Unremembered Empire....initial review

[Conn Eremon]

It's the Reverse Murphy's Law.

 

If something can go wrong, it will. To other people.

[Kol Saresk]

It's the Reverse Murphy's Law.

 

If something can go wrong, it will. To other people.

I want Burger King now.

[Perrin]

Thanks for the answers everyone! Kurze was pretty badass this novel, still crazy and with his warped morality from Prince of Crows and the other shorts that he appears in by ADB but this time he really gets to tear stuff up. Really looking forward to seeing where this novel leads the HH series.

[FerociousBeast]

Damn it, I hate getting to one of these threads late. Read up through page 8, and I'm just going to start my own review now.

 

I think I must be the only person alive who was actually thrilled by Guilliman's fight with the Alphas. I don't like superhero Primarchs. There was a big to do about "plot armor" earlier in the thread, and all the Primarchs enjoy a more than healthy dose of it. I get the feeling that the HH writers are all secretly competing with each other to write the most "uber-OMGgolly geeBBQ" Primarch moments in their novels. From reading everyone's reactions in this and other threads, I suppose it's working out for most of you. Y'all seem to like your superhero Primarchs.

 

Well, I don't. I got over X-Men comic books in my teenage years.

 

So when I saw a fairly realistic take on a Primarch, with Guilliman moving like a beast but not walking through the park, I wanted to stand up and cheer. Of course the speechy speechy at the end between the two was silly, but hey. Not complaining too much. It was a great scene, very satisfying. Mr. Abnett, I says to myself I says, I toast you for bringing the Primarchs back to a reasonable--yet still awesome--level!

 

And then Curze happened. And then, good lord, Vulkan Hey-Ma-Look!-No-Head! happened. I wept a single, crystal tear. Shattered.

 

Here's the real shame of it all. The damn book started out so well. The scene with the Lion and Curze in the depths of the Invincible Reason? Gold! The debates over Imperium Secundus? (Potentially) seismic! I absolutely loved it up to and including the brilliant drop pod escape. And then Curze turned the book into a really bad Nicholas Cage flick. Yeah, seen that movie. It sucked.

 

The worst part of it was that pre-Curze-rampage, the book could have become a really interesting, tense, philosophical showdown between the Lion and Guilliman over the latter's terrible ambition to set up an alternative Imperium. That could have been really good even if it never quite came to blows between the legions (which it shouldn't have). This book did not need a single battle scene in it to be good, which would have been really something for a HH novel. But no, Abnett must have lost his nerve and decided that he needed more violence to keep the fans happy.

 

Le sigh.

[Wade Garrett]

Yes, clearly anyone who favors high horsepower Primarchs is a comic book nerd who needs to grow up.

 

REAL literature, say, foundation of Western civilization literature like the Iliad and the Old and New Testaments are completely devoid of protaganists accomplishing superhuman feats and over the top violence.

 

Because those texts are for grown ups.

[Conn Eremon]

If you like anything about Warhammer 40k, you like something that is childish. Even if you don't play with tiny toy soldiers, you are reading a book that exists solely to tell a story about those tiny toy soldiers. It's a bit hypocritical to call out one group of fans as being juvenile in their interest.

[Kol Saresk]

As I recall, Samson had his hair cut off, was blinded, tortured and eventually killed himself and a few hundred Philistines by dropping a temple on his own head.

 

Jesus was whipped and crucified. John the Baptist had his head cut off. Paul the Apostle was eventually executed by Nero.

 

Achilles died because of an arrow in his heel. Heracles was killed by a poisoned shirt.

 

All of these people had power, but in reality, they died rather mundane deaths. Poison, physical trauma, decapitation, crucifixion, etc etc.

 

Those texts could easily be used to support exactly why Guilliman could be injured something as "mundane" as rocket-propelled, armor-piercing explosives.

 

EDIT: I do like being juvenile however. In the same way Cyrion was juvenile in doing what made him happy.

[Wade Garrett]

Kol, Hercules set himself on fire because of he was posioned by a shirt dipped in either centaur blood or hydra venom (depending on which version you go with) put him in horrible agony but failed to kill him due to his demigod status.

