Got Pissed: David Annandale and his Damnation of Pythos...again.

Nothing happens the book

I have finally finished this 'book'. It sucked horribly. 

Audiobook format is 12 hours long and I listen to these when I use public transpotasium. Whenever I listened to this I felt like it drags on and on and on.

I like Jonathan Keeble's reads and this guy(The David) made me sick of his voice. I have listened and read a shit tons of 40K books and this one was so boring it took me months to actually finish it. I had to read 2-3 other books at the same time to keep myself occupied. Whenever one of those ended I returned to this boring shitfest of a book. And it finally ended. I will look into his Yarrick book for the sake of Yarrick but I will be sure to hate them if they turn sour.

Let's see what other people had to say about this book.

 

 1: Well Tom, Black Library is milking the Horus Heresy for a long time now, so don't get suprised if your tits let out some milk.

2: Being predictable is probably the worst thing a writer or a filmmaker can be. You hate to be two steps ahead of your audience not four steps behind.

3: It is skippable, it sucks.

4: Enjoyable you say? Did you just grew a brain tumor in the last 2 seconds? It's fun? I can't argue with opinions but generally normal people don't find boring, fun. In fact boring is the opposite of fun. You can't get fun when you are bored.

4 stars? I wonder what Tom considered a goodread since he gave this pile of crap 4 stars.

As my good friend Tom put it, this book is boring and bland. Fuck you Tom.

   Whoa there champ. The 111st 5th what? Hold onto your Star Wars toys everyone, we got ourselves an über-nerd. Thanks to Christian we learned this important information about 11112nd company-clan whatevers. Christian is a fine fellow that memorizes all these clan numbers and shit, but the irony is that he fails at math in school. Drop out from school Christian, it's better that way.

   Have you ever met up with one of these über-nerds? They know all the Star Wars character names, the memorize all the 40K dates, and in the end the only thing you need is a fun story in which something interesting happens. Despite all the luggage that came with titles like Star Wars or Warhammer40000 the thing that pulled people in wasn't their arithmetic aspects, but their basic themes and interesting stories.

Basicly put:

Star Wars: Good versus evil, a hero on a journey.

Warhammer40000: Our own history and historical themes shot out into space and merged with popular scifi.

These are the aspects that made those titles what they are, not the 11111113rd company-whatevers.

Also 4 stars...

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh another idiot who liked this horrible boo...OH! Wait a minute, I think we have a winner.
Actually I have nothing to say in protest, he put it out there really good. Good job Simon.

 

 Nick is also a fine fellow. Which makes several good points that I will be supporting later on.

Darrel did you not read "Nemesis"? Where five Officio Assasinorum agents goes on a field trip together to kill Horus Lupercal, there is a meaningless detective story that doesnt go anywhere for fifty percent of the book then Vindicare shoots the wrong mark mistaking him for Horus, culexus assassin dies instantly having no effect on the story, then there is a plot about some warp-assassin that is going to kill the Emperor because of blood and shit. Then they try to kill that and fail, book ends with the Vindicare charging to Horus' battlebarge with his shuttle and Horus says something like "Come at me". No, clearly the worst book ever is Nemesis, but nothing is more boring than Damnation of Pythos.

These two following are from thefoundingfields.com

 You haven't read War and Peace do you? Where there is 200 characters and every scene is an elongated description of the current event.

David has 3-4 distinct characters at most and his book is incomprehensible as fuck.

For someone who claims to have seen the best, you really are dumb. I can't imagine what you think about some classic scifi books if you think this deserves 7.2

Let's see what Black Library have to say.

Even they know.

So let's break down this story and see what's wrong with it.

   The story is basicly this. There's these Isstvan survivors, they escape from the masscre and then find an Emperor's Children ship. They assault it. Inside David tells us about the contrasting ideals between the mechanical and inhuman Iron Hands doctrine and the corrupted and flesh pleasure practices of the Emperor's Children. The descriptions in the ship assault was one of the two things I actually cared about. But if you are a 40K veteran the description is just copy paste from Chaos and Space Marine Codexes. Iron Hands are robotic and abhor flesh, Emperor's Children like flesh and it's pleasures. Where Iron Hands try to replace their flesh with machine, Children enhance their flesh with vocal cords and super sensitive eyes and mega ears and penises that are vaginas at the same time.

   So the contrasting ideals of two sides were downplayed. If the entire book was machine vs flesh, it would be more interesting. But it wasn't, there is just some two pages of abstract explanation of these ideals which are already known to long time 40K fans. 

