Rate what you Read, or the fight against Necromancy

[Rob P]

Swords of Calth - About half way in and just not interesting enough at the mo. Just listening to it to finished it

[darkhorse0607]

Just now, Rob P said:

Swords of Calth - About half way in and just not interesting enough at the mo. Just listening to it to finished it

 

I tapped out on that one to be honest, even having gone through most of the rest of the series and enjoyed them for what they were

 

[Rob P]

11 hours ago, darkhorse0607 said:

 

I tapped out on that one to be honest, even having gone through most of the rest of the series and enjoyed them for what they were

 

Absolutely. Feels flat in comparison. Just a paint by numbers?

[darkhorse0607]

5 hours ago, Rob P said:

Absolutely. Feels flat in comparison. Just a paint by numbers?

 

Paint by numbers, and it feels like none of the characters evolve over time

 

Largely, Ventris feels like the same character that he was in Nightbringer. At least up until when I tapped out (about 3/4 of the way through) he was still going on about "where is the Nightbringer, he could be here" while the rest of the Imperials are basically "what are Necrons," no idea what Flayed Ones are, Ghost Arks, etc.

 

Like, come on man, Ventris is the 4th Company Captain of an Astartes chapter in a post-rift setting, he should know what Necrons are, especially since the Chapter has a long history of fighting them.

 

I dunno, it might be a nitpick but it just bugged me, and then when you combine it with all the other stuff that bugged me (it's a full Necron invasion but he brings three squads and some scouts with armor, I forget which character but he's stated to be a firstborn wearing MKX armor, etc) I just tapped out. I normally like McNeill with some exceptions, but it was just not very inspiring

[byrd9999]

Gate of Bones, by Andy Clark

 

The only other Andy Clark 40k I've read has been the Crusade novella (?) that came out in 8th edition, and it was one of the worst 40k things I've ever read, so I've been putting this one off.

However, I was very impressed with this book. It ticked so many boxes for me: the prose was high quality, the antagonists weren't just twirling their moustaches but had proper motive and personalities, the setting was grimdark, and the action scenes were diverse and a cut above the usual b*lter p*rn.

 

Everything just felt *right* about this book. The Space Marines were intimidating to humans, the Custodes were intimidating to the Sisters of Battle, the humans had proper emotions. The consequences for not stopping the baddies were real and high stakes.

The back third/half of the book is pretty much all battle, but it was set up well in the first half of the book and maybe outstayed its welcome, for my personal tastes, by about 20 pages, but it's only a minor complaint.

It continued on well from where Avenging Son finished off, and felt like it was part of the same world, so kudos to Andy and the Team for meshing it well. Surely the Dawn of Fire series can only go from strength to strength, right?

 

8.5/10

[theSpirea]

I can't wait for your The Wolftime review now

[Roomsky]

Roomsky's Beast Arises Re-Read, Part 3

 

Where did this series start to fizzle out? Was it book 2? Was it book 11? Somewhere in between? You could ask 10 people and get 11 different answers. I certainly can't answer that yet, but I will say this stage is a step down from books 3 and 4, if not a huge one. More than anything, it feels like a return to the more confused quality of books 1 and 2.

 

Throneworld

 

I'm kind of shocked I enjoyed this so much considering it's got 2 major elements I think are nonsense.

 

Eldrad sending such valuable Eldar lives to break into the Throneroom and say something everyone already knows is wild, to say the least (Zerberyn fulfills this prophecy in book 6 but he seems too small an element to be worth all this, narratively.) But at the same time, we see that more than the Imperium has noticed what's going on, we get some fun Eldar-centric action, and it facilitates some great interplay between Vangorich, Veritus, and Weinand. The scenes are good, the "why" of them is just naff.

 

Meanwhile, Black Templars team up with Iron Warriors out of necessity. Sorry, don't buy it, don't care if each commander liked the other during the Great Crusade. You could have made this any other successor chapter and it would have been fine, but Black Templars? Worse, I don't find these chapters particularly interesting, it's just the book's ork fight quota. Kalkator and Megneric needed more begrudging conversation for this to be worth the silly set-up.

