The Talon Of Horus

[tdemayo]

Oddly, it didn't bother me much at all that Khayon was able to tow a spaceship. It did bother me that his bio-computer sister thing was able to automate the huge Vengeful Spirit so that it did not need a larger crew. 30k/40k spaceships have always been depicted as needing enormous numbers of laborers to function. If they could be automated by what's basically a better computer, why do even the most advanced ships have city-sized populations?

 

Anyway, these a quibbles. The most important thing about the book, for me, was that it made Abaddon into a person I liked and respected and could actually see weilding together and maintaining an army.

[Rain]

If they could be automated by what's basically a better computer, why do even the most advanced ships have city-sized populations?

 

Really big decks. Lots of swabbing. The inside of the Vengeful Spirit probably looks like a Kentucky Motel 6.

[Wade Garrett]

"Abaddon is as much a pawn of Chaos as Khârn, Ahriman, Lucius, and Typhus" and "The Chaos Gods will not allow Abaddon to win the Long War, anymore than they will allow Fulgrim to get over his narcissism or Angron to work through his anger issues" (which are indeed the opinions I hold on this issue) do not equate to me believing "Abaddon must forever be stuck in his Heresy Era characterization OR ELSE".

 

For one thing, said characterization was cruelly, albeit accurately summarized by someone on these forums as "Abaddon's choler rising! ABADDON SMASH!" Having a character like that be the pawn of the Chaos Gods is, well..."Congratulations on manipulating a simpleton whose character can be summed up as Abbadon's choler rising! ABADDON SMASH!" *sarcastic applause*

 

My problem is not that Abs got character development, I sincerely applaud that, it's that said development took place out of view of the audience. I had the same issue when Mortarion went from "The warp is not for us! It's a sickness, Jaghatai!" in Scars to killing his Deathshroud bodyguard to summon a daemon in Vengeful Spirit.

[Gree]

"Abaddon is as much a pawn of Chaos as Khârn, Ahriman, Lucius, and Typhus" and "The Chaos Gods will not allow Abaddon to win the Long War, anymore than they will allow Fulgrim to get over his narcissism or Angron to work through his anger issues" (which are indeed the opinions I hold on this issue) do not equate to me believing "Abaddon must forever be stuck in his Heresy Era characterization OR ELSE".

Ah, so you do believe he's Failbaddon then. That's nice to know Wade. After all, you've made it perfectly clear that Abaddon is the Charlie Brown of the 41st Millennium, forever destined to fail because the Chaos Gods simply won't let him win. After all, you've taken a vehement position in the past against Abaddon actually being the harbinger of the end times.

 

I mean, forgive me for doubting every word you say when you happily categorize any sort of positive support for Abaddon as trying to make him into an ''unstoppable doom warlord''. After all, you were right there in accusing me of that very thing when I tried to push forth the idea Abaddon was a actually serious threat to the Imperium.

 

I mean, we can't have Abaddon actually be a serious threat to the existence of the Imperium right? I mean, anyone who tries to make Abaddon into the serious threat must be trying to hype him into some unstoppable doom warlord right? They must be demanding that Abaddon be written a certain way. It's not like the whole Failbaddon meme is insulting to Black Legion players right?

[Lucien Eilam]

Just because we haven't seen something, doesn't mean we never will. 

 

The series is The Black Legion, not Abaddon: The Wilderness Years.

 

That's probably a great story too, but it's not this one. Maybe we'll get bits and pieces of it in flashbacks, or Khayon's experiences. Maybe it will be told in full, but have to wait for the end of the Heresy. He surely has a bunch of developing yet to do in the course of that series.

 

But whatever the case, this is the story of the Black Legion, and a legion starts with more than one man.

[Petitioner's City]

Hopefully Abaddon will change in the remaining (decades of) Heresy novels. Although VS was not a good example of this. 

[Rain]

Graham McNeill is the Michael Bay of Black Library. He sells plenty of books, there are big explosions, but don't look to him for characterization or plot, the good guys are selfless and heroic, the bad guys are bitter and EEEEEEVIL.

[Jareddm]

Hopefully Abaddon will change in the remaining (decades of) Heresy novels. Although VS was not a good example of this. 

