Priests of Mars

Forge of Mars: Warhammer 40,000, Book 1

By: Graham McNeill

Narrated by: Joe Jameson

Book one in the Forges of Mars series.

An Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator fleet ventures beyond the borders of the Imperium in pursuit of arcane technology. Who knows what perils may lie outside the dominion of mankind?

Listen to it because: it's a novel like nothing else from Black Library. Graham McNeill crafts a tale that only he could tell, beginning a mind-bending saga of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Chaos and more besides.

The story: legend tells of a foolhardy expedition, led by the radical Magos Telok, that ventured out into the unknown space beyond the Halo Worlds in search of the 'Breath of the Gods' - an arcane device with the power to unmake and reshape the very stars themselves. Thousands of years later, the ambitious Lexell Kotov musters his Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator fleet and sets out to follow in mad old Telok's footsteps. With the might of the Imperial Guard and the Space Marines to augment his own forces, he searches for the hidden clues that will lead him to greatest power that the galaxy has ever known. But who knows what ancient perils may yet lie outside the Imperium and the dominion of mankind?

Written by Graham McNeill. Narrated by Joe Jameson.

©2021 Games Workshop Limited (P)2021 Games Workshop Limited

if you just past the reader voice for the 1st hour

the reader was a bad choice take about an hour to get over him

Good story with some minor production issues

I really wish Audible has a separate rating for the actual production of the book. The narration is fantastic, but sometimes a sentence accidentally repeats, and I checked to make sure it wasn’t just my phone glitching.

Overall the story is good. However, I do have a complaint with just how many different stories and characters there are at a given moment. I think one chapter alone ended up cycling through like 6 different POVs. It’s not really that hard to keep track of them, I just hate being drip fed some of the ones I’m more interested in.

Also really enjoy how this one expands of some more detailed Mechanicus stuff, as well as starting to scratch the horror that is Servitors.

Would recommend!

Technophiles and Terrans Take Trailblazing Trip through Terrifying Territory

Positives:
Felt somewhat like classic Star Trek, great cast of characters with interesting relationships.
Shows both the amazing heights and terrifying darkness of the Mechanicus.
Narrator was fantastic! The voices are great!

Negatives:
Slow start
A ton of characters to start out, takes a bit to figure out who everyone is

5/5, great read! Omnissiah be praised!

a good start

Great start to the series. interested to see where it goes. A good mix of imperial factions and voice work differentiating them that keeps you engaged and interested.

A breathe of fresh air

This narrator is amazing. Idk why they keep paying John Banks when you can get this guy. Seriously, why are you still paying John Banks to narrate so many books?? Coming off a binge of grim HH novels and out of interesting novels in the current timeline (blood of the emperor, dark imperium was a slog and I do not recommend the A Dawn of Fire series), this story was a great pallet cleanser. A straightforward action adventure story with a wide cast of characters with decent characterization. They're still somewhat flat McNeil type characters but they're so varied and so many of them interacting you hardly notice. The pacing is great as there's always a perspective to jump to. The basic premise of adventuring out past the edge of the galaxy with black templars, cadians, all kinds of adeptus mechanicus, and some menials coughslavescough, in search of a lost expedition is something few people would turn down. Ignore the dude railing about a black templar reclusiarch ditching his armor for formal wear - it's only one scene and the best thing about warhammer is there is no such thing as absolute cannon.