HH Book 46: Ruinstorm

[bluntblade]

Oops. A dived/dove situation, then

[KJB]

To me at least, Ruinstorm was seemingly written with the sole purpose of justifying the inclusion of “Damnation of Pythos” in the Horus Heresy series.

 

It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst either.

[DogWelder]

 

Saw this on Facebook

[carlisimo]

The prose was sometimes too flowery for me, but I liked how Curze was portrayed (agree with godking's analysis) and my favorite part was that planet asking for liberation.  The Blood Angels Herald was a nice touch, too.

I would've liked to see a follow-up on the refugees and a closer look at that part of the galaxy.  I was also bothered by how well the early naval battle went for the loyalists, especially the Ultramarines.  That was a bit Mary Sue, and the traitor marines were very one-dimensional.  Fortunately that low point was at the start.

[Izlude]

Just got the book in the mail yesterday, seems like overall the reviews have been positive which is good. I personally love the secundus arc so seeing this book as the closer for this is definitely under scrutiny from me. I really enjoyed the secundus stuff mostly from having three of my favorite primarchs under one arc and love the supporting cast like Alexis and Dantioch. I wasn't the biggest fan of the Guilliman Primarch series but did enjoy some of the cast like the Destroyer peeps so seeing them in the DP list is nice.

 

I know people have talked about this, but man that art work...not his best...

[Tymell]

Just finished this one myself. It's an interesting one to think/talk about, and a book where my opinion of it changed quite a bit as I went on, and in a good way.

 

In terms of theme and character development, this is (in my opinion) one of the strongest books in the series. The main characters (Lion, Guilliman and Sanguinius) have actual arcs and development, something which is, if we're honest, perhaps lacking in the series as a whole. There are plenty of cool and well-written characters, but how many of them actually develop throughout a story? Ruinstorm does this with Primarchs, three of them no less, and two of them are in pretty dire need of it. I think that alone is pretty impressive.

 

The central theme, which is of fate and temptation, is also a real strong point of the book. Again, this isn't to say other stories sucked if they didn't do this: some have their focus more on certain events or characters rather than a real theme, and there's nothing wrong with that. But examining this central theme and working it into the development of the characters is what Ruinstorm sets out to do, and I think it does it very well.

 

To get a bit spoiler-y:

 

All three of the Primarchs have their own journeys and choices to make, and they're all rooted in their character traits. Guilliman has his compulsion to order everything, to be logical and apply reason, to divide the universe neatly into logical chains. Here he is presented with potentially tainted tools, such as traitor navigators and athames, which logically speaking could be useful to turn against their enemies. But how much can he trust his own judgement and rationality? This is what the dark powers try to use against him, and he has to overcome it.

 

The Lion has a self-certainty bordering on arrogance, always sure of himself, always driven by stout loyalty to his cause. But this determination might go too far, and his own certainty that he's in the right can lead to isolation from others, keeping secrets because he's sure -he- knows best. Eventually he comes close to opening fire on his own brother because of it. Again, this is what the dark powers try to use against him, and he has to overcome it.

 

Sanguinius has an obsession with fate, leading to fatalism in some instances, and a need to protect his sons. His future sight is manipulated to try to force him down certain paths, to use both hope and fatalism against him, as well as the desire to save his sons. This is what the dark powers use to try to turn him, and he has to overcome it, both accepting certain parts of fate while also accepting the possibility of changing others, and respecting his sons to deal with their burdens themselves.

 

The book is also filled with delightfully 40K concepts and imagery, mind-shattering stuff for those in the story, that sort of thing that's so over the top and yet so awesome at the same time.

 

I do have two gripes with the book:

 

1.) The prose is solid, neither the best nor the worst. There are authors whose work I find dry and dull, this isn't that. But nor does it have quite that same "less is more" flow that Chris Wraight, ADB and Dan Abnett seem to pull off so easily. It might be a bit flowery for some peoples' taste, though I never found it to be a real problem. This point is maybe less of a criticism and more a reason why, though I like it, it probably isn't (quite) making it into my top books of the series.

 

2.) The decision at the end, of having just Sanguinius and the Blood Angels making it to Terra, feels like it could be done a bit better. I get the tactical logic of having Guilliman and the Lion effectively running distraction and forging a path, but the reasoning for it being the Blood Angels that go is basically just "because fate". I was already unhappy with that being used for some of the reasoning at the end of Angels of Caliban, and it comes up again here, feeling weak as an explanation. There are one or two other points where the characters' reasoning isn't properly explained.