From what I recall reading, it was actually post-heresy, during the approximately one hundred years following the Heresy (can't remember if an exact time is ever given). Abaddon's entire world had come crashing down with Horus's death and so took upon himself an odyssey, where he traveled all across the Eye of Terror.  It is after that odyssey that Khayon and the others find him.  It makes sense that he has changed a lot.  A century is a decently long span of time, even for a space marine, and within the Eye it is most likely even longer.  The complaint people seem to have with ToH is we weren't there to see that odyssey.  We're only seeing the before and after.

[Olis]

I might be remembering this wrong, or maybe I misinterpreted a passage but... I thought VS was nine-hundred years after the Heresy? I thought I remembered seeing that mentioned somewhere in the novel...

[Jareddm]

Probably.  I might be off by a decimal place.  Even more reason we would expect Abaddon to be quite a different individual from the one we've seen previously.

[Conn Eremon]

The Talon of Horus is set quite a few centuries after the Heresy, yes, but if I recall correctly it is given as far less time spent for those within the Eye.

[Prodigal Son of Magnus]

The Talon of Horus is set quite a few centuries after the Heresy, yes, but if I recall correctly it is given as far less time spent for those within the Eye.

for Abaddon it was probably more, if his claim that he explored the entire Eye of Terror was true.

[Volt]

Graham McNeill is the Michael Bay of Black Library. He sells plenty of books, there are big explosions, but don't look to him for characterization or plot, the good guys are selfless and heroic, the bad guys are bitter and EEEEEEVIL.

A-fething-Men.

 

I can't even describe how tired I am of McNeil's novels. His characters are SOD breaking incompetent (the Ultramarines are supposed to be Romans/Americans and masters of logistics, yet come off as dogmatic idiots in his books), filled with action, and are written with a dry tone with little mastery of words. Part of the reason why I love Rob Sanders, ADB, and Dan Abnett is how they can go a third of a book or more with just talking- a rare sight in the Black Library.

 

Besides, anyone can write action scenes. When I read the Black Library, I'm reading because I want lore- history, cultures of 40k, world building, etc. Not bolter porn. The best book any 40K author could right is simply a psychological analysis of a Space Marine with zero action, and simply diplomacy. Or just interacting in the daily life at the Fortress Monastery. I hold The Long Night or the Night Lord's series to be the best of ADB's work as it does some very good character and world building.

[Rain]

Yep, exactly. Even with some of the more "recent" fluff changes (Necrons turning into Space Tomb Kings, the existence of thunderwolves and other such silly/cartoony units) I still unabashedly consider 40k as my favorite sci-fi universe, and I love books that really poke at or even lampshade the themes of nihilism and black humor that still remain from the universe's very British genesis. Also, it is blessed with the two most interesting villain races in any fantasy/sci fi that I can think of in the Chaos Space Marines and Dark Eldar.

 

Chaos Marines (when written as more than just "raaaawr me kill") really ask an interesting moral question. I mean, humans create space marines when the aspirants are just young impressionable children who see it as becoming superman, and then take these children and basically strip them of their humanity and any potential for joy or a personal life, all in the name of the Imperium. Then when these kids "grow up" they are strapped in armor and thrown against insurmountable odds over and until they die, using their time between battles to meditate and train. CSM reject that and choose freedom and independence, a choice that was essentially denied them when they became aspirants, but the price of which is their souls. This makes well written CSM truly fascinating characters for a sci fi universe, as they aren't really antiheroes, they are full on mass murderers and tyrants, but they are tyrants of humanity's own making.

 

As for the Dark Eldar, they are just the Drow on steroids. I think it's actually kind of brave for GW to include a race this sadistic and--predatory in a game they try to market to kids. I don't remember if this was reprinted in the recent DE codex but the 5E DE codex mentioned how Commoragh was full of "hybrids" that were allowed to live in Lower Cammoragh and bands of whom are sometimes hired as mercenaries by Kabals. It doesn't state what kind of hybrids they are, but the implication is human/eldar hybrids and probably not created with willing human participants. Phil Kelly also said in a youtube vid that the DE population is high because "there's a lot of it going down in Commoragh". On the other hand of course, the DE live in mortal crippling terror of being sucked into the warp and having the tortures they inflict replicated on them 100-fold. They are like crack addicts walking an endless tightrope above a sea of barbed wire.

[Volt]

Yep, exactly. Even with some of the more "recent" fluff changes (Necrons turning into Space Tomb Kings, the existence of thunderwolves and other such silly/cartoony units) I still unabashedly consider 40k as my favorite sci-fi universe, and I love books that really poke at or even lampshade the themes of nihilism and black humor that still remain from the universe's very British genesis. Also, it is blessed with the two most interesting villain races in any fantasy/sci fi that I can think of in the Chaos Space Marines and Dark Eldar.

