Upcoming HH novels/audiobooks

[Reinholt]

I would counter with this:

That argument doesn't work if you don't believe the Emperor is morally perfect. In fact, I would argue the most likely outcomes are that he is not moral, and he is one of two things:

1 - The apotheosis of man, including all of his flaws, magnified on a grander scale. Which is to say he is a bloodthirsty, vicious, utilitarian dictator (and we have some commentary in the series to this effect from possibly neutral parties, like what John G though of the Emperor when he met him), and although his goal is the preservation of humanity, he is willing to make brutal utilitarian sacrifices to achieve this goal, believes the ends justify the means, and has no interest in any particular individual human. If your goal is a humanity existing forever (which, conveniently, you dominate), and you approach this in the most spectacularly human way possible, you would expect a character who is in equal parts Gandhi, Christ, Stalin, and Hitler. I don't say this as a Godwin-type thing; I literally mean you should take a collection of both the least evil and most evil powerful historical people and slam them together into a single being, and you would have the pinnacle of humanity (warts and all).

2 - More of the Stalin and Hitler from above and less of the rest, by which I mean he is literally attempting to become the fifth chaos God and could care less about humanity.

If you leave behind both the morally perfect and omnipotent, and instead believe he is morally flexible and merely very powerful, I think the Emperor reads just fine. Remember, he is potentially a god, but he is definitely not the only god (we can point our fingers at four others in the warp, and potentially a few more depending on how we feel about the Eldar gods and what we think the Hive Mind is), so omnipotence is a stretch no matter what. I think his actions also make it clear he is not morally perfect (he advocates doing horrible things to xenos, for instance, if nothing else).

I do agree if he was intended to be the classic judeo-christian God you have a problem; I just don't think that's what BL is going for.

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

the NL get AD-B again while we get saddled with Gav (let them swap for just one piece of work and see how the NL fans like it!)

LOL...I bet they wouldn't like it one bit. Thorpe and Swallow are both on my "do not read" list. One day I might give them another shot if one of their future novels benefits from good word of mouth...but as it is, no thank you.

 

Fear to Tread and Deliverance Lost were completely wasted opportunities because of the authours' lack of writing skill.

 

 

 

Guys, Vulkan Lives. Remember the Salamanders!

[Saphrael]

I'm a little confused by your response Reinholt, I think it completely misses the point of my post.

 

I wasn't suggesting the Emperor is perfectly moral, omnipotent or anything else because none of that is relevant to the topic. I didn't bring up the Abrahamic god as a comparison to the Emperor, I brought it up because I find the explanation for his actions (works in mysterious ways) as insufficient explanation as your explanation for the Emperor's actions. You suggested the unknowability of the Emperor's designs as justification for the events in Deliverance Lost. All I'm saying is that the 'Emperor works in mysterious ways' explanation for the narrative being constructed the way it is in the book is a lazy coverup for uninteresting writing.

 

Wade highlighted (glibly and amusingly) how Gav changed the narrative from the original arc for the worse in the book, you said it was constructed that way because we can't understand the Emperor's motives, I'm saying it was constructred that way because Gav isn't a very good writer.

 

For the record I don't care when writers update/change the background and I'm not just down on Gav because his view of the events doesn't match my own. I'm down on him because every time he gets involved in an opportunity to add character and flavour to the universe (espeically 30k) he bungles it with dull or one dimensional characters, a complete lack of unique detail and a narrative defined by unconvincing or unbelievable events.

[Millicant]

Saphrael I have been contemplating that very point for a while now. I wanted to say exactly that, but you did it more eloquently. In short, I agree. Well said.

[GhostMalone]

Hmmm master of the first -Astellion

[TrafficCustodes]

Perrin: thanks awfully for this post. Lots of stuff I had no idea about. Since your OP said you intended this to be a venue for reader/fan speculation about these books, I kind of went a little crazy with it.

 

Damnation Of Pythos: I’m sure we’ve all probably read a review or pre-ordered it by now, or maybe even read the e-book or the advance copy. Probably no need to talk about it here.

