# Mephiston



## Paceyjg (May 12, 2011)

My copy arrived yesterday number 179 of 2434!

Enjoying it so far and very pleased with the overall quality. Maybe would have been nice to have more than one picture of the 'man' himself!


----------



## gothik (May 29, 2010)

haven't started mine yet, finishing a couple of others first but am looking foward to it, was given to me saturday so was happy, first time i've ever had one of these


----------



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Cant be long before my copy arrives then! Eager to read it and encouraged people is thinking its good. Unlike the poor effort of Death of Antagonis.


----------



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Recieved Mephiston today and finished it. A superb read with great insights in the blood angels and some strong suprises at the end. A much MUCH better read than Death of Antagonis.


----------



## piemelke (Oct 13, 2010)

please, pretty please with lots of sugar on top,
!!SPOILERS for the plebs!!


----------



## Vitarus (Apr 9, 2012)

The price? I dropped more money into Space Invaders back in the day. This is one of the best things I've ever done with this amount of money! It's gorgeous! 

Reminds me of a great saying: 
I spent a lot of money on booze and women. The rest I just wasted.


----------



## Paceyjg (May 12, 2011)

Finished and totally enjoyed it. A Fantastic read!!

So DOA not worth picking up then?


----------



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Paceyjg said:


> Finished and totally enjoyed it. A Fantastic read!!
> 
> So DOA not worth picking up then?


DOA is a suprisingly poor read in comparision, almost like it was two different writers.


----------



## Brother Subtle (May 24, 2009)

Got my email today that its on its way to me. However, living in the far off land of Oz means ill be waiting another 1.5-2 weeks to see it. Grrrrr...


----------



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

I actually recieved that email AFTER I got the book, lol.


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Brother Lucian said:


> I actually recieved that email AFTER I got the book, lol.


Same here, hehe.

http://thefoundingfields.com/2013/03/mephiston-lord-death-david-annandale-li/

My thoughts on Mephiston are in my review.

I did just come across this though while reading _Death of Antagonis_.



The Death of Antagonis said:


> "They'll be kindling for their own pyre," Volos responded, and the Claws launched.





Mephiston: Lord of Death said:


> "Their corpses will be the kindling for their own pyres."


Repeating yourself in two books whose releases are so close to each other, not a good thing to do. It's a badass threat, but not when you repeat it.


LotN


----------



## Valrak (Jul 23, 2011)

Anyone care to post a full spoiler review?


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Valrak said:


> Anyone care to post a full spoiler review?


I can tell you that.




The story continues on from Eclipse of Hope. The Crimson Exhoration, the 4th Company's Strike Cruiser, has arrived in the Pallevon system and finds another ghost ship, this time a Blood Angels vessel lost at Armageddon. It is under attack by a Strike Cruiser belonging to the Sanctified Warband. Mephiston leads a team on board and dispatches all the Sanctified, and discovers Chaplain Quirinius who was a friend of Calistarius in the past. He has never met or heard of Mephiston before and is shocked to see what his old friend has become. Quirinius also does not like the idea that a Blood Angel could defeat the Black Rage as to him it is part of them, their Primarch's rage and through it they become closer to him. Without the Black Rage, a Blood Angel loses his greatest connection to Sanguinius and in Quirinius's eyes, Mephiston and the other Blood Angel to have beaten the rage that is off-handedly mentioned are nothing more than abominations.

Quirinius claims there is a shrine to Sanguinius on the planet below and they must recover it. They discover a dead city and the Sanctified who try to keep them back, but fail. In the middle of a perfectly circular crater the company finds two things. First an entire battlefield of statues fighting each other, statues of Space Marines; and second building that is literally made of weapons, and inside is a perfect rendition of Sanguinius in statue form. Everyone but Mephiston is awed by it, but Mephiston cannot overlook the fact that the Sanctified were trying to defend the building and that there is something wrong about it all. He discovers the people living around the crater have devolved into cannibalism and have become feral, and after repelling a Sanctified attack the statues are restored to life and attack anything that moves.

The newly arrived marines seem to infect those they kill and make them rise as feral monsters. Mephiston goes to destroy the statue but is stopped by Quirinius who fights him. Mephiston defeats him and destroys the statue, the resulting backlash of which annihilates the zombie marines and the remaining Sanctified but Mephiston uses his power to create a shield around the Blood Angels. Quirinius is lost to the Rage and briefly regains control only to let go rather than become like Mephiston. However immediately after a horde of Bloodletters spawns and attacks the remaining Blood Angels, and it is revealed that Mephiston has just released the Daemon that was trapped in the statue. Doombreed, First of Daemon Princes. Doombreed battles with Mephiston and tries to corrupt him, and when that fails tries to sacrifice him to the Gods. Doombreed also reveals that the zombie marines were the Blood Angels who imprisoned him by sacrificing themselves and that he had corrupted them over time. Mephiston draws upon the strength of the Black Rage, the psychic might of which is keeping the battlefield around the remaining Blood Angels stable whereas the rest of the city is mutating rapidly, and blasts Doombreed back into the Warp with the energy of it.

Afterwards Mephiston is shaken by the battle, Doombreed had offered to tell him exactly what he is now and Mephiston does not believe he was lying. He still has doubts, but has accepted that he is a warrior who uses the darkness in service to the light.



Hope that is informative.


LotN


----------



## piemelke (Oct 13, 2010)

cheers


----------



## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Lord of the Night said:


> I can tell you that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sounds very similar to FtT unfortunately.


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

Malus Darkblade said:


> Sounds very similar to FtT unfortunately.


Not really IMO...could you elaborate? 

