Fulgrim (Book) and Iron Hands

[Dobermann]

just read the book Fulgrim form the Horus Heresy series.

I bought it beacuse of the strong role of Iron Hands in it.

My vote?

5/10.

 

Weak Points:

The plot is very simple. Fulgrim and his legion enter in a temple dedicated to Slaanesh and from that point on they are damned. Easy.

No librarians around, no one able to see such evident contamination in all the Fleet Expeditions.

Fulgrim has nothing better to do that take an alien sword (which casually is possessed by a daemon).

The characters' personality is the worst about the book. One dimension. They betray so easily you wonder how they could ever be loyal to the Emperor. There is not a real character transformation, a thing such "psychology" is out.

The Iron Hands are the side characters, and they are second in all. In every scene they have to look dumber than Emperor Children. The worst is when the IH are hunting a human "enemy" fleet and never had the thought to search for their supply lines. Fulgrim needs to tell them (!!!).

Ferrus Manus is depicted very much like Angron: reacting with pure rage every smallest thing around and schizophrenically calm down the moment after, if someone say something to distract him.

The book loose a lot of chapters describing less important events and side characters and then hurry up in the last chapters to catch the most relevant and important events.

The worst is the conversion of Fulgrim to Horus' cause: one page and a half (p.346-347) in a book of 510 pages.

 

Horus: "the emperor betrayed us"

Fulgrim: "what?"

H: "We fought and he is the one who takes all the glory"

F: "noo..."

H:"we risk to loose all we fought for"

Daemon in the alien sword: "join him"

F:"ok ,I'll join you" .

 

Wow, you do not really need to write a book about it.

Wasn't the fall the Emperors' Children the most drammatic of all?

The perfect Horus' oratory skills result?

Not in this book.

 

Good Points about the book:

-you receive some extra information about the Iron Hands, especially about the Primarch' body guard, the Morlocks.

-The final battle on Istvaan V is really epic.

-The final corruption of the Emperor Children to Slaanesh is very well depicted. It is also very nice the story of the creation of noise marines.

-nice reference to "the Picture of Dorian Grey" throughout all the book.

 

If you ever read the book, skip the first half of the book (where loyalists turn to chaos) and go directly where chaos is chaos, that part is very well done.

 

Iron Hands are portrayed as in the cover:

 

http://media.moddb.com/images/groups/1/3/2...errus_Manus.jpg

 

Very lower level (in everything but loyalty) to the Emperor Children.

Edited February 13, 2011 by Brother Tyler
Hot-linked image turned into a link.

[Brother Nathan]

you expected the iron hands to be well portrayed in a book that wasnt their own? in case you havent noticed pretty much eer one of the herasy is from the view of one legion and s to put down whatever other legions they meet. any legion would have been looked down at by the emperors children seeing as theythought so much of themselves and their perfection...

[Bewlay]

It was called Fulgrim, I wasn't expecting it to have massive amounts of IH in there.

Also Ferrus was angry, albeit not all the time, but when he heard about the betrayal of the greatest Primarch Horus, he was bound to get worked up.

I agree that the 'sword' played to much in Fulgrim's fall but, the idea of the Legions fall was incredibly plausible.

 

You really can't blame the author for not being able to make dialogue between Primarchs, because Primarch are super human, they think differently to us 'normals' and because the writers are 'normal' how do you think theres a way around it?

 

I like Fulgrim and I thought it was a good book, ofcourse it wasn't a masterpiece but what BL book is?

[boyd]

Fulgrim is also the one who kills Guilliman (puts him in stasis) as he cut his throat with a poisoned blade. I thought the book Fulgrim was pretty good, at least for a Sci Fi Fantasy book.

[weycon]

When they fight first time, Fulgrim says to Ferrus that Lorgar and Angron are ready to strike. (p383.)

 

 

shouldnt ferrus have objected when he found out, that word bearers where part of the back up on istvaan..

[MagicMan]

I thought Fulgrim was a great book, one of my favourites.

 

Sounds like you were sore that the Iron Hands weren't the stars of a book about The Emperor's Children.

[Hergrmir]

Enh, I was pretty unimpressed with Fulgrim. Mainly it's because it was a decent book, but then at the end of it it just turns out a wizard daemon did it. McNeill's done way better books IMHO.

[Candleshoes]

His fall was a lot more complicated than you make it out to be.

[MagicMan]

Yup.

 

 

I mean when he kills Manus and realises the extent of the horror that hes helped create, that was a great scene.

 

A shame that he gets stuck in a painting.

[Repentant Son]

by the way, do we know what happens to that painting? where does Fulgrim's soul end up?

[Bewlay]

Supposedly his soul is still in the Deamons body, crying.

 

But I liked the idea that his soul was stuck in the painting of him, to forever be tormented by watching his own body tortured by a sadistic Deamon.

