Feel free to feed my inbox as it is quite hungry. Just send me any questions, concerns, rants or musings. Heck, I might even answer them in a timely fashion.
Thanks a bajillion,
The Captain of Chickens
jtparrino [at] gmail.com
Musings on Life, Writing, and the Free Territory of Ascham
© 2026 Joe Parrino, Writer
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
Hello,
I’ve tried to reach you over the email, and, while I understand if you don’t want to answer to random fans and their stupid theories, I’ll give it one more try, through the form this time, in hope that the first message was just blocked/discarded as a spam (which it, in a sense, is).
So, first of all, thank you for your books!
So, we were sitting – a group of avid readers/listeners to Black Library materials – and there was a (heated, but within normalcy) debate going on regarding “The Shape of the Hunt”. We’re all non-English native speakers, so it happens frequently, but this time not one of us managed to convince the others about his/her version. I’ve been taught to solve the problems by going to their source, and that’s what I’m doing with this message – going to the source.
Let me try and quote:
===========
The largest of the alien battlesuits faced them down, light glinting from the lenses that served it for eyes. It was of the massive type first seen on the battlefields of Agrellan. Sparks glided between cracks and joints in its armour.
Smoke poured from its weapon mounts. It settled onto its haunches.
[…]
The walker struggled to position itself between the brotherhood and the remaining khamar. It was ready to sell its life so that its commander and comrades would survive. Something cracked inside the machine. There was a noise like thunder, like the breaking of the world, and the battlesuit ceased to exist.
===========
There are two problematic moments and two interpretations for each. Can you, please, assuming it’s not a great secret, help us with this?
#1. When the suit settled: was it a proactive action (like settled in preparation to fire) or a passive one (i.e. just slumped, but with a different wording)?
#2. Was the explosion the act of self-destruction, aimed to maim and kill enemies, or was it a misfire/result of the damage received?
Basically we have a group that says “it was destroyed, and then it exploded” and a group that says “it was damaged, and then performed self-destruction”.
Well, one more group – just me, to be honest – thinks that it settled to fire, but then a misfire happened.
Apologies for pestering you with this, and, again, thank you for your wonderful wordsmithing!
Cheers,
Zverko