HH 53: Titan Death by Guy Haley

[hopkins]

finished it. the fact it took me 3 weeks as opposed to the usual 3 evenings shows

 

i loved the titan action scenes, very cinematic

decent portrayal of sanguinius after the disappointment of ruinstorm

lots of dark mechanicum and the early stages of chaos titan evolution

 

the titan backgrounds and the sheer scale of the garmon system made it hard work at times though

had no clue at times where/what/why things were happening in the theatre of war, which reflects the reality of the situation but makes for a confusing read

 

will definitely pick up the AT Titandeath book though, as it may help with the background

 

also, for those who have read dreadwing and were puzzled about the lion saying

the astronomicon had gone out

should find the ending to this book dovetails into it

[Marshal Loss]

Overall verdict: thoroughly enjoyable. After Wolfsbane, which I thought was pretty bad, and Pharos, which felt at times like Ultramarines fan-fiction, I went in with absolutely no expectation of a good time and came away very happy with my purchase. IMO this is Haley's best Heresy novel by a mile, and one of the better things he's written, period. He mentions in the epilogue that he wanted to write "the definitive Horus Heresy Titan novel", and I think it's safe to say he succeeded. Not that there's much competition, mind you, but that's beside the point.

 

Thanks no doubt to Andy Hoare and Owen Barnes, the writers of Titanicus, who provided a lot of information to Haley - and, I'd wager, are the ones actually responsible for the lore being so great in this book - the Titans in the book are fleshed out brilliantly. Everything from Legio organisation and support structure to the Titans themselves, I can't think of a single aspect that wasn't touched on and covered thoroughly. Definitely the best Titan book I've ever read. The all-female Legio Solaria is just plain awesome, and I'd love to see more of them (although the ending seems to indicate that they will remain all-female no longer, so if they reappear they may be much changed). Legio Vulpa are sinister, brutal, and also awesome. Can't wait for the Titandeath campaign book in early 2019 to add even more depth.

 

The plot itself is good. Haley deftly navigates what I thought would be the central problem of the book - how to make a battle between Titans not just seem like a normal battle but with more extravagant descriptions of the size of the participants - by breaking the book into three sections with the action gradually escalating in scale and the actual "Titandeath" coming right at the end. He focuses on isolated parts of the engagement(s) across the system from the perspective of a handful of narrators. We also see Horus' near-death (see: the beginning of Slaves to Darkness) from the perspective of an injured, semi-conscious Titan Princeps who happens to be nearby. Her proclamation to her rescuers upon her escape, that all is going to be well because Horus has fallen, had me believing that the novel would end with the Terrans thinking Horus was dead, adding a bit more confusion into the fray, but that doesn't appear to be the case, and it's probably just a throwaway line, but you'd think her information would be passed on to Imperial High Command.

 

Maybe Sanguinius hears the news just prior to the Siege and is given hope that perhaps he won't get turned into a plucked pigeon carcass by angry bald daemon man after all, only to be shocked when he finds out that angry bald daemon man is not only alive but very much ready to pluck.

 

My favourite parts of the book:

• A description of Mechanicus style "total war":

A Mechanicum war was not fought on the physical plane alone. Some of the assault ships carried machinery squirming with malevolent code instead of troops. Upon landing, they extended their limbs and crawled over the craft like ticks, antennae probing the hull in search of vulnerable data conduits. Where they found their targets, mandibles splayed, and adamantium-tipped probosces speared the metal, injecting optic pipes with a deadly cargo of ones and zeroes. Within the Tantamon’s infosphere loyal hunter killer spirits grappled with these invaders, while dedicated data-mages of the cyber-thaumaturgia formulated new avenues of defence against semi-daemonic scrapcodes. As the defenders adapted, the invaders fought back. Evolutions that would take millennia in an organic system took place in seconds.

Other craft carried microscopic machines that ate through metal and attacked systems more directly by severing cables and short-circuiting vital conduits. Again, the Tantamon had an answer. Beetle-bodied scavengers emerged from ducts and gathered up the tech-mites with high-power magnets and gravity hooks, breaking them down into their component parts for later use.

This was war of the most total kind. From machine-spirits through microscopic machine life to modified humans, all the way up to war engines many times taller than a man, all fought over the body of the ship.

