for the empowerment of women.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
And I didn't even get around to Islam. Check the BBC today for a great story about the female squash players, or the recently shot Pakistani school girls first day at school in Britain.

Uh... there's nothing in the quoted bit, or the bit being originally quoted, that is being "made up", simply misapplied, or over-generalized.

And you can make any religion look bad if you try hard enough. Hell, we SubGenii do quite well enough on our own, but we don't care what you Pinks think, because we've "got right" with Bob, and also because you're all sub-Yeti primates, rather than the UberFemme/OberMensch descendants of Yetis like Bob's chosen.

... however, using individuals to paint an entire religion is... just really stupid. If you wanna go that route, then all of humanity is guilty for Stalin, Pol Pot, Ghengis Khan, and the rest of history's despots.

 Melissia wrote:
For me, it was really,really slow and I just lost interest every time I tried to read it. Which is weird, because I've liked numerous other slow books. But meh.

Inconceivable!

I thought Eisnhorn was the best of all the books, and frankly I have a pretty damn low opinion of 40k novels in general (I think they all suck pretty bad). While not all of Eisenhorn was great, certainly the first third was, and the last third. If you never did finish it, you should try again - I had similar problems with Ravenor, I simply got stuck about 20% of the way in possibly as many as 4 times before I finally powered through it, and it was worth it.

I'll admit, I'm biased when it comes to Ravenor, because when a new book comes out I have to buy it for my partner.

Apparently disabled heroes make books attractive to disabled readers. Who knew?

Ravenor was great, not because of the somewhat clichéd female characters, but because of the entirely clichéd Harlon.

Hmmm... how would you say the women were cliche'?

I hated Kara Swole with a passion and kind of pleaded for her death throughout the series, but I thought Patience was a pretty normal person.

@Eisenhorn: The books are slow- they're slow as feth. The reason why they're slow is because they're written in a near step-by-step, hour-by-hour narrative that takes place over the course of years.

That said, the series is my favorite in 40K so far, it is in fact what kept me in 40K after I'd read all the Gaunt's Ghosts novels.

As far as the Capurnia novels go, my problem with the series is that it's too.. .Tolkein'ish. Too much world-building, too much description, not enough actual characters doing things.

Seriously? You hated Kara, but thought Patience was normal?

Patience was a post-traumatic infiltrator with more fake personalities than a schizophrenic paranoid. And yes, I do mean schizophrenic, not MPD. Patience was awesome, and one of my favourite characters, but normal is not on her list of attributes.

What's wrong with Kara? She was an experienced field agent from a relatively normal background who was getting a little old for all this jumping around.

I think Blax is saying she's a bitch.

I haven't read Ravenor, so can't really comment, but he has expressed those feelings to me before.

Depends much on what do you mean by "normal female characters".
Traditionally, men are the ones who fight wars, kick ass and die in process;
women are natural caretakers, better suited to rising kids and managing home (and as we know home front is as important as the combat front i any war).
Although you could train female fighting force, on average they would show inferior performance than men one (just as you can train 12 year kids into fighting force). Yes, individual woman can be badass (just as 12 year old can be), but on average they are not. So it would usually be unpractical, unless you are very short on soldiers to man the walls or something.

And mixed fighting forces, while romantic, are complete idiocy; practice shows that in such environment men become more concerned by saving/impressing the girl than behaving tactically/obeying orders. As one (Israely i think) officer said "we can make men stop being human, but we can't stop them being male".

One last thing: feminism doesn't exist in 40k, and would probably be considered heresy.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Patience was a post-traumatic infiltrator with more fake personalities than a schizophrenic paranoid. And yes, I do mean schizophrenic, not MPD. Patience was awesome, and one of my favourite characters, but normal is not on her list of attributes.

Yeah, part of being good at your spy job is having fake personalities. =| I'm not sure how that would imply that she isn't normal...? Obviously, "normal" is relative when talking about acolytes of an Inquisitor within the Grim-Darkness of the 41st Millenium, but Patience never wigged out or anything; her temperament and mannerisms were pretty mellow . Framing her ability to act out various personalities on the fly as some sort of dysfunction is like saying the President has an awkward personality because he pretends to give a gak about what everyone says.

 Ratliker wrote:


One last thing: feminism doesn't exist in 40k, and would probably be considered heresy.

I'm going to ignore the rest of your sexist asterisks and address the only relevant point of your post;

At least two of the High Lords of Terra are female. A Canoness is of equal rank with a Cardinal. There are multiple examples of female planetary governors and Tech Archmagi in the lore. So yes, feminism does exist in 40k, because without feminism you do not get women in positions of power.