 

The Master Of Mankind: Aaron’s written quite a bit about this on his blog and he’s stated a Blood Angel will be one of the main characters. Beyond that it’s a bit of a mystery, and I like it that way. Perhaps an early 2015 release? I got the impression this was nearly done. He talked about a story he was writing called ‘Blood In The Water’ which was going to be a MoM prequel. But, as far as I know that never came out.

 

Nightfall: I think ADB said he was scheduled to write ‘The Black Legion’, book two of the Abaddon series, after he finishes MoM. If that’s the case, I doubt we’ll see ‘Nightfall’ until late 2015, if that. From the title, I’d hope it to be a conclusion to the Sevatar arc (though maybe there is no conclusion to that arc...). Definitely something I look forward to, but you can see why he might have wanted to take a break from Night Lords stuff after the full NL trilogy and ‘Prince Of Crows’. Maybe it’ll be handled by someone who’s not ADB?

 

The Crimson King: I’m one of the few that didn’t like ‘A Thousand Sons’ much. But I’ve been impressed by the stuff Graham wrote since then. ‘Lucius: The Eternal Blade’ saw everyone’s favourite III Legion heel tooling around on the Planet Of The Sorcerers, so I’m really hoping that he makes an appearance (as an antagonist maybe?) in the book. Entirely possible that storyline will be completely dropped.

 

I’m really not sure how this one will be stretched to novel length, though. I’d assumed that the book will end with Magnus pledging himself to Horus, but having said that, it could be an interesting move for that to happen, say, a third of the way through the book, and then spending the rest of the novel showing us the Thousand Sons wrecking stuff up alongside the traitors. Of course, I wouldn’t mind a book 100% based on the Planet Of The Sorcerers, but I’m not sure there’s much room for action sequences in that scenario… and we know BL (and Graham) likes dem action sequences.

 

Untitled Death Guard Book: I’m glad to see that this is set between ‘Scars’ and ‘Vengeful Spirit’. Hopefully it’ll throw some light on Mortarion’s about-face on the subject of politicking with daemons and servants of the Warp. That was one of the only things I didn’t like much in Vengeful Spirit. Seriously, the Witch Hunter is suddenly willing to kill his elite bodyguard to give power to some warp entity that’s whispering to him? It’s a bit out of character.

 

 

I’m assuming this one will be a James Swallow book? I quite like his writing. Not top-tier for BL but I never really understood the hate.

 

Legacies Of Betrayal: Eagerly awaiting this one, which I assume is going to be the last HH full length release of 2014. Amazon has the official art up now, which seems to confirm that there will be 5 or more stories included (still, this could easily be subject to change).

This thread states that Graham’s story has been replaced by a Gav Thorpe novella about Cypher, but this couldn’t be confirmed, and I’d say the official cover art disproves that. (Also, on the same thread [near the end] ADB shows up and confirms the thing about the Blood Angel being a main character in MoM.)

 

Master Of The First / The Long Night: I’d be willing to bet that’s yet another Dark Angels story from Gav. ‘The Master Of The First’: does that necessary have to be the Lion himself? It might be a Chapter Master, I guess. I don’t really care much about Gav Dark Angels, but I’ll still pick this up, like I do for all HH stuff. I can't speculate what it's about - we'll probably need to wait for Gav's next couple DA stories to make a guess. As for ‘The Long Night’, ADB did say he was working on a Sevatar audio drama, so that might be what this is, or it could be some pre-Heresy stuff about, well, the Long Night of pre-Unification mess, perhaps as a preview for TMOM? I don’t think I’m alone in hoping it’s more Sevatar stuff.

 

Garro: Shield Of Lies:  Art for this is up. It shows Garro and an unidentified female warrior fighting Mechanicum forces. I admit this piques my interest a lot. Really unsure who the woman is. She doesn’t look like she fits the Sisters Of Silence description. Maybe it’s St. Euphrati? I like Garro a lot, glad to see him back.

 

Cybertenica: Not wanting to be “that guy” here, but I’d imagine it’s probably ‘Cybernetica’, as in Legio Cybernetica…? As for what Rob said, the ‘logical choice’ for Legionaries on Mars in a follow-up to Mechanicum would be Imperial Fists, right? I’m a big fan of Rob Sanders, so I look forward to this a lot, and I feel like a Mechanicum follow-up story has been long overdue.