In its own way, the Mechanicum fighting itself was more terrible than the burning of planets by the Legiones Astartes. A world’s rocks do not make war. The ship was a world, and the entirety of it was at war. Nothing was spared violence. All was drafted into the fight.

• Some grimdark Chaos Titan plot with a typically fiendish Dark Mechanicum representative
• Adding to the above, a nice look at some aspects of the Dark Mechanicum and fledgling Adeptus Mechanicus
• Sanguinius not seeming like a total idiot for once (although he's basically the ultimate Debbie Downer at this point, responding to everything from a Titan to a stiff breeze with the whole "I won't die here", which gets old fast. I feel like the only person in the fandom who doesn't like being reminded constantly that he has visions of his death at Horus' hands. Ultimately his character at this point is basically just a depressed vessel who constantly muses over his upcoming death, which I still think is a disservice to the character), with an epic scene involving him, some melta charges, and the head of an Imperator Titan. It seems Haley has been lifting his ideas from Forge World's books, as it's eerily reminiscent of his exploits in Book 7: Inferno.
• The Legio Solaria kicking some serious arse. Seriously, they're pretty cool.

Titandeath isn't without flaws. Maybe because it was hastily written, the prose is at times stilted, and the editing is pretty bad. I found quite a few descriptions that just read really poorly (e.g. "Of a force hundreds strong, less than two hundred remained", etc), and quite a few words/particles missing. The jilted lovers romance sub-plot that runs throughout the entire novel left me raising an eyebrow. Descriptions are sometimes a bit silly and the language repetitive.

 

In short, it suffers from some of the usual Haley pitfalls. He's a capable writer, not a great one, but this is a fantastic entry to the series and in my opinion is well worth the price of admission. I'll go into Haley's entry in the Siege of Terra series with a lot more optimism now that I've seen that he can handle events of this scale. 

[1ncarnadine]

(although the ending seems to indicate that they will remain all-female no longer, so if they reappear they may be much changed)

 

Cool, I wasn't sure if they were going to make reference to that or not. The Imperial Hunters have at least one appearance in 40k that includes male princeps, so it stands to reason that the neat culture Solaria developed during the Great Crusade would be another tragic loss of the Heresy

[Marshal Loss]

 

(although the ending seems to indicate that they will remain all-female no longer, so if they reappear they may be much changed)

 

Cool, I wasn't sure if they were going to make reference to that or not. The Imperial Hunters have at least one appearance in 40k that includes male princeps, so it stands to reason that the neat culture Solaria developed during the Great Crusade would be another tragic loss of the Heresy

 

 

Ah, I had no idea - that explains it!

[Reyner]

 

 

(although the ending seems to indicate that they will remain all-female no longer, so if they reappear they may be much changed)

 

Cool, I wasn't sure if they were going to make reference to that or not. The Imperial Hunters have at least one appearance in 40k that includes male princeps, so it stands to reason that the neat culture Solaria developed during the Great Crusade would be another tragic loss of the Heresy

 

 

Ah, I had no idea - that explains it!

 

They are the other Titan Legion in the Warlord novel - fighting alongside the Pallidus Mor against a Chaos Titan Legion called the Iron Skulls (which is Legio Metalicas cognomen! But maybe just a fluff screw up there). 

[Marshal Rohr]

I don’t as going to say pretty much exactly what Marshal Loss put so much more eloquently. You all know my feelings about Guy Haley after the Eternal crusader debacle, but for the first time I was avidly interested in continuing reading when I had to put it down. I think his skill as a narrative creator has improved even from Perturabo and Wolfsbane, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. My only critique is that sometimes the interactions and dialogue feel a little forced or overly expository, when characters will explain to other characters things those characters would already know in deep detail, but things like the way Titan crews don’t embrace full body mechanical transformation because they embody the machine god when they command their titans more than makes up for it.

[Reyner]

Just waiting for it to come onto Audible now... Come on Black Library I have a credit to burn!

[Sandlemad]

My only critique is that sometimes the interactions and dialogue feel a little forced or overly expository, when characters will explain to other characters things those characters would already know in deep detail, but things like the way Titan crews don’t embrace full body mechanical transformation because they embody the machine god when they command their titans more than makes up for it.

 

 

I broadly liked Titandeath overall but yeah, this was prominent. I think it's an unfortunate feature of Haley's wriitng.

 

The thing is, he can do better. There's quite a few sequences and chapters in Titandeath that are well-written and well-paced and clearly have a lot of thought and attention paid to them. Then there's whole chapters (the neuroslave soldier stuff, the dialogue between the primarchs, the main Titandeath itself) that are just sort of... flat, that are very plainly retold in a bland expository prose. It's weird. It appeared in Dark Imperium and Wolfsbane too, like there's bits (sometimes up to half the dang novel) that Haley appears to rush through to get to the stuff he wants to write about, which he then does well. 

 

In Dark Imperium I took it as Haley trying to wring something interesting and worthwhile out of a tie-in book. Here I initially thought "fine, he's zooming in on a section of the Titandeath so the wider picture can be dealt with milhist-style by FW" (which is a genuinely sensible approach, certainly for Haley) but after finishing and reflecting on how much of the novel was redemptive of the dull bits, I dunno, feels like this might just be a product of his output rate.

 

Otherwise, decent book! Probably not much more than that but had a few surprisingly fresh features.

 

Legio Solaria

They were wonderful. Strange and offbeat but not outside the plausible range of variation you'd expect in titan legions and the non-Martian Mechanicum. I was impressed by how the backstory of the Great Mother was the foundation stone of the legion but didn't go on to define them entirely. The cult of Artemis-inspired background was not overpowering (they're not wearing chitons or carrying bows), and came off as well-implemented both on the personal level and on the legion culture-scale; it was that Gaunt's Ghosts approach again, they're not invincible huntresses and are fully aware that there's many fights they'd get eaten alive in.

 

It was also fun to see the response to 'hur hur, so you all lie together, do you?' practically be a straightforward 'of course we do you fool, we're an all-female hunter cult, it comes with the territory'. Not leering, not made a titillating display, not applied broad-brush to everyone in the legion, just a solid and developed in-universe reason for a culture of space lesbian mecha-pilots. Even more simply, it's a cast with a lot of women, a lot of female crewmembers who argue and fight together and have intra-maniple rivalries as much as male equivalents in other BL novels. There's still only a few distinctive characters that pop out but Haley clearly made the effort here.

 

This is also the only BL book I've come across that spends so much time thinking about motherhood, pregnancy and childbirth. Like... I can't express how refreshing that is. Titandeath isn't revolutionary among scifi more generally (though as topics these get less attention than they deserve as such a big part of the human condition) but they're all handled well and maturely. Mohana Mankata works through her complex feelings about her biological daughter and the rest of the legion as her daughters/cultural descendants in the wider imperium. Esha thinks about never knowing her mother as a young woman and how she has to fight for her own daughter.  

 

Yes, the MIU connection between the titan and the pregnant princeps is going to get strange, yes the princeps is going to have a helluva time getting the straps around her belly and needing to go to the bathroom but the cockpit is a cramped and smelly place after weeks of battle anyway and she's a professional so it's just something that gets dealt with. The Mechanicum deal with the more obviously biological elements with all the tenderness and sterling bedside manner they deal with everything else, i.e. they don't care in the slightest and just want to get on with it.

 

Everything about the Imperial Hunters could have been very badly implemented so well done to Guy Haley on this.

 

 

Legio Vulpa

Legio Vulpa were fine. Certainly they were the designated villains but they were given a glimmer of admirable traits, if not nobility. They treat their moderati like dirt but then they're also fiercely meritocratic about who gets to become princeps. They're not destructive simply because they're dumb brutes but because they follow a variant sub-creed of the Mechanicum demanding the reduction of complexity in the universe. It's not much but Haley went a fair bit beyond the minimum required here.

 

RE: the jilted lovers on opposite sides of the war thing, yeah, that had me raising eyebrows too. That said... it's a cliche more widely in fiction for good reason but examples in BL seem pretty thin on the ground. It felt slightly fresher to me than it might have because of that. Kind of cool to see a daughter-father thing as well instead of the usual "Brother! How could you betray me?!".

 

 

Titans and battle scenes

The idea of a titan's crew being a team and even a makeshift family was played well. A princeps is never quite alone, more so than a space marine or other protagonist. They're linked with their moderati mentally but also a crew is closer (physically, the cockpits are cramped) and more necessary in a fight than a squad. Any scene set inside a titan, then, is always like a mini-Enterprise bridge from Star Trek. People are consulted, decisions are made by the princeps but not in total isolation.

