# Word Bearers are they CHUMPS?



## DeathGuardGarro (Nov 8, 2010)

Im reading Battle for the Abyss right now. Im almost done, got about 60 pages left. Here is my Beef. Word Beares are they B******? Seriously, its like The small squads of Ultramarines, Space Wolves, and World Eater are just kicking a** all day against the Word Bearers while being heavily outnumbered. What the Hell is goin on? are they not Astartes to? IDK. any intake?


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## normtheunsavoury (Mar 20, 2008)

This is easily eplained in two words, Ben Counter.

No need to read any more into it than that, he is to BL what Matt Ward is to Dex's


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## BlackGuard (Sep 10, 2010)

**SPOILERS BELOW**




I am inclined to agree. I had a hard time getting through Battle for the Abyss because the Word Bearers came across to him as the sterotypical religious fanatics -- all loud mouths with no real intelligence who are ultimately just paranoid madmen. I was very disappointed with it.

I know that ultimately Games Workshop created the concept for Battle for the Abyss and simply told Ben Counter to make it happen. Therefore, the only thesis I can gather from the entire ordeal is that it was meant to show you that even though some legions went Traitor (World Eaters) and some stayed Loyal (Space Wolves) you ultimately had the odd-men in both.

That World Eater was totally dedicated to the Imperium, yet his type of character suggested that he'd probably have joined eagerly with Angron had you known of the Heresy. Whereas that Space Wolf ultimately killed his initiates in some hallucination of wolves. 

Beyond that, it was just another Smurf Fanboy book about how awesome and uber-n00bish the Ultramarines (who I ultimately have nothing against, I love their organisation and personality) come across because of the sheer devotions shown to them by some authors.


Spoiler tags in the future please - darkreever


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## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

Word Bearers... I would not say are chumps. They probably have the second largest Chaos force in the galaxy. Right behind Abaddon's. And its a purer force with Marines that have been in service for ten thousand years.

Ben Counter wrote more of a black opps type thing with few marines that just went in there to pwn nubes. But in some fairness a few of them were high ranking and exceptional fighters. You also have World Eaters and Space Wolves in there. Word Bearers aren't really known to be close quarter marines. But in any other situation they would have provided a better fight.

So in conclusion. I would say your judging the scenario a little to harshly. Sure Ben Counter just wanted to make a "pwn nubes" type story. But then again, the Word Bearers strength rely on what they are as a legion, and the strength they can rally up. Strength in Daemons, technological resources, and Titans.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Battle for the Abyss is widely considered by most HH readers to be the worst in the series. And the depiction of the Word Bearers plays a large role in that. Counter just turned them into stereotypical bad guys, evil maniacl laughs, back stabbing each other constantly, coups, setting each other up, making school boy errors when it comes to the loyalists and generally just being thick as shit.

Wait till you get to the First Heretic, not my favourite book if i'm honest, but that's nothing to do with how the Word Bearers are depicted, ADB does a much, much better job than counter of portraying the legion. Though its not in my top books of the series, i do hasten to add that many others consider it to be one of, if not the best. So yeah, hold strong through BftA.


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## Gromrir Silverblade (Sep 21, 2010)

Angel of Blood said:


> Battle for the Abyss is widely considered by most HH readers to be the worst in the series. And the depiction of the Word Bearers plays a large role in that. Counter just turned them into stereotypical bad guys, evil maniacl laughs, back stabbing each other constantly, coups, setting each other up, making school boy errors when it comes to the loyalists and generally just being thick as shit.
> 
> Wait till you get to the First Heretic, not my favourite book if i'm honest, but that's nothing to do with how the Word Bearers are depicted, ADB does a much, much better job than counter of portraying the legion. Though its not in my top books of the series, i do hasten to add that many others consider it to be one of, if not the best. So yeah, hold strong through BftA.


I disagree, the space battles are good, and if you're saying that just because it's unfeasible doesn't make for a good read. A few against the many is a literary concept which is used too many good books for that claim to be true. The whole novel being written by a smurf fan-boy is preposterous because GW would have given him a brief and he would have to follow that. Ben Counter's GK books are awesome, not because they show the GK's kicking arse but for the plot lines.

