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HH Book 42: Garro


ZebraM

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The key part of this line, which we added in, was "in his own unpredictable fashion".

Does make it better

 

...but it's perfectly understandable why some readers might not find that qualifier to be strong enough, as it follows some really strong language in the opposite direction:

 

The riders of the White Scars had always been one of the Emperor’s most devoted and loyal Legions, and His son Jaghatai Khan had never once shown anything but unswerving allegiance

 

Perhaps, during Scars and Sword of Truth...only those in the Emp's inner circle doubted Jaghatai's loyalty

 

Only after Russ limped back from Alaxxes with tales of Jaghatai's apparent refusal to help...did Jaghtai's loyalty become widely questioned.

Think about when this bit of the story is set. It's right after Calth, which is mid-007. (Molech isn't until the very end of 009)

 

No one has heard a single peep out of the White Scars for years, in fact, since Ullanor. (And Targutai Yesugei was at Nikaea, but didn't get back to his Legion for ages.) The Khan has only ever been super-loyal, he's done everything that the Emperor told him to, to the best of his ability. He's just really hard to get hold of, and people had started to give up on hearing from him again...

 

Does that make him a traitor? No. Why would it? He does things his own way, which is frustrating for some Imperial groups, but he never takes a single action that is in anyway dishonest or rebellious.

 

(Also, in this part of the story, even Hakeem doesn't know how the White Scars internal conflict got resolved. How could anyone else who wasn't there?)

 

I'm still not seeing any indication of how he could ever be described as not being loyal to the Emperor. Sure, he was best buds with Horus, when Horus was the most loyal of the loyal. As soon as Khan heard about the Heresy, he stopped returning his calls too. Horus actually really misjudged that - he thought that friendship would be enough to break Khan's ties to daddy. Wrong.

 

The only person who ever has any reason to doubt Jaghatai Khan's loyalty is Russ, and that is because (in his VERY subjective view) he refused to help the VI Legion at Alaxxes... because as far as the Khan knew, Russ had recently launched an unprovoked attack on Prospero. And guess what? Russ realises this, and forgives him. There is absolutely no "widely questioned" about it. There is one super-secret conversation between the Emperor and Malcador in 'Vengeful Spirit', and that's it...

 

‘You suspect others may prove false?’

To my eternal regret, I do.

‘Who?’

Another long pause made Malcador fear his question would remain unanswered, but at last the Emperor replied.

The Khan makes a virtue of being unknowable, of being the mystery that none can answer. Some among his Legion have already embraced treachery, and others may yet.

 

No, I'm just not seeing how this is as cut-and-dried as some people are making out.

 

===

 

The Khan is like ADB - he's on the same side as Dan, Graham, Nick and me, but he's going to take his sweet time about it and he's still always going to act like the cool cousin at a family BBQ.

Personally i never even considered audio a format for digesting books until i stumbled across Black Library's budding collection of titles back in early 2012. I have very little "free" time each day between, running my schedule on average it used to take over a month to make it through a single 400 page paperback novel which eventually leads to lingering interest. With audio I can immerse myself in the horror of 30k or 40k whenever i like for as long as i like and still get everything i need to done. The only downside is having to double purchase those novels which deserve a place on my bookshelf and not just in my iTunies library.

 

Anyways, I'm looking forward to the full release of Garro next year having not read Vow of Faith (surprise surprise) and an additional 20k words of loyalist goodness sounds like just what the doctor ordered!

 

I will say that IIRC the Garro audiobooks rarely took over like 30-40 min, and a lot of them were quite a bit smaller. 

 

You recall incorrectly. The standard length of a BL audio drama CD is approximately 70 minutes, which is about 10,000 words on paper.

 

'Oath of Moment' and 'Legion of One' were approximately 70 minutes each. 'Sword of Truth' and 'Shield of Lies' were approximately 140 minutes each.

'Burden of Duty' was 5,000 words, so approximately 35 minutes. 'Ashes of Fealty' was something like 3,000 words, which I imagine places it around 20 minutes in length.

 

So... ONE of them was shorter than 30 minutes, and ONE was right in the ballpark you suggested.

FOUR were considerably longer, even double or quadruple that length.

 

As a percentage of total running time? I make that a grand total of 4% of Garro's audio adventures weighing in at "quite a bit smaller" than 30-40 minutes, and another 7% was right on the money. Everything else was CONSIDERABLY longer.

 

(68,000 words on paper, plus 35,000 for 'Vow of Faith', plus approximately 20,000 words of new content - 'Garro' is actually one of the bulkier HH main range novels.)

 

Whoops. Couldn't be assed to look up any other than the one that came to mind, which was Ashes of Fealty. 

In any case, I never felt that any of the Garro audiobooks were too long, rather they fit in pretty nicely, even the longest ones. Nothing like an audio version of, say, False Gods or something like that.

So I've never read or heard the other Garro things which made this novella a required purchase.

 

It certainly felt like a mash up of several stories stuck together in mildly chronological order.

 

Was a bit of a drag really. It didn't add much to the HH series for me personally.

I had a feeling he'd * that word.

 

Maybe this will help

 

https://letterpile.com/writing/Difference-Between-A-Short-Story-Novelette-Novella-And-A-Novel

 

Garro was more like a collection of short stories. Even Legacies of Betrayal was a collection of short stories but was classed as a novel by BL.

I like the intro section, the preface snippets. The first chapter also expands neatly on what Oath of Moment did, regarding Malcador and Garro's oath, and puts that up front instead of as a flashback scene. It works better that way in my opinion. For the audio drama it made sense to open with more action and the guardsman PoV, but for the novel, it was nice to see Garro front and center instead.

 

 

Gotta wonder though: Garro goes to Calth, which happens at 007, though later publications (Know No Fear) made the fall of the planet seem more rapid than the text here suggests by talking of multiple dawns and such.

By the time Garro gives his oath previous to this first mission, Severian was already recruited by Malcador (Garro heard rumors and his name, even though he was basically locked up on Luna?), which means that The Outcast Dead and Wolf Hunt have occured, and that Severian was certainly recruited first, making Garro the second at best.

Garro escaped from Isstvan III, which occured in 005-006, and I'd guess he left in 005. Isstvan V was 006, which was a topic in The Outcast Dead, which means that TOD/Wolf Hunt were between 006 and 007 somewhere. That meshes with Prospero being in 004-005, and the whole "two years" twist in Wolf Hunt.

Now Oath of Moment / Chapter One also make reference to Garro's augmetic leg still being recent and acting up, but how recent can it really be if Garro was stuck for a good while, waiting for something to do besides stare at Terra?

 

 

Any chance to get some vetted dates, Laurie? Just trying to pinpoint some events in the overall galactic civil war.

 

By the by, I just noticed that Garro's miniature from Forge World actually spots not just "Libertas" written on his blade, but "Libertas Rex". Another Forge World addition/inconsistency?

'Legacies of Betrayal' is an anthology. It's not always about length, but content.

 

"Novel-length anthology" and "novella-length anthology" are both terms we've used to market books.

 

But I'm not going to argue the definition of novel/novella/anthology AGAIN. If 'Garro' were an anthology, it'd have all the stories presented separately, with little or no connective material. It's CLEARLY not a novella, because it CONTAINS the text that was previously a novella, plus twice as much again.

 

I will say that IIRC the Garro audiobooks rarely took over like 30-40 min, and a lot of them were quite a bit smaller. 

 

You recall incorrectly. The standard length of a BL audio drama CD is approximately 70 minutes, which is about 10,000 words on paper.

 

'Oath of Moment' and 'Legion of One' were approximately 70 minutes each. 'Sword of Truth' and 'Shield of Lies' were approximately 140 minutes each.

'Burden of Duty' was 5,000 words, so approximately 35 minutes. 'Ashes of Fealty' was something like 3,000 words, which I imagine places it around 20 minutes in length.

 

So... ONE of them was shorter than 30 minutes, and ONE was right in the ballpark you suggested.

FOUR were considerably longer, even double or quadruple that length.

 

As a percentage of total running time? I make that a grand total of 4% of Garro's audio adventures weighing in at "quite a bit smaller" than 30-40 minutes, and another 7% was right on the money. Everything else was CONSIDERABLY longer.

 

(68,000 words on paper, plus 35,000 for 'Vow of Faith', plus approximately 20,000 words of new content - 'Garro' is actually one of the bulkier HH main range novels.)

 

Laurie - let's face the truth:

Garro is a conglomerate of previously released Garro stuff over the years. All the audios/shorts and 2 novellas/audio dramas united under one cover with a ligament text/storytelling to unite them into coherent narrative.

 

You can't have a full positive response to that Laurie, cause:

a) it failed for a lot of people cause they read/listen all that before. All the 'ligament' stuff is almost non-existent and do not deserve the price.

b) fans who are new or simply hasn't read/listen to the previous Garro stuff over the years due to the lot of reasons  will enjoy it for that price and to have all the stories under one cover.

 

First category is unhappy - the second is happy, exactly the case with all the BL anthologies of old previously released stuff.

Well I'm one of those who has not listened to any of the Garro audios so I was going into this pretty blind. Simply put I could not put it down finished it in 3 sittings.

 

Great HH start to 2017.

You mean the end of 2016? It was released in 2016 - so doesnt count for 2017

It counts as 2017 in my eyes, just as Pharos does for 2016. The book isn't in print until February, with event copies maybe a few weeks earlier. It simply got an early pre-release for a special occassion a mere seven days before the end of the year.

I'll be waiting for the Mass Market paperback release on this one. I am excited to read Vow of Faith though, the plot threads it continues are fairly interesting, and I like Garro himself.

 

The audio-dramas were a mixed bag, I think. While I enjoyed Oath of Moment, Ashes of Fealty, Burden of Duty, and especially Legion of One, I thought Sword of Truth was quite weak (Khorarin was amazingly stupid, and the voice acting on the White Scars made the "twist" hilariously obvious), and Shield of Lies wasn't much better (whoops, accidentally attacked my own base.)

*novel

Anthology, novellas mix - but it is not a novel. Laurie - ligament text between previously released stuff does not make that mix a separate fullgrown novel.

giphy.gif

I have done more to lead Laurie back to us than all you envying me combined msn-wink.gif He is already bought a ticket on a plain and prepared 'Lucille' biggrin.png

It is all the audio dramas + the Vow of Faith novella merged and connected with new text and some adjustments, into one novel. So yep, you'll be happy with it

Did you saw that they haven't changed Rubio stuff.

Garro arrived at Calth during a 5th day of the battle for Numinus biggrin.png It was previously released before 'Know no Fear' made Calth a 1 day battle and killed 21st Chapter almost in all it's entirety biggrin.png

This might not still be relevant if Mr. Goulding has finished already, but one thing I did notice towards the end of the Sword of Truth section that puzzled me slightly:

 

Hakeem says to Garro "You were at Isstvan Five", but he wasn't, he was at Isstvan Three. What makes it seem particularly odd is in the original audio Hakeem does say Isstvan Three, it's been changed here to Five. Anyone have any thoughts as to why?

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