Anna Perenna
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annenathema.bsky.social
Anna Perenna
@annenathema.bsky.social
430 followers 920 following 630 posts
WH40k fan (especially Horus Heresy) hampered by my inability to paint.

Lover of 40k novels, sci-fi, and romantasy. I buy LOTS of ebooks, so please feel free to recommend some!

Pfp artwork taken from a pic by mydinh on DeviantArt. Looking for a new one.
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annenathema.bsky.social
Image from the July 1, 1899 issue of "The Illustrated Police News", captioned "THRASHED BY A LADY CYCLIST, noted for her athletic powers", and featuring, as the caption indicates, a lady cyclist thrashing a (and I presumably need to use this term lightly gentleman, as her bicycle lays nearby and a crowd of aggrieved 19th Century dudebros look on in horror.
November 22, 2025 at 9:02 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
Perturabo is far from my favorite Primarch, but I always loved this pic of him by Alex Boyd from the old Visions artbooks, because it shows that Perty is such a grumpy gus that even his hammer is a giant sourpuss. It's like he's wielding a daemon-possessed Mr. Yuk in battle.
Art from the Warhammer 40k "The Horus Heresy: Collected Visions" artbook, painted by Alex Boyd, showing the Traitor Primarch Perturabo in full armor and hefting a hammer whose head has a giant toothed monstrous frowny face on the front edge. Seriously, it looks like a cross between the Necromomicon from the Evil Dead movies and Mr. Yuk, the poison warning sticker.
November 22, 2025 at 4:41 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
Hmm.

Again with the very carefully-gender-neutral pronouns for a Space Marine in "Dropsite Massacre".

What's going on here that both Loyalist and Traitor viewpoint characters are being so cagey about the gender of the Space Marines they're sometimes fighting, I wonder?
"The head of a chainaxe hits the Raven Guard across the faceplate. It bites. Bits of ceramite shower out. The Raven Guard reels, and the axe head hacks down into their neck. The axe teeth spin blood into the air. The World Eater keeps hacking the dead Raven Guard as they fall. They don’t look at Khârn, they are already running towards their next kill. Khârn wills himself to rise, but the ground will not let him go and the grey fog in his ey-" (the page of the eBook in the screenshot ends here, in the middle of that word)
November 21, 2025 at 3:25 AM
annenathema.bsky.social
This is an interestingly gender-neutral way to refer to a Space Marine.

(from "Dropsite Massacre", by John French)
"Terminator Tiamastus begins to bark a warning. Orasus drops the helm. Its shattered eye-lens looks up at him from the ground. He kneels beside a corpse half buried in the dust. It is a Death Guard. A melta blast has removed their body below the ribcage, but the helm is intact. He unfastens it."
November 20, 2025 at 5:32 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
So, um, sorry about the multiple replies, and (again) I wish I had some good advice from a writer or seller perspective, but I don't.

I did, however, go your Backerkit campaign page, and as a reader this *immediately* grabbed me. So, "romantasy" label or no, I'm in at the digital pledge level!
Screenshot from the Backerkit campaign page of "BOOM Goes The Bride" by Valiant Evermech, which reads "When the twice-dead thief Nil steals a magical dagger from one of the world's angriest trillionaires, the last thing she expects is to fall in love with his daughter Sook, the so-called Mother of a Million Clones. But the heart wants what the heart wants, and in this case the heart wants to be chased, shot at, and possibly exploded. Til death do us part is gonna need a bit of an extension..."
November 17, 2025 at 9:32 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
No, thanks. I've already got one.
A photograph of a box of a stress toy labeled "Giant Stress Brain"
November 15, 2025 at 8:13 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
I feel everyone should have a favorite Burgess Shale creature.