[Hergrmir]

Enh, to each their own. It had no pull for me. I'd have been far happier if HE'd just done it, and then HE'd talked to himself, with realisation of how far he'd gone dawning on him, rather than some daemon ex gladius explicating for him.

[A_POINTED_STICK]

The Heresy series should not be taken as the definitive account of how it happened. It's simply a version of how things may have happened. It's 40k. That light at the end of the tunnel is a train bearing down on you and that car in the dark is a pair of motorcycles etc.

 

For all we know Sanguinius was swayed by Horus and back stabbed the Emperor and then in regret killed Horus and himself and Dorn came across the Abattoir and put two and two together. Just like how the Necrons are the Iron Men and the Eldar are the Stone Men (and the Orks are just Broccoli Brigands)... it's whatever you want it to be. Oh and C'tan as is are daft.

 

It's like I think the Alpha-Omegon thing is cool and fits with the Ultramarines, but I think the whole Cabal thing is out of Place. I like the Mournival but I think that Horus' turn could have been more cerebral than "The voices in my head said I should betray everything I stand for...) I think Fulgrim's turn based on possession is crap plot device #3 and I think Ferrus Manus being decapitated goes to far in "killing him" because there was rumors and speculation he was brought to Mars and may not be "dead". I also think they've over humanized the Primarchs by and large they're underwhelming.

 

The Heresy is good but it shouldn't be the definitive. Warhammer 40(30)K is a setting not a story. Tell it how you like it.

[Master Melta]

Yeah, Pointy Stick has good points.

 

I admit I am an Iron Hander, and I was very exctied to read Fulgrim due to their involvment. The book followed in the line of splitting characters which were peers and turned against each other due to either being overly (insert negative trait here) and being traitor or being staunchly (insert positive trait here) and remaining loyal.

 

I actually thought that the Flight of the Eisenstein was a better story.

 

Another beef I have, and I haven't started #6, the Dark Angle one, is that rarely do the traitors get killed off. I need some galatic justice here.

 

One thing it did do was make me like the IH much more for being so loyal and rather rash in their persuit of the destruction of traitors. I hold all victories vs CSM players with a little more esteem than other games I play.

[Aegnor]

I thought the lack of traitor death in Fulgrim was overly done. If Fulgrim managed to punk Ferrus twice, they could at least have let the captain of the Morlocks kill his opposite number from the EC in their duel at the end. Obviously we know who won and lost at the Drop Site massacre, but to have one legion shown to be so seemingly inferior to another was a bit unbecoming. Edited February 18, 2011 by Aegnor

[Bannus]

Obviously we know who won and lost at the Drop Site massacre, but to have one legion shown to be so seemingly inferior to another was a bit unbecoming.

It is this one aspect of the HH novel that I find so pathetic that I can't bring myself to read any of them.

[Brother Nathan]

if i rember correctly, ferrus aint nesiarily dead. sure take the head of any other primarch and they are dead. but isnt the guy mostly machine? if so why does he need a head? though thats probably another debate...

[Skoby]

if i rember correctly, ferrus aint nesiarily dead. sure take the head of any other primarch and they are dead. but isnt the guy mostly machine? if so why does he need a head? though thats probably another debate...

 

Unless there is a load of fluff I've not seen, Ferrus has metal arms from drowning a wyrm of some sorts in lava, I believe it's described as his hands/arms coated in living metal. I don't think I've seen anything to suggest that he had any bionics and the chapters fixation with bionics started post heresy.

 

I was really disappointed with their portrayal, I take some solace in the fact that it was the first time they had a primarch refuse the offer to join chaos, especially since fulgrim and ferrus had supposedly been amongst the closest of any of the primarchs. I really hope we get to see more Iron Hands since currently theres just fulgrim and an out of print novel.

[Iron Father Jaro]

This is quote from Fulgrim

...Ferrus Manus waved away his armourers and moved to stand before Santar. Though Santar was tall for an Astartes and was clad in his full armour, the primarch still towered over him, his silver eyes shining and without pupils. Santar suppressed a shiver, for those eyes were like chips of napped flint, hard, unforgiving and sharp...

As you can see not only Ferrus hands was covered in this liquid metal. No one knows how many more organs was also "corrupted" by it

For me it is possible that with time Ferrus could regrown his head from this metal. If this creature with regrown head would still be Ferrus is another mater.

[A_POINTED_STICK]

Must have overlooked that. It looks like his body synergized with the living metal. Then perhaps he did heal. Although I would think someone would have noticed him get back up a pummel Fulgrim with his fists and reclaim his head cron stylo.

[Dosjetka]

Then perhaps he did heal.

I greatly doubt it, but that's just me. Reason for this? It's just a tad bit too easy, cheesy and unbelievable ("Look at me, my head's grown back and I'm immortal.").

Ludovic

Edited February 22, 2011 by bannus

[Brother Nathan]

so? this is 40k... ive read worse fluff in it than that... and he dosent have to regrow his head,just get another one built or some such... maby it can even just be reattached and regrow?