****First Heretic Spoiler Alert****


First Heretic is a wicked book, but if anything it proves that the Word Bearers and especially Lorgar are the biggest chumps in the galaxy. They are soo desperate to worship anything that at the first sign of "divinity" the majority of them just blindly follow the Chaos Gods. Argel Tal questions it, but not enough to do anything about it. You could argue that they are chumps because it's in their genes, but either way, definitely chumps.


Regular text size and colour in the future please; and spoiler tags added - darkreever


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Gromrir Silverblade said:


> I disagree, the space battles are good, and if you're saying that just because it's unfeasible doesn't make for a good read. A few against the many is a literary concept which is used too many good books for that claim to be true. The whole novel being written by a smurf fan-boy is preposterous because GW would have given him a brief and he would have to follow that. Ben Counter's GK books are awesome, not because they show the GK's kicking arse but for the plot lines.
> [/COLOR][/SIZE]


Whats up with your font?

BC's Grey Knight's abombnubus is known for its plot holes and lack of plot, not for its plot lines.

I'm baffled why GW gave first rights to such a prestigious and interesting chapter to BC.


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## Gromrir Silverblade (Sep 21, 2010)

Malus Darkblade said:


> Whats up with your font?
> 
> BC's Grey Knight's abombnubus is known for its plot holes and lack of plot, not for its plot lines.
> 
> I'm baffled why GW gave first rights to such a prestigious and interesting chapter to BC.


Who knows what went on with the font? Think it was a cut and paste balls up.

There are holes in ther verisimilitude in the GK books; but with spoiler warnings, what kind of plot holes are there?

BC is one of their poster boys, and besides, Aaron Dembski-? is obviously good at writing non-action based novels so you would choose your writers based on their strengths. BC is no Abnett, but he does write a good firefight, well, better than most.


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Gromrir Silverblade said:


> Who knows what went on with the font? Think it was a cut and paste balls up.
> 
> There are holes in ther verisimilitude in the GK books; but with spoiler warnings, what kind of plot holes are there?
> 
> BC is one of their poster boys, and besides, Aaron Dembski-? is obviously good at writing non-action based novels so you would choose your writers based on their strengths. BC is no Abnett, but he does write a good firefight, well, better than most.


Plot mistakes, if one could call them that, from a supposed GW poster boy:

http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showpost.php?p=882549&postcount=8

I couldn't even get past 50 pages of his Souldrinkers omnibus, a chapter who apparently use slaves/serfs/servitors (I forget) in their boarding missions and the main character sprouts 8 spider legs from his butt and thinks its a blessing from the emperor and the whole chapter goes along with it. *lol* 

Also ADB not an action oriented BL author? Have you read Helsreach?


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

I never said anything about the space battles, i cited that the Word Bearers were diminshed into stereotypical villains, do you really not agree that they were?

And you disagree with what in my post? That the vast majority of people think its the worst in the series? Because thats a fact, not an opinion or belief, it's fact that its considered by most to be the worst, we even had a poll on it, and boy did it 'win' that award. The space battle was alright, i didn't think it was that amazing, was more impressed with the one in Fallen Angels tbh and that wasn't incredible either.


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## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

Malus Darkblade said:


> Whats up with your font?
> 
> BC's Grey Knight's abombnubus is known for its plot holes and lack of plot, not for its plot lines.
> 
> I'm baffled why GW gave first rights to such a prestigious and interesting chapter to BC.


I thought _Hammer of Daemons_ was a pretty good read. Many people including myself liked the Soul Drinkers Omnibus. Which I feel maybe the best one for loyalist Space Marines. 




Angel of Blood said:


> I never said anything about the space battles, i cited that the Word Bearers were diminshed into stereotypical villains, do you really not agree that they were?
> 
> And you disagree with what in my post? That the vast majority of people think its the worst in the series? Because thats a fact, not an opinion or belief, it's fact that its considered by most to be the worst, we even had a poll on it, and boy did it 'win' that award. The space battle was alright, i didn't think it was that amazing, was more impressed with the one in Fallen Angels tbh and that wasn't incredible either.