 

The mental connection between the titans and their princeps was certainly done well, as Rohr says. That passage detailing how imperial observers like legiones titanicus officers because they seem less bionic and more approachable than techpriests but how actually they're religious ecstatics communing with their god and fully signed up to their faith... that had me grinning like a loon.

 

The more personal stuff, the linkages being described through metaphors and melding of personalities even between moderati, that was well done, I thought even better than in Abnett's Titanicus. The Great Mother's gradual deterioration was almost beat for beat the same as that of Gearhart in Titanicus, for example, but came off a bit better, more subtle and less telegraphed with blunt alzheimer's shoutouts. She was losing herself to her titan, not just to the echoes of previous principes. She can view it as an apotheosis and the well-earned end of her career but still as a solemn terminus.

 

The battles though, the actual titan combat, eh. It was ok. The risk discussed earlier in this thread about titan seeming simply like large infantrymen and being robbed of their grandness didn't materialise - it only really happens one, late in the book, and the absurdity and destructiveness of it is made clear when we see it through Sanguinius's eyes aboard his gunship - but in general the battles were only so-so. I didn't find anything here that could go toe-to-toe for tenseness or inspirational quality with even the lesser engine duels in Titanicus. I went into this looking for stuff to get my Adeptus Titanicus juices flowing and while it generally delivered on the characters and legion culture parts, it fell down on colossal robot action.

 

 

Notes for folks reading Titandeath for hints at future Adeptus Titanicus stuff

Kind low here! A Rapier titan is mentioned but with no details other than being rare and lighter than a Warhound. Nightgaunts appear briefly, again minimal description.

 

Three loyalist Imperators are named, coming respectively from the legiones Osedax, Astorum and Gryphonicus. Curiously the Imperial Hunters imperator on the front cover is nowhere to be seen. Instead Solaria is led by the Great Mother's warlord and myrmidon maniple. Gonna chalk this one up to miscommunication between Neil Roberts and Haley/the BL editors on what we know was something of a late addition to the release schedule.

 

Not a huge amount of details on different front in the Beta-Garmon war. There's a few scenes I suspect will find their way into FW's Titandeath book as scenarios, particularly the fight between Vulpa and Atarus in the void.

 

Overall this book confirms my feelings about Haley. When he's on, he's on and is willing to do some surprisingly inventive stuff, but you typically have to wade through some time-filling chunks of dullness to get there.

[caladancid]

 

My only critique is that sometimes the interactions and dialogue feel a little forced or overly expository, when characters will explain to other characters things those characters would already know in deep detail, but things like the way Titan crews don’t embrace full body mechanical transformation because they embody the machine god when they command their titans more than makes up for it.

 

 

I broadly liked Titandeath overall but yeah, this was prominent. I think it's an unfortunate feature of Haley's wriitng.

 

The thing is, he can do better. There's quite a few sequences and chapters in Titandeath that are well-written and well-paced and clearly have a lot of thought and attention paid to them. Then there's whole chapters (the neuroslave soldier stuff, the dialogue between the primarchs, the main Titandeath itself) that are just sort of... flat, that are very plainly retold in a bland expository prose. It's weird. It appeared in Dark Imperium and Wolfsbane too, like there's bits (sometimes up to half the dang novel) that Haley appears to rush through to get to the stuff he wants to write about, which he then does well. 

 

In Dark Imperium I took it as Haley trying to wring something interesting and worthwhile out of a tie-in book. Here I initially thought "fine, he's zooming in on a section of the Titandeath so the wider picture can be dealt with milhist-style by FW" (which is a genuinely sensible approach, certainly for Haley) but after finishing and reflecting on how much of the novel was redemptive of the dull bits, I dunno, feels like this might just be a product of his output rate.

 

Otherwise, decent book! Probably not much more than that but had a few surprisingly fresh features.

 

Legio Solaria

They were wonderful. Strange and offbeat but not outside the plausible range of variation you'd expect in titan legions and the non-Martian Mechanicum. I was impressed by how the backstory of the Great Mother was the foundation stone of the legion but didn't go on to define them entirely. The cult of Artemis-inspired background was not overpowering (they're not wearing chitons or carrying bows), and came off as well-implemented both on the personal level and on the legion culture-scale; it was that Gaunt's Ghosts approach again, they're not invincible huntresses and are fully aware that there's many fights they'd get eaten alive in.

 

It was also fun to see the response to 'hur hur, so you all lie together, do you?' practically be a straightforward 'of course we do you fool, we're an all-female hunter cult, it comes with the territory'. Not leering, not made a titillating display, not applied broad-brush to everyone in the legion, just a solid and developed in-universe reason for a culture of space lesbian mecha-pilots. Even more simply, it's a cast with a lot of women, a lot of female crewmembers who argue and fight together and have intra-maniple rivalries as much as male equivalents in other BL novels. There's still only a few distinctive characters that pop out but Haley clearly made the effort here.

 

This is also the only BL book I've come across that spends so much time thinking about motherhood, pregnancy and childbirth. Like... I can't express how refreshing that is. Titandeath isn't revolutionary among scifi more generally (though as topics these get less attention than they deserve as such a big part of the human condition) but they're all handled well and maturely. Mohana Mankata works through her complex feelings about her biological daughter and the rest of the legion as her daughters/cultural descendants in the wider imperium. Esha thinks about never knowing her mother as a young woman and how she has to fight for her own daughter.  

 

Yes, the MIU connection between the titan and the pregnant princeps is going to get strange, yes the princeps is going to have a helluva time getting the straps around her belly and needing to go to the bathroom but the cockpit is a cramped and smelly place after weeks of battle anyway and she's a professional so it's just something that gets dealt with. The Mechanicum deal with the more obviously biological elements with all the tenderness and sterling bedside manner they deal with everything else, i.e. they don't care in the slightest and just want to get on with it.

 

Everything about the Imperial Hunters could have been very badly implemented so well done to Guy Haley on this.

 

 

Legio Vulpa

Legio Vulpa were fine. Certainly they were the designated villains but they were given a glimmer of admirable traits, if not nobility. They treat their moderati like dirt but then they're also fiercely meritocratic about who gets to become princeps. They're not destructive simply because they're dumb brutes but because they follow a variant sub-creed of the Mechanicum demanding the reduction of complexity in the universe. It's not much but Haley went a fair bit beyond the minimum required here.

 

RE: the jilted lovers on opposite sides of the war thing, yeah, that had me raising eyebrows too. That said... it's a cliche more widely in fiction for good reason but examples in BL seem pretty thin on the ground. It felt slightly fresher to me than it might have because of that. Kind of cool to see a daughter-father thing as well instead of the usual "Brother! How could you betray me?!".

 

 

Titans and battle scenes

The idea of a titan's crew being a team and even a makeshift family was played well. A princeps is never quite alone, more so than a space marine or other protagonist. They're linked with their moderati mentally but also a crew is closer (physically, the cockpits are cramped) and more necessary in a fight than a squad. Any scene set inside a titan, then, is always like a mini-Enterprise bridge from Star Trek. People are consulted, decisions are made by the princeps but not in total isolation.

 

The mental connection between the titans and their princeps was certainly done well, as Rohr says. That passage detailing how imperial observers like legiones titanicus officers because they seem less bionic and more approachable than techpriests but how actually they're religious ecstatics communing with their god and fully signed up to their faith... that had me grinning like a loon.

 

The more personal stuff, the linkages being described through metaphors and melding of personalities even between moderati, that was well done, I thought even better than in Abnett's Titanicus. The Great Mother's gradual deterioration was almost beat for beat the same as that of Gearhart in Titanicus, for example, but came off a bit better, more subtle and less telegraphed with blunt alzheimer's shoutouts. She was losing herself to her titan, not just to the echoes of previous principes. She can view it as an apotheosis and the well-earned end of her career but still as a solemn terminus.

 

The battles though, the actual titan combat, eh. It was ok. The risk discussed earlier in this thread about titan seeming simply like large infantrymen and being robbed of their grandness didn't materialise - it only really happens one, late in the book, and the absurdity and destructiveness of it is made clear when we see it through Sanguinius's eyes aboard his gunship - but in general the battles were only so-so. I didn't find anything here that could go toe-to-toe for tenseness or inspirational quality with even the lesser engine duels in Titanicus. I went into this looking for stuff to get my Adeptus Titanicus juices flowing and while it generally delivered on the characters and legion culture parts, it fell down on colossal robot action.

 

 

Notes for folks reading Titandeath for hints at future Adeptus Titanicus stuff

Kind low here! A Rapier titan is mentioned but with no details other than being rare and lighter than a Warhound. Nightgaunts appear briefly, again minimal description.

