News de la Black Library (France et UK) - 2012

A lot of people tell us that they want to see more of the Iron Hands in the Horus Heresy.

They’re an interesting Legion – their love for augmetics, their close ties with the Mechanicum and the fact that their Primarch is now just a head in a box makes them well worth seeing more of.

Nick Kyme agrees, and for The Primarchs, he has told a tale of Ferrus Manus and his sons from before that regrettable beheading incident. It’s called ‘Feat of Iron’, and here’s an extract from it:

‘Bring them iron and death!’ Gabriel Santar bellowed, a machine reverb in his voice, as he announced the attack.

A war host of Iron Hands answered, advancing in unison as a halo of crackling starbursts erupted from their weapons.

A horde of massive insect-like creatures wrapped in chitin boiled towards them and in its wake, scores of the cloaked warriors who had first sprung the ambush.
Eldar.

As muzzle flares lit, the heavy roar of cannon spoke and the hot air in the desert basin was chewed apart by brass-shelled fury.

Thick-skinned and ponderous, the first wave of chitin creatures was slow but resilient.

Shell impacts rained against their heavy bodies, but did little more than indent flesh. They waded through clouds of explosive discharge from missiles and grenades without pause. Like their slighter kin they had billowed up from the desert in a welter of displaced sand and mournful nasal dirges. Humpbacked and muscular, as bulky as an Imperial battle tank, the beasts were impelled by an eldar kindred wearing what Santar could only assume were some form of mind-goad.

Such alien technology was to be abhorred, but the first captain knew these were not the true vanguard.

Infinitesimal vibrations, growing steadily in significance, registered on his helmet’s auto-senses as minute seismological anomalies in the basin’s tectonic structure.

Earth burrowers tunnelled beneath them, closing on the line of Iron Hands fast.

A series of subterranean detonations presaged the attack, and as the Legiones Astartes advanced in stoic rows of black and steel ceramite, the creatures emerged from geysers of spurting sand. Swift and serpentine, so utterly unlike the ordered ranks of the Iron Hands, it was difficult to make out the precise nature of the abominations. Crackling discharge flickering off the barbed pikes of their masked riders was visible, as the desert drained off master and beast in a fragmenting veil. It was a form of cavalry, Santar realised, only the most debased kind.

Santar scowled, and the cliffs of his cheeks hardened into craggy bulwarks. He would see them wiped from the face of the desert.

Code:


The Reflection Crack'd

FROM AMAZON.COM, LOOK INSIDE FEATURE:

He did not dream, he never dreamed, yet this was, in-escapably, a dream. It had to be. La Fenice was a forbidden place now, and Lucius new better than to ignore the word of his primarch. In the time before their awakening, such disobedience would have been foolhardy. Now it was a death sentence.  Yes, this was most definitely a dream.  At least he hoped so.  Lucius was alone, and he did not like to be alone. He was a warrior who thrived on the adoration of others, and this place was bereft of any admirers but the dead. Hundreds of bodies lay strewn around like gutted piscine lifeforms, twisted by the manner of their death, and every face belied the horror of their mutilations and defilments.  They had died in agony, yet had welcomed every touch of the blade, every clawed hand that burst eyeballs and tore out tongues. This was a theatre of corpses, yet it was not an unpleasant place in which to find himself walking. Though the dead surrounded him, La Fenice felt abandoned. It felt dark and empty, like a mausoleum in the darkest watches of the night. Life had once paraded before its audiences on the arched proscenium, its glorious vibrancy celebrated, its heroes lauded and its absurdities mocked, but now it was a bloody reflection of a time long passed.  The wondrous mural of Serena d'Angelus was all but invisible on the ceiling, its exotic depictions of ancient debaucheries hidden behind a pall of soot and smoke stains. Fires had burned here, and the tang of roasted fat and hair still hung as a scent on the air. Lucius barely noticed it, too faint and too dissipated to pique much of his interest.  Lucius was unarmed, and he felt the lack of a weapon acutely. He was a swordsman without a sword, and it felt as though his limbs were incomplete. Neither was he clad in armour. His luxuriantly painted war plate had been recoloured in a manner more pleasing to the eye, its drab hues and pedestrian ornamentation exaggerated and embellished in a manner more appropriate to a warrior of his skill and standing.  He was close to naked as it was possible for a warrior to be.  He shouldn't be here, and he looked for a way out.  The doors were locked and sealed shut from the outside. As they had been after the primarch had paid one last visit to La Fenice in the wake of the massacre of Ferrus Manus and his allies. Fulgrim had ordered the doors sealed for all time, and none in the Emperor's Children had dared gainsay him.  So why had he risked coming here, even if only in a dream?  Lucius did not know, yet he felt as though he had been summoned to this place, as though an unheard yet insistent voice had been calling to him. It seemed as though it had been calling to him for weeks, but had only now grown enough in power to be heeded.  If he had  been summoned, then where was the summoner?  Lucius moved deeper into the theatre, still keeping watch for a way out, but intrigued to see what had become of the rest of La Fenice. A pair of footlights flickered to life at the edge of the orchestra pit, reflecting their fitful glow from a golden-framed mirror that stood at the centre of the stage. Lucius had not noticed the mirror before now, and let his dreaming steps carry him towards it.  He skirted the orchestra pit, where creatures woven from ruined flesh and dark light had made sport with the entrails of the musicians. The skins of those players were hung from music stands, their heads and limbs arranged like a bizzare orchestra of the damned on those few instruments that remained.  Lucius vaulted onto the stage, the movement smooth and graceful. He was a swordsman, not a butcher, and his physique reflected that. His shoulders were broad, his hips narrow and his reach long. The mirror beckoned him, as though an invisible cord stretched from its silvered depths and reached deep inside his chest.  'I love mirrors,' he had once heard Fulgrim say. 'They let one pass through the surface of things,' but Lucius did not want to pass through the surface of anything. His perfection had been ruined by Loken's treacherous fist, and Lucius had finished the job with a straight razor and a scream that still echoed in his skull if he listened hard enough.  Or was that someone else screaming? It was hard to tell these days.  Lucius did not want to look in the mirror, yet his steps carried him closer with every passing second. What would he see in such a mirror of dreams?  Himself or something far worse; the truth...  It reflected a single spot of light that appeared to have no source he could see. He thought this puzzling until he remembered that this was a dream, where no logic could be counted as solid, and no sight taken for granted.  Lucius stepped in front of the mirror, but instead of the face he had tried to very hard to forget, he saw a handsome warrior with aquiline features, a strong tapered nose and high cheekbones that accentuated the golden green of his eyes. His hair was lacquered black and his lips full, giving him a smile that would have been arrogant had his skill been any less.  