 

Still, neither of this ruin the book by any means. I started off thinking the book was just okay, and by the end, having seen those themes and development play out, it's gone up to what I think is a solid entry for the series, and some of the best writing for Sanguinius and the Lion. Be aware going into it that the three Primarchs are firmly the focus though.

Edited November 4, 2017 by Tymell

[b1soul]

Tymell, how do comoare Ruinstorm to AoC?

[Tymell]

Tymell, how do comoare Ruinstorm to AoC?

 

I liked Ruinstorm a fair bit better, though I didn't really dislike Angels of Caliban either. AoC was a bit mixed for me, I liked the Caliban parts, but the parts with Lion did much less for me. I think Ruinstorm is a more consistent offering, and that the Lion is done better. Not to over-sell it, my reaction isn't so much "OMG The Lion is completely turned around, this redefines him!" (it feels like he gets the least "screentime" out of the three primarchs, though not by much), but he has an actual arc and character, which is more than most previous portrayals of him have done IMO.

[b1soul]

I'm gonna give Ruinstorm a shot then...I also think Annandale's prose is generally superior to Thorpe's

[Never_born]

I always enjoy David's writing overall, but I feel like he's leaning a little too much of late towards really lean, short sentences. I like that sort of thing in moderation, but it sometimes drags a little and takes me out of the story.

 

Might just be me - I'd be interested to know if anyone else finds the same thing.

 

Should say though, I really enjoyed Ruinstorm.

Edited November 4, 2017 by Never_born

[b1soul]

Odd...sometimes I feel Annandale is a bit verbose. I haven't read his most recent stuff though

[Tymell]

I always enjoy David's writing overall, but I feel like he's leaning a little too much of late towards really lean, short sentences. I like that sort of thing in moderation, but it sometimes drags a little and takes me out of the story.

 

Might just be me - I'd be interested to know if anyone else finds the same thing.

 

Should say though, I really enjoyed Ruinstorm.

 

Actually, I totally got that feeling too, you're not alone :p Lots of little sentences. Still kind of verbose overall, but made up like that. And I also liked it, but yes, that was a noticeable feature.

[Never_born]

Phew! Glad it's not just me :)

 

I guess I like that sort of thing when it's used to create tension, but if it's overused it loses that impact.

[Phoebus]

Thoughts:

 

I wasn’t a fan of The Damnation of Pythos. I thought David Annadale did several good things with it, but many of the problems his cast of characters were forced to deal with felt underwhelming and unoriginal. The story as a whole struck me as too small in scope and too unrelated to the Horus Heresy as a whole. To put it in perspective, while Corax rode an arc that clearly dealt with the struggle to get back into the fight, Damnation was the novel-sized expression of the fundamentally flawed approach that informed most of the Shattered Legions stories.

 

To top it all off, Ruinstorm was yet another entry (albeit the final one) in the Imperium Secundus storyline, which I felt has been the most disappointing part of the Horus Heresy series thus far.

 

I mention all this to make it clear that I wasn’t exactly thrilled about Ruinstorm when I first heard of its release, and why. I was always going to read it for the same reason that I’ll read every numbered Heresy novel, but I was worried about both the quality of writing and the possibility that it would rely too much on a hackneyed connection with Damnation and would suffer from the poor logic that has weighed down the Imperium Secundus arc.

 

Anyways, having now read the novel, Ruinstorm... was a mixed bag for me. It’s not a bad novel by any means, but its quality is uneven. It is at its best when it focuses on Sanguinius’s inner struggles against his perceived fate. The decisions the IXth Primarch makes when dealing with these struggles are not the best, but Annandale does a very good job of conveying the psychic battles Sanguinius wages against tempting visions of the future and the forces bombarding him with them. Opinions will obviously vary, but I thought it was a far more powerful and convincing treatment than what we got when Horus himself was tempted on Davin. At the risk of sounding extreme, I found myself nodding in appreciation at something approaching the work Herbert put in when showing the precognitive dilemmas of Paul Atreides in his Dune series.

 

The novel drops off in other parts, though. Significantly so.