 

Chaos Marines (when written as more than just "raaaawr me kill") really ask an interesting moral question. I mean, humans create space marines when the aspirants are just young impressionable children who see it as becoming superman, and then take these children and basically strip them of their humanity and any potential for joy or a personal life, all in the name of the Imperium. Then when these kids "grow up" they are strapped in armor and thrown against insurmountable odds over and until they die, using their time between battles to meditate and train. CSM reject that and choose freedom and independence, a choice that was essentially denied them when they became aspirants, but the price of which is their souls. This makes well written CSM truly fascinating characters for a sci fi universe, as they aren't really antiheroes, they are full on mass murderers and tyrants, but they are tyrants of humanity's own making.

 

As for the Dark Eldar, they are just the Drow on steroids. I think it's actually kind of brave for GW to include a race this sadistic and--predatory in a game they try to market to kids. I don't remember if this was reprinted in the recent DE codex but the 5E DE codex mentioned how Commoragh was full of "hybrids" that were allowed to live in Lower Cammoragh and bands of whom are sometimes hired as mercenaries by Kabals. It doesn't state what kind of hybrids they are, but the implication is human/eldar hybrids and probably not created with willing human participants. Phil Kelly also said in a youtube vid that the DE population is high because "there's a lot of it going down in Commoragh". On the other hand of course, the DE live in mortal crippling terror of being sucked into the warp and having the tortures they inflict replicated on them 100-fold. They are like crack addicts walking an endless tightrope above a sea of barbed wire.

Well for the filthy wretched Dark Eldar, their population is high because firstly upon the creation of the Dark City, Vect made it WITH population thanks to fancy Eldar warp tech right before Slaanesh blew apart their Empire. Secondly it's pretty hard to kill a Dark Eldar, as just a freaking fingerbone can ressurect one. And unlike their less-destestable Craftworlder kin, they're probably immortal.

 

They also seem to have a knack for simply asking for bad stuff to happen to them. I never laughed harder from a Black Library book then in Kyme's Salamanders series- where some moron in charge of the pits thought keeping a Black Dragon as a pitfighter was a good idea. Would have been easier to simply throw yourself off a cliff if you really wanted to commit suicide that bad.

 

As for CSM's, I wish more people would delve into them, especially the non-legion factions. More then Loyalists ever will, Chaos Warbands tend to act like feudal lords, carving out small empires in warp storms or the fringes of the galaxy, and lording over their tiny empires. Additionally, would be nice if somebody (hint hint) could expand on a more, straight-up Lovecraftian take on the Chaos Gods (which ADB has done to some degree along with daemons). I loath the idea of personifying the Chaos Gods as a physical entity, or at least one we can understand compared to something like Cthulhu. Not only does the physical manifestation of the Great Old One in the third dimension drive you mad, but his being extends beyond the third into other dimensions as well, a horrifying entity that exists on multiple levels of reality. 

 

Chaos shouldn't be LULZ EVIL FOR EVVVUUUULZ sake, they should be malevolent out of ignorance. How many microbes did your immune system purge today? How many ants were crushed under your boots?

 

Hell, diving more into Lovecraft, some of the Great Old Ones weren't even truly malevolent. The Deep Ones of Dagon actually offer a way for humanity to avoid being devoured by Cthulhu by breeding with the fish people. This is part of the reason why I like Slaanesh- she's actually a positive Warp God in that she ensures her cultists actually enjoy life in the grimdark dystopia of 40K. And she's arguably more eldritch then Tzeentch.

[tdemayo]

As for CSM's, I wish more people would delve into them, especially the non-legion factions. More then Loyalists ever will, Chaos Warbands tend to act like feudal lords, carving out small empires in warp storms or the fringes of the galaxy, and lording over their tiny empires. Additionally, would be nice if somebody (hint hint) could expand on a more, straight-up Lovecraftian take on the Chaos Gods (which ADB has done to some degree along with daemons). I loath the idea of personifying the Chaos Gods as a physical entity, or at least one we can understand compared to something like Cthulhu. Not only does the physical manifestation of the Great Old One in the third dimension drive you mad, but his being extends beyond the third into other dimensions as well, a horrifying entity that exists on multiple levels of reality.