 

I'll give you the others, but his fate wouldn't exactly be what I would call a mundane demise.

[Kol Saresk]

Ah, yes. I forgot that part. So the way to kill the Primarchs is to infect them with poison and then set them on fire.........

[Kriegsmacht]

Damn it, I hate getting to one of these threads late. Read up through page 8, and I'm just going to start my own review now.

I think I must be the only person alive who was actually thrilled by Guilliman's fight with the Alphas. I don't like superhero Primarchs. There was a big to do about "plot armor" earlier in the thread, and all the Primarchs enjoy a more than healthy dose of it. I get the feeling that the HH writers are all secretly competing with each other to write the most "uber-OMGgolly geeBBQ" Primarch moments in their novels. From reading everyone's reactions in this and other threads, I suppose it's working out for most of you. Y'all seem to like your superhero Primarchs.

Well, I don't. I got over X-Men comic books in my teenage years.

Everyone should get over them. They're mutants and will be burned as Heretics by the Inquisition.

[FerociousBeast]

"REAL literature, say, foundation of Western civilization literature like the Iliad and the Old and New Testaments are completely devoid of protaganists accomplishing superhuman feats and over the top violence.


Because those texts are for grown ups."

Who said anything about over the top violence? I loves me some over the top violence, most definitely. What I don't love, though, is Vulkan having his head blown off by a sniper rifle, then getting back into the fight moments later. I'm objecting to Curze in the span of an hour or two not only being everywhere at once and killing bunches of marines--who incidentally execute very poor tactics throughout the whole ordeal, like a gunship getting close enough to its target to be jumped upon--but also managing to set myriad booby traps, including one with 75 grenades wired to destroy an entire chapel when Curze claps his hands or something. Then marines getting slapped around by shadows materializing out of nothing.

I am capable of suspension of disbelief, but I. Don't. Believe. That.

See, I would have been fine with the whole Curze thing if it had taken place over a nightmarish week. Or weekend. Totally cool. I can dig it. But tell me it's over two or three hours in one night, we've got a problem.

And again, the worst part of it all is that it side tracked the novel from being a more interesting story. And that more interesting story never recovered. All the build up and teasers in the other Dark Angel stories suggesting that there was going to be a major conflict between the Lion and Guilliman just *poof* disappeared after Lion and Guilliman have a single heart to heart. Gag!

EDIT: Back on the topic of superheroes, I do actually still like one superhero: Batman. Now there's definitely some OTT stuff in there occasionally, but Batman stories, at their best, are grounded in a believable semblance of reality. Like the Nolan movies. If Abnett had tried to channel Batman for his Curze instead of Nightcrawler, that would have been fantastic.

[Vash113]

I finished the Unremembered Empire last night and while I'm not particularly fond of the Konrad Curze stuff I did enjoy the novel. In particular I think the Unremembered Empire is the first HH series novel that has actually added substantially to the Horus Heresy canon. With the exception of self contained tangents like Furious Abyss and whatever-the-assassin-one-was-called the majority of novels in the series have simply expounded on the same material you would find if you read the Collected Visions book. It was very interesting to see something new about what happened during that period, to have some gaps filled as to what happened between Signus and Terra for the Blood Angels, to see what the Dark Angels were up to and so on.

 

However I did feel that there was unrealized potential, the Night Haunter stuff was a real distraction, I'd have liked to see more interaction between Guilliman and the representatives of the Shattered Legions, more politics between chosen representatives of those Legions and the Primarchs, some actual focus on difficulties forming the disparate survivor groups into coherent fighting forces and finding something for them to do. These things were really only mentioned as a side-note and never directly addressed yet they also relate to future developments in the HH era as well as the Codex Astartes, Crusade Companies and other "modern" Imperial conventions that were only just taking shape then. Not to mention Vulkan's inclusion was also sort of awkward and didn't seem to go anywhere or lead to anything.

 

Dozens of novels in and my favorite HH book is still Flight of the Eisenstein, the fourth one published... oh well.