 

And yet, the stuff at Terra is as good as ever, and progresses several ongoing plot points well. The raid on the attack moon is quick and to the point, and features some Black Templars being as brutal as you'd actually expect them to be. Udo surprisingly makes decent points when reining in Koorland despite being framed as obstructive bureaucracy incarnate, and I'm appreciating the politics surrounding The Last Wall a lot more than the lore newbie I was when I first read the series.

 

This reads well! I was just annoyed by some of the plotting decisions.

 

Things I noticed on the re-read:

HALEY YOU ALSO WROTE THANE AS CLEARLY NOT BEING A HERESY VETERAN IN THIS BOOK HOW DID YOU FORGET?

 

 

Echoes of the Long War

 

Guymer's dense prose is a cold splash of water to the face right after Haley's invisible prose. That's not entirely a bad thing though; this is the first book where I feel like I actually got to know the Fists Exemplar as a chapter; Guymer doesn't skimp on the details. Unfortunately, this also reads like the first book where the balance of POVs that made the series so fun is starting to skew too far towards Space Marines; we really needed a Guard or Guard-adjacent group to follow as the action ramps up. As it is, I think this book is good, but there's frankly too much astartes vs orks. I might feel differently if the orks had actual characters, but the ongoing discoveries of how their culture at large works can only take them so far.

 

Zerberyn is a bastard basically from the get-go, but a believable one. He embodies the ego of a chapter that's so proud of being forward-thinking, and his throwing in with Kalkator seems like a natural evolution of his character, unlike the Templar team-up from the previous book. The scenes dedicated to world building on Prax are also superb, the human-cattle pens especially being an image that's never left my mind since I first read this series. The plotline culminates into something suitably grim as well, I just wish there wasn't so much bloody shooting between the good stuff.

 

Also, an ork ship has a weapon that can increase a star's mass such that it immediately collapses into a black hole with a significantly larger orbit than when it was a star. I feel like with such technology they should be literally invincible, but whatever.

 

The Terra stuff is good because it's always good, but I could have used more, and not just because it's my preferred setting in this series. The book ends with Koorland announcing himself as Lord Commander and the High Twelve rally behind him, at least in part because they realize Udo's failure in the role. While Udo has certainly been a poor wrangler, I don't think his lack of direction was given proportional attention; most of the High Lords' failings have until now been pinned on individual members rather than their single guiding hand. Also, Astartes walking into the Senatorum and declaring themselves in charge should be ringing massive alarm bells for literally everyone present who didn't encourage them to do so, I feel we needed to see more meaningful resistance than Udo's sputtering.

 

Still, a solid enough entry.

 

Things I noticed on the re-read:

While there've been a few hiccups in focus up until now, I do have to commend how well-thought-out the series has been up until this point. Each book has been a drip-feed of information about The Beast's empire, and not content to just say "they're hyper-competent" and move on, we've now been comprehensively introduced to their improved linguistics, specializations on and off the battlefield, how they disrupt communications, how they establish and maintain supply lines, and why they want humanity as a slave race. We know they're on Ullanor before the end of the book spells it out for us, and we know from last book that blowing up Weirdboyz is going to be the key to victory. The same sort of thing is happening elsewhere, and not just obvious stuff like Vangorich's increasing frustration with his peers. It's honestly quite impressive and much better than many would have you believe about the series' cohesion.

[DarkChaplain]

Things are about to start breaking down in terms of cohesion, sadly. You're gonna hit the "actually, let's promote the new/upcoming models instead" phase soon. Guymer's setup also ends up in a blender in upcoming books, to the point of directly contradicting things from Echoes...

 

Communication about the series was still reasonably strong here, and Abnett wrote his pilot years before the rest iirc. But this upcoming pivot, which even had a cover changed during the ongoing subscription, also heralds the production mess of books being written in parallel with far too little effort being put into making them match up and link together, from the editor's chair. This is where the "one book per month" schedule is biting their butts off.

[Ubiquitous1984]

20 hours ago, Roomsky said:

The scenes dedicated to world building on Prax are also superb, the human-cattle pens especially being an image that's never left my mind since I first read this series.

This sounds interesting, I've never read the book or heard about it in the lore before.  Can you explain more?