BlaxicanX - If it was just part of her job as a spy, then I would agree with you, but it's outright stated that she hides behind fake personalities even when she's lounging around in down-time with nobody around but her fellow acolytes. Kys' childhood abuse has rendered her basically incapable of normal interactions and emotional involvement with other humans. In addition to that, a normal personality is going to get freaked out by some of the stuff that happens to them - Swole, Thonius, Mathuin, Nayl and even Ravenor himself all have freak-out moments eventually... except Kys, and that's because she's fundamentally broken inside.

40k is a perfect place for misogyny. Also for facism, racism, fanatism, bigotry, intolerance etc.

Keep political correctness out of SF please.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
If it was just part of her job as a spy, then I would agree with you, but it's outright stated that she hides behind fake personalities even when she's lounging around in down-time with nobody around but her fellow acolytes

Don't think so. Where can this be found in the books?

I'm aware of her childhood. You seem to be confusing origins with mannerisms, however.

BlaxicanX wrote:
Hmmm... how would you say the women were cliche'?

Oh come on man.. A former dancer-acrobat, trained in the use of deadly weapons, regularly described as a voluptuous beauty?

And then we have a psyker with a dark and shady past, rescued from a corrupt orphanage and trained to be an agent?

It sounds like the plot of Le Femme Nikita!

Neither of them are normal, you know.. like young lasses who actually make the decision to join some branch of the imperial forces, and get well trained and are good at their jobs. Like the vast majority of professional female soldiers in reality?

No no, its all sexy, nubile busty beauties and driven, rescued hard asses with dark secrets.

I read plenty of books and comics, both of those characters were cliched, I'm not saying that's a bad thing at all obviously. DA Is easily the best BL writer, and I love David Gemmells endlessly identical heroes, and as I said, Harlon Nayl made me whoop with joy at times, I'm just saying that you know.. they are commonly used fantasy stereotypes for ladies.

Here, Ill invent a none cliched one.

Sara Knaros, was raised in a hive city, always had a somewhat adventurous spirit and wanted to see the galaxy, so she decided to join the PDF, worked her way up from there, and because she had some talent for the job, ended being selected to try out for the Inquisition. She was average at school but good at sports, she would not be considered ugly but has a plain face and a somewhat large nose, she likes walks in the park, comfortable shoes and martial arts.

See.. boring.

Give me a nubile, large breasted killer with a laundry list of emotional issues and a penchant for knife work any day.

I dunno, I'd read about Sara. Sounds like a good starting point.

I'll get the reference on Kys' psychological breakdown later, too lazy now.

I was always under the impression that Kara Swole learned the fighting and deadly weapons bit after she joined up with Eisenhorn's band (she was, if you remember, one of Ravenor's 'inherited' followers).

As for strong female characters in 40k, here's one I'd forgotten and overlooked - Cally Samstag, from Titanicus. I think she's important to the discussion since she's an ordinary woman, a strong woman with leadership qualities but ordinary none the less who is both a complete badass when she does get into combat whilst still being allowed to be a woman. She worries about her husband, fits in time to tease her female friend about her crush and completely fails the Bechdel test whilst still being a self-empowered character who pulls through on her own merits in the middle of one of the worst situations a character in 40k can be stuck in.

Sara reminds me of the women from the Valhallan regiments in the Cain books, and they were pretty awesome.

 mattyrm wrote:

Oh come on man.. A former dancer-acrobat, trained in the use of deadly weapons, regularly described as a voluptuous beauty?

So literally a stripper-ninja?

Sadly, according to pop culture, there's no other kind of female ninja.

I you really think that there is a lack of normalcy when it comes to women characters in 40K fluff, read rynn's world... not only does the queen/ruling figure have feelings for the chapter master of the crimson fists, but she attends to the guardsmen and women protecting her by handing out food, supplies, and words of comfort during dark times. Another woman has to carry he children 20-30 miles whilst trying to keep up with space marines as they move through mountains passes and other harsh conditions and survives the whole trip, even being looked on with respect by her god-like protectors...

there are others out there as well... point is, when GW really got going and started developing a larger fan-base, Im sure they figured out that a world of men wont last long without women...

 Void__Dragon wrote:
It's still roughly 9,001 times better than anything the codices have put out in recent times.

Agreed. FFG adds in the gak I hate from the codices like the Dreadknight , but FFG doing so doesn't annoy me cause they didn't create the Dreadknight. They have to add it cause GW says so seeing as GW created the Dreadknight.