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Warhammer 40,000
Junktion
In the far future towering hive of Necromunda talk and lives are both cheap. Rival factions vie for political control of the hive city's upper reaches whereas further down they just struggle to survive. Power of all kinds is the highest valued commodity in an environment like this and when Sinden Kass realises he controls the power supply of a struggling township, he finds himself a wanted man.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
8 people are currently reading
99 people want to read
About the author
Matthew Farrer
45 books32 followersMatthew Farrer writes mostly for Black Library. He lives in Australia.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 10, 2012
Well done SF/Western set in the grim darkness of the Warhammer 40,000 Necromunda world. Quite enjoyable as it hearkens to more of a frontier mentality rather than the Gothic grimness of the usual Warhammer fare.
January 23, 2021
When I was younger, I read a lot of the Necromunda books, and it has always been a favorite setting of mine. Yet, for some reason, I had never picked up this book, so this time around I thought I would take a crack at it.
Three years. It took me three years to finally finish this book. Was it a bad book? No, in fact I would argue it is just an okay book. It just wasn't all that exciting in the grand scheme of things. Farrer gets props for writing from the stand point of someone who isn't a ganger, but rather just a simple lamplighter who has a knack for electricity and such, and thus is fairly important in the underhive of Necromunda. Fairly realistic in my mind, and something that would be fairly important in a place where there is no natural light outside of luminescence.
The overall story is about this lamplighter and them trying to deal with various things that are going on around them within their settlement as it all falls down around them and lamplighters get betrayed by the populous. There is a nice mystery here as to what is going on, which is an interesting idea within Necromunda and one I was glad to see. However, the protagonist felt far more reactive than proactive in this story, constantly reacting to everything around him rather than actively taking his future into his own hands. Yes, he does do this later on in the climax of the novel, but at this point it feels almost alien to his character. Yes, you can be pushed around and bullied into acting the way he does, but I don't feel he went through enough to cause this change in character.
And the overall twist at the end that the Guilder reveals? Sure, it was interesting, but in a place like Necromunda, almost expected and all in all not as shocking as I expected. In the grand scheme of this story, it feels almost like it was a let down and is there just to be the motivator to cause the mental switch from reactionary to proactive for our protagonist.
These two elements makes for a boring story for the most part. Sure, there is some nice action sprinkled throughout the novel, but even then, the lamplighter is reacting to most of the dangers rather than taking his personal safety into his own hands. Hard to cheer for someone like that.
In the end, this book was an average one in the Necromunda series for me. It offers some nice setting material for Necromunda and adds some nice world building. If you want to enhance the overall feel of Necromunda, this is a good book to pick up. Otherwise, pick up one of the other books in the series.
Three years. It took me three years to finally finish this book. Was it a bad book? No, in fact I would argue it is just an okay book. It just wasn't all that exciting in the grand scheme of things. Farrer gets props for writing from the stand point of someone who isn't a ganger, but rather just a simple lamplighter who has a knack for electricity and such, and thus is fairly important in the underhive of Necromunda. Fairly realistic in my mind, and something that would be fairly important in a place where there is no natural light outside of luminescence.
The overall story is about this lamplighter and them trying to deal with various things that are going on around them within their settlement as it all falls down around them and lamplighters get betrayed by the populous. There is a nice mystery here as to what is going on, which is an interesting idea within Necromunda and one I was glad to see. However, the protagonist felt far more reactive than proactive in this story, constantly reacting to everything around him rather than actively taking his future into his own hands. Yes, he does do this later on in the climax of the novel, but at this point it feels almost alien to his character. Yes, you can be pushed around and bullied into acting the way he does, but I don't feel he went through enough to cause this change in character.
And the overall twist at the end that the Guilder reveals? Sure, it was interesting, but in a place like Necromunda, almost expected and all in all not as shocking as I expected. In the grand scheme of this story, it feels almost like it was a let down and is there just to be the motivator to cause the mental switch from reactionary to proactive for our protagonist.
These two elements makes for a boring story for the most part. Sure, there is some nice action sprinkled throughout the novel, but even then, the lamplighter is reacting to most of the dangers rather than taking his personal safety into his own hands. Hard to cheer for someone like that.
In the end, this book was an average one in the Necromunda series for me. It offers some nice setting material for Necromunda and adds some nice world building. If you want to enhance the overall feel of Necromunda, this is a good book to pick up. Otherwise, pick up one of the other books in the series.
August 12, 2020
Decent mind candy, quick work. 80% of it is pretty much one intermittent action sequence.
The only literary flourish is the protagonist constantly trying to distract himself - from a sheer drop, from the prospect of assailants above, from his culpability, from his impotence.