 

Chaos shouldn't be LULZ EVIL FOR EVVVUUUULZ sake, they should be malevolent out of ignorance. How many microbes did your immune system purge today? How many ants were crushed under your boots?

 

Hell, diving more into Lovecraft, some of the Great Old Ones weren't even truly malevolent. The Deep Ones of Dagon actually offer a way for humanity to avoid being devoured by Cthulhu by breeding with the fish people. This is part of the reason why I like Slaanesh- she's actually a positive Warp God in that she ensures her cultists actually enjoy life in the grimdark dystopia of 40K. And she's arguably more eldritch then Tzeentch.

Have you read any of Brian Craig's WFB or 40k books? He does Chaos as Cosmic Horror quite well.

[Lucien Eilam]

I might be remembering this wrong, or maybe I misinterpreted a passage but... I thought VS was nine-hundred years after the Heresy? I thought I remembered seeing that mentioned somewhere in the novel...

 

I don't think Talon of Horus is ever more specific than saying they've been in the Eye for "centuries", but it can't be more than ~750 years. The Drop Site Massacre was ~006.M31, while Abaddon's First Black Crusade took place in 781.M31.

 

The Talon of Horus is set quite a few centuries after the Heresy, yes, but if I recall correctly it is given as far less time spent for those within the Eye.

 

I doubt it was consistent and universal for every Traitor in the Eye.

[Petitioner's City]

I've been rereading Talon, at Sargon's visions for everyone. What beautiful, evocative writing.

 

Also I had not noticed how many people of colour ADB had added to 40k (or 30k) in this novel until that lovely line about Sargon and other Word Bearers having the same dark coffee shade as Khayon. It's a lovely note, especially alongside Lheor's black skin. 

[DarKnight]

There's million little tidbits AD-B puts in his stories (the fight between Talos and the Crimson Fist, how Talos came about his sword, etc.) that could just be considered throwaway lines, but I'm really interested in what the Fist of the First Legion is doing at that space station and how they came to get there after the Breaking of Caliban and how they get treated or how they treat the traitor legions. If you're not planning on using it AD-B I'd love to hear about it.

[Jelle1880]

I just finished this a week ago and am now reading Night Lords.

 

I really like these books that give a POV from the Chaos side of things (and as tdemayo says, it brings a sense of humanity to some of them, like Abaddon), does anyone have any more recommendations for books like it ?

[Volt]

Also I just realized that Khayon's first name is just another spelling of Alexander the Great.

 

ADB, did you really need to name your main character after a legendary figure of history? Just seems a bit excessive. I mean there's naming a character after a minor figure like William I of Normandy or Roland, and then there's names like Genghis or Nobunaga. Seems a wee bit excessive.

[Conn Eremon]

Also I just realized that Khayon's first name is just another spelling of Alexander the Great.

 

ADB, did you really need to name your main character after a legendary figure of history? Just seems a bit excessive. I mean there's naming a character after a minor figure like William I of Normandy or Roland, and then there's names like Genghis or Nobunaga. Seems a wee bit excessive.

Is this sarcasm or a joke, or is this an honest concern?

 

If it's the latter, then dude, seriously? That's exceptionally subtle for 40k standards, when you think of Jaghatai Khan, or good God, Horus Lupercal. This setting takes a lot of historical and mythological names into account, recreating the figures in a futuristic setting, sometimes subtly, usually not. Why bother picking out one of the least overt examples? And if you do, what does that say about the majority of other names, that are far more overt?

[Brother Captain Arkley]

Also I just realized that Khayon's first name is just another spelling of Alexander the Great.

 

ADB, did you really need to name your main character after a legendary figure of history? Just seems a bit excessive. I mean there's naming a character after a minor figure like William I of Normandy or Roland, and then there's names like Genghis or Nobunaga. Seems a wee bit excessive.

 

Mmmm ADB stole my middle name :)

 

Alexander is not just reserved for one guy in history :) its my middle name too. Not spelt in the persian way thou :)

[1ncarnadine]

On the topic of his name, did anyone else notice this? 

 

Iskandar Khayon -> ar Khayon -> Archaon -> Herald of the End Times -> Where Khayon is also literally heralding the end times (the ultimate Black Crusade) by narrating them to the Inquisition.

 

YMMV depending on how you pronounce the names :P

[Marshal Rohr]

Except he explicitly states its Sekhandur Caine, when pronounced.