Renegades: Lord of Excess cover art

Renegades: Lord of Excess

Warhammer 40,000

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Renegades: Lord of Excess

By: Rich McCormick
Narrated by: Richard Reed
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About this listen

A Warhammer 40,000 Audiobook

The Emperor’s Children seek sensation above all else, but when Xantine's warband come upon an isolated Imperial world, he sees an opportunity to pursue the finer things in life. How long can the proud warlord maintain his 'perfect' rule – and will the planet survive his reign?

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It's a tantalising look into the gleefully twisted minds of the Emperor's Children, as an arrogant warlord strives to 'save' an Imperial world from its own imperfections.

THE STORY

Once a united Legion, the disparate splinters of the Emperor’s Children now eke out a violent, hedonistic existence between the stars, raiding and ravaging worlds to indulge their fathomless appetites.

Xantine, proud leader of the Adored and a true son of Fulgrim, wants more than simply pillaging backwater worlds. He soon finds what he has been searching for – Serrine, a wealthy but cruel planet festering under misrule and inequality, cut off from the Imperium by warp storms. It is too tantalising a prize to ignore, and Xantine sets out to bring perfection to his new world.

But perfection is an elusive concept, and as threats creep from the depths of Serrine and the ranks of the Adored, the rot at the heart of Xantine’s perfect rule is laid bare...

©2024 Games Workshop Limited (P)2024 Games Workshop Limited Science Fiction Space Opera
All stars
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good story, nice twists. nice display of the core faults of the emperor children and why they keep failing to do much.

and then it got worse

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I liked everything about the book. I like books about chaos; not because they are cool, but it's because I believe this story makes the Chaos Marines so human. Like with the emperor's children, how they strive for perfection in skilful and disgusting ways. Trying to make themselves like they were. But ultimately destroying it themselves, because they view themselves to be perfect. But ultimately it is impossible. Engaging because they give themselves off to be these beautiful perfect warriors. But under these facades are short-tempered children with massive egos who will indulge in anything to get any bit of excitement. And I think the narrator brings this magically to life. With their stellar performance I would love to see them in more Empress children books. And again I will state this but the voice range was amazing. If you lost track of character's names, you could tell who it was from the different voice. Again 10 out of 10 performance.

A perfect story And amazing narrator

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Likes
-EC characters are great
-over due representation of EC that isn’t built in the stereotypical belief that ‘Slaanesh worship must relate to sex and torture’
-An interesting insight into how an imperial world can easily fall victim to a chaos invasion

Dislikes
-story can get a bit stale in parts especially when it focuses on the citizens of the planet. In particular in the first half of the novel.
-relates to the previous point but would have liked more interactions between the EC characters which is one of the highlights of the book. Admittedly, I’m not sure how much of this is due to how starved we are of EC representation in 40K lore in general rather than it being an issue with this specific story

Good EC representation

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The Emperors Children in all their dysfunctional hedonistic glory! Write a sequel and I’ll buy that too!

Rich and Richard did some great work here.

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I understand that a CSM protagonist should be somewhat unlikable, however Xantine is downright inept. The story has many time jumps to explain away elements, whilst the main character is simply stupid. He comes across as a whining lord, good at neither combat nor leadership. I ended up rooting for those attempting to usurp him in the vain hope that we could get an actual character.

the story itself is messy, with the mentioned time jumps and flitting between antagonists. sometimes it's best to keep it simple and just tell a good story. Ultimately this story ends the way it began, with the added downsides of killing off every likable character except the one I disliked.

wasted potential

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