Wolfsbane HH49

[karden00]

This is hardly a well-considered thought, but rather something that just came to me now, so feel free to poke away, but...

 

Could it be that Horus’s absence has, in a way, given us a sort of mystique when it comes to the Arch-Traitor?

Hear me out.

We kinda got to know him, at least through Lokens eyes, in the OG trilogy, then he took a back seat (for a very long time!) so that other, significant things/characters/primarchs could get their stories told.

Then came VS, and we got lots of him (say what you will about the book, I don’t recall too many complaints regarding Horus specifically) and he became a little more fleshed out.

I’m not entirely convinced of this, but has Horus’s absence from the spotlight given him and value?

 

I realize the same could be said about Sangy, maybe that’s a different can of worms... I dunno

[Marshal Loss]

Could it be that Horus’s absence has, in a way, given us a sort of mystique when it comes to the Arch-Traitor?

Hear me out.

We kinda got to know him, at least through Lokens eyes, in the OG trilogy, then he took a back seat (for a very long time!) so that other, significant things/characters/primarchs could get their stories told.

Then came VS, and we got lots of him (say what you will about the book, I don’t recall too many complaints regarding Horus specifically) and he became a little more fleshed out.

I’m not entirely convinced of this, but has Horus’s absence from the spotlight given him and value?

 

No. Not at all.

 

For starters, he has never been absent. Both in the opening trilogy and in Vengeful Spirit we have seen inside his head (unlike, say, the Emperor) and looked at his thought process. I think the consensus is that Vengeful Spirit wasn't brilliant; I got the sense that it was actually reasonably unpopular, but I may be wrong. We've had audio dramas that shed further light on what exactly was behind his actions, and how he felt about the situation in which he found himself. Then there have been the innumerable appearances Horus has made throughout the series. Some sinister and well thought out (Path of Heaven, Betrayer), while others...well, not all were great. He has never been an equivalent figure to the Emperor in terms of his mystique, because his goals and motivations are not shrouded in mystery - they are open for all to see, often imperfectly through other eyes. The series is the Horus Heresy, after all. He has had far too many appearances to be described as mysterious, but far too few meaningful ones to have attained any real weight.

 

The Forge World books have done a great job of showcasing Horus as the strategic genius he is - and should be - adding some depth and mystery to him while doing so (as FW have done for other characters as well). The idea that perhaps he was subconsciously working towards domination; that even while he was 'loyal' Horus, he and his Legion were not quite as straight up and down as the Imperium believed. Sinister stuff. The Black Library books, conversely, have done a pretty terrible job when you compare the two, although that is partly due to the innumerable lenses that Horus is seen through in so many different novels, compared to the detached pseudo-history style of the black books.

 

Post-Molech Horus is more mysterious due to how alien and other he has become, but even then, he has still made quite a few appearances. Path of Heaven did a great job of showcasing this new Horus, and from what we've heard of Slaves to Darkness, where French has said the novel will show the effect that chaos is having on the Warmaster (tearing him apart) and presumably on his Legion, I'm hopeful that we'll get some much needed development. But I think it's fair to say that Horus is (has been) neither mysterious nor absent. We just haven't had enough material focused around backing up and justifying the reputation he holds in-universe. Too often this standing is harmed because he assumes the role of a player in another character's story.

[Orwell84]

 

Could it be that Horus’s absence has, in a way, given us a sort of mystique when it comes to the Arch-Traitor?

Hear me out.

We kinda got to know him, at least through Lokens eyes, in the OG trilogy, then he took a back seat (for a very long time!) so that other, significant things/characters/primarchs could get their stories told.

Then came VS, and we got lots of him (say what you will about the book, I don’t recall too many complaints regarding Horus specifically) and he became a little more fleshed out.

I’m not entirely convinced of this, but has Horus’s absence from the spotlight given him and value?

 

No. Not at all.