 

Three loyalist Imperators are named, coming respectively from the legiones Osedax, Astorum and Gryphonicus. Curiously the Imperial Hunters imperator on the front cover is nowhere to be seen. Instead Solaria is led by the Great Mother's warlord and myrmidon maniple. Gonna chalk this one up to miscommunication between Neil Roberts and Haley/the BL editors on what we know was something of a late addition to the release schedule.

 

Not a huge amount of details on different front in the Beta-Garmon war. There's a few scenes I suspect will find their way into FW's Titandeath book as scenarios, particularly the fight between Vulpa and Atarus in the void.

 

Overall this book confirms my feelings about Haley. When he's on, he's on and is willing to do some surprisingly inventive stuff, but you typically have to wade through some time-filling chunks of dullness to get there.

 

 

I really liked this review.  I disagree in a few spots, mainly in critiques of Haley's overall ability and works. I think he is much better than you give him credit for (Blood Angel novels are amazing, and I liked Pharos/Wolfbane). Plus, his ability to knock out a novel is likely why we even have this book to discuss!

 

But you are absolutely right about where this book is great and where it is just decent. Titanicus is still the best book for individual titan combat. The combat scenes are decent, but not great.  I am not sure if the broad strokes are on purpose to reinforce the incomprehensible scale of the Great Slaughter? Could be, but the result is a bit bland.  For the other details surrounding a Legio, this book is fantastic.

[Sandlemad]

Ah, I've heard his BA books are his best work but I've not read them myself. You could be right about the broad strokes being used for scale here - the best stuff in Titanicus was small groups of titans ducking and weaving around half-shattered buildings like kaiju, which might not really match up with what Haley was going for - but the result is indeed bland.

[b1soul]

Yes, the quality of Haley's prose definitely fluctuates across different sections of the same novel. You can tell which portions he wrote with more care...it's a bit obvious at times. Dark Imperium is a good example.

[godking]

Just finished it today.

 

Great book.

 

Guy Haley is the go to guy for writing about mechanised combat.

 

His baneblade series, Fat Mork, and now Titandeath.

 

I also liked the fact that the novel was mostly human driven with Primarchs/astartes not making an entrance until very late in the novel.

 

It could have done without the star crossed lovers bit.

[Marshal Rohr]

To be fair, Hartek asking Esha if all Solaria Princeps were made in vats was pretty smooth. 

[Apothecary Vaddon]

I feel like the writing/prose issues largely stem from editing, or lack thereof. I enjoy pretty much everything Haley puts out but there are instances where I think a few more editorial cycles could've helped. I think that kind of thing would probably impact his velocity a lot, though, so maybe it depends on whether they're okay with having him pump out novels that sell well as they are or slow it down and maybe see a not entirely worthwhile increase in individual book sales. Not sure.

[Allart01]

Agreed on the love story part - I did not really like it. It just didn't make much sense to me. Ultimately, the characters barely knew each other, so it was hard for me to buy the drama. I felt that the friend who started despising Esha was reasonable in most of her grievances...probably not what Haley intended.

 

The rest of the book ranges from good to great. Lots of cool fluff and the titan fights were even better than I wished for

[Demigod]

Did not really like the book , but that probably comes mostly because I was expecting a completely different type of novel. I expected a Stalingrad/Leningrad/WWI type of conflict where both sides are trowing everything they have into the meat grinder until of course Horus manages somehow to make a breakthrough and take the battle.

 

Legio Solario:  Had an interesting concept but at the end of the day did nothing with it There was so much talk on how their hunting tactics work but zero representation. I absolutely hated the existential crisis of the "Mother" for the entire book. 

 

Legio Vulpa:  Good representation but had a little too much plot armor for my liking. Titan Legion Atarus should have won their fight with them when they caught them completely off guard and that should have been the reason why they take offer from the Dark Mechanicus to bond with demons , because they are desperate, because they believed them selves better than anyone and now they lie defeated so they grasp for sorcery to heal their ego. The plot " I lost control over my titan for a second what shame lets bind my soul to a demon was not really convincing".

 

Blood Angels: Well Sanguinius mostly is like a middle aged man/woman with an existential crisis. " I am gonna die , but not today so lets do some cocaine"  for like his entire appearance and it gets old fast. Yes knowing the exact moment when you die and how is a bad situation but to me it seems that instead of concentrating on the fact that Sanguinius is depressed over the fact that he will die to Horus his friend or that he will die and not accomplish much he is depressed over the fact that he will die at all.