Anyway, I'm pretty sure Annandale's prose is much better than Swallow's. Mephiston sounds bad azz...he beats Doombreed 1v1 :shok:


----------



## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

MontytheMighty said:


> Not really IMO...could you elaborate?
> 
> Anyway, I'm pretty sure Annandale's prose is much better than Swallow's. Mephiston sounds bad azz...he beats Doombreed 1v1 :shok:


The prose while perhaps much better does not stop the main culprit of what makes a story bad.

They fight statues. Zombie Marines. Find buildings made out of weapons. 

Why would loyalist marines imprison a very well known daemon in a statue that looks identical to one of the most beloved primarchs of the imperium?

The whole 'fight against your inner nature' bit is overdone in my opinion. Then Meph. lets go of the Black Rage and uses it when convenient which makes his storyline of overcoming it once and for all sound pointless. So he's learned to use it like a superpower only in times of need. 

The daemon while probably dying telling Meph. what he really is. 'Haha, you're a monster btw, you serve Chaos so you should just convert and save yourself the trouble. Stop being in denial.' 

Then Meph. probably says a speech about how he's loyal to the Emperor then he shoots the daemon and it finally gets banished into the warp.

Also it would appear Meph. defeats Doombreed alone which does not sit well with me.

I just know ADB would never involve statues and zombie marines or the things above in his stories.


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Malus Darkblade said:


> They fight statues. Zombie Marines. Find buildings made out of weapons.


They do not fight actual Zombie Marines, that is just my analogy for them. What they fight are Blood Angels that were imprisoned in stone and driven insane by Doombreed over 5 millennia. Doombreed claims he unlocked the Red Thirst within them and that is what drove them completely mad, and his warp influence makes it pass on to whomever they kill.



Malus Darkblade said:


> Why would loyalist marines imprison a very well known daemon in a statue that looks identical to one of the most beloved primarchs of the imperium?


They didn't. They just imprisoned Doombreed in the temple, where he could manipulate it's interior. Doombreed himself formed the statue, having been there when Sanguinius died, to fool any future Sons of Sanguinius that would show up, and he made sure they did, into moving or destroying the statue and freeing him through the backlash in the Warp.



Malus Darkblade said:


> The whole 'fight against your inner nature' bit is overdone in my opinion. Then Meph. lets go of the Black Rage and uses it when convenient which makes his storyline of overcoming it once and for all sound pointless. So he's learned to use it like a superpower only in times of need.


No Mephiston does not let go of the Black Rage. He still feels it as any Blood Angel does, he's just beaten it and thus is more resistant to it than any other. But it has also affected him greatly. He doesn't draw on it like a superpower, he uses his psyker abilities to create an attack formed from the Black Rage that lies within each 4th company marine that is still standing, which he can draw upon because the Black Rage is fighting against the warp influence in the area around them, making it into a form he can draw on.



Malus Darkblade said:


> The daemon while probably dying telling Meph. what he really is. 'Haha, you're a monster btw, you serve Chaos so you should just convert and save yourself the trouble. Stop being in denial.'
> 
> Then Meph. probably says a speech about how he's loyal to the Emperor then he shoots the daemon and it finally gets banished into the warp.


Nope. Doombreed taunts him once or twice, not mentioning Chaos at all, offering to let Mephiston know what he really is and Mephiston does the smart thing. He doesn't let the Daemon bait him. Once Doombreed gets an advantage he calls out to the Gods "He will not be converted!" and tries to throw Mephiston into the warp rift that is opening above the city. Mephiston breaks free and draws on the Rage as I said above and blasts Doombreed back into the warp, the effort of which makes him blackout.



Malus Darkblade said:


> Also it would appear Meph. defeats Doombreed alone which does not sit well with me.


Mephiston who is one of the most powerful psykers in the Imperium using one of the strongest psychic forces in the galaxy fighting against admittedly one of the most powerful Daemon Princes but who is not trying to kill him through sheer arrogance and who just came out of a 5000 year imprisonment and was pretty weakened from it.

That doesn't sit well with you? Because I don't think Doombreed sacrificing Mephiston to Chaos and annihilating the 4th company would sit well with everyone else.


LotN


----------



## Paceyjg (May 12, 2011)

Very good answers LOTN.

I am far too lazy to address and answer points in such a fashion :grin:


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Paceyjg said:


> Very good answers LOTN.
> 
> I am far too lazy to address and answer points in such a fashion :grin:


Thank you Pacey.

_Mephiston_ was quite a good read so I felt I should defend it. Sadly Mr Annandale's other work, _The Death of Antagonis_, fell far short of the standard Mephiston set.


LotN


----------



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Lord of the Night said:


> Thank you Pacey.
> 
> _Mephiston_ was quite a good read so I felt I should defend it. Sadly Mr Annandale's other work, _The Death of Antagonis_, fell far short of the standard Mephiston set.
> 
> ...


Yeah, he seems a bit inconsistent in his works. He appears to be good at the well established Blood angels. But one can wonder if he went off such a tangent with the Black Dragons because he got too free hands to flesh them out, due to lack of exposure for them.


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Brother Lucian said:


> Yeah, he seems a bit inconsistent in his works. He appears to be good at the well established Blood angels. But one can wonder if he went off such a tangent with the Black Dragons because he got too free hands to flesh them out, due to lack of exposure for them.


Perhaps. My review for DoA comes out on Sunday, my thoughts on it are in more detail but that is something to consider.


LotN


----------



## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

So the interest behind this book seems to have fizzled out almost the moment people got their hands on it.

Do we simply chalk it up to bad writing/plot? 

The cover made Meph. look like a chubby version of Fabius Bile to me but we're taught never to judge books by their covers.

So.What.Happened.


----------



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

The book was enjoyable enough, but still a fairly small tale. We have pretty much already covered everything about it, so not much more really to be said. In comparision, I felt Soulforge made much better use out of the small format.


----------

