I’ve been taking a little break from the Warhammer 40k novels lately. I’m mostly looking forward to the next installment in the Horus Heresy series, which is available to pre-order now and is due out in November.
However, I decided to dive into the Warhammer 40k universe, just to keep my Waaargh juices flowing, so I picked up a copy of “Titanicus” by Dan Abnett, who I generally consider to be one of my favorite 40k writers.
The book centers on a war between the legendary Warhammer 40k Titans, who are gigantic two-legged machines of uninhibited apocalyptic power.
A Titan is something that is incredibly rare in Warhammer 40k history and each one of them is considered a holy relic by the Mechanicus order that worships the machine.
In Titanicus, the reader witnesses the extremely rare event that is an Imperial Titan Legion facing off against a Chaos Titan Legion, and the resulting destruction is appropriately insane, even if the whole experience feels a bit flat.
The plot sees the forge world of Orestes being attacked. Forge worlds are critical worlds for the Imperium in the Warhammer 40k universe as they serve the purpose of producing incredible amounts of military hardware needed to fuel humanity’s constant struggle for survival.
Fortunately, the Titan Legion Invictus is stationed in the world and ready to help defend. However, it soon becomes clear that the Chaos invaders have brought their own Titan war machines, so we’re treated to many pages of description of god-machine tension over god-machine action.
In addition to the story about the actual war and the many battles, Titanicus actually spends a great deal of time trying to tell a story about political intrigue and tries to build characters that you will feel emotionally connected to.
You will notice that I use the words “try” and “try” and sadly I have to say they are very apt.
I don’t feel like Abnett really encapsulates at all the exotic culture you’d expect to find within a Titan Legion or amongst the inner workings of the Mechanicus. Instead, I was a little irritated to find various attempts at light humor that seemed rather forced and uncharacteristic coming from the kind of people who made it.
So at least the Titan battles are awesome, right? Well… I have to say they didn’t really do it for me either. Maybe it’s just me but I feel like the titans have been built into the Warhammer 40k mythology to the point where having a couple of them together in the same place should be an incredibly epic experience and the battle between two of these kind of machines should be city leveling stuff.
But in Titanicus there are so many titans that it almost reduces combat between them to a mundane event.
The giant city-block sized Warlord and Reaper class titans are taken out multiple times throughout the book and frankly it cheapens the sense of awe and awe I have for the 40k Titans.
I’m sorry if this review ends up sounding too negative, but after finishing Titanicus I feel like massive battles between large groups of titans is maybe something that sounds great on paper (or well, not on paper in this book, but whatever). but it doesn’t really work that well in practice.
Also, I feel like the non-battle sequences in the book leave a lot to be desired, so I couldn’t even skip over the battles and try to follow a gripping story of political maneuvering, which is actually something I generally enjoy as well. . in the Warhammer 40k books.
All in all, I really can’t recommend Titanicus to you, unless you’re incredibly excited about the idea of Titan on Titan smackdowns.
