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Has anyone read The Unforgiven by Gav Thorpe?


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Just finished it a few days ago, outside of HH it was the first dark angels book I have read and it was good.  Lord Cypher was nicely fleshed out but still mysterious, the interaction of the legion masters and chapter masters was interesting.  I was surprised  just how paranoid and Orwellian the dark angels were.  They are definitely a legion on the cusp of going traitor to hide their traitorous past. 

 

An enjoyable read. 7/10.

 

p.s. After I read it some one mention that it was the 3rd part of a trilogy, never read the first 2 but it is easily to follow as a stand alone.

It reminded me of an M. Night Shyamalan movie. When you get to the end, it basically undoes any buildup throughout the entire book, and just ends. There was a lot of Deus Ex Machina out of Cypher, and some plot threads that were either abandonded, or just 
unraveled. I'd still read it for the plot points, but it's not a masterpiece of any sorts. 

Yup its a pretty good read connecting all the way to Angels of Darkness.  The ending was completely lackluster.  All the stuff with cypher and luther hint of something awesome happening or game changing are just that hints... the ending was "Oh, okay..."

 

I pretty much have to eliminate my need an want to plot advancement for 40k as lets face it.. it is not happening.

Yup its a pretty good read connecting all the way to Angels of Darkness.  The ending was completely lackluster.  All the stuff with cypher and luther hint of something awesome happening or game changing are just that hints... the ending was "Oh, okay..."

 

I pretty much have to eliminate my need an want to plot advancement for 40k as lets face it.. it is not happening.

 

i said the same for Fantasy for years...and now have the AoS crap.

 

be careful of what you wish for.

 

WLK

True enough WLK, progress is still progress.. even tough its not what you wanted. 

 

moving ahead isnt always progress.

 

especially if your method is to erase 20+years of stories to introduce wannabe space marines into every game system

 

WLK

Typhus gets played by Cypher to come to the place where Calaban was to attack it and the Rock. The DA terminators teleport to the Terminus Est the 'dreaded' Death Shroud terminators get torn to pieces with bolter fire and are stomped by the DA and then the DA chapter master and Typhus talk for a second and realize they both got fooled by Cypher. Then the Terminus Est and the nurgle forces get teleported away like nothing happened at the end. Typhus comes out like a putts and the death shroud are hollow tin cans, they play the usual villians that suck and are beaten.

Uuhhhmmmmm, what??? The revelation at the end is as big of a jawdropper as when Astelan shocked with his "The Lion was waiting" statement.

 

IF YOU ARE A DARK ANGEL FAN, DO NOT CLICK THS SPOILER, BUY THE BOOK.

 

 

The culmination of the book has the 40k DA (via a time-rift) CAUSE the destruction of Calibanite and the scattering of The Fallen.

 

  • 4 weeks later...

They are definitely a legion on the cusp of going traitor to hide their traitorous past. 

 

Is that what you got from this passage?

 

“One moment more.’ Azrael clenched his fists on the tabletop. ‘I will not jeopardise the future of the Imperium to save this Chapter. We must hold higher regard for mankind. My instinct tells me that our enemies are seeking some means to reveal the nature of our history to opposing forces within the Imperium. If we fail here, if the true legacy of Caliban is made known, we must accept the judgement of our peers and allies.’

‘You would allow the Dark Angels to be executed?’

‘Not just the Dark Angels, all of the Unforgiven.”

 

Excerpt From: Gav Thorpe. “The Unforgiven.” iBooks.

Because to me it sounds like a brotherhood of Chapters (a secret Legion, some might whisper...) whose leaders are willing to do terrible things in the name of the Hunt... but who would rather fall on their blades than cause a civil war.

 

On the other hand, few parts of the Warhammer 40k background are more contradictory than the Dark Angels lore. Thus, for instance, in C.Z. Dunn's "Azrael: Protector of Secrets", the very same Supreme Grand Master is more than willing to murder in cold blood thousands of Guardsmen (including a Major-General who probably just saved his life) to protect the very same secrets.

 

For myself, I prefer the Azrael in The Unforgiven.

I think it's more like they will do anything to maintain the secret, but once the secret is out then they will allow themselves to be judged by those they see as their peers.

 

So on the one hand, the lengths they are willing to go to keep the secret is what makes them borderline traitor(much like the Blood Angels hiding the Flaw), but their acceptance that one day they will have to answer for it is what keeps them from going over the edge.

The lengths they are willing to go to in order to keep their secret is what makes the Dark Angels criminal, rogue, and - as a consequence - ashamed. Would they actually betray the Imperium in the proper sense of the word - as in, to an enemy? I don't think they would ever do that.

One thing that only struck me this last week was the relevance of the name of the daemon on Caliban in the context of the ending:

 

http://www.tanikendini.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ouroboros_by_chadoside-d604hbr.jpg

One thing that only struck me this last week was the relevance of the name of the daemon on Caliban in the context of the ending:

 

Angel, 

 

What you mention is only reinforced by The Lion, also by Gav Thorpe, which reveals that ...

 

 

... the Lion was approached by Tzeentchian daemons before he was discovered by the Order. He rejected them, of course, as he did when they tried to tempt him again aboard the Invincible Reason.

 

GreyCrow,

 

My impression is that the "Why" of it all was to make it as grimdark as possible... while using time mechanics that are meant to make you think, "This is insane, it couldn't happen."

 

This is a universe where “There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.”

After ten thousand years of compromising their honour and living in shame for the sake of hunting the Fallen, the Dark Angels found out that they ...

 

 

... were responsible for the Warp rift that scattered their treacherous cousins through space and time to begin with.

 

 

Again, the impossibility of this (that is, the very idea of all time occurring at once, and the actions of someone in the future affecting events in the past) is meant to emphasize just how hopeless it is for Man to think he can stand in the way of the Ruinous Powers.

GreyCrow,

 

My impression is that the "Why" of it all was to make it as grimdark as possible... while using time mechanics that are meant to make you think, "This is insane, it couldn't happen."

 

This is a universe where “There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.”

After ten thousand years of compromising their honour and living in shame for the sake of hunting the Fallen, the Dark Angels found out that they ...

 

 

... were responsible for the Warp rift that scattered their treacherous cousins through space and time to begin with.

 

 

Again, the impossibility of this (that is, the very idea of all time occurring at once, and the actions of someone in the future affecting events in the past) is meant to emphasize just how hopeless it is for Man to think he can stand in the way of the Ruinous Powers.

 

Fair enough, I can get by this analysis. I just think that there were too many implied answers with the nature of the secret down in the chamber, and I got a bit confused by the two

 

 

Warp entities, Tuchulcha and Ouroboros. Are they part of each other with the Plagueheart ?

Was Cypher's reason to go attack the Ouroboros meant to have it unfurl and open up the Warp Rift that the DA would eventually blow, scattering the Fallen ?

 

It's really complicated to follow all the different warp and time related stuff I find :p

 

Where your spoiler is concerned, I don't think you'll have a full understanding until the Horus Heresy timeline progresses some more. Gav Thorpe will be writing the next Dark Angels novel in that setting, and one of the perspectives offered will be from the Lutherites on Caliban... so you may get some answers by this Spring.

 

That having been said, I thought the novel - especially the chapters titled "Sins of the Past" and "Unholy Revelation" made it clear that ...

 

 

... the three Warp entities - Plagueheart, Tuchulcha, and the taint of Caliban - are connected. Tuchulcha made it sound as if they had been one entity split into three, and that it specifically had been used by the Old Ones to construct the Webway. Where it got confusing is that Cypher referred to the daemonic entity on Caliban as the "Consumer", but Typhus clearly considered the planet to be Plagueheart's prison... despite that name repeatedly being referred to as the warp-comet that arrives with his plague fleet.

 

What Plagueheart would have become had Typhus succeeded, I can't guess. I'm afraid that bit of the plot struck me as a bit too much hand-waving. I suspect the important thing was coming up with the threat for the Dark Angels. How everything fits together was, I fear, a more secondary consideration.

 

I think Gav has some interesting ideas but his prose is underwhelming. I feel like he tells instead of showing.

 

Good writers have a way of drawing you into a scene. A skilled writer usually employs a lot of imagery, i.e. description vividly evoking the reader's senses. They also have a way of crafting smooth dialogue befitting the characters.

 

Gav's prose reads quite flat to me.

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