I don't think thats fair. At this time the Word Bearers are beyond corruption, crazy, stereotypical chaos mo foes. I mean look at Anthony Reynolds depiction of them in the Word Bearers. They are constantly scheming and back stabbing one another.

If you think _Battle of the Abyss_ was bullshit. Lol. Take a look at that Ultramarines series. Uriel survives living with tainted daemons in the eye of terror, faces the Night Bringer and lives, and kills whole retinues of marines with 10,000 years of experience.

My big beef with the book was the whole story. Lets say we got another author to rewrite that story. Was that story worth a whole book? Ben Counter added some interesting things to the story, like different characteristics of astartes that until that time we didn't even know about. Also incompetence displayed by the Word Bearers during this part shows up in a scene a lot later... the Battle for Calth. The story about a great ship isn't my ideal of a story. I think that was the biggest thing about it being so hated. So what? I want more! I want the Battle of Calth or a significant event... at least.


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## Gromrir Silverblade (Sep 21, 2010)

Angel of Blood said:


> I never said anything about the space battles, i cited that the Word Bearers were diminshed into stereotypical villains, do you really not agree that they were?
> 
> And you disagree with what in my post? That the vast majority of people think its the worst in the series? Because thats a fact, not an opinion or belief, it's fact that its considered by most to be the worst, we even had a poll on it, and boy did it 'win' that award. The space battle was alright, i didn't think it was that amazing, was more impressed with the one in Fallen Angels tbh and that wasn't incredible either.


Woah, I seemed to have incited the wrath for presenting a different opinion, apologies, I'll remember to ask first. 

Clearly I didn't disagree with your poll evidenced fact that the vast majority of people think it's the worst in the series. I am aware of this; in fact I even voted. 

I was saying I disagree with this statement "back stabbing each other constantly, coups, setting each other up, making school boy errors when it comes to the loyalists and generally just being thick as shit". They are Chaos Space Marines, it is their very nature to be as evil as evil comes. Sure their fall to Chaos is a brilliant peice of fluff and as I said, I loved First Heretic. But the fact of that matter is that of course they are portrayed as villains, because that's what they are. CSM's never turn away from Chaos, why, because they're evil and...villainous. There is no such thing as a stereotypical villains because they all have different raison d'etres, which is clearly the case in Battle for the Abyss.

Besides, I feel we've gone off topic a bit here, which is mostly my fault I'm sure.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

But it was far too stereotypical. After 10,000 years of serving chaos i could expect that, but they have already in only 50 years completely transformed into almost cartoon vilains. They don't show any of the character Erebus had, he was one evil chaos worshiping bastard, yet he pulled it off very well, he was sly, subtle, cunning and intelligent. The Word Bearers on the Abyss seemed to have just done away with all of that. 

And it's hardly my wrath now was it, theres no swearing, offensive wording, exclamation marks. At no point did i even say you were wrong


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## Davidicus 40k (Jun 4, 2010)

Surprisingly, I haven't gotten past the first couple of novels in the HH series yet. I was considering skipping Battle for the Abyss, but I think I'll just read it with a grain of salt. I liked the Grey Knights Omnibus and thought the Soul Drinkers Omnibus was okay, so I'm not a Counter hater, though he's my least favorite BL author so far.


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

My first 40k novel i have ever actually read was Daemon World by Ben Counter and I loved it. The imagery was very vivid and many of the char. had a lot of deph to them.

Besides all that BFtA was a good read what many of you aren't seeing is that the WB legion was portrayed in a way for you hate them and want to see bad things happen to them because afterall they are the villians and most people don't wanna see the bad guys not get what they deserve. Also it is a point in the HH where the WB have trully gone looney tunes and became carzy evil @$$h0l3s that wanna destroy the UM. After all can you blame them after what happened on there home world. It trully is a story few vs many and triuphing in the end. It gave a little more insight into how a WE marine is when he isn't kliing and fighting and was overall a fun adventure to read about.


the Grey Knights series to me was mind F-K the whole way through most the time you didn't trully know what was going to happen or what was happening which was actually well written. I still wanna know what happens to good old alaric.