   Abstract writings of David is horrible. In every two sentence you get: "Then the night fell, like it was a dark curtain being pulled over the sky." or "Then the thunderhawk crashed like a meteor that plunged from the heavens with the screaming of the angels, it rolled over like a stone being lifted and let go.". No, these weren't actual extracts from the book, I just made them up from the bottom of my ass. But they are pretty close to the actual thing. I appreciate his abstract description of the warp and how it is actually madness incarnate but you don't need to do the same thing over and over again for the entire book. The only word that came to my mind is "FILLEEEEEEEEEEER!".

Let's compare:

"Then the thunderhawk crashed onto the earth and rolled over slowly." : Lotz a wordz

"Then the thunderhawk crashed like a meteor that plunged from the heavens with the screaming of the angels, it rolled over like a stone being lifted and let go." : Lotz a wordz

I used the Ork counting system here, anything more than five is lotz. So if we equal these two values.

Lotz = Lotz

...

I'm sure that if you use human arithmetics and figure out which sentence is longer, then you would find that these descriptions are only there to fill up the book that would otherwise would not be filled with such a simplistic storyline.

   After the ship assault where nothing literally happens, the Iron Hand ship reaches a planet. You guessed right, the planet is Pythos.

   Then Iron Hands fight lizard monsters which is reminiscent to that Salamander book, which was far more interesting than this pile of crap. Whatever it was called. Promethean Sun, I had look it up. It had Vulkan jumping off a thunderhawk if I remember correctly. Then there were Eldar using forest magic and flying on dinosaurs. They were Exotarch Eldars if I remember correctly. No wait... Exodite Eldar. Exodite are the wild elves. They use dinosaur-tech which is awesome.

   Funny thing is I listened to Promethean Sun when I quit Damnation on Pythos and I had totally forgotten about it. But while writing this I remembered what happened in it. It wasn't amazing but it wasn't bland too. So you can imagine what kind of a fail-fuck David Annandale is. I just finished his book and does not remember a single fucking thing.

   On Pythos, they fight dinosaurs and find that there are native humans living. Then the survivors of the secular Imperium and religious native humans start up a village. Literally they build a village with a temple and all that.

For the middle chunk of the book there is oddity dialog between seculars and religious people and you directly predict that this would go two ways. Either the religious people worship chaos or they worship emperor. So it's a coin toss between the two sides. David tries to make this into a philosophical religion vs secular ideals kinda thing. But it drags on and on. In the end it is revealed that they worship Chaos. Whopdydo, what a twist.

At this point the only thing I liked was that Iron Hands go into a cave and they find giant grubs.

Imagine this but twice as large as a Space Marine

Then they fight the grubs for no reason. Action scene involving grubs were fairly fun. Its a daft concept but there wasn't much to it. I would appreciate it if there were more intersting concepts in this book rather than bland philosophical ideas that you can read in any Philosophy 101 textbook.

So at this point you are fed with these characters that doesn't have a motivation and just talk and wait for stuff to happen. Reminds you of a Star Wars Prequel, doesn't it.

Also one of the characters is named : Kanshell

I was constantly thinking that this name is actually : ClamShell

A Clam shell

You hear this name for hundreds of times and don't know why the fuck the guy has a silly name like Clamshell.

Now we have finally reached the end of this horrid shit of a book. In the end chaos happens. Some deamon comes up. Destroys a Vindicator or something. Then some shit happens and the book ends.

This book is boring and uninteresting. Don't read it. Don't even get near it. Fuck you David Annandale. Go write your Philosophy 101 literature somewhere else. Lose your job and become a hobo you boring fuck. Fuck you!

B-but why do you hate me so, lambda-kun?

Go fuck yourself you cunt. Fucking asswipe sucking on Gamesworkshop's ass. Go die in a radioactive waste barrel you fuck.

BAAAW!

Dude, don't cry. Dude. Seriously. Dude. Stop crying. I didn't mean it okay? It's just part of the shtick. I was angry, okay? I didn't mean for you to die. You can keep writing for GW, they all suck these days anyways.

S-seriously, lambda-kun? Did-did you mean it?

Sure, I have lost hope on GW a long time ago. You can write whatever the fuck you want. If it make you better, I didn't liked that Phil Kelly novella too, the tau one. Surely it was better than yours but it was bland also.

Oh, lambda-kun! I knew you wouldn't hate me. I love you.

Yeah, cool. Wait...what!?

Kiss me, lambda-kun.

Got Pissed! : Hellblazer Edition

Yep, I had to be the minority of the minorty again. I could have read Sandman, I could have read Hellboy, but noooooooooo. As always, wanting to be least numerous minority ever, I read Hellblazer.

Ever heard of Hellblazer? Probably not. It's the comic of John Constantine. You probably watched the movie, so yeah that John. Kinda.

I'm going to complain about this writer. What's her name, Phil?

Mary Sheldon.

No it isn't. Don't fucking lie to me you sick pervert.

Ok, I looked it up it's; Denise Mina.

Close enough.

No it isn't. The name is complet-uhhhhhhh.

Right off the bat I knew the writer was a women, I didn't looked up the name at first and just dived in. Don't ask me how I know, I just do. It's one of my many psychic powers. Something about the dialog and way people conversed with each other gave it away. Then I looked at her wiki, yep, a women.

There is always this thing about inter-gender writing. Something that just doesn't click. When a man writes a woman, the female character always feels like a man wrote her and vice versa. Men written by women feels...somehow different than real men, more fictional per say. And this is understandable since you can only become a man or a women and don't know exactly how the other side feels.

Yeah, right. You're a gender binary asshole.

What I'm trying to say that it is biology, one hormone or the other. Who the fuck are you anyway? Get the fuck outta here.

I am your worst nightmare, I AM THE DEFENDER OF TRANSPEOPLE ALL AROUND THE-

I said get out. Now is appreciated.

Fear me.

Get out or I start cutting your bleedy bits with a saw.

Who the fuck was that, anyway?

Beats me.

We need a door guard, Phil. Everyone without a leash is walking in these days.

I'm not volunteering.

You wouldn't do. We need someone strong and capable. I can't have the door unattented just because you ran off to fuck some donkeys or something.

I don't do donkeys. It's a common misconception that-

Whatever Phil. I don't really care.

This Mary Sheldon, was a late addition to the Hellblazer family and at first(like always), I hated her style.
You need good bits in there to win my heart. And to my suprise she did. But let's begin with the bad bit.

This is a bad entry to the saga, lady.

1: John is pulling a magic knife from his sleeve like somekind of thug.

2: He killed these deamon things like a well trained commando.

3: What the fuck is that shit? Is this an anime?

You got me pissed, Mary. Real pissed.

Her name is Denise, you idiot.

Oh, right. So Denise, we need to talk about this part. John is not an asskicker. In fact he is at it's best when he got his ass kicked.

Even Garth Ennis got this shit sorted out. John isn't a winner so your entire scene is...incomprehensible. I mean, do I supposed to be impressed? Or maybe you wanted to do a twist? Whatever the reason was, this was the worst scene since Garth Ennis' stuff. And oh boi, I have lots to complain about Ennis. In the future perhaps. Don't take this the wrong way Denise. You just happen to be at the wrong part of my mind when the night dragged on.

Something "dragged" on alright.

I was trying to say that she fell into the bullseye at the wrong-

"Bull's Eye". I hear ya.

Are you done mocking me?

Perhaps.

The best kicking John had.

John always got his ass kicked and sometimes horribly. His skill base is trickery and deceit, not combat. The scene was a shocker and that was the worst part of it. It came out of nowhere and led to nowhere. Maybe it was a "Now John is kicking ass." moment but it really wasn't. If the scene was John pulling up some magical trick on them, it would be neater. But that's just my opinion. And as you all know MY OPINION IS LAW.

So now onto the good bits.

This bit was clever and funny. I like it. Yes, in contrary to common belief I am capable of liking things.

I like this character.

She is the first character to hit John for a fag and that's impressive. Anyhow even if someone did it before, which I cannot recall, this one was the winner.

She is funny.

And witty.

And she has preferences and personality. Like a real human being.

I don't know if this was because the writer was a woman, which in my theory write their own kin better than their male counterparts or because it was just plain good writing.

In both cases, good job Denise.

Wow, are we really gonna end this on a high note? Like for real.

What's so bad with some complimentary?

Besides don't you worry, I will be back as the harbinger of doom in the next post. I will rip human society apart and put it back together like a Frankenstein monster.

Phil o Zoophily : Nature of Religious Hierarchy

We are together once again for another discussion. I promise that this one is going to suck as the last one.

Can't start without the firing bridage, mate.

Hi, Phil. There's something wrong with your face.

What? I'm smiling.

It looks like a truck ran over you.

Fine. What are we talking about today?

I woke up and got pissed at some religious dudes fucking up the world for their own gain.

Oh, I see. You got mad because the corruption of information and the suffering of innoce...

No, I got pissed because some piss poor ideology makes shit tons of money while I sit here on my ass.

That's what I like about you, no alturistic bullshit, direct and evil as always.

Let's get started, hit em up with the diagram Phil!

Take this, cocksuckers!

Oh shit!

Good job, dumbass. And you called them cocksuckers too.

So what?

Now they're gonna get angry and don't read the post.

Do they even read it in the first place?

Probably not.

Thanks to Phil we broke the first diagram so here is a new one.

The religious people come in four different castes and this is true for almost all religions.

First of we have the Sincerely Stupid:

These are the people that really believe in the magical mumbo jumbo of their religions. No they don't trace a logic train into their beliefs, they come across these magical ideas and just accept them.
To be fair most of these people are granted their faith from young age, and we all know that everything looks awesome when you are a kid. I am currently negotiating a deal with lucifer to grant me soul-vampire powers so that I can become a kid once again by eating the meat of young children.

Not gonna happen, Lambda.

Hi, Luci. What do you mean by that?

I won't let you hurt little children, the deal is off.

Well, lesser of two evils I guess.

Sincerely stupid also never leave their idea garden and never actually going to learn what the other religions are all about.
If they are muslim, they will claim that christians drink the blood of little children in their sunday prayers.
If they are christian, same thing vice versa.
In one such instance I came across the religious news reporter reported that Gangnam Style is a satanistic christian buddhist ateist child-sacrificing deamon ritual dance.
...
I'm not making that up.
They will be hearing these things about other religions and without knowing what they actually are just gonna put words together to make sentences.
Sincerely Stupid involves, old people, idiots, people who are not be able to travel widely(ie indian villagers).
And even though they are given the chance to read these materials and expend their theological knowledge base, they just won't do it. They are content with Facebook and don't bother reading two minute article on what this Buddhist crap is about on Wiki.
These people are the easiest to manipulate, they are dependent on higher castes of their religion to maintain an ignorant bliss of a life.
Sincerely Stupid are the most numerous of the religious castes. Let's make a bullshit estimation and say...60%-70%. This also increases depending on the education system or more precisely, the lack of an education system.


Pragmatist Believer:

Out of all these castes, the Pragmatist Believers are those I despise the most. They have slightly more intellect than the Sincerely Stupid and able to manipulate their religious ideas to suit their own needs.
As you all know, any psychological idea can be shaped and moulded into other ideas that suit you better. That's what the modern psychologists do, they shape your reasoning in a pragmatic way so that you stop crying about every minor thing that happened to you.
These people do it automatically, if some religious rule doesn't suit their current profits they just change it.
They will claim that it was written in the cryptic holy texts, "...and then St. Xavier approved that I can sell drugs because it was made by God...".
These people have no honour or anything, they just change the religion to their needs. And these people are one of the main driving force being religious evolution, since the rewritten even the holy text or the saying of their God to their needs.
I really can't give any specific examples on these people since they're integrated into the society and I can't even deduce their numbers, but I think they are less in numbers compared to the Sincerely Stupid.
Pragmatist Believers are more educated than their Sincere counterparts. If you educate a religious society you increase the numbers of Pragmatist. Because these people saw the wider world and decided to work their profits into it.

Mass Controller:

Ahh, my favourite people. This caste is in direct relation to the public, they work both with the Sincere and Pragmatists. They usually get money from the Sincere and work with Pragmatist to make that money. Most of the time they work as bosses to the Pragmatists, organizing the money maker rituals and everything.
Contemporary spirit-healers are an awesome example of these people.
If we had to make a christian analogy on this...let me think.
Church goers are the sincerely stupid mixing with the pragmatist believers. Pragmatist Believers are there to get power from the people.
Priest is a hybrid of mass controller and pragmatist believer.
A cardinal would be a mass controller since he has little direct contact with the mass.
Pope would be the Master of the Religion, embodying both the power and influence.
There is not much more to say about Mass Controllers, you've seen these guys around. The cool thing about them is they blend their con-job rituals in sort of an arty show, which spells magic all the way. I really have a boner for these guys, thinking that you can earn such money with just doing what you like. Well, that's art as far as I'm concerned.

Master of the Religion:

The main difference between these and the Mass Controllers is that a Master embodies not only the monetary power but also the influencial power. They embody all aspect of religious power, money, influence, political power, militaristic power and so forth.
Example of these are; Popes, Caliphates, Persian God-Kings, Pharaohs etc.
I would kill two children to become as strong as these guys but no such chance.

Hey Lambda, leave those children alone.

No one would get that anymore, Luci. This is fucking twenty-sixteen.

Sometimes I think I'm the only one listening to Pink Floyd.

I'm sure you are not. There are many people still...

NO! NO! I AM THE ONLY ONE, I'M SO SPECIAL!

Jeeez, fine. Have it your way.

Also this reasoning in mostly valid for other faith institutions such as scientology and Star Wars fans.