Lucius reached up to his face and felt the smoothness of his skin, the unblemished perfection of it like the brushed steel of a polished blade.  'I was beautiful once,' he said, and his reflection laughed to hear such vanity.  Lucius balled a fist, ready to dash his mocking reflection to shards, but his twin did not match his movements, instead looking at a point somewhere over his right shoulder. In the depths of the mirror, Lucius saw the reflection of the incredible portrait of Fulgrim that hung on the pediment over the splintered ruin of the proscenium.  Like his own face, it did not match his memory of the thing. Where before it had been a majestic piece of incredible potency and power, its outlandish colours and vibrant texture stimulating every sense with its sheer daring, now it was simply a portrait. Its colours were bland, its lines uninspired, and the subject made small and unremarkable, such as any mortal journyman painter might work with oils or watercolours.  Yet for all that it was a prosaic thing now, Lucius saw the eyes had been rendered with exquisite skill, capturing a depth of pain, suffering and agony that was almost too much to bear. Since Apothecary Fabius had worked dark transformations upon his flesh, it was a rare stimulus that piqued any interest in Lucius for more than a moment. Yet he felt himself drawn into the portrait's eyes, hearing a plaintive cry that echoed from a time and place beyond understanding. Wordless and edged with a madness that could only come from a eternity of confinment, the eyes were a mute plea for the release of oblivion.  Lucius felt himself drawn into the eyes of the portrait as something stirred within him, a primal presence that had only recently awoken and shared a kinship with the reflected image.  The glassy surface of the mirror rippled like the surface of a pool, as though it too sensed that shared heritage. Tremors were rising from somewhere impossibly deep within the mirror. Unwilling to face what might rise from the mirror's depths, Lucius reached for his swords, unsurprised that they were now belted to his waist and that he was fully attired in his battle armour.  The blades were in his hand in an instant, and he swung them at the mirror in a scissoring arc. It shattered into a thousand spinning pieces of razored glass, and Lucius screamed as they sliced into his perfect face, carving the meat and bone to ugly rawness.  Over his own scream, he herd a scream of frustration that dwarfed his own.  It was the cry of somone who knows their torment will be never-ending. Lucius awoke instantly, his genhanced body switching from sleep to wakefulness in the blink of an eye. He reached for the swords he kept beside his bunk and was on his feet a second later. His chambers were brightly lit, as they always were now, and he swept his blades around in an effort to locate anything out of place that might presage danger.  Garish paintings, symphonic discordias and bloody trophies taken from the black sands of Isstvan V filled his chamber. A bull-headed sculpture taken from the Gallery of Swords sat next to the thighbone of an alien creature he killed on Twenty-Eight Two. The long, keenly-edged blade of an eldar sword-shrieker shared space with the blade limb of a clade creature he'd killed on Murder.  Yes, everything was as it should be, and he relaxed a fraction.  He saw nothing out of th ordinary, and spun his swords in an unconcious display of incredible skill as he sheathed them in the gold and onyx scabbards hanging on the edge of his bunk. His breath came quickly, his muscles burned and his heart beat a rapid tatoo on his ribs, as though he had exerted himself in the training cages against the primarch himself.  The sensation was wondrously pleasurable, yet was gone almost as soon as it came.  Aching disappintment touched Lucius, as it often did when those sensations that raised more than a flicker of interet faded. He reached up to touch his face, relieved and repulsed at the hard ridges of scar tissue criss-crossing his once-perfect features. He had defaced his wondrous visage with knives and glass and blunt metal, but Loken had made the first imperfection, the cut that had torn him open. Lucius had sworn that the Luna Wolf's face would be the mirror of his own, but Loken was gone, cindered ashes drifting on the mournful winds of a dead world.  That silver-bladed sword was now his, a gift from Primarch Fulgrim that had seen his star rise within the Legion to rival that of Julius Kaesoron and Marius Vairosean. The First Captain had offered him new chambers, closer to the beating heart of the Legion, but Lucius had chosen to remain in the quaters assigned to him long ago.  In truth, he despised Kaesoron, and his rejection of the man's offer had given him a moment of delicious frission as he saw resentment flare in his ruined, molten features. Lucius relished Kaesoron's anger and felt a flicker of pleasure at the memory.  He had no wish to be part of the command structure; such as it was now, and simply wished to hone his
 