Soul Drinker well what can I say I only read the first book but I just couldn't put that one down. Sarpedon though IMO isnt the coolest char. around still had heart and fought for what he believed. Unfortunately he was dumb and unknowingly followed chaos which also dragged everyone else with as well. But on the other hand this book also showed what kind jerks the imperium can also be and as well show that the Mech. are only after there own goals and could care a less about the imperium. 

Now these are only my opinions which are like @$$h0l3s everyone has one

Overall I nver thought that BC was a bad writer. Not at all you have to just kinda look at more from his POV instead of the POV GW's fluff. Each story tells from one perspective and that is how you should view it.


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## raider1987 (Dec 3, 2010)

Battle for the Abyss is a rather poor book.... however I think Prospero Burns is by far the worst book in the series. 

Anyway, wait till you read The First Heretic until you pass the judgement on the WB. Its also one of the best, if not the best book in the heresy.


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## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

raider1987 said:


> Battle for the Abyss is a rather poor book.... however I think Prospero Burns is by far the worst book in the series.


:shok:

Thats blasephemy. Lol. I thought Prospero Burns was a good read. It actually went into detail about what, why and how Horus was able to get two legions who were his greatest threats out of the way. Definitely a needed part to the Heresy.

I would say my least like book was _Nemesis._ It really didn't give me anything of interest towards what was going around in the Heresy.


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

ckcrawford said:


> :shok:
> 
> Thats blasephemy. Lol. I thought Prospero Burns was a good read. It actually went into detail about what, why and how Horus was able to get two legions who were his greatest threats out of the way. Definitely a needed part to the Heresy.
> 
> I would say my least like book was _Nemesis._ It really didn't give me anything of interest towards what was going around in the Heresy.


Prospero Burns mainly consisted of a steroid-pumped reporter with constant flashbacks of the times when he was fat and discussed philosophy and drank champagne with fellow colleagues and with a lot of leopard growling coming from wolves.

Oh and Prospero makes a brief cameo too to seal the deal. 

in b4 'oMG sToP loOkiNg foR bolTer p0rnZ!!!11'

Honestly I wish I didn't read Helsreach because it's made my standards become exceedingly high. * has a flashback when he was a newbie WH40k fan*


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## Davidicus 40k (Jun 4, 2010)

Malus Darkblade said:


> Prospero Burns mainly consisted of a steroid-pumped reporter with constant flashbacks of the times when he was fat and discussed philosophy and drank champagne with fellow colleagues and with a lot of leopard growling coming from wolves.
> 
> Oh and Prospero makes a brief cameo too to seal the deal.
> 
> ...


_Helsreach_ was a good book, but... come on.



Grimaldus: "OMG I don't wanna die on this stupid planet WAAAAAAAH why did you do this to me, Helbrecht!? WAAAAAAAAAH!"

Squad: "You're a Space Marine and a Black Templar. Shut the hell up and do your job, Reclusiarch."

Grimaldus: "Yeah, I guess you're right. I'll rally these stupid, lesser beings called humans and play nice with them so we all kill as many orks as possible. I'll also get jiggy with a Titan Legion's princeps majoris and send my best Tech-Marine to commit blasphemy against the Mechanicus by unearthing an ancient weapon. Oh, and I'll miraculously survive even after having a temple fall on my head, so I guess I won't die here after all (even though I told myself I would 20 times)! Yay."


Action/battle scenes were pretty good, dialogue was okay, the speeches were somewhat inspiring, and the flow felt good, though. Eh, maybe it's just me. I did like some of the smaller details ADB included, like the degradation of the Marines' armor and the extreme exhaustion of Sarren.

Meh, don't want to get off-topic here.


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## DeathGuardGarro (Nov 8, 2010)

I just think that the word bearers were set up like wimps. I like the word bearers for the evil sadistic ways but just hate how they get beatup so easily. BftA does also make them seem stupid, like makin dumb mistakes. Othrwise I think it's a good book


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Davidicus 40k said:


> _Helsreach_ was a good book, but... come on.
> 
> Grimaldus: "OMG I don't wanna die on this stupid planet WAAAAAAAH why did you do this to me, Helbrecht!? WAAAAAAAAAH!"
> 
> Squad: "You're a Space Marine and a Black Templar. Shut the hell up and do your job, Reclusiarch."


