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Been reading the HH series..


Nassi

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Started reading the BL for the first time last week. Started with Courage and Honour, and then downloaded "Horus Rising" for my kindle. I must say, I'm blown away! The writing is great, the characters really come to life, and I'm finding the story completely different to what I imagined! Horus is charasmatic and diplomatic, And Abbadon is awesome! Sometimes its easy toi think of these guys as "the bad guys", traitors and corrupt without giving thought to how they were before the heresy.

 

I dont wanna waste the story for anyone, but even how Horus fell really surprised me. I always assumed it was more clean cut and traitorous than it was!

 

Im very impressed.

 

Nassi

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The thing is, most of the information we as gamers get about the heresy, comes from the codices and sourcebooks for the game itself. They have to paint in fairly broad strokes when it comes to this sort of thing which is why it might seem like Horus just decided he wanted to set the galaxy on fire one day.

 

There had to be a reason he was so beloved and why his fall into darkness was such a hammerblow to the emperor and the Imperium. I think that Horus rising did a fantastic job in giving us an extremely charismatic and even likeable depiction of the warmaster. It really gives the story some gravitas and emotional heft when you realise you've created an attachment to this character thats doomed.

 

Glad you're enjoying the series.

Horus Rising is awesome and Horus is a really charismatic fellow, which makes his downfall even more of a tragedy. Some moments in the book make you laugh or reflect and lament between 30 and 40k. For instance when Loken thinks about the Last stand moment and then mentions how one day the Imperium would cry out for Abaddon.. that is a bitter irony. Suffice to say it is one of if not the best HH book.

After these 3 or 4 books it starts to get... uneven, let's say.

 

"Fulgrim" is a little boring and obvious, the primarch is lured to Chaos like a 5-year old. It seems that the primarchs have superhuman powers, but also superhuman faults...

 

"Descent of Angels" is actually a bad tale of knights and dragons for the most part, severely naive and honestly it seems like it was written by a 15-years old dungeons&dragons fanboy.

 

This bad taste is removed entirely by "Legion" which is a really cool, thriller-spy-action-whatever book in its own right - the plot is quite complex and the characters feel alive, not the cartoon cutouts like in some other books from the series. It made me want to start an Alpha Legion army, especially after seeing some kickass conversions on the Internet :)

 

Right now I'm in the middle of "Mechanicum" and I can't say a bad word about it, I hope it stays like this to the end.

After these 3 or 4 books it starts to get... uneven, let's say.

 

"Descent of Angels" is actually a bad tale of knights and dragons for the most part, severely naive and honestly it seems like it was written by a 15-years old dungeons&drag

 

I found DOA to be more enjoyable than a lot of people made it out to be. Yes it does come across more as a fantasy novel than anything else, but when you pair it with Fallen Angels it looks a lot more fleshed out. I imagine there will be at least one more DA novel in the pipe line then the storyline will look much more like a cohesive whole.

 

Legion was fantastic. A wonderfully tight, gripping story that acts as a microcosm for everything cool about the Alpha legion.

I personally really enjoyed Mechanicum because it runs totally off the established track in regards to the Heresy as a whole. It's something a lot of people with more than a passing familiarity with 40k didn't consider: Just what the hell did the Mechanicum do during the Heresy? Can't really have sat it out as Mars is literally spitting distance from Terra in the context of M41 so is well worth a read.

 

I have to say I was bitterly disappointed with Battle for the Abyss. Whilst there's some interesting interactions between characters from various Legions, overall it didn't really live up to the standard the previous novels have set. I will say that my opinion of the Word Bearers has taken an upturn after reading TFH but the Ultramarines need a minor miracle if they want to avoid being the least loved Legion in 30K as well as 40K

 

In regards to the rest of the series, once A Thousand Sons is reached, that marks a serious upturn in quality. All of the books hereafter are great reads.

Yeah, have said this before, but coming on the heels of Legion, Battle of the Abyss seems a bit inconsequential (ok, it's it's the Starship Yamato, I get it's important to the Traitor Fleet, but still) and sadly most of the characters were crude stereotypes of their chapter. The World Eater and the Thousand Son were the best f a pretty weak lot and I suspect that's partly because a loyalist World Eater or 1kSon hasn't been done enough yet to become a stereotype, as opposed to any particular virtue of the writing itself.

 

Just dated myself there with the Yamato/Starblazers reference.

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