Meduson

[Anvilarium]

Has anyone else here got the Meduson Horus Heresy Anthology?

 

I have just started reading it. The opening story, Meduson by Dan Abnett is by far the best piece of Iron Hands fiction I have read from Black Library. I wish that Dan Abnett would write more Iron Hands stories as he understands the Heresy-era Iron Hands in a way that none of the other BL authors do. (I'm looking at you Annandale and McNeill!!)

 

He also does away with a lot of the 41st Millennium trappings that other BL authors seem to have copied and pasted onto the Heresy-era Iron Hands.

 

All in all, Meduson is a stunning opener to this anthology. I'm hoping that the rest of the book lives up to it, as this is the most interested I've been in Black Library for years.

Edited June 22, 2015 by Urza

[matrent89]

Is this new o.O

[Anvilarium]

The Meduson anthology is only available at Warhammer World Nottingham..

Shame really as it is looking like the best source of information on the Shattered Legions.

Heres a list of the stories in it:

Meduson - Dan Abnett
Captain Shadrak Meduson is thrust into the upper echelons of command in a post Isstvan V Legion dealing with the death of their Primarch and the scattering of their remaining Legion elements, and embarks on a mission of vengeance against a specific individual.

Unforged - Guy Haley

Salamanders on the surface of Isstvan search for a way off planet and away from the assault of the traitor legions.


Immortal Duty - Nick Kyme
Ahrem Gallikus of the Medusan Immortals is sent on a suicide mission, along with his repenting brothers, to board and destroy a World Eaters vessel.


Grey Talon - Chris Wraight
The Grey Talon, formerly a Sons of Horus / Lunar Wolves vessel, has been commandeered by contingents of the Xth and Vth Legions looking for vengeance against the Sons of Horus fleet, searching for loyalist survivors of Isstvan.


The Keys of Hel - John French
What are the 'Keys of Hel', and why are the Xth Legion determined to keep their Primarchs decision to never use this forbidden knowledge?


Deeds Endure - Gav Thorpe
A fleet comprised of Xth and XVIII Legions disagree on the method of attacking a World Eaters recruitment facility.


The Noose - Guy Haley
The Emperors Children set a trap for the remnants of the Xth Legion fleet.

Edited June 22, 2015 by Urza

[Machine God]

Has anyone else here got the Meduson Horus Heresy Anthology?

 

I have just started reading it. The opening story, Meduson by Dan Abnett is by far the best piece of Iron Hands fiction I have read from Black Library. I wish that Dan Abnett would write more Iron Hands stories as he understands the Heresy-era Iron Hands in a way that none of the other BL authors do. (I'm looking at you Annandale and McNeill!!)

 

He also does away with a lot of the 41st Millennium trappings that other BL authors seem to have copied and pasted onto the Heresy-era Iron Hands.

 

All in all, Meduson is a stunning opener to this anthology. I'm hoping that the rest of the book lives up to it, as this is the most interested I've been in Black Library for years.

@Urza - Yes I picked it up when I visited Warhammer World last Tuesday and I'll have a butchers at it on the plane home to base tommorrow!!!

[Anvilarium]

@Urza - Yes I picked it up when I visited Warhammer World last Tuesday and I'll have a butchers at it on the plane home to base tommorrow!!!

Enjoy!

I've read the first three stories so far. Meduson is brilliant, Unforged is dull (focusses on Salamanders.. Meh!), and Immortal Duty was also OK, although written by Nick Kyme, so beginning to veer back towards the usual dull BL Iron Hands fare. It does feature the Medusan Immortals though, and contains quite a lot of detail about them!

Grey Talon is next! I quite like Chris Wraight's writing, so hopefully it will be good!

Edited June 22, 2015 by Urza

[Vel'Cona]

Dan Abnett just "gets it" in a way that few BL authors do. The majority feel very hackneyed and lazy, always falling back to mindless violence and excessive description instead of actually instilling their characters with humanity. Just read anything about the White Scars; the BL books literally turned me off completely from the chapter.

Here's hoping they increase distribution of Meduson for the rest of us! IH really need the level of attention that the other chapters have received.

[Machine God]

@Urza - Yes I picked it up when I visited Warhammer World last Tuesday and I'll have a butchers at it on the plane home to base tommorrow!!!

Enjoy!