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The Titan swung its weapons towards Lucius. The engine was wasting its strength coming for a single warrior, but it had seen him atop its fallen twin and had marked him for death.  Lucius knew he could not fight such a powerful enemy, and turned to run, but before he had taken a single step, the angelic outline of a warrior on wings of gold dropped from the smoke. He bore a flint-knapped blade in one hand and a long-barrelled pistol worked in silver and onyx in the other. His stark white hair flew around his glorious features as the heat bleeding from the Titan’s reactor washed over him.  ‘One for me, I think, Lucius,’ said Fulgrim, levelling his pistol at the battle engine.  Fulgrim shot with the calm poise of a duellist on a misty heath. A shining spear of incandescent light imbued with the heat of a newborn star spat from the gun and struck dead centre on the Titan’s shields. A shrieking flare of overload banged like a host of shattering mirrors and a powerful sphere of energy pulsed out like a solar flare.  Lucius was hurled from his feet and hit hard against one of the towering crystal spires at the edge of the facility. Pain sawed up and down his back, and he grinned as he tasted blood.  Even through a haze of smoke and pain he saw what happened next with complete clarity.  Fulgrim stood alone before the war machine, his pistol cast aside and his sword held loosely at his side. The Titan’s auto-loaders ratcheted canisters of shells around from its rear hoppers, and the breeches snapped shut on a fresh load. Fulgrim’s free hand reached up to the battle engine, as though demanding it halt its march.  Lucius laughed at the absurdity of the gesture.  But Fulgrim intended more than simple defiance.  A shimmering nimbus of misty light gathered around the Phoenician, its substance shot with threads of barely visible lightning. Fulgrim’s splayed fingers closed into a fist and he twisted his grip as though tearing at unseen ropes.  The battle engine halted in its rampage, the cockpit snapping up and its weapon arms jerking spasmodically as though the machine was suffering a hideous seizure. Fulgrim’s outstretched hand continued pulling and twisting at the air, and the Titan’s war horn brayed with plaintive horror. The cockpit panes shattered, spraying glass tears to the ground as it slumped back onto its hissing legs.  Lucius watched with horrified fascination as bulging wads of oozing flesh pushed their way out of the cockpit, swelling and pulsating with grotesque life. The gelatinous mass of expanding meat obscured the mastiff head, drooling from the armoured carapace in raw pink tendrils of mutant flesh.  Lucius rose to his feet, awed and wondrously horrified at the death of the battle engine. Amniotic fluid fell in a drizzle from the Titan’s ruptured body, its every orifice and exhaust port choked with monstrous growths of rampant flesh culled from its mortal crew. The stench was appalling, and Lucius breathed deeply, savouring the reek of burned meat that was already beginning to decay.  He approached Fulgrim as the primarch gathered up his fallen pistol.  ‘What did you do?’ asked Lucius.  Fulgrim turned his dead black eyes upon him and said, ‘A little something I learned from the forces that empower me. A trifle, nothing more.'

