Ferrus Manus: Gorgon of Medusa

[Indefragable]

If the novel gives as much insight into Ferrus as the Guilliman novel did into Roboute, then I'll be pleasantly surprised and happy with it, considering I seem to have taken away more about Guilliman as a character and person than the majority of folks here (as detailed elsewhere). I really should put this higher up the list, now that Slaves to Darkness is done and dealt with..

Well, good to know you swing your sword with the force of reason* and that is why you slay your enemies so well.

 

Glad your found value in it. All the more power to you. For the rest of us...

 

*Actual phrasing from the Guilliman Primarchs novel. Yea. That bad.

[mc warhammer]

DG has already made allowances for being the minority opinion? dogpiling him for it seems a bit...i dunno. odd

 

i’ll throw in that i took a lot away from RG as well, and while it’s not my favourite primarch book, i found it was a worthwhile examination of his character...i got a real sense of guilliman’s values and the struggles he faced during the GC.

[DarkChaplain]

 

If the novel gives as much insight into Ferrus as the Guilliman novel did into Roboute, then I'll be pleasantly surprised and happy with it, considering I seem to have taken away more about Guilliman as a character and person than the majority of folks here (as detailed elsewhere). I really should put this higher up the list, now that Slaves to Darkness is done and dealt with..

Yeah but what about the rest of us  .

 

 

Well, the rest of you will still have B&C to complain about it (and Annandale being a "terrible author") for years to come

[mc warhammer]

 

just saying i finished it...and liked it. 

 

i have to wonder if some of the negative feeling towards this really well written book was judging against an idea of what it should have been...rather than what it actually was.

 

i thought ferrus was facinating, and i loved how destructive he was to himself and those around him.   i think there's a tendency with the loyalists to come off as less damaged or problematic than their brothers. nice to see that just because one is loyal, that doesn't mean more "healthy". it adds some variety to the loyalist side. 

 

and theres inference that ferrus is just as the emperor made him anyway. 

[Indefragable]

@Red_Shift thanks for including my thoughts in the opening post.

 

For the record, I would always say my own comments to an author’s face (I actually wanted to talk with Guymer at the one GW event I went to to specifically ask him about his take on Ferrus Manus for that reason). So I feel a little bad about calling any author’s hard work “worthless”, but at the same time I stand by the effect (or lack thereof) the work achieved on our experience as a whole. Are they readable and worth spending money on? Of course. Are they they “good?” Whole different matter of subjectivity.

[Ingo Pech]

@Red_Shift

 

I think, Guymer just showed that Ferrus- perhaps more than several other Primarchs- was designed to be used as a weapon and for a specific task.

 

He seems to have been created flawed and ready to sacrifice himself for the Empire and the Emperor - so that the Emperor could use his death to calculate and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of his enemies ("The Outcast Dead") and try to counter them in the right way...

 

...and use Ferrus' soul/psychic energy to defend the Imperial Palace in the "War in the Webway" ("Master of Mankind")...

 

I just would have loved to see more of his past, some more hints regarding his silver arms and eyes and more "War in the Land of Shadows" against Necrons or Darke Age-Tech-Constructs...

 

For me, after several re-reads in German and English it's a mid tier book with several flaws but some thrilling moments and aspects, especially regarding the Gardinaal but the Iron Hands as well.

[Lord_Caerolion]

The problem is, the Forge World fluff shows him as one of the best field commanders of the Primarchs, in control of 1/3 of the Great Crusade at one point. Istvaan was supposed to be an anomaly, Ferrus was an amazing tactician. Now, though, every book we're getting on the Iron Hands is "Ferrus gets angry and screws up, and them using bionics so much is wrong and making them weaker". Give us a book about the Iron Hands being awesome, not "oh, and these Emperors Children are better at everything than the Iron Hands are".

[Indefragable]

The problem is, the Forge World fluff shows him as one of the best field commanders of the Primarchs, in control of 1/3 of the Great Crusade at one point. Istvaan was supposed to be an anomaly, Ferrus was an amazing tactician. Now, though, every book we're getting on the Iron Hands is "Ferrus gets angry and screws up, and them using bionics so much is wrong and making them weaker". Give us a book about the Iron Hands being awesome, not "oh, and these Emperors Children are better at everything than the Iron Hands are".

^This.

 

Guilliman considers Ferrus as one of his “Dauntless Few.”

The FW books make him out to be one of the supreme Field Marshals (as in, more than a General) of the Great Crusade.

The attempt by Fulgrim to bring him to the cause (a maneuver that risks the entire rebellion before it has begun).

The fact that he was the 3rd rediscovered Primarch after Horus and Russ.

 

All of the above would lead one to believe that Ferrus is one heck of a leader (regardless of style).

 

Instead his novella is “what is this ‘flanking maneuver’ you speak of? What’s that T-word you keep mentioning? Technical? Tectonic? Tachonomy? Ah yes “Tactics.” Don’t know what that is. Just hulk smash then victory.”

[Marshal Rohr]

 

The problem is, the Forge World fluff shows him as one of the best field commanders of the Primarchs, in control of 1/3 of the Great Crusade at one point. Istvaan was supposed to be an anomaly, Ferrus was an amazing tactician. Now, though, every book we're getting on the Iron Hands is "Ferrus gets angry and screws up, and them using bionics so much is wrong and making them weaker". Give us a book about the Iron Hands being awesome, not "oh, and these Emperors Children are better at everything than the Iron Hands are".

^This.

 

Guilliman considers Ferrus as one of his “Dauntless Few.”

The FW books make him out to be one of the supreme Field Marshals (as in, more than a General) of the Great Crusade.

The attempt by Fulgrim to bring him to the cause (a maneuver that risks the entire rebellion before it has begun).

The fact that he was the 3rd rediscovered Primarch after Horus and Russ.

 

All of the above would lead one to believe that Ferrus is one heck of a leader (regardless of style).

 

Instead his novella is “what is this ‘flanking maneuver’ you speak of? What’s that T-word you keep mentioning? Technical? Tectonic? Tachonomy? Ah yes “Tactics.” Don’t know what that is. Just hulk smash then victory.”

 

 

That makes me sad, because brutal, uncompromising Ferrus as a premier Primarch during the Great Crusade is one of the coolest untold stories in the entire lore. 

[bluntblade]

And Gardinaal in the FW book was Ferrus dismantling a world's defences and government in a way that was brutally utilitarian instead of a destructive strop.

[Fedor]

The frustrating thing is Guymer could have told a strong comes to realise he's not the best suited for overall Warmaster story, that has all of the better stuff in his book and shows flaws of a brutal character (that probably should avoid be written in a more typical heroic role like a Guilliman or Sanguinius can suit) without needing to change the Gaardinal forgeworld lore so much and turn it into a dropsite massacre reskin.

 

For the books still to be released, i'm most curious about the Alpharius one. I have a feeling that is the one with the most potential to veer from trainwreck or wildly divisive to revelatory classic.

[MegaVolt87]

Yeah I was disappointed with the Ferrus book. Second half of the book where he gets mad and rages out, you could change his name to Perturabo and it would still make sense. How he dealt with the city I could see Perty doing that, not someone like Ferrus. 

[Lord_Caerolion]

Having just finished it myself, the beginning of the book wasn't too bad. I did get annoyed at the issues with Ferrus and his relations with the other Primarchs/Emperor. On one hand, even the Emperor "doesn't know him", but then when he decides to hulk out, it states that "his brothers would see who he truly was, and it was exactly what they had already known". So which is it?

I don't mind him getting angry and attacking, but he's always supposed to have a focussed anger, rather than general berzerker rage. What this book showed was the latter.