I've read the first three stories so far. Meduson is brilliant, Unforged is dull (focusses on Salamanders.. Meh!), and Immortal Duty was also OK, although written by Nick Kyme, so beginning to veer back towards the usual dull BL Iron Hands fare. It does feature the Medusan Immortals though, and contains quite a lot of detail about them!

Grey Talon is next! I quite like Chris Wraight's writing, so hopefully it will be good!

@Urza - My reading of Medusan is on hold. I had intended to read it once I finished The Curse of the Pheonix Crown, but I opted to read the other book that I picked up at the BL bookshop in WW Gods of Mars. I just need to finish that trilogy first, even though I've heard it's not that good.

[Toothbrush of Terra]

Just read anything about the White Scars; the BL books literally turned me off completely from the chapter.

 

 

Not to get off-topic, but have you read Scars by Chris Wraight? That book is a really good look at the White Scars IMO.

 

Anyway - I don't really keep up with limited release BL stuff too much, but does anyone know if they tend to get sold later on as ebooks on the BL website? I'm quite interested in Meduson and it'd be a shame to miss it just because I don't live in the UK.

[Anvilarium]

@Urza - Yes I picked it up when I visited Warhammer World last Tuesday and I'll have a butchers at it on the plane home to base tommorrow!!!

Enjoy!

I've read the first three stories so far. Meduson is brilliant, Unforged is dull (focusses on Salamanders.. Meh!), and Immortal Duty was also OK, although written by Nick Kyme, so beginning to veer back towards the usual dull BL Iron Hands fare. It does feature the Medusan Immortals though, and contains quite a lot of detail about them!

Grey Talon is next! I quite like Chris Wraight's writing, so hopefully it will be good!

@Urza - My reading of Medusan is on hold. I had intended to read it once I finished The Curse of the Pheonix Crown, but I opted to read the other book that I picked up at the BL bookshop in WW Gods of Mars. I just need to finish that trilogy first, even though I've heard it's not that good.

Gods of Mars is OK. Its not as good as the first two books in the series, but it gives a fairly good conclusion.

Rumour is that McNeil has further "... Of Mars" books in the pipeline!

[Lucien Eilam]

I thought this was interesting.

 

“What a waste,” replied the centurion. He waved a hand at the Terminators, shaking his head slowly. “Vulkan entrusted you with his work and this is how you use it? Even with these armoured suits you cannot take the World Eaters’ fortress alone. Be thankful that there will be nothing for the enemy once I have annihilated the city after your deaths. It is not the armour or weapons that makes the warrior, it is the spirit. You will fail. Your sentimentality will be your undoing. The flesh is weak.”

 

“I have heard you say that phrase on several occasions since our first encounter. I am not sure that you really understand what it means.”

 

“You may have spoken with the Gorgon but do not think to school me in the teachings on my own primarch!”

 

“Perhaps I must if the lesson was not learned properly,” Ari’i snapped back. “What you say, the flesh is weak, is only part of the saying. In forgetting the end you have lost the meaning. Vulkan said it in praise of Ferrus Manus, after the One Hundred and Eighty-Fourth Expedition when our Legions jointly liberated the ork-dominated worlds of the Shoxua Cluster. The fighting had been fiercer than anything we had expected. Your primarch said in jest that his arm was tired from killing so many orks, and Vulkan retorted with ‘the flesh is weak, but deeds endure’. It was a celebration of what they had achieved, and a remark that even primarchs can die but what they do will last beyond their lifespan. It was a message of humility, not condemnation. Flesh is weak because it knows it must come to an end, and so we must rise about the concerns of flesh and leave a legacy that others will be proud to inherit. Ferrus Manus understood that. He was a harsh master, an unforgiving ally, but he was also a maker of things - a builder, not a destroyer.”

[BassWave]

I thought this was interesting.

 

 

“What a waste,” replied the centurion. He waved a hand at the Terminators, shaking his head slowly. “Vulkan entrusted you with his work and this is how you use it? Even with these armoured suits you cannot take the World Eaters’ fortress alone. Be thankful that there will be nothing for the enemy once I have annihilated the city after your deaths. It is not the armour or weapons that makes the warrior, it is the spirit. You will fail. Your sentimentality will be your undoing. The flesh is weak.”

 

“I have heard you say that phrase on several occasions since our first encounter. I am not sure that you really understand what it means.”