 

The thoughts the four Primarch regarding what fate means, for instance, are conveyed in a manner far less eloquent than the way Sanguinius actually deals with his struggles. It’s very straightforward, elementary stuff, even elementary, even for the intellectually and culturally stunted time many would argue the 31st Millennium is. It certainly does not feel worthy of Guilliman - who is perhaps one Mankind’s foremost thinkers at this time. I suppose that’s the problem with trying to write from the perspective a super-genius demigod... but geez, if that’s too tough a nut to crack, I’d settle for a brief nod to some of the actual philosophical discussions on the topic, by way of a reference by one of the characters. That might sound like too much to someone reading this review, but it can’t be worse than what we got: something on the level of Bill and Ted’s approach to time mechanics, but with a straight face and no, “Whoah!” expressions.

 

The first antagonists introduced are tied to earlier works and seem like they have an actual part to play in the story, but end up being nothing but distractions: at best, they are no more than bearers of a McGuffin. Shortly after they are dispatched, the convenient plot device allowing Guilliman to bypass the titular warp storm makes announcements that call into question why said antagonists were a part of this novel at all.

 

Later, as expected, Tuchulcha fails to function as advertised because of the machinations of Chaos. It switches modes to being insufferably cryptic as to why this will happen until the actual obstacles are encountered, and the Lion switches modes to frustratingly impatient and prone to the worst line of questioning. The impediments that Chaos arranges before the loyal Primarchs are grandiose in scale... but ultimately require the reader to just go along for the ride:

 

I mean, who cares if the giant wall in space is billions and billions of kilometers high? The distance from Earth to Pluto is 7.5 billion kilometers. This is a setting where that kind of distance is covered in DAYS at best.

 

Mind you, I don’t have a problem with the concept Annandale was trying to convey to us... but there probably needs to be something more than scale involved for it to work.

 

Worse, it’s not just many of the plot devices that feel contrived; a lot of the action feels telegraphed, as well. The greater the scale of the conflict, the lazier it feels, and the more of the usual tropes seem to sneak in. By the time we get to the final chapters, the reader kind of understands that the forces of the Ruinous Powers are as invincible and unstoppable as Annandale needs them to be. The battle Sanguinius personally wages is quite well-written, on the other hand, and shows that Annandale is growing as a writer and definitely has the potential to write overall stronger work.

 

At the risk of beating a horse I’ve slaughtered so many times already (at the start of this post, even!), Ruinstorm is the closing chapter of a deeply flawed - again, in my humble opinion - story arc: Imperium Secundus. Lip service thus had to be given to decisions made in by these characters in earlier entries and the same “logic” that led to them intrudes here as well. Roboute Guilliman suffers from yet more bouts of introspection on what a bad decision Imperium Secundus was. The Lion remains staunchingly contrarian and difficult until he realizes the effect outside forces are having on his decision-making; this realization lasts precisely until the Problem is solved, at which time the Primarch of the First Legion promptly decides to go right back to doing his own thing.

 

Ruinstorm closes with the Primarchs explaining what they intend to do in these closing chapters of the Heresy. Speaking for myself, it’s unsatisfying stuff. Guilliman’s strategy, for instance, sounds good only in that overly broad way that generalized military talk often does. The Lion’s? It beggars belief.

 

At the end of the day, I really, really enjoyed large parts of this novel... but was left unimpressed by a lot of what felt, frankly, like filler. Ruinstorm is definitely more good than bad in my eyes; I’m stingy with ratings, so when I say it’s a 6.5 or a 6.75, my meaning is that it’s definitely an above average work that just didn’t hit the mark. I feel comfortable saying that most readers will enjoy it... without necessarily feeling blown away.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Phoebus

[Marshal Rohr]

Please tell me the ‘giant wall’ is metaphorical.

[foto69man]

Nope....not a metaphor.

Is that blood angel herald supposed to be the origins a certain 40k character?

[Tymell]

Please tell me the ‘giant wall’ is metaphorical.

 

It's real, though also a product of the warp rather than something built by mortals.

 

Personally, I like it. It's just the kind of insanity and ludicrous scale that 40K is all about.

[Corswain]

Is that blood angel herald supposed to be the origins a certain 40k character?