Feat of Iron:

FROM BLACK LIBRARY WEBSITE:

Decending into the desert basin had not been easy. Hampered by the constant shifting of the dunes and the debilitating effects of the sand on their engines, much of the Army tank divisions and Mechanicum claves had foundered.  Tracks had mired near the tip of the decline, half-drowned in sinking sand. One battle tank pitched nose-first and rolled, bringing an entire column to a grinding halt. Even the bipedal walkers fared no better, and the broken skeletons of several Sentinels hit the nadir of the desert basin before any foot troops. Their burned-out wrecks were ignored by those that followed behind.  It therefore fell to stronger, more able, warriors to take up the mantle of battle.  ‘Bring them iron and death!’ Gabriel Santar bellowed, a machine reverb in his voice, as he announced the attack.  A war host of Iron Hands answered, advancing in unison as a halo of crackling starbursts erupted from their weapons.  A horde of massive insect-like creatures wrapped in chitin boiled towards them and in its wake, scores of the cloaked warriors who had first sprung the ambush.  Eldar.  As muzzle flares lit, the heavy roar of cannon spoke and the hot air in the desert basin was chewed apart by brass-shelled fury.  Thick-skinned and ponderous, the first wave of chitin creatures was slow but resilient.  Shell impacts rained against their heavy bodies, but did little more than indent flesh. They waded through clouds of explosive discharge from missiles and grenades without pause. Like their slighter kin they had billowed up from the desert in a welter of displaced sand and mournful nasal dirges. Humpbacked and muscular, as bulky as an Imperial battle tank, the beasts were impelled by an eldar kindred wearing what Santar could only assume were some form of mind-goad.  Such alien technology was to be abhorred, but the first captain knew these were not the true vanguard.  Infinitesimal vibrations, growing steadily in significance, registered on his helmet’s auto-senses as minute seismological anomalies in the basin’s tectonic structure.  Earth burrowers tunnelled beneath them, closing on the line of Iron Hands fast.  A series of subterranean detonations presaged the attack, and as the Legiones Astartes advanced in stoic rows of black and steel ceramite, the creatures emerged from geysers of spurting sand. Swift and serpentine, so utterly unlike the ordered ranks of the Iron Hands, it was difficult to make out the precise nature of the abominations. Crackling discharge flickering off the barbed pikes of their masked riders was visible, as the desert drained off master and beast in a fragmenting veil. It was a form of cavalry, Santar realised, only the most debased kind.  Santar scowled, and the cliffs of his cheeks hardened into craggy bulwarks. He would see them wiped from the face of the desert.  A fusillade of small-arms fire and light ordnance erupting around him, the first captain led a company of Morlocks into the onrushing creatures with his lightning claw aloft. The sun glinted from the blades and made the dark metal of his armour gleam.  At range the elite warriors were formidable; at close quarters they were unstoppable.  The aliens seemed not to realise, but would soon be educated.  ‘Be as iron!’ he roared as the eldar hit them.  A beast, its long torso segmented and armoured with a tough brown carapace, snapped at the first captain in an attempt to bite off his arm. Santar shrugged off the blow and cut its face open, spilling viscous green fluid onto clacking mandibles and many-faceted eye-pits. A second slash severed its razor-edged pincers with a roar of bionic automation that drew a high-pitched mewl of pain from the thing’s puckered mouth.  Its rider, a sand-cloaked eldar in dun-coloured battle armour that was the mirror of the creature’s natural carapace, brought its electro-pike to bear, but Santar cut the wretch down before it could thrust.  Servos in his mechanised implants screaming, lending enhanced strength to an already exceptional biology, Santar cleaved the head from a second chitin-worm as the first was still collapsing. Through the gore fountaining from the neck cavity he saw Captain Vaakal Desaan, who was leading the other company, eviscerate a third.  Beast and rider crumpled. Behind them, more were coming. They were skirting ahead of the larger, beetle-like monsters, their sand wakes just breaking the desert surface in rippling mounds.  At least four dozen enemy contacts registered on his retinal display. Faint heat signatures, baffled by the sand, suggested there were another four score still fully submerged. A host of dun-cloaked foot troops with anti-gravitic weapon arrays followed them and the air chimed to the shriek of their cannons.  A heavy barrage was coming off the iron-armoured Morlocks in response, their rattling combination bolter fire taking a brutal toll. Holding the centre of the war host, they showed no sign of capitulation. Fashioned of reinforced plates, with the barrel-like shoulder guards adorned by pteruges that overlaid the thinner and more dexterous arm greaves, their Cataphractii Terminator armour was near-inviolate against the alien weapons. Intended for frontal assault, a tactic in which the Iron Hands excelled, the armour made them giants. Hulking, implacable, they passed through a hail of heavy bow-casters, fusion blasters and shuriken cannon with impunity.  Little effort was expended in vanquishing the chitin-worms, their numbers decimated for no injury in reply.  ‘They have obviously not fought Terminators before,’ Desaan said over the comm-feed.  Santar’s reprimand was swift but light. ‘Just kill them, brother. As efficiently as you can.’ Cataphractii war-plate was rare amongst the Legions, but the Iron Hands boasted a great many suits, especially amongst the clan companies of the Avernii, the Morlocks. It was cumbersome, akin to wearing a battle tank bereft of tracks, but still retained all its resilience and stopping power. Santar revelled in the machine-strength it gave him. They all did.  The Iron Hands’ blows fell like metronomes: precise, methodical and without profligacy or flourish. It was a functional combat doctrine, merciless and unrelenting. The eldar withered before it.  In concert with Captain Desaan, Santar pressed the advance. The thickly-armoured Morlocks were steam-rolling across the dune. Nothing escaped their wrath, which was punitive and absolute.  Renewed tremors jagged across the first captain’s retinal display, indicating further tunnellers. Initially, he expected a secondary wave of the chitin-worms but realised his error as the vibration returns came back louder and more resonant.  ‘Stand and prepare to repel the enemy,’ he barked down the comm-feed.  Both Morlock companies fell into line in perfect unison, weapons locked on the dead ground ahead of them. Their bolter storm abated, allowing the battered eldar to scurry back behind their ponderous barricade creatures.  Behind the pitiless lenses of his battle-helm, Santar’s narrowed eyes promised retribution upon those cowards later.  The Army ordnance had managed to find position at the cusp of the rise overlooking the basin. The gunners now had range and pummelled the mind-goaded chitin monsters anchoring the eldar kindreds.  The next wave, he knew, was coming.  ‘Show no mercy,’ he said to his warriors.  Cracks webbed the base of the sand valley, swallowing the carcasses of dead chitin-worms and their slain riders, as a much larger strain of sand-burrower emerged.  Massive pincers married to a serpentine torso that ended in a whickering stinger gave them the aspect of the scorpiad that Santar had heard the XVIIIth legionaries speak of prior to deployment on One-Five-Four Four. Apparently the beast was indigenous to their volcanic home world. It mattered little to the first captain; he just needed to know how to kill them.  A crackling line of bolter fire stitched across a scorpiad-creature’s midriff but the shells failed to penetrate, and exploded with little effect against its hardened exoskeleton.  One look at the barbed stinger and serrated claws attached to its ribbed torso, told Santar that these beasts could penetrate power armour. It was theoretically possibly they could wound the Cataphractii too. He decided to test it, but not before he had thinned the ranks a little.  Santar raised Erasmus Ruuman through his battle-helm’s comm-feed.  The response from the Morlock Ironwrought was immediate.  ‘At your command, first captain.’  In his mind’s eye, Santar painted a blood-red crosshair over the advancing scorpiad-creatures.  And with our iron fist…  ‘Heavy divisions on this position,’ he grated with machine-like cadence, relaying coordinates sub-vocally. ‘Rapiers and missile launchers.’  A glance and a clenched fist from Santar to Desaan held the Morlock captain in place and also brought both Cataphractii companies to a halt.  Seconds later, a storm of ordnance lit the desert basin in magnesium white, so bright it almost overloaded the retinal buffers in Santar’s battle-helm.  …we shall bring down such fury.