[DarthMarko]

 

 

 

               

  FerociousBeast

 

think I must be the only person alive who was actually thrilled by

Guilliman's fight with the Alphas. I don't like superhero Primarchs.

There was a big to do about "plot armor" earlier in the thread, and all

the Primarchs enjoy a more than healthy dose of it. I get the feeling

that the HH writers are all secretly competing with each other to write

the most "uber-OMGgolly geeBBQ" Primarch moments in their novels. From reading

everyone's reactions in this and other threads, I suppose it's working

out for most of you. Y'all seem to like your superhero Primarchs.

 

 

 

Fething A + for this...I'm tired od getting into debates with 15 year old kids who watch to much TV...

 

Yes, clearly anyone who favors high horsepower Primarchs is a comic book nerd who needs to grow up.

 

 

Agreed...To me, OTT primarchs super fights are cheap way of selling books, nothing more....

 

 

To me this book is awesome...Curze is awesome...Robby, UM, DA and even my beloved SW were awesome...

 

Only critique is character resemblance - Lion = Guiliman (later I really couldn't notice that they are 2 different characters )

 

P.S. Do all cabal members use faul languge or just those two :-)? They really made me laugh....

[Verity]

I'm tired of arguing with condescending people who take everything far too seriously and insist that for liking things the way I do, I'm a child.

 

Isn't that a funny coincidence?

 

EDIT: Eh, I apologise for that. It's a bit too snarky, and I'm vexed about other things at the moment. The general point does stand though - just because somebody holds a different viewpoint to you, there's no need to make implications about their mental age or capacity. This forum does admirably well at accepting this compared to others, so that sort of thing is not too necessary.

[DarthMarko]

But the thing is, nobody is telling you what to read....IMHO, more real, human-like characters = me
identifying with the book ...Also, I' consider 40k a bit more then a
cheap, super hero comic, and I mostly enjoy philosopical debates between primarchs, but that's only me...I'm sure you have your own theme which you prefer...

[Verity]

Eh, I refuse to get into this. It's a fruitless discussion that tends to lead nowhere most of the time, and detracts from good topics.

 

On topic - did anybody notice that, in this book, there was a hell of a lot of people calling people "My dear..." something or the other? It's not a major flaw or issue, but it bugged me on second read through ahah.

[DarthMarko]

It's Ultramar, everybody is "my dear" there...*ducks for cover*

[b1soul]

Good engaging prose, entertaining stuff from Dan as always...I coulda done without all the Curze w@nk though. Will elaborate my thoughts when I have time. I have quite a bit to say about this novel

[FerociousBeast]

Here's another thing. We've had ominous hints of a looming Imperium Secundus now for a while, with all the attendant conjecturing and apprehension of a less than loyal Guilliman capitalizing on the chaos of the Heresy. When I saw the title for this book, The Unremembered Empire, I knew that's what we were going to be delving into. An empire that obviously never came to be in the millennia after the Heresy, but one that needed to be "unremembered". I posted about it somewhere here in the B&C before reading the book.

 

But this book really needed to flesh out Guilliman's motivations for the Imperium Secundus. It needed more pages to really get into it. But the second half of the book took a complete turn into another direction with the loyalists' attempt at "Curze Control". So Abnett didn't have the time to really develop the ideas and rationale for the Imperium Secundus. And without that time, the idea just really stinks.

 

Let's pretend there's a World War and you're a sailor on an American battleship. Your battleship takes a hit and sinks, but your crew gets into the lifeboats and makes it to a deserted island. Once safely on the island, your captain calls everyone together for a pow wow.

 

"Crew," he says, "we're in trouble. We have no way off this island. In fact, there's a war on, and we don't even know if there's any fleet left. We don't know if our beloved nation is still standing. In fact, I think we need to assume that the fleet has sunk and America has been conquered. Sailors, I hereby declare this island, New America! We are all that's left! We must keep the dream alive!"

 

The crew looks around at each other, then shrugs. Sure, why not. "Viva New America!"

 

"Oh yeah," says the captain, "and I get to pick the new president and make all the rules."

 

"Viva New America!"

 

...That, in essence, is Guilliman's argument and the response of all the loyalists.

 

A very promising subplot very nearly down the drain. Here's hoping someone else will come along and salvage it. ADB?

[Daddywarcrimes]

Curze reminded me of the Joker in The Dark Knight.  He's really not a character in the story.  His motivations are largely irrelevant to the central plot and he undergoes no growth or development along the way.  Instead, his presence is an event that drives the actions of the characters, like the storm in a disaster movie.  Unfortunately, again like Dark Knight, his presence is so massive an event that the characters are overwhelmed by it and their growth and development stalls.

 

 

 

I still enjoyed the book, but I do think Curze could have been totally omitted from the story, since the most important thing he did was trigger the 1st Legion assault drop which stoked the dying flames of mistrust.  Even that could have been replaced by a cogitator error, or a lone Night Lord Legionnaire.

 

 

[A D-B]

 

A very promising subplot very nearly down the drain. Here's hoping someone else will come along and salvage it. ADB?

 

Assuming that wasn't sarcasm (and if it was, I don't blame you at all) Dan actually asked me directly if I would be the one to finish off the Imperium Secundus arc when it needs finishing. Which was insanely flattering, and we chewed over how that might work. I have The Master of Mankind to write first, but it's possible. And it would let me write some loyalists, which I'd kill to do at this point.

 

The idea of following Dan makes me break out in terrifying rashes, though. I tend to regard that half of the galaxy as the other guys' playground for a while. I did my service with Betrayer, for now.

[Greyall]

It would indeed have benefited from a few more pages devoted to the 'political' subplot, though it didn't exactly leave me with a bad taste. Maybe because it was easy for me to see the logic in Guilliman's idea, so I 'assumed' the same for the other characters. Still, I very much liked the loyalist Marines' reservations about the plan.

 

Curze, I don't see how he's 'too much' or doesn't benefit the story. It sets the tone and uncovers new notes to the relationship between Guilly and the Lion (as well as their Legions). Plus the action scenes were pretty memorable, although Vulkan did seem a little frail, but then he ran headlong into anything.

[Kol Saresk]

Vulkan was like the love child of a Rage Zombie and Jason Vorhees.

[Scribe]

 

 

A very promising subplot very nearly down the drain. Here's hoping someone else will come along and salvage it. ADB?

 

Assuming that wasn't sarcasm (and if it was, I don't blame you at all) Dan actually asked me directly if I would be the one to finish off the Imperium Secundus arc when it needs finishing. Which was insanely flattering, and we chewed over how that might work. I have The Master of Mankind to write first, but it's possible. And it would let me write some loyalists, which I'd kill to do at this point.

 

The idea of following Dan makes me break out in terrifying rashes, though. I tend to regard that half of the galaxy as the other guys' playground for a while. I did my service with Betrayer, for now.

 

I think its time you accept your place in things ADB, for the betterment of mankind.

[FerociousBeast]

 

 

 

A very promising subplot very nearly down the drain. Here's hoping someone else will come along and salvage it. ADB?

Assuming that wasn't sarcasm (and if it was, I don't blame you at all) Dan actually asked me directly if I would be the one to finish off the Imperium Secundus arc when it needs finishing. Which was insanely flattering, and we chewed over how that might work. I have The Master of Mankind to write first, but it's possible. And it would let me write some loyalists, which I'd kill to do at this point.

 

The idea of following Dan makes me break out in terrifying rashes, though. I tend to regard that half of the galaxy as the other guys' playground for a while. I did my service with Betrayer, for now.

It absolutely was not sarcasm. I suppose I've been fairly critical at times of your stuff in the past, but I liked your first post earlier in the thread about your interpretation of the primarchs, and you're certainly one of my favorite of the HH writers. I consider you one of the more "serious" of the current 40k writers (as in, you seem to take the source material seriously while some of the others have a more fantastical take), which I appreciate. I'm glad to hear you may be involved in the story arc!