Mine, of course, is Anomalocaris.
Artist's rendering of Anomalocaris, from Wikipedia.
November 14, 2025 at 1:34 AM
annenathema.bsky.social
I'm hiding in back of the big conference room buying eBooks. I had no idea @chriswarcraft.bsky.social wrote a scifi novel, so naturally I had to get it.
Screenshot of my Kobo Latest Purchases page, showing "Otaku" by Chris Kluwe.
November 13, 2025 at 2:32 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
...I may have a crush on Pencil Skirt Lady Nutcracker.
A photo I took of "North Pole Trading Co. 14in Shopper Girl Wood Christmas Nutcracker" (https://www.jcpenney.com/p/north-pole-trading-co-14in-shopper-girl-wood-christmas-nutcracker/ppr5008499390?pTmplType=regular) at my local JC Penney. It's basically a Lady Nutcracker (you know, like the Christmas thing) holding a wrapped present and wearing a black pencil skirt and a fluffy white bucket hat.
November 1, 2025 at 2:47 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
This stuff is bullshit. I've been using for a week now, and my face still isn't radiating its own photons.
A small jar of Glowing Vitamin C Skin Cream by my bathroom sink.
October 30, 2025 at 11:57 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
I confess I bought this just because of the title.
Kobo store page for "The Maleficent Seven", by Cameron Johnston.
October 26, 2025 at 4:47 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
From "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek" by Edward Gross and Mark Altman. Devra Langsam started one of the first Trek zines in 1967 and co-organized the first major Trek convention in 1972. We're still dealing with this nonsense 60 years later.
"DEVRA LANGSAM From the very beginning science fiction was very male-focused or male-controlled. There were a few women involved, but an awful lot of them were just the wives of the fans. So when Star Trek started, it had a very large female com-ponent, which I think the networks never really understood. They had these three sexy guys as heroes and they didn't expect that women would say "Oh, wow!"? But they persisted in feeling that all Star Trek fans were sixteen-year-old guys with acne who wore eighty-seven buttons on their shirts. I mean, we tried to tell them, but they never listened. A lot of people were drawn into fandom because of Star Trek, many of them women, and the old-line fans started to feel like they were losing their grip on their own hobby. Look, I'm sure it must have felt like an invasion, just as when Star Wars came out and lots of people switched over from Trek to Star Wars. Then there was the added problem that many of the old-line science-fiction fans were... less than perfect in regards to socialization. So if they saw a girl and they came up to you, they had a little difficulty perhaps socializing, and that an-noyed the hell out of them because they thought, "Well, she's here and she's a girl, she must be interested in science fiction and me." I'm not being very polite about this, but, again, it was just a question of "I want to talk about Asimov and you've never even heard of Asimov, so why are you trying to take over? There are so many of you!" I mean, we had about four thousand attending the Worldcon in 1967, and then when Elyse Rosenstein and I decided to do our convention, it was so many more people. So the science-fiction fans sort of felt overwhelmed, and there was a certain amount of hostility."
October 25, 2025 at 1:54 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
The Hallmark Channel needs to adapt this into one of their Christmas movies. I'd be more inclined to watch them if they included more werewolves.
Screenshot of Kobo store page for "Werewolf Noel", book 8 of the Big City Lycans series by Eve Langlais.
October 19, 2025 at 5:44 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
I found it!

I ran across this book years ago, before I really started buying eBooks, but I couldn't get it at the time and I didn't have an account anywhere to save it on a wishlist then. And then I forgot the title!

But I remembered the description, and this was it! I'm so happy!!
Screenshot of Kobo store page for "Bridge Kingdom" book 1, by Danielle L. Jensen
October 19, 2025 at 2:34 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
I haven't started them yet, but as you can see I've read (and immensely enjoyed) your other books, so I'm looking forward to these!
Screen shot of my Kobo "My Books" page showing the NeoG books (and the first Indranan War book) by KB Wagers that I own. The three NeoG books are sadly unread, but "Behind the Throne" was finished and very much enjoyed.
October 4, 2025 at 4:04 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
An Ultramarine holding a cup of coffee, with a caption reading "Heresy? At this hour?"
October 4, 2025 at 2:35 AM
annenathema.bsky.social
I am disappointed that this book is a bog-standard "hunky alien warrior and Earth woman" thing, and isn't about How Hot Young St. Nick Met Mrs. Claus.
Kobo store page for "Claus - Book 7 of the Vaxxilian Mail Order Brides (Intergalactic Dating Agency)" series by Sue Mercury
September 28, 2025 at 2:49 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
!!!