[Roomsky]

6 hours ago, Ubiquitous1984 said:

This sounds interesting, I've never read the book or heard about it in the lore before.  Can you explain more?

 

So the POVs show up on Prax, which was held by the Iron Warriors before the war started. The world has been converted into a farm and larder for the orks instead of just being abandoned after conquest, presumably there are many similar worlds keeping The Beast's forces fed and supplied. 

 

They enter an unlit building that smells so bad it penetrates their armour. It's full of tightly packed human cattle, so close together they're forced to stand. They're morbidly obese and have no teeth, nails, or hair. They act like animals, possibly lobotomized, and defecate where they stand onto a grated floor for drainage, but in several places it's clogged with feces. They're fed by similarly modified human slaves with big buckets of growth-hormone infused jelly. 

 

On the horizon, they see several factories used for "rendering" the human cattle; the smoke coming from them is aerosolized blood and all the attendant orks are wearing clothes made of human leather. The POVs later enter a sewer system full of, among other things, human fingers. 

 

It's a vividly painted picture of what The Beast has planned for humanity.

Edited February 14 by Roomsky

[Ubiquitous1984]

4 hours ago, Roomsky said:

 

So the POVs show up on Prax, which was held by the Iron Warriors before the war started. The world has been converted into a farm and larder for the orks instead of just being abandoned after conquest, presumably there are many similar worlds keeping The Beast's forces fed and supplied. 

 

They enter an unlit building that smells so bad it penetrates their armour. It's full of tightly packed human cattle, so close together they're forced to stand. They're morbidly obese and have no teeth, nails, or hair. They act like animals, possibly lobotomized, and defecate where the stand onto a grated floor, that in several places is clogged with feces. They're fed by similarly modified human slaves with big buckets of growth-hormone infused jelly. 

 

On the horizon, they see several factories used for "rendering" the human cattle; the smoke coming from them is aerosolized blood and all the attendant orks are wearing clothes made of human leather. The POVs later enter a sewer system full of, among other things, human fingers. 

 

It's a vividly painted picture of what The Beast has planned for humanity.

Now that’s my kind of grimdark!

 

Thank you very much for sharing!  You’re doing more to rehabilitate TBA series than anyone else on the internet.  It actually sounds good (so far!) from your reviews.  

[Krelious]

On 2/4/2025 at 11:51 AM, byrd9999 said:

Gate of Bones, by Andy Clark

 

The only other Andy Clark 40k I've read has been the Crusade novella (?) that came out in 8th edition, and it was one of the worst 40k things I've ever read, so I've been putting this one off.

However, I was very impressed with this book. It ticked so many boxes for me: the prose was high quality, the antagonists weren't just twirling their moustaches but had proper motive and personalities, the setting was grimdark, and the action scenes were diverse and a cut above the usual b*lter p*rn.

 

Everything just felt *right* about this book. The Space Marines were intimidating to humans, the Custodes were intimidating to the Sisters of Battle, the humans had proper emotions. The consequences for not stopping the baddies were real and high stakes.

The back third/half of the book is pretty much all battle, but it was set up well in the first half of the book and maybe outstayed its welcome, for my personal tastes, by about 20 pages, but it's only a minor complaint.

It continued on well from where Avenging Son finished off, and felt like it was part of the same world, so kudos to Andy and the Team for meshing it well. Surely the Dawn of Fire series can only go from strength to strength, right?

 

8.5/10

I got to the 6th book and just kinda stopped, I think its better than the 5th book but its just kinda eh. I dont really understand the point of these novels and it feels like again too many cooks in the kitchen syndrome where I'm not sure what the direction of this series is supposed to be.

 

You might as well skip Wolftime because its complete and utter trash and has no bearing on the overall story. its honestly has the most hilarious backwards theme where the Space Wolves think the Primaris Marines are too transhuman for them and are devoid of tradition because everything is just programmed in. It would be like if body builders got mad that instead of legit steroids people started using gene mods to get buff.

[theSpirea]

Wolftime is worth a read, there's a good novella there, at least it's not a slog like the 5th and the 6th entries.

