Lords of Mars

Forge of Mars: Warhammer 40,000, Book 2

By: Graham McNeill

Narrated by: Joe Jameson

Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

Book two in the Forge of Mars series.

Pursued by vengeful eldar, Magos Kotov’s Explorator armada heads into a newly revealed area of space in pursuit of ancient secrets.

Listen to it because....

It's a dramatic continuation of the tale from Priests of Mars, exploring science fiction ideas and human conflicts within the framework of a Warhammer 40,000 action-adventure drama.

The story:

Pursued by vengeful eldar, Magos Kotov’s Explorator armada heads into a newly revealed area of space in pursuit of ancient secrets. As the Adeptus Mechanicus forces and Black Templars Space Marines tackle the twin threats of the wrathful aliens and insurrection aboard the fleet, a greater danger reveals itself....

Written by Graham McNeill. Narrated by Joe Jameson. Run time 11 hours and 42 minutes.

©2022 Games Workshop Limited (P)2022 Games Workshop Limited

when are we getting Gods of Mars?

it's very good, I enjoyed it very much, when are we getting Gods of Mars?

40k from different perspective

Awesome story, kind of a different approach to 40k. Loving the feeling of space exploration

Enjoyed the hell out of this.

unlike some folk who live in tiny closed off worlds of their own American speech echo chambers, I enjoyed this book, and understand that warhammer is an inherently English made concept, always narrated by English citizens. It is well written, well thought, and well read.

More of everything from the first book

The second book starts off where the last left off. Each characters stories continue to develop with more action than the last. I loved listening in on the adventure, but I gotta say the story half three primary shortfalls:
1. I was hoping the book would have focused less on the Black Templars. They are a pretty decent focus early on and then become side characters throughout the remainder making for a pretty lopsided arch for them.
2. The Adeptus Titanicus also suffered from a harder to understand arch than the rest. This might just be my little knowledge on them, but there sections felt out-of-place at times.
3. One of the characters has probably the least surprising twists of, that was expected yet odd how shunted in it was near the end.

However, none of the three issues above are terrible enough to go lower than a 4 star for Story. The rest of the book is a great adventure as you watch Kotov's crusade experience tragedy after tragedy but continue forward to an amazing final chapter.

Good story for the wrong narrator

Like the story and the characters, the narrator isn't very good at sounding mechanicus. this is a mechanicus themed novel, and they chose a heavily accented man who struggles with sounding emotionless for the roll. he's a good narrator, but this is the wrong theme for him.

NOO!

What a fantastic continuation of the first novel, and this cliff hanger is KILLING ME!!!

If you liked the first novel, by the emperor's bulge you better consume this. If for some reason you're looking at this book out of context, it's a great novel with just great storytelling involving mechanicus guard and Dorn's madlads.... get the first book in this series before listening to this one.

A promising sequel

I enjoyed this one more then the previous one because it seemed we had a better focused goal and a lot of the over-encumbering side stories were finally joining the main lines. Don’t get me wrong different viewpoints makes for an interesting story, but it can also feel cluttered and redundant if not done properly. Solid sequel 7/10

Fantastic Mechanicus book

This story just gets better and better, if you are at all interested in the Mechanicus this is a must buy. I'm still not sold on the narrator, but that's not enough to drain my overall enjoyment of this story. I'm getting the next book right away.

Superb sequel to an already epic storyline

Really fantastic setting and deep characters with an enjoyable premise. Can't wait for the next one!

Is it really ‘unimaginable’?

Although I enjoyed the overall story of this book and the series so far, I have to weigh in on one important aspect of the writing… The overuse of the word ‘unimaginable’ (it’s used at least 20 times in the book) is so lazy and ‘unimaginative’ that it grates almost to the point being unbearable. I found myself involuntarily eye rolling and groaning with every use. Please, get yourself a cheap copy or digital version of a thesaurus and NEVER use the word ‘unimaginable’ in a science fiction novel again! It IS imaginable, it’s science fiction.