This is $2.99 (US) on Kobo right now!
Kobo store page showing the Warhammer 40,000 Ultimate Guide on sale for 85% off, or $2.99 US.
September 25, 2025 at 5:53 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
I like to picture those chuds who rant that "guys don't read books because they're all targeted at women these days" turning down this store aisle and seeing these shelves and just disintegrating like they were Thanos-snapped
Photo of a wall of store shelves showing nothing but fantasy and romantasy books.
September 13, 2025 at 1:00 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
I'm pretty sure I've read this Sailor Moon fanfic.
Screenshot of the cover of "Mars and Venus in the Bedroom" by John Gray.
September 8, 2025 at 5:53 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
Well, that's definitely a purchase, then.
Screenshot of my Kobo "My Books" page, showing Cass Morris' "From Unseen Fire".
August 30, 2025 at 6:37 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
"Mobile Shooter......of DESSSTINY."
Two panels from a Calvin and Hobbes comic. In the first panel, Calvin tells his mother "I want to be introduced as 'Calvin, Boy of Destiny". His mother, looking shocked, responds "Boy of Destiny??" In the second panel, Calvin says "But you have to say it right. Pause a little after 'Boy' and say 'Destiny' a bit slower and deeper for emphasis. Say it 'Boy......of DESSSTINY.' Like that!"
August 28, 2025 at 10:26 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
I'm having a hard time picturing Perturabo "smirking", even at the prospect of being a huge dick to Rogal Dorn.

In my mind, he's basically Prmarch Droopy, staring out from his elaborate armor with a permanently dour expression, even as he says "You know what, I'm happy" in the flattest tone ever.
Screenshot of the 40k short story "Embers of Extinction", reading "Perturabo smirked as he felt the nearly imperceptible shift of the Iron Blood’s mass as the battleship broke from the protective formation of the fleet. Regrettably, this was not the day he’d have the satisfaction of grinding Rogal Dorn’s jaw beneath his boot or ripping Captain Polux’s still-beating heart through his armour, yet Perturabo took solace in the fact that a good number of Imperial servants would die screaming in horror with his face emblazoned in their fading consciousness."
August 27, 2025 at 4:33 PM
annenathema.bsky.social
Screenshot of part of Ian Watson's novel "Space Marine", reading "Lo Chang had sat behind a filigree screen, upon a painstool – not so much that he should experience due anguish at a brother’s admission of shortcomings… Nay, the constipative pangs induced in the nerves of his buttocks may have been subtly pleasurable… but so that thus he might sympathetically take into himself some of the confessee’s misery, then defecate this discomfiture out of his own body, metamorphosed into crass waste matter, fit to be jettisoned. ‘When I pray now to our primarch, to dedicate myself afresh,’ Lex had whispered, ‘a cold void yawns within me… where previously the spirit of Dorn filled me with his presence, his heat, his glow… It’s as though Rogal Dorn has withdrawn his aura of blessing, his grace…’"
August 27, 2025 at 1:40 AM
annenathema.bsky.social
My favorite part about that is that it was GDW who published it, in one of the biggest game magazines. GDW was mainly known for hardcore military simulationist RPGs and wargames...and their original 1984 Twilight 2000 rulebook highlighted women combat soldiers in the post-apocalyptic US Army as PCs.
Illustration from the Character Generation chapter of the first edition Twilight 2000 Player's Handbook from 1984, featuring a woman soldier serving in the post apocalyptic US Army. Screenshot of a page from the Character Generation chapter of the first edition Twilight 2000 Players' Rulebook, reading "Character Generation There really weren't many of us left after Kalisz. I remember that Carson, the Major's driver, found some paint and stenciled a sign he stuck in the ground next to where we had the Hum-Vee parked. Headquarters 3rd Battalion, 143rd Infantry 2nd Brigade 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) United States Army When Gordon saw it, she borrowed the paint and stencils and painted the same thing on a sign we put next to our other vehicle, the old LAV-25, except instead of headquarters she painted "Main Body". The Major laughed when he saw it, but made us get rid of both of them. Security. There was a time when none of us laughed much at all, but now we laugh again. What the hell. We're still alive. Characters are the focus of wilight: 2000; they are the alter-egos of the players and all activity centers on them. Each character is a person within the game, interacting with other player characters (those controlled by other players) and non- player characters (controlled by the referee). Characters are described in the game using their physical and mental attributes, their skills, and a number of other facts. All these facts are derived by a combination of die rolls and player choice. The following rules explain the process of character generation."
August 26, 2025 at 7:34 PM