The Lion

FROM BLACK LIBRARY WEBSITE, BLOG ENTRY:

Lashing out with an armoured boot, the Lion sent the hound-like beast tumbling down the corridor. Taking half a dozen strides, the primarch brought both of his swords down across its back as it tried to right itself, carving it into three pieces that spattered into gore across the decking.  He stopped for a moment to assess the situation. The flight of stairs down to the main core chamber was only fifty metres ahead, and the passageway was free of enemies. He could hear his company fighting behind him, the retort of bolters echoing up from the stairwell he had just left. Though he knew his little brothers were in a dire situation, he had to focus on his objective: regaining control of the core so that the warp engines and Geller field could be engaged.
 The comm buzzed as he stepped forwards, and he heard Corswain’s voice. The seneschal sounded strained, as if speaking through gritted teeth.
  ‘My liege, the way is clear to the warp core. You must come at once. There is something else here, something we cannot destroy.’ The comm-link hissed for a few seconds. ‘It… It wants to speak with you.’

We’ve got another guest blog today, this time from Gav Thorpe. Gav has written ‘The Lion’, one of the novellas contained in The Primarchs (you can set a reminder now to make sure you are among the first to own this latest instalment in the New York Times bestselling Horus Heresy series), but today he’s taking a look at his other passion, the mysterious eldar. Take it away, Gav:

I’ve always felt that any story or novel set in the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes should do two things. The first is to simply tell a good tale, with a plot and characters that are engaging and challenging for the reader. This is true of all fiction.

The second aim is to broaden the reader’s experience and appreciation of the setting. Both Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 have had millions of words written about them, in Codex books, Black Library novels, White Dwarf, Forge World volumes and elsewhere. The setting continues to expand and gain depth with every new thing written about it. A Black Library work should be firmly rooted in the established themes and facts of the setting, but take the reader on a journey to places not seen before, whether that is the inner workings of an Empire knightly order or an exotic planet on the edge of the galaxy. Every story enriches the setting, showing that despite those millions of existing words there is always room for more exploration and fresh ideas.

As I read through the final edit of Path of the Outcast, this is foremost in my mind. One of my objectives for the Eldar Path series was to look at the lives of the eldar in a way that had not been possible before, from inside their heads and at length. The demands of narrative require that this is done via the stories of the characters, rather than just simply as background material, but by structuring the trilogy in the way I have, I hope it provides insight and inspiration to readers concerning my favourite Warhammer 40,000 race.

In Path of the Warrior we focus heavily on the Aspect Warriors and the lure of Khaine, examining the Exarchs, the Aspect Shrines and the interactions they have with other elements of craftworld life. In the journey of Korlandril we see what it is for an eldar to become gripped by the curse of Khaine, enslaved to a deep anger that we humans cannot comprehend. In Path of the Seer it was the turn of the psychic nature of the eldar to come under the spotlight. As well as the battlefield theatrics and the overt psychic powers of the farseers, we also see through Thirianna’s experiences how the background psychic potential of all craftworld eldar binds them together, creating a shared fate through the energy of the infinity circuit.