 

Hated the dig at Corvus,Johnson,Russ or Dorn on doubting any of them could lead  the battle for B-G except for Sanguinius. Especially when things end up as they do and Sanguinius bears the  sole responsibility why Horus manages to win the war swiftly. The armies at B-G did not need a motivation to fight they needed a leader who would use the forces they have wisely and fight a delaying battle. Corvus and Johnson were tailored made for the situation. Sanguinius just goes all in , losses and than mopes how everything is his fault , well it is.

 

Titan battles: The titan`s simply felt as glass cannons , this was the most evident when a 30k group of mind controlled soldiers ( some of which resist the mind control ) with no specialized anti-titan vehicles try and almost succeeds to encircle and destroy an entire titan group supported by 100 knights. If an entire group of God-Machines can fall to 30k soldiers well they are not really god machines. I think the battles should have felt like a choreographed dance instead they felt more like small skirmishes and brawls.

 

General Atmosphere:  For me it simply did not feel like the biggest meet grinder of the HH and the place where almost all titans died.  It felt like a bunch of skirmishes that happen across various planets and Horus suddenly comes out of nowhere takes a telecommunications node and the battle is over. Necropolis fr me was much closer to an apocalyptic struggle than this.

 

 

 

3/10 

[b1soul]

@ Demigod

 

"Blood Angels: Well Sanguinius mostly is like a middle aged man/woman with an existential crisis. " I am gonna die , but not today so lets do some cocaine" for like his entire appearance and it gets old fast. Yes knowing the exact moment when you die and how is a bad situation but to me it seems that instead of concentrating on the fact that Sanguinius is depressed over the fact that he will die to Horus his friend or that he will die and not accomplish much he is depressed over the fact that he will die at all."

 

Haley's Sanguinius packs no punch

 

He's a mopey, hand-wringing emo

[nagashnee]

To be fair BL treatment of Sanguinius has been one of the biggest let downs of the whole series.

 

They seem so focused on his ultimate destination they just kinda forget about the journey.

[LJF]

Gonna skip this one for now, Pharos was pretty awful and Wolfsbane wasn't much better, plus I just checked and there is no audiobook available, golly gee?

[Fedor]

I liked what annandale did with Sanguinius in Ruinstorm. He set a good foundation there for Sanguinius to move on from the constant focus on the doubt over his visions and dwelling on his place in the conflict.

 

Is Horus injury in this that leads into Slaves just the events of Wolfsbane catching up to him, or is it something new?.

[TheRealMcCagh]

Sanguinius was probably the only fault I find with this book. The love story was a little strange but I don't think it detracted much from the novel overall. At this point, I don't think I'll even be sad when Sanguinius dies. I'll be relieved that it finally freakin' happened. He's been whining about it for years now and it's all we've ever heard from him. Why is this mopey dork held in such high regard by all his brothers? It's the same short comings we've had with Ferrus.

[Marshal Rohr]

Sanguinius isn't a character that is easy to write for anyone. I don't know if there is anyway to write him in a way that reflects the reality of his personality and lore, instead of the takes we've seen in novels. Sanguinius is and always will be the character he is in the background. Respected by everyone. Loved by everyone. Brilliant in command and on the field. He IS that. The novels just have trouble writing it.

[Damon Nightman]

Did Sanguinius really mess up the battle that bad?

[DarKnight]

I haven't read Titandeath yet, but the complaints that some of the Frater have had regarding Sanguinius (even if the point is them losing and regrouping on Terra) in the final battle of Beta Garmon have been the same things I've personally complained about a bunch which is the lack of tactical genius shown by Primarchs in novels or in general, outside of the Exemplary Battles in the black books. We're stuffed to the gills with the pathos of the Primarchs which I get, the HH is a grand tragedy but the authors tend to lean heavily on the flaw side of the greatness/flaw coin when it comes to presenting them. Horus hasn't once on camera shown the brilliance that showed he deserved being made Warmaster nor any of his brothers who were in the running. Primarch v primarch duels are cute and when written well some of the best stuff in the series but it's easily used as filler to show the potency of them as opposed to tactical brilliance. But perhaps I protest too much.

[b1soul]

Sanguinius has just come across as so...limp-wristed and hyper-sensitive.

 

He really comes across as an emotionally fragile snowflake