 

For starters, he has never been absent. Both in the opening trilogy and in Vengeful Spirit we have seen inside his head (unlike, say, the Emperor) and looked at his thought process. I think the consensus is that Vengeful Spirit wasn't brilliant; I got the sense that it was actually reasonably unpopular, but I may be wrong. We've had audio dramas that shed further light on what exactly was behind his actions, and how he felt about the situation in which he found himself. Then there have been the innumerable appearances Horus has made throughout the series. Some sinister and well thought out (Path of Heaven, Betrayer), while others...well, not all were great. He has never been an equivalent figure to the Emperor in terms of his mystique, because his goals and motivations are not shrouded in mystery - they are open for all to see, often imperfectly through other eyes. The series is the Horus Heresy, after all. He has had far too many appearances to be described as mysterious, but far too few meaningful ones to have attained any real weight.

 

The Forge World books have done a great job of showcasing Horus as the strategic genius he is - and should be - adding some depth and mystery to him while doing so (as FW have done for other characters as well). The idea that perhaps he was subconsciously working towards domination; that even while he was 'loyal' Horus, he and his Legion were not quite as straight up and down as the Imperium believed. Sinister stuff. The Black Library books, conversely, have done a pretty terrible job when you compare the two, although that is partly due to the innumerable lenses that Horus is seen through in so many different novels, compared to the detached pseudo-history style of the black books.

 

Post-Molech Horus is more mysterious due to how alien and other he has become, but even then, he has still made quite a few appearances. Path of Heaven did a great job of showcasing this new Horus, and from what we've heard of Slaves to Darkness, where French has said the novel will show the effect that chaos is having on the Warmaster (tearing him apart) and presumably on his Legion, I'm hopeful that we'll get some much needed development. But I think it's fair to say that Horus is (has been) neither mysterious nor absent. We just haven't had enough material focused around backing up and justifying the reputation he holds in-universe. Too often this standing is harmed because he assumes the role of a player in another character's story.

 

 

Perfect summation, especially the part about Forge World's depiction versus Black Library's (and that, I find, holds true about many other characters and aspects). I think Laurie Golding himself wrote somewhere that if they had the chance to re-do the Heresy Chaos' influence on Horus would be more subtle in the beginning, with his ambitious nature playing a more overt role.

 

As to Wolfsbane, one question for me arose when Russ mentions his 'true name', i.e. what the Emperor had intended to call him. So how did Konrad Curze discover his true name? As far as I know, he's the only primarch who did.

[bluntblade]

I wish the opening trilogy tallied more with certain events in the FW books. The Wraekan Dreor for one. Could've created a sense of Loken and Torgaddon being exiled and then restored to favour, just in time for the knife in the back.

[Hfran Morkai]

Don't want to trawl the thread for fear of spoilers but I've seen this on an exclusive pic so is it store/event only or general release?

[b1soul]

This whole "I am Russ and I will beat Horus one on one" arc is almost as bad as Imperium Secundus arc...almost.

[bluntblade]

I think there are ways it could have worked. Sadly it seems that it wasn't very convincing in the end.

[b1soul]

After paralysing Horus with his magical soul spear, Russ feels hesitation to kill...this compromises Russ' character in my view, it does not deepen or add nuance. It straight weakens his established character

[Guest Triszin]

After paralysing Horus with his magical soul spear, Russ feels hesitation to kill...this compromises Russ' character in my view, it does not deepen or add nuance. It straight weakens his established character

THey tried to lay some ground work for RUss's reactions.

 

He seemed to be aware that deamons could possess people and make them do things they didnt meant to, and it appears after getting tricked into basically killing magnus, that he had some hesitation about killing.

Russ felt deep regret for prospero after the fact, he was proud that he was the one that did it, but regretful nonetheless of the actions.

 

So russ hoped that Horus might in some way be twisted by deamons or under the influence of them, not wanting to be tricked into killing another brother. so when he stabbed horus with the spear, he asked horus if it was him, and horus said that it was always him, showing that he wasn't possessed, or under control by a deamon thing.

but it was basically just a moment, and horus attacked him right after that brief dialog.

 

 

 

------------

 

As to WOlves, Get crushed or do the crushing.

 

 

not true, this book showed the assaults very well.