 

Another Tallarn novella: Not much to say here. I felt ‘Executioner’ was one of my favourite HH releases for a long while so I’m glad it will be getting a follow-up from Frenchy. It was clear he had a lot more he wanted to deal with on Tallarn.

 

Eagle’s Talon / Iron Corpses: I’m sure ‘Iron Corpses’ will be a Tallarn story, since the Battle Of Iron Corpses was a major action on Tallarn (it’s mentioned on the timeline in ‘Executioner’). From the name, I'd assume it's an Iron Warriors defeat. Or it could just be a battle where the number of destroyed tanks was particularly high. But any idea what ‘Eagle’s Talon’ could be about? I’m not coming up with any obvious associations with the phrase in the HH universe.

 

Gav’s Dark Angels Book: At least the Dark Angels are getting a real push, I guess. If 'Dreadwing’ is still a work in progress, then Abnett likely has the Lion's narrative tied down, so I’d assume Gav will write about Corswain or Belath or one of the other high ranking First Legion officers. It could be about their ongoing fight against the Death Guard, and perhaps we’ll see some Thramas Crusade flashbacks… or maybe it will be all about the ‘Loyalist’ Dark Angels heading back to Caliban and making contact with the Fallen for the first time (as hinted in that Gav story in ‘The Imperial Truth’).

 

Prospero Graphic Novel: Why? Why do this? I’m pretty indiscriminate in my love for HH content, but my feeling is that the Prospero story was told pretty conclusively and that it’s not necessary to tell the Burning Of Prospero all over again. Maybe this will be a story which focuses on different Thousand Sons/Space Wolves we didn’t see in the novels? Or we have yet another story set in the ruins of Tizca? ‘Rebirth’ and that part of ‘Scars’ were both pretty good, but Gav is not Chris Wraight. I guess they could do something interesting with it, but I wouldn’t be sure Gav is a good choice. Furthermore, if this is ‘Macragge’s Honour’ price range then forget it.

 

Dreadwing: Yesssss. Just yes. I feel like Dan is the only one who’s made the Lion a compelling character, and the Guilliman/Lion interactions from ‘Unremembered Empire’ were great in my opinion. This novel will presumably add Sanguinius to the mix, I’d be interested to see how he gets along with his brothers.

 

Last of all, I think nobody’s mentioned ‘The Purge’, which is a limited edition novella by Anthony Reynolds about the Word Bearers, I think it goes on sale 25th July.  Product description says, “A pivotal event revealed in the history of the Word Bearers Legion” and the subtitle is “Behind A Loyal Mask”, so my assumption is it’s about the pre-Heresy purge of the last Loyalist Word Bearers, briefly mentioned in ‘The First Heretic’. Since it’s Anthony Reynolds, it’s not impossible Marduk will make an appearance, but I think this purge was mostly engineered by Kor Phaeron and Erebus. Maybe Xaphen will appear; he seemed to imply he had something to do with it.

 

I recall that a long time ago, on this B&C thread,  people were talking about two possible anthologies called ‘The Silent War’ and ‘The Shattered Legions’. I can't find anything regarding those books since then, so perhaps they’ve been scrapped, but everything else mentioned has been a confirmed release, so it feels like the source was reliable.

 

I’m assuming that Forge World will put out Book IV in its Horus Heresy line in Q2 next year; they’ve managed to release annually so far. I know those books aren’t technically part of the HH series, but clearly some fans of the series are enthusiastic about them, and I’m definitely going to buy the new one, since I’ve found their retelling/augmentation of Legion backgrounds to be excellent. There are only six Legions left to cover – White Scars, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Ultramarines and Thousand Sons – so perhaps this one will cover three Legions, rather than four, the way the previous books have. Anyway, apologies if you feel this one isn’t relevant, but I’ve noticed some discussion about those in this thread, and I think they’re an important ‘index’ for the series.

 

Sincere apologies for anyone who managed to make it through that wall of text. I think I let my enthusiasm run away with me (I don’t post on forums much). I feel the upcoming release schedule is very exciting - shame there's a lot of people who appear not to agree, but I'm sure all of us can find at least one thing to get worked up over.