I think so, and I think it was handled well. Gives me hope that they won’t spoil the secret and reveal the identity of every mystery character who makes it through to 40K. :)

 

Enjoyed the book. Not the best, far from the worst. Some good insights into the thought processes of the Primarchs.

My only real criticism is that it felt like three storylines had been smashed into one, something that seems to be happening more and more in the Heresy series.

I feel like the novel could have been told exclusively from Sanguinius point of view and the other Primarchs could have been filled out in short stories.

All told though, pretty good.

Edited November 6, 2017 by Corswain

[Phoebus]

Please tell me the ‘giant wall’ is metaphorical.

No.

 

As Tymell said, in and of itself it’s not a bad thing. Call it a taste thing, but I’d have appreciated it a lot more if it was ...

 

... simply infinite in scale - the top of the ramparts, though discernible, just continuing to stretch higher as the starship tried to approach them. It is, after all, a warp effect, so both its scale and the difficulty involved in getting around it should be metaphysical, not physical.

[Tymell]

 

Please tell me the ‘giant wall’ is metaphorical.

No.

 

As Tymell said, in and of itself it’s not a bad thing. Call it a taste thing, but I’d have appreciated it a lot more if it was ...

 

... simply infinite in scale - the top of the ramparts, though discernible, just continuing to stretch higher as the starship tried to approach them. It is, after all, a warp effect, so both its scale and the difficulty involved in getting around it should be metaphysical, not physical.

 

 

I like that suggestion a lot as an elegant way to have handled it. As it is, it might have just been me reading into it, but I took the impression that

 

even if the physical construct had a top and bottom, the effect of the wall would continue beyond, rendering it impossible to go over or under it. But even then, that's just my take, and isn't (to my recollection) explicitly stated.

[MrDarth151]

 

I mean, who cares if the giant wall in space is billions and billions of kilometers high? The distance from Earth to Pluto is 7.5 billion kilometers. This is a setting where that kind of distance is covered in DAYS at best.

 

Just a short accuracy note.

 

Not so. The mentions of warship achieving partial light speed without using Warp goes back a long time. Abnett used partial c velocities for combat speed in his works, like Salvation Reach. The most ludicrous example I can recall off-handedly is James Swallow having The Phalanx, of all things, move with 0.75c within real space. It has been done before, and for years now.

 

I mean, Annandale's giant wall is still ludicrous, but days for covering a span of a single star system is by no means something that the authors adhere to religiously.

[Phoebus]

 

I mean, who cares if the giant wall in space is billions and billions of kilometers high? The distance from Earth to Pluto is 7.5 billion kilometers. This is a setting where that kind of distance is covered in DAYS at best.

 

 

Just a short accuracy note.

 

Not so. The mentions of warship achieving partial light speed without using Warp goes back a long time. Abnett used partial c velocities for combat speed in his works, like Salvation Reach. The most ludicrous example I can recall off-handedly is James Swallow having The Phalanx, of all things, move with 0.75c within real space. It has been done before, and for years now.

 

I mean, Annandale's giant wall is still ludicrous, but days for covering a span of a single star system is by no means something that the authors adhere to religiously.

I don’t dispute the fact that there are exceptions to be found out there. At the end of the day, though, I feel more comfortable going with the more common take.

 

 

 

Please tell me the ‘giant wall’ is metaphorical.

 

No.

As Tymell said, in and of itself it’s not a bad thing. Call it a taste thing, but I’d have appreciated it a lot more if it was ...

... simply infinite in scale - the top of the ramparts, though discernible, just continuing to stretch higher as the starship tried to approach them. It is, after all, a warp effect, so both its scale and the difficulty involved in getting around it should be metaphysical, not physical.

 

I like that suggestion a lot as an elegant way to have handled it. As it is, it might have just been me reading into it, but I took the impression that

 

even if the physical construct had a top and bottom, the effect of the wall would continue beyond, rendering it impossible to go over or under it. But even then, that's just my take, and isn't (to my recollection) explicitly stated.

That’s what I would hope for, but Annandale shares the rough physical dimensions and little else. I didn’t feel confident about the wall having metaphysical properties where its dimensions are concerned for one simple reason: it was ultimately anchored on a planet, and the fleet was able to reach that with (comparatively) little fuss. My immediate thought was, “Just... keep going under the planet’s orbital plane and bypass this altogether.” I suppose one could argue the wall would somehow prevent this from happening, but if that’s the case why doesn’t it likewise block access to the planet itself?