 

“You may have spoken with the Gorgon but do not think to school me in the teachings on my own primarch!”

 

“Perhaps I must if the lesson was not learned properly,” Ari’i snapped back. “What you say, the flesh is weak, is only part of the saying. In forgetting the end you have lost the meaning. Vulkan said it in praise of Ferrus Manus, after the One Hundred and Eighty-Fourth Expedition when our Legions jointly liberated the ork-dominated worlds of the Shoxua Cluster. The fighting had been fiercer than anything we had expected. Your primarch said in jest that his arm was tired from killing so many orks, and Vulkan retorted with ‘the flesh is weak, but deeds endure’. It was a celebration of what they had achieved, and a remark that even primarchs can die but what they do will last beyond their lifespan. It was a message of humility, not condemnation. Flesh is weak because it knows it must come to an end, and so we must rise about the concerns of flesh and leave a legacy that others will be proud to inherit. Ferrus Manus understood that. He was a harsh master, an unforgiving ally, but he was also a maker of things - a builder, not a destroyer.”

Ugh. Who wrote that mushy slop?

[CyderPirate]

Yeah, that's exceptionally childish - even compared to some of BL's weaker offerings. 

 

The idea is interesting - that the legion has been blinded by its rage and desire for vengeance - but the actual delivery is just awful. 

[BassWave]

I'm just so tired of every fundamental thing that the Iron Hands do end up being wrong. Bionics are wrong, having a council is wrong, and now the motto that defines the chapter is wrong.

 

Meanwhile on Fenris, those flea bitten meat bags get away with being called heroes all the time despite their raging hypocrisy towards psykers (which caused an otherwise loyal legion to go traitor), and their insubordination at the first armageddon war that caused way more deaths than lives saved.

 

I am so tired of garbage fluff for the Tenth in 40k AND 30k.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Unfortunately, short of one of us getting a writing contract with GW/BL, I don't think that's going to change.

[Lord Ragnarok]

Pity, I will have to wait until they release the e version.

[Machine God]

Has anyone else here got the Meduson Horus Heresy Anthology?

 

I have just started reading it. The opening story, Meduson by Dan Abnett is by far the best piece of Iron Hands fiction I have read from Black Library. I wish that Dan Abnett would write more Iron Hands stories as he understands the Heresy-era Iron Hands in a way that none of the other BL authors do. (I'm looking at you Annandale and McNeill!!)

 

He also does away with a lot of the 41st Millennium trappings that other BL authors seem to have copied and pasted onto the Heresy-era Iron Hands.

 

All in all, Meduson is a stunning opener to this anthology. I'm hoping that the rest of the book lives up to it, as this is the most interested I've been in Black Library for years.

@Urza - I'm reading the anthology at the moment, quarter way into Grey Talon.

 

One thing...

 

How did you miss the fluff error in the Medusan story?

 

Shadrak keeps on losing his left hand.

 

The first time when the corpsman tries to cut it off with a bone saw there is loads of blood.

 

Page 14: 'The attendant stared at the wound. The hand was missing most of the fingers.

It was a bloody mitten of blackened meat, with broken knuckle-bones protruding like twigs.'

 

An Iron Hand with a left hand of Flesh?

 

Edit: This post was lost in yesterdays crash.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Well, 30k Iron Hands replace their shield arm with a cybernetic prosthetic, so it's entirely possible for his left arm to be flesh

[Machine God]

Well 40K fluff for Iron Hands has always been that Neophytes have their left hands replaced with a bionic one.

 

The Iron Hands symbol is after all a left hand!

[jokaero weaponsmith]

I haven't read it yet but I thought that Shadrak was a Terran recruit before Ferrus was on board?

So maybe while taking up meduson names they all didn't then go hacking off their hands to fit in.

[Lucien Eilam]

Well 40K fluff for Iron Hands has always been that Neophytes have their left hands replaced with a bionic one.

 

The Iron Hands symbol is after all a left hand!

The text has always been consistent on this point. Alas, not the artwork, nor the miniatures.

[Machine God]

I finished it on the weekend and you are right Urza it is a great read.

 

Stories from all perspectives Traitor and Loyalist!

 

I'm going to get hopefully Cybernetica and Seventh Serpent on

Wednesday from the BL Shop in Warhammer World.