Uhh he wasn't scared/complaining about possibly dying on the planet, more so the manner in which he did hence why he wanted to be with the other Black Templars where the real fighting/honor was at.



Davidicus 40k said:


> Grimaldus: "Yeah, I guess you're right. I'll rally these stupid, lesser beings called humans and play nice with them so we all kill as many orks as possible. I'll also get jiggy with a Titan Legion's princeps majoris and send my best Tech-Marine to commit blasphemy against the Mechanicus by unearthing an ancient weapon. Oh, and I'll miraculously survive even after having a temple fall on my head, so I guess I won't die here after all (even though I told myself I would 20 times)! Yay."



He hates normal humans because according to him they're weak and he wanted to be where the real glory was. What's wrong with those scenes?

Getting jiggy with the princeps? What? Did you actually read what Grimaldus did when he confronted her?

Only part I disliked about the novel was the tech-marine single handedly solving an AI program that changes every second opening up a billion new different codes/etc,the orks making a titan-killing machine over the course of a few hours/days using scrap metal and some of the regular orks matching the strength of an Astartes in full war gear nonetheless.

There are a million examples of Astartes surviving things way worse than a ceiling collapsing on them, what was so hard to believe? He's Astartes in power armor, what's so wrong with that? It was just a ceiling.


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## AgentOrange24 (Mar 25, 2010)

ckcrawford said:


> :shok:
> 
> Thats blasephemy. Lol. I thought Prospero Burns was a good read. It actually went into detail about what, why and how Horus was able to get two legions who were his greatest threats out of the way. Definitely a needed part to the Heresy.
> 
> I would say my least like book was _Nemesis._ It really didn't give me anything of interest towards what was going around in the Heresy.


Prospero Burns was weak. Unfortunately.

There was too much wet leopard growling, and not enough Prospero Burning.


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## Grins1878 (May 10, 2010)

AgentOrange24 said:


> Prospero Burns was weak. Unfortunately.
> 
> There was too much wet leopard growling, and not enough Prospero Burning.


Meh, I thought it was quality, an insight into one of the rough arse loyalist chapters, I really enjoyed it.

For me BftA was pretty good, a specialist team of marines going in and having a pop rather than your usual team (like the SAS going in against some regular army chaps), to me it seemed as feasible as any of the other books. 

Descent of Angels for me was the worst one. It added little to the Horus Heresy other than some old Knights were pissed off because they couldn't become marines.

First Heretic was great though, really enjoyed that, although it did show them as chumps. The NEED faith, what? We can't worship the Emperor? Quick, find me something else to worship! I like the irony of it though, they worship him as a god and turn traitor because they get told off, and ten thousand years later everyone is worshipping him. Bet they're right pissed off now! All they had to do was sit off for a few millenia and then they could have cracked on and been happy.


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## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

AgentOrange24 said:


> Prospero Burns was weak. Unfortunately.
> 
> There was too much wet leopard growling, and not enough Prospero Burning.


Dan Abnett's style of writing is extraordinary. The way it was written was definitely quite amazing. I disagree that we should have seen another battle on Prospero. We had a totally different outlook towards these legions in the Heresy, which basically makes the loss of these two legions more devastating. 

It also explains what the purpose of the Wolves really were and not the legion that ran to Terra because they hated the Thousand Sons. 

And lastly, it showed that Magnus and his legion falling from the Imperium as not pure coincidence. Before this it was not so.


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## Gromrir Silverblade (Sep 21, 2010)

Some good points chums, just to throw in my tuppence about the original question, from the way they are portrayed in Abyss and First Heretic the Word Bearers are more philosophers than Warriors and in the one full comabat they they show in First Heretic, the only real reason they win is through superior firepower. Apparently they have the worst Primarch in a fight and until they get possessed by daemons they're pants in combat. I can't say whether or not this is the case as in my very limited knowledge I haven't read anything to the contrary...yet.