[DogWelder]

Nice little callback/reference to Know No Fear in the book. 

 

“In the midst of the Word Bearers formation, the Annunciation turned against the flow of the retreat. It accelerated as if it sought to escape from the cluster of ships. It had ceased to respond to hails shortly before the arrival of the Ultramarines fleet. The Cavascor­ pulled away from it, and the Annunciation drove straight for the Orfeo’s Lament. The light cruiser was still turning when the larger ship closed in on it. It abandoned its manoeuvre and tried to accelerate on a tangent. The Annunciation struck it just forwards of the stern. It broke the Lament in half. It barrelled through the hull in a storm of explosions. Statuary from both ships, colossal embodiments of metaphor and the lessons of the dark, flew off from the collision in a swarm of tumbling fragments. The Orfeo’s Lament howled its last, and the plasma cry swept over the Annunciation. The strike cruiser’s bow was a ruin after the collision, twisted and fused. Tremors swept the hull, damage feeding damage until the ship was a bomb awaiting the signal for detonation. The signal came from the Cavascor, when Hierax remotely triggered melta charges he and his Destroyers had left behind. The raging holocaust grasped at the retreating squadron, scraping the void shields, striking at the vessels with a foretaste of the XIII Legion’s anger.”

 

Excerpt From: David Annandale. “Ruinstorm.” iBooks. 

 

In this case, an Ultramarines strike force captured a Word Bearers Strike Cruiser (the Annunciation) and then had it ram through the WB fleet formation before detonating itself. Notice that its a mirror of what the Word Bearers did at Calth? (Capturing the Campenile and ramming it into the Calth shipyards?)

[b1soul]

Abnett's prose conveys the frenetic energy of ship collisions so much better IMO

 

The Campanile streaks like a missile into Calth’s orbital shipping belt. It punches through the formations of ships in parking orbit, the rows of freighters, barges and troop vessels at high anchor, the precisely spaced lines of vast cruisers and frigates, the glittering clouds of small craft, loaders, lifters and boats attending the parent ships.

 

 

It is like a bolter round fired into a crowd.

 

 

It misses the Mlatus, the Cavascor, the Lutine and the Samothrace by less than a ship’s length. It passes under the beam of the battleship Ultimus Mundi and skims the back of the gargantuan carrier ship Testament of Andromeda. Its shields graze the hull of the strike craft Mlekrus, vaporising the masts and arrays of its starboard detectors. It slices between the battle-barges Gauntlet of Victory and Gauntlet of Glory. By the time it crosses the bow of the grand cruiser Suspiria Majestrix, shredding the mooring and fuelling lines that secure the famous vessel to its bulk tenders, the Campanile has begun to swat aside small craft, annihilating them against the front of its shields. The small ships disintegrate, fierce blue sparks fizzle against the shield shimmer: cargo boats, lighters, ferries, maintenance riggers. The Campanile’s shield displacement hurls others out of the way like a tidal bore, swirling into each other, compressing them with gravimetric thrust, crashing them against the hulls of larger ships or the support cradles of the outer orbital yards.

 

 

Then the Campanile reaches the main shipyard.

 

 

The Calth Yards are orbiting islands, the fledgling beginnings of the planet’s first proper superorbital plate. There are a dozen of them orbiting Calth. This is Calth Veridian Anchor, the largest and oldest of them. It is a massive edifice of jetties and slips, ship cradles and docks, suspension manufactories, habitats, depots and docking platforms. It is a little over three hundred kilometres across, a raft of metal and activity and life.

 

 

The Campanile hits it, creating light. Void shields moving at high sub-light velocities strike physical matter, and mutually annihilate.

[DarkChaplain]

Well, Abnett's scene is basically the start of the entire war between the two Legions, so it better be structured and described in a suitably inspiring way. While Ruinstorm's callback may mirror it, their roles within their respective stories are of different magnitudes entirely. Know No Fear's Campanile crash is like straight out of a massive disaster movie, highlighting the chaos and confusion more, whereas the Annunciation is more of a military gambit between bitter foes, one of which has cause for vengeance.

 

I'm fine with both of them being described with different degrees of gravitas and exposition. One is a defining moment with chapters worth of buildup in its novel, whereas the other is just a piece of the action.