With Path of the Outcast it is time to move beyond the confines of the Path and the craftworlds, to glimpse the wondrous variety of the eldar across the galaxy. Following the tale of Aradryan, we leave the comparative safety of the Path and Alaitoc, and witness a character given the freedom to explore his emotions and personality to the fullest extent, unfettered by ritual or calling. We get to meet rangers and Exodites, harlequins and dark eldar, all of whom combat the menace of the Great Enemy in different ways.

It has been tremendous fun looking for gaps in the existing material into which we can delve, and I hope that readers enjoy seeing wider eldar culture as much as I had a blast exploring those areas of mystery. The popularity of the series so far shows that I am not alone in being continually intrigued by these enigmatic people, and I am sure there will be other eldar novels to come. I have started to scratch the surface of the craftworlds and Andy Chambers is doing an admirable job tackling the kin of Commorragh, but what facets of the eldar or other alien races would you explore?

De la difficulté de traduire un titre.

Bien le bonjour à tous !

L’idée a émergé récemment de poster de temps en temps un blog de l’éditeur de Black Library France, voilà donc que je dois m’y coller.

Mais par quoi commencer ?

Il y a un sujet qui me semble pertinent à aborder et discuter, parce que c’est un problème auquel nous sommes fréquemment confrontés, il s’agit de la traduction du titre d’un roman.

C’est une petite chose le titre d’un livre, juste quelques mots, mais ils sont écrits en gros sur la couverture et la tranche, et doivent donner envie au public (avec l’illustration) de prendre ce bouquin, et pas un autre, sur l’étagère du libraire.

Cela représente souvent un problème pour nous qui traduisons des romans écrits en anglais, car c’est une langue très différente du français, beaucoup plus « dans ta face » pourrait-on dire. Et cela se ressent beaucoup dans les titres.
Know no Fear en est le parfait exemple. Cela n’a l’air de rien, après tout, il existe bien la règle « Et ils ne Connaîtront pas la Peur », mais le titre en anglais est Know no Fear, pas And They Shall Know no Fear. Que faire alors ? Pas la Peur ? Nan, pourquoi Même pas Peur dans ce cas-là… Décider de garder la citation en entier ? Cela pourrait fonctionner, mais c’est un peu long n’est-ce pas, l’impact du titre est dilué.
Nous avons passé un bon moment à réfléchir sur ce titre (et à s’arracher les cheveux !), avant que l’évidence ne nous saute aux yeux : La Bataille de Calth, et ils ne connaîtront pas la peur.
Tout simplement.
Parfois la solution est évidente depuis le début, La Voie du Guerrier sonne naturellement bien en français. Ou bien le travail a déjà été fait pour nous, La Faille de Gildar apparaît sur les cartes galactiques de l’Imperium ! Parfois aussi il semble logique de garder le titre original, dont la sonorité semble plus importante que le sens (Bloodborn sonne quand même plus cool que Née dans le Sang).
Au final, il n’y a pas de règle, seulement un effort pour utiliser notre bon sens (si si, nous en sommes pourvus) afin de décider ce qui sera le mieux pour le bouquin.
J’espère en tout cas que nous nous en sortons à peu près, mais bien évidemment, nous restons à l’écoute.

Sur ces bonnes paroles, je m’en retourne plancher sur les titres à venir, en essayant de ne pas penser au moment ou Fear to Tread sortira en français…

Bon Week-end à tous,

Anthony.

« Et ils ne Connaîtront pas la Peur », [...] mais c’est un peu long n’est-ce pas, l’impact du titre est dilué.

avant que l’évidence ne nous saute aux yeux : La Bataille de Calth, et ils ne connaîtront pas la peur.

You found your way into my head
Where even angels fear to tread

Elonex777 a écrit:Le sous-titre je penche plus pour La Chute de l'Ange que pour l'Ange Tombe, ça sonne mieux en français. Alors il y a peut être moyen d'inverser titre et sous-titre.

Un truc du style: La Chute de l'Ange: la Crainte de s'Aventurer