Necromunda (focussing on the under-underclass of a world-city) is much less Gothic, mystical, triumphal than the usual 40k stuff. But still nasty, unredeemed, temporary, claustrophobic.
The only literary flourish is the protagonist constantly trying to distract himself - from a sheer drop, from the prospect of assailants above, from his culpability, from his impotence.
Necromunda (focussing on the under-underclass of a world-city) is much less Gothic, mystical, triumphal than the usual 40k stuff. But still nasty, unredeemed, temporary, claustrophobic.
January 10, 2025
More in the 2.5 territory
I continue my trek down the rabbit hole of Necromunda novels, luckily there aren't as many as Warhammer 40k. I've made it to Junktion and all I can say is I feel very neutral about this book. It's not a bad book, but it's also not a great book. It is merely an okay little adventure.
Part of the problem I had with the book is that it was from a perspective I don't really enjoy reading very much, first person. I've read some books that worked well enough because the story was good like Outgunned, but most of the books fall pretty flat for me nad Junktion is a bit of a classic case of what doesn't work for me.
Junktion follows around a character named Sinder Kass. He has a job in the town of Junktion that he is extremely dedicated to, lamp lighting. Basically he and several others have the job of maintaining the lighting and electrical systems for the settlement. It's a cool flavorful idea for the Necromunda setting. And I do like the idea that we get to see some life outside of the gangs to be honest. I think the setup and story concept were a very cool idea. From the start we get the feeling that not all things are right in the land of Junktion and there are political machinations at work behind the scenes.
So, while I quite like the idea of Kass being a commoner, we never really get to be privy to what's going on behind the scenes very much. Instead of just Kass reacting to everything that goes wrong while still trying to "do his job", which is all he wants to do. The problem with Kass' job is that it is a tad boring to read about, so when a good amount of time is devoted to explaining how Kass is fixing something, it's extremely dry explanatory text... which you'd expect. But we don't need to go through it that often as readers, once is really enough, after that you can just say "he worked on this thing and moved on".
At one point in the story he gets sent on a long journey to fix lines on a trade route and this goes haywire to the point where he encounters giant rats and scavvies. This felt a bit like an excuse to include giant rats because the models are cool. But in escaping the rats he wound up captured by scavvies, but the scavvies were weird and didn't just kill him and steal his stuff, no, that would end the story. So, instead they kidnap him? I dunno, just seemed out of character for them.
At one point we do get a bit of explanation of the political machinations as told by Guilder Tai to Kass. It's a frustratingly fragmented conversation in the book, meaning some parts of the conversation are laid out, then a bunch of stuff happens to Kass and his friends, then more of the conversation is revealed. Based on the things that happened, it didn't seem like this was necessary. The missing piece of the convo wasn't suspenseful and to be honest, I had no idea it was fragmented until more was revealed later. So there was no feeling, as a reader, that there was any big reveal to be had. A lot of the writing and sub-plots feel this way. They don't feel like they're going anywhere, it never feels like there is much of a greater goal in mind, other than to find a way for Kass to do his job. And I think that's why this novel falls a bit flat for me.
In the end, I don't feel this is a must read Necromunda novel. The town of Junktion and the people in it are well constructed. Junktion seems like a cool map to play a game on or even an extended campaign, but as a story of the people? It just doesn't seem well crafted and comes out very dry at times. I think this is only worth reading if you're obsessed with Necromunda and have nothing left to read in the setting.
I continue my trek down the rabbit hole of Necromunda novels, luckily there aren't as many as Warhammer 40k. I've made it to Junktion and all I can say is I feel very neutral about this book. It's not a bad book, but it's also not a great book. It is merely an okay little adventure.
Part of the problem I had with the book is that it was from a perspective I don't really enjoy reading very much, first person. I've read some books that worked well enough because the story was good like Outgunned, but most of the books fall pretty flat for me nad Junktion is a bit of a classic case of what doesn't work for me.
Junktion follows around a character named Sinder Kass. He has a job in the town of Junktion that he is extremely dedicated to, lamp lighting. Basically he and several others have the job of maintaining the lighting and electrical systems for the settlement. It's a cool flavorful idea for the Necromunda setting. And I do like the idea that we get to see some life outside of the gangs to be honest. I think the setup and story concept were a very cool idea. From the start we get the feeling that not all things are right in the land of Junktion and there are political machinations at work behind the scenes.
So, while I quite like the idea of Kass being a commoner, we never really get to be privy to what's going on behind the scenes very much. Instead of just Kass reacting to everything that goes wrong while still trying to "do his job", which is all he wants to do. The problem with Kass' job is that it is a tad boring to read about, so when a good amount of time is devoted to explaining how Kass is fixing something, it's extremely dry explanatory text... which you'd expect. But we don't need to go through it that often as readers, once is really enough, after that you can just say "he worked on this thing and moved on".