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## Warlock in Training (Jun 10, 2008)

Im skipping Black Abyss one cause I herad nothing but crap. As for BC, I read all the Soul Drinkers which I love, and read the crap Daemon World he also made. Daemon World was cool in the fact you had a view on a bad ass DP, WBs kill squad scenario, and the (rather short) Violater scenes. Overall the lack of Power Armore, lack of Guns in general, as well Barbarions running amok made it fell very Un40Kish. 

However thanks to the Awsome WB novels by Anthony Reynolds will diminish any BS on the capabilities of the prestige WBs. I still need to read the First Heretic as well.

Also in regards to the Prospero Burns vs Thousand Sons, I read Prospero first and it was Horrible and boring for the first half of the stupid book, and yet it was Genious and Masterful in the last half of the book. I didnt like the running around in that book but I loved how it showed that one way or another either the TS or SW would be decimated.
Im still reading TS and so far I have enjoyed the perspective and mindset of 40Ks greatest Sorceror Ahriman as well as the capabilities of Magnus Legion.


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

I still liked BftA. It was a decent read and like many 40k books in the HH straight tragedy


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## AgentOrange24 (Mar 25, 2010)

ckcrawford said:


> Dan Abnett's style of writing is extraordinary. The way it was written was definitely quite amazing. I disagree that we should have seen another battle on Prospero. We had a totally different outlook towards these legions in the Heresy, which basically makes the loss of these two legions more devastating.
> 
> It also explains what the purpose of the Wolves really were and not the legion that ran to Terra because they hated the Thousand Sons.
> 
> And lastly, it showed that Magnus and his legion falling from the Imperium as not pure coincidence. Before this it was not so.


I agree with everything you said. My biggest issue is this:

It's called _Prospero Burns_ it has Russ on the front with Prospero burning in the back ground. The back cover talks about SW coming to whip some ass, it was billed as the "other point of view"."

I enjoyed it for what it was I suppose...but it had little to do with what we had been lead to believe it would be about.

For reference, my favorite so far in the series is _Fulgrim_. My least favorite is _Legion_. Again, I felt tricked by Abnett. That book had about 15 pages devoted to Alpha Legion. _Horus Rising_ was top fucking notch though.


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## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

AgentOrange24 said:


> I agree with everything you said. My biggest issue is this:
> 
> It's called _Prospero Burns_ it has Russ on the front with Prospero burning in the back ground. The back cover talks about SW coming to whip some ass, it was billed as the "other point of view"."
> 
> ...



Thats fair enough. And if you didn't like _Legion_ then I'm more actually understandable with the fact that you didn't like _Prospero Burns_. I get a little annoyed with some people that love _Legion_ and dislike _Prospero Burns._ I really like _Prospero Burns_ more than Legion. In all fairness, _Prospero Burns_ dealt with many more aspects of the Heresy than _Legion._ Fulgrim is definitely in my top five. But that first book in the heresy is something that really sticks out to me.



As for the subject, I hope that people realize that despite the author, it was afterall a story about a team of astartes in a search and destroy mission aboard a ship. What made it a stupid book was that it really wasn't a event worth reading about throughout the entire Heresy. SO WHAT? It seriously could have been the same story with different circumstances, and readers would have been scratching their heads, asking themselves what the heck was the point of the Heresy team devoting a series of months of wait (from loyal fans) to bring out this piece of shit. The STORY SUCKS. No matter how you put it.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Regarding Legion, theres no other way the Alpha Legion could possibly be written about. To write anything from their perspective would ruin the entire point of them, Legion absoloutely had to be written the way it was, and Abnett got it spot on, best book i've read along with Sabbyt Martyr


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

Angel of Blood said:


> Regarding Legion, theres no other way the Alpha Legion could possibly be written about. To write anything from their perspective would ruin the entire point of them, Legion absoloutelt had to be written the way it was, and Abnett got it spot on, best book i've read along with Sabbyt Martyr


Stop copying me, pick your own favourite 40k books


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

^^. I'll thrown in Traitor General aswell then if it makes you feel any better


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## Gromrir Silverblade (Sep 21, 2010)

Angel of Blood said:


> ^^. I'll thrown in Traitor General aswell then if it makes you feel any better


Now you're talking, that was the book that started everything for me. To me it remains one of the best sci-fi reads I've ever picked up.


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