 

I would describe it as, Horus and his fleet are a giant boring grinder that is just destroying everything in front of it, so Russ and the wolves become a Spear head drill and drill through the boring drill, in the process mangling the drill bit.

 

The space wolves were killing squad after squad of traitors, night lords and alpha legion doing hit and run surprise attacks picking off wolves bit by bit.

 

The boarding sequence is pretty good writing imho, the image in your head it portrays once the boarding ramps open makes me think of storming normandy.

 

No one is played the fool legionair wise, everyone is throwing as much as they can at each other.

 

Wolves were fighting, Traitor legionairs, Cultists, traitor guard, traitor admech, skitarii, automatons.

wolves were not just fighting Horus fleet, that was being reinforced impossibly fast, due to warp entities making warp travel faster for his fleet, but also fighting planetary defenses of the traitor admech.

[Izlude]

Just got my hard copy of the book. Really looking forward to slowly reading it since it sounds like it leads directly to Slaves of Darkness (very much anticipated for me). I always like to re-read some key books prior so for Wolfsbane I am currently reading Vengeful Spirit and read the Corax book (russ wounded with SoH on the march). Aside from this I also got the Burden of Loyalty which has the Russ Novella from Chris. Would this be enough before hitting Wolfsbane?

 

Maybe this was asked prior but have been avoiding this thread for obvious reasons. Thanks!

 

Oh as I am re-reading Vengeful Spirit, man was Raeven always a douche? I forgot how much I hated him. Also the whole Blood Angels arc was lost on me...and the whole Mortarion thing (even reading the short that better explains his change)...

 

Come to think of it Vengeful Spirit was always a mixed bag for me. Certainly key to advance the story and the SoH/Horus getting some serious time but the smaller elements of the book seemed random to me.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

That should be more than enough, especially if you toss Prospero Burns and the Night of the Wolf chapter from Betrayer

[TheRealMcCagh]

I don't remember the Wolves killing squad after squad of Astartes in the beginning. Bror himself says it's been pretty much all cultists/mechanicum until the order for retreat is given. Sure there is the big ambush scene with Russ, but other than that it doesn't seem like their are many SoH. It's once the Wolves start retreating that the Astartes fight begins in earnest, and it doesn't go well for the SW.

 

"Bror’s enemies changed in quality. No longer were desperate human thralls or mindless cyborgs sent against them. Now they faced the Sons of Horus themselves. At first they attacked in small units, perhaps because Bror’s group was outside the VI’s main lines of attack, but after their first encounter word of their presence spread, and the number of warriors they faced increased considerably."

 

 

Then he talks about how grim the battle looks overall, with the SoH coordinating strikes upon the retreat corridor. You can count the wolves on one hand that survive Russ' strike force.

 

IMO,if it wasn't for the Spear of the Emperor, the VI legion goes extinct above Trisolian

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I never finished reading VS worst novel by McNeil and boring as hell - way too long too.

[Fedor]

Just being tongue in cheek here, but remember that disliked Kyme short earlier in the series about the Eldar seers realising it would be catastrophic if the Gorgon falls(but doesn't remotely  hint at why) at istvaan and subsequently attempting to contact and warn him in the most vague ways possible? Now it just needs some  retconning of a new paragraph or two during reprint to show a vision of a characteristically impatient Ferrus that has avoided his potential fate, going along with Russ' plan to attack Horus and humourlessly bashing in his head with Forgebreaker after Russ lands the spear blow.

 

I think that'll be my headcanon from now on.

[Guest Triszin]

I don't remember the Wolves killing squad after squad of Astartes in the beginning. Bror himself says it's been pretty much all cultists/mechanicum until the order for retreat is given. Sure there is the big ambush scene with Russ, but other than that it doesn't seem like their are many SoH. It's once the Wolves start retreating that the Astartes fight begins in earnest, and it doesn't go well for the SW.

 

"Bror’s enemies changed in quality. No longer were desperate human thralls or mindless cyborgs sent against them. Now they faced the Sons of Horus themselves. At first they attacked in small units, perhaps because Bror’s group was outside the VI’s main lines of attack, but after their first encounter word of their presence spread, and the number of warriors they faced increased considerably."

 

 

Then he talks about how grim the battle looks overall, with the SoH coordinating strikes upon the retreat corridor. You can count the wolves on one hand that survive Russ' strike force.

 

IMO,if it wasn't for the Spear of the Emperor, the VI legion goes extinct above Trisolian

maybe i misread, but it was the squad that was working through the separate strike force, that first went through cultists and admechs. then it was going through small squads of astartes, who kept arriving shortly after, during combat with a small previous squad. and borr jeered, " THEY KEEP COMING TO US, SAVING US THE SEARCH!" or something of the like

[Tymell]

I just finished this one. I enjoyed it overall, but I also definitely have some issues with it.

 

At the core, the writing is solid. Guy Haley again shows that he can turn his hand to just about any legion and get them. His prose is suitably page-turning and the characters are enjoyable. Russ in particular I really liked: he has an arrogance and impudence about him, but also a sense of isolation and loneliness. He's inherently different from his brothers and also from his sons. He doesn't fit anywhere perfectly.

 

Cawl was also enjoyable enough, but his story felt out of place. It didn't really have anything to do with the rest of the story, aside from taking place in the same location at the end, and came off as just giving Cawl some HH set up, which could've been accomplished in its own separate story. While it wasn't the worst example of this (other books have felt a lot more ham-fisted in setting up 40K things, like Angel Exterminatus), I would've liked to have seen that page time devoted to the Sons of Horus, to build more towards the final conflict.

 

The best part of the book for me was Russ' trip to the Underverse. It was enthralling to see him walking this strange, mythical world, and it didn't get bogged down in page after page of waffling to set that up. It did what it needed to do and lasted as long as it needed to.

 

However, the final fight at the end is where it lost a point or two from me. It wasn't truly badly done or anything, but I kept thinking about what I would prefer to see more of. More emphasis on Russ' hesitation, that he -could- have killed Horus, but wanted to save him. More emphasis on the Wolves dying to cover his retreat (which would've been more effective if we saw previously-established named characters dying to do so, rather than droves of faceless ones). And I'm not sure how I feel about the "glory to Chaos!" part of Horus' speech when he recovers from his initial wounding. I quite like the Horus who refuses to bow to Chaos and treats the dark gods as partners rather than superiors, and this bit felt like it didn't quite mesh with that.

 

All told, I did enjoy this book, nothing in here felt outright -bad- to me, and Haley's prose is good enough that it keeps you engaged throughout. But at the same time, I think the ending could've had more of an impact for me if it had been handled just a bit differently, and if Cawl's parts in the book were replaced with more character building for the Wolves and Sons of Horus.

 

EDIT: I do like to read these threads once I've finished a book and am safe from spoilers, but God-Emperor I forgot what a cluster-beep they can be when the Space Wolves are involved

[Anarnii]

So I have had an odd theory, although only half way through currently.

 

When Russ finds out purpose of the spear in the underverse, he gains wisdom, understanding the purpose of the primarchs and is told that by wounding horus, horus will remember who he is.

 

I wonder if horus was only created to be the most tempting bait and vessel for chaos, as the emperor new that only a horus with the whole blessings of chaos could kill him. He needs to die to become a warp entity and he needs to die killing horus to be a martyr.

 

Maybe horus looses more and more belief in his cause until he finally meets the emperor, the emperor reminds him that he only purpose is to help the emperor become a real god. The emperor forgives him explaining this was his plan all along. Horus does what a dutiful don would and ends the heresy as a hero who had followed his wyrd. Chaos gods are angry and dismayed as they have been played.

 

(Probably all wrong)

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Had a good friend tell me this is a fantastic read so I might give it a go after all now

[LJF]

I'm very glad that I didn't spend one single cent on this book. It's a pointless filler made to milk the series which should have ended years ago. Basically nothing happens and even if I spilled all the story here I wouldn't spoil anything because everybody knows how this ends anyway.

 

For the first 2/3ds or so the is almost zero action, Space Wolves run of to Fenris despite Horus being only months away from Terra because the author has no clue what to do with them. Before that there is some interaction between Russ and other loyalist primarchs which was criminally undercooked and underused just like his relatioship with Horus set up in the prologue. When the action finally comes the only purpose it serves is to show how the SW got reduced close to a chapter strengh. The Russ vs. Horus duel is like yeah Russ totaly beat Horus and has him on his knees but cannot kill him because he hesitates? What kind of explanation is that? Just like in Pharos this is another pointless primarch duel by Haley which ends in some kind of stalemate because he lacks the balls and/or skill to write something actually impactfull.

 

I dont't think Haley even wanted to write this book, he must have done it for the money or he pulled the short straw or something because even though he tries his discomfort and distaste for the SW is apparent throughout. The only thing he apparently enjoyed writing is Cawl who is oh so perfect despite being literally nobody within the mechanicus ranks. And yeah he doesn't know the emperor and didn't come even close to the primarch project so he must have pulled the knowledge of how to make and improve the space marines from his ass somewhere down the line.

 

Overall the writing was solid enough but the story and characters were dreadful

 

5/10

[Tymell]

I'm very glad that I didn't spend one single cent on this book. It's a pointless filler made to milk the series which should have ended years ago. Basically nothing happens and even if I spilled all the story here I wouldn't spoil anything because everybody knows how this ends anyway.

 

For the first 2/3ds or so the is almost zero action, Space Wolves run of to Fenris despite Horus being only months away from Terra because the author has no clue what to do with them. Before that there is some interaction between Russ and other loyalist primarchs which was criminally undercooked and underused just like his relatioship with Horus set up in the prologue. When the action finally comes the only purpose it serves is to show how the SW got reduced close to a chapter strengh. The Russ vs. Horus duel is like yeah Russ totaly beat Horus and has him on his knees but cannot kill him because he hesitates? What kind of explanation is that? Just like in Pharos this is another pointless primarch duel by Haley which ends in some kind of stalemate because he lacks the balls and/or skill to write something actually impactfull.

 

I dont't think Haley even wanted to write this book, he must have done it for the money or he pulled the short straw or something because even though he tries his discomfort and distaste for the SW is apparent throughout. The only thing he apparently enjoyed writing is Cawl who is oh so perfect despite being literally nobody within the mechanicus ranks. And yeah he doesn't know the emperor and didn't come even close to the primarch project so he must have pulled the knowledge of how to make and improve the space marines from his ass somewhere down the line.

 

Overall the writing was solid enough but the story and characters were dreadful

 

5/10

 

There's plenty in this post I disagree with, but a lot of it would just lead to arguing. I do think it's important to say this much though: let's leave the personal attacks on the author out of this. If you (or anyone else) didn't like the book, that's fine, but there's no need to insult the author over it.

[LJF]

Hey, I did say he tried didn't I? If anything I'm insulting his writing ability (in this book) not the dude himself c'mon

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Maybe I won’t read it now.

[DarkChaplain]

I think I've really come to hate these HH release discussions on here. What a mess. Everything's terrible and the authors hate what they write anyway, after all...

[Lord_Caerolion]

This is the internet, after all. Everybody positive is a GW apologist/stooge, everybody critical is a mindless troll. All authors either hate the faction they're writing about, or make them Mary-Sues who can do no wrong, etc. Evidence is a thing that only ever proves your own point beyond doubt, everything showing otherwise is either written by people that don't know what they're talking about, or not canon.

 

I have been a bit overly critical in my discussions of this book, for which I apologize.

[Roomsky]

It can certainly get tiresome. I mean, all works have their own flaws, this one being no exception, but even the reviewers I respect most sometimes lapse into myopia because this didn't go how they would have liked, or that didn't line up with their preconceptions about the universe. I'm guilty of it myself. It's often important to just take a step back, breathe, and look at the work for what it is, rather than what it might have been, or perhaps what you thought it might have been. Character's personalities often explain away things dismissed as plot holes, as does a little abstract thinking. One might discover the piece doesn't deserve the ire heaped upon it.

 

The same might even go for Wolfsbane.