At one point in the story he gets sent on a long journey to fix lines on a trade route and this goes haywire to the point where he encounters giant rats and scavvies. This felt a bit like an excuse to include giant rats because the models are cool. But in escaping the rats he wound up captured by scavvies, but the scavvies were weird and didn't just kill him and steal his stuff, no, that would end the story. So, instead they kidnap him? I dunno, just seemed out of character for them.
At one point we do get a bit of explanation of the political machinations as told by Guilder Tai to Kass. It's a frustratingly fragmented conversation in the book, meaning some parts of the conversation are laid out, then a bunch of stuff happens to Kass and his friends, then more of the conversation is revealed. Based on the things that happened, it didn't seem like this was necessary. The missing piece of the convo wasn't suspenseful and to be honest, I had no idea it was fragmented until more was revealed later. So there was no feeling, as a reader, that there was any big reveal to be had. A lot of the writing and sub-plots feel this way. They don't feel like they're going anywhere, it never feels like there is much of a greater goal in mind, other than to find a way for Kass to do his job. And I think that's why this novel falls a bit flat for me.
In the end, I don't feel this is a must read Necromunda novel. The town of Junktion and the people in it are well constructed. Junktion seems like a cool map to play a game on or even an extended campaign, but as a story of the people? It just doesn't seem well crafted and comes out very dry at times. I think this is only worth reading if you're obsessed with Necromunda and have nothing left to read in the setting.
July 3, 2019
Отличная книга.
Бытие маленького человека в лабиринте подулья. Развернутый адекватный главный герой, который искренне пытается не отсвечивать и избегать проблем, пока его уютный мирок стремительно катится в ад. В кои то веки перед нами не трансчеловеческий полубог, не железный инквизитор, не лихой комиссар. Да даже не тертый гвардеец, а простой мирный фонарщик. Но, разумеется, в далеком темном будущем даже фонарщикам живется нелегко. Особенно в подулье Некромунды.
Бытие маленького человека в лабиринте подулья. Развернутый адекватный главный герой, который искренне пытается не отсвечивать и избегать проблем, пока его уютный мирок стремительно катится в ад. В кои то веки перед нами не трансчеловеческий полубог, не железный инквизитор, не лихой комиссар. Да даже не тертый гвардеец, а простой мирный фонарщик. Но, разумеется, в далеком темном будущем даже фонарщикам живется нелегко. Особенно в подулье Некромунды.
September 21, 2017
Necromunda novel, not 40k technically.
July 31, 2021
Enjoyed it muchly. Good plotline draws you in. Easy reading, good descriptions and good association with the characters.
September 10, 2024
Did not like it much at start - a little confusing but i liked it a lot in the end!
June 4, 2018
Junktion is a town in the Underhive, which is where you end up after hitting rock bottom.
Sinden kass works as a lamplighter, keeping the juice flowing and making sure there's enough light to see trouble coming before it's too late.
After the guilds and the gangs start moving in, and he becomes the only lamplighter left in town, he has to try and stay alive long enough to figure out what to do.
Set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but much more personal than Space Marines or Imperial Guard novels, it has a more oppressive feel than they do.
Also much darker than the Kal Jericho novels in the same setting, this really gives the feel for things spiralling out of control of someone who just wants to do his job and get paid but finding themselves pushed to the forefront of events.
Sinden kass works as a lamplighter, keeping the juice flowing and making sure there's enough light to see trouble coming before it's too late.
After the guilds and the gangs start moving in, and he becomes the only lamplighter left in town, he has to try and stay alive long enough to figure out what to do.
Set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but much more personal than Space Marines or Imperial Guard novels, it has a more oppressive feel than they do.
Also much darker than the Kal Jericho novels in the same setting, this really gives the feel for things spiralling out of control of someone who just wants to do his job and get paid but finding themselves pushed to the forefront of events.
April 22, 2015
I really wanted to like this more, since it's Necromunda, but I really couldn't figure out the motivations of the main character. All his coworkers and friends are dying around him and yet he does nothing. In the end it was implied that he was the type of guy who kept his down and did his job, but that really should have been established in the beginning. One thing that it did that was interesting was name EVERYTHING. Every alley, every town, every neighborhood, every landmark had a name. Perhaps if less attention were paid to naming things, no matter how interesting, it would have been a better story. Still it was fun to read about Cawdor, Goliath, Escher, & Orlock.
February 28, 2014
An entertaining and claustrophobic read.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews