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Descent of Angels or Fallen Angels


Hinti

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General internet murmurings is that Descent of Angels is not as good a book as Fallen Angels. This, in my opinion, is because the book is touted as a 'Horus Heresy' book, but is actually set long, long before. I quite enjoyed reading it.

 

The point is moot, though, as you need to read Descent to understand Fallen.

I'm not sure either of those is a truly satisfying Dark Angels book, but neither one is crap. Decent of Angels doesn't focus on the Dark Angels themselves, but instead on two aspirants to the Order, one of which has psychic potential. It gives background on Caliban, the Order, the coming of the Dark Angels to Caliban, the early shift of the Order to the Dark Angels, Luther, and possibly provides a quick view of the beginnings of the Fallen rift. It doesn't really give much insight on the Lion. Fallen Angels gives some info on what the Lion was doing, continues Nemiel's and Zahariel's stories, and shows the beginning of the fracturing of the Legion, Caliban and Luther himself.

 

I personally like Savage Weapons and Call of the Lion better than those two books, but they aren't crap.

As they said, Descent of Angels gives you the background on the two main characters in Fallen Angels.

 

Descent explains:

-Roughly what Watchers in the Dark are, or at least gives you a better clue.

-Explains who/what Cypher is.

-Gives you a sense of their affinity to the saddle (ie Ravenwing)

 

Fallen Angels explains:

-the schism/taint within the personality/psyche of the Chapter

-the root of the emotionless strategizing they are known for.

 

Descent tries to throw lots of fan bits at you and explain them at such a pace where you're like, "really?" which can be cool but at times its so contrived it interferes with the story. At least that's how I remember it. That was a long time ago.

 

I just read Fallen Angels two weeks ago. Personally, I think the biggest fault in Fallen Angels is that the author can't distinguish his personalities well. They all sort of behave the same way and switch from being immature confused children to confident intelligent strong minded adults in the span of a paragraph. Even the Lion has moments where he is portrayed as an idiot rather than a master strategist. The two main characters might as well be the same character there is so little to tell them apart other than job title. And why does the Company Master and the Lion defer to an unseasoned Chaplain anyhow? Plus, the character interactions and dialog are abysmal. If it had the same plot line and different writer I think I'd have liked it way more. The ending left me wanting more. At least he got that right.

 

If I was going to read a DA book I'd go with Purging of Kadillus. Its not a Horus Heresy book but Gav understands and explains the interaction between the different companies. Some of it is a little rough (ie bad) but some of the action sequences are actually awesome and the coordination between the Scout Company, Ravenwing, and Deathwing is cool. I hope some of that synergy carries over to the Codex.

I have heard rumors too about both of these books. I rather enjoyed both books from a fluff perspective. I particularly liked descent of angels as you get to see what they were before DA, which shows more depth in their character which is something to be appreciated. I dont think you can lose reading these especially since you can get a better appreciation and understanding about how all the secrets of the DA originate from.

 

Coot

The complaints about descent primarily stem from people wanting to read about space marines and its primarily a human story. The book also suffers slightly from bad pacing but overall it is one of my favorite HH books. Fallen Angels also suffers from bad pacing and an odd structure along with bad dialog and character development/interaction. That being said the book is still pretty essential to read through in order to understand where the schism really got underway.

 

Savage weapons and The Lion are both much better written but then again they were written by better authors. Aaron Dembski-Bowden is just an excellent writer and understands 40k. Gav really understands the Dark Angels. His book Purging of Kadillus was pretty awful though. He suffered so much from being hamstrung by plot and couldn't figure out a way around it.

 

I'm looking forward to Gav's next book about the Ravenwing that comes out in January though.

Savage and the Lion are short Storys??

 

Yes they are you can download them at BL.

Here are the links:

 

http://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/s...pons-ebook.html

 

http://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/the-lion-ebook.html

 

As a side note, Descent of Angels is written by Mitchel Scanlon. I own Descent of Angels but I have not yet finished it. But I can say something about the author and I think he is great (my opinion), he has strong characters and character development, good ideas how to take on a story, and the way he describes the atmosphere is awesome plus much more. He has written 15 hours (IG book) and it is a fantastic book (again my opinion).

I really enjoyed both. They are different to your standard SM battle book, as its not all blood, guts and explosions.

 

Its way more about character development, motivation and scene setting. More David Lynch than Michael Bay.

 

Those books are the reason I actually started collecting DA, so they definitely had an impact on me!

Savage weapons and The Lion are both much better written but then again they were written by better authors. Aaron Dembski-Bowden is just an excellent writer and understands 40k.

He's a good writer as far as the technical department goes. As for understanding 40K... I can't help but have the feeling some of his plot developments are at least heavily inspired by /tg/ fanfics.

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