 

[Jareddm]

18 hours ago, Krelious said:

I got to the 6th book and just kinda stopped, I think its better than the 5th book

I nearly spit out my coffee and had to recheck the DoF order to make sure I read that right. The Iron Kingdom I found to be an interesting, if bloated, and at times awkward story that still ties into the narrative of both the Indomitus Fleets and several key characters. Whereas The Martyr's Tomb is simply one of the most boring and meaningless 40k books I've ever read.

I understand why you decided to stop, not questioning that. But I do recommend giving Sea of Souls a try. Despite it's extremely weak connection to the broader narrative, it is still a phenomenally well written Imperial Navy book with some great horror and mind-:cuss:ery elements. I would even recommend it to people who haven't read any other DoF books!

[Ubiquitous1984]

Sea of Souls might be a good introduction to 40K as a whole.  I could see any fan of sci-fi or horror enjoying it.  

[Nagashsnee]

Siege of Terra the Solar War

 

So started a 1-8..9...10 read (well listen its audio while i paint) of the complete siege of terra book start to finish and yesterday marked the end of book 1. 

 

I am so split  on this book. Its a well written book, no major issues of flow, style or editing. The story its set out to tell is pretty clear, the Space segment of the Siege, from the traitors entering Sol to getting orbital supremacy of terra.  And this is where my opinion splits, the book does it jobs about 50%-60% of the time. But it has subplots, and in a good book the subplots help the main plot flow and move along and set up pay off. But in the Solar War i find the subplots distracting, disruptive and taking away from the main plot. 

 

Now i got to admit to some bias here, 1) i am a huge BFG gothic fan and wanted as much spaceship time as possible. 2) I was already tired of Loken and some other Heresy C characters and them eating pages was never going to win me over 3) I dont like the trend of 'subverting expectations'.

 

So the good, the actual space action we get is great, its energetic, it covers both sides, it has a nice spread of characters and theatres. When we do see the solar war it is not only enjoyable but makes me want MOAR of it. 

 

The bad, the author kinda forgets that 40k has named ships that are as important if not more so then some characters. And we barely see any of them, The Emperors and custodes ships? The Glorianas gathered in number? The Word Bearer super ships? Not to mention how much fun COULD have been had with the Solar Fleet and the insane number of unique ships it would logically contain.  I honestly expected to see some of the loose ends of 40k (what DID ever happen to the BA glorianna flagships) get cleaned up with some epic death scenes. But instead they just...dont appear.

 

Allot of this book focusses on subplots that do nothing for me, or the the solar war, Loken going to get his bae could have been done with less pages, in a side story or in way that explored the solar war itself.  Instead we explore YET AGAIN things that should be left for after the heresy (faith, the building church, saints, etc, etc) and it all leads up to one of the worse gut punches of subverting my expectations in BL.

 

The Phalanx is the worf of warhammer space ships, it gets TALKED about endlessly of how great it is, of how massive it is, of how in its prime it was a force that could swing any conflict. And in 40k it always gets damaged, lost, missing, undermanned or in the case of the war of the beast just hidden away so as to explain why it doesnt do any of the things it should do in a fight.  But here we are, 30k, the Horus Heresy, THE SIEGE OF TERRA, fully manned, fully ready, Rogal Dorn in  command, the space battle to end all space Battles....so Samus makes another underwhelming appearance (yawn) and it gets damaged before it can enter the fight which makes it hide out the rest of the Siege. Fantastic, great, really subverting my expectations of enjoying seeing something in its prime do what you have spend decades telling me (but never showing me) it can do at pretty much the only fight it COULD do it without making a true difference. In the same way it gets damaged before going to Cadia in 40k no less. Well done lads. 

 

Ultimately the good and bad sorta balance out and result in a mediocre, passable book, but ultimately disappointing start to the siege of terra.  With opportunities wasted that cannot really be done ANYWHERE else in the lore. 6/10. 

 

Edit: I made a mental note not to forget this and forgot it, the Solar War book, that focusses on space combat and boardings, in the Sol System contains little to no SOLAR AUXILLIA. The premier ship based, space focused elite of...well Sol. A regiment type that doesnt make it to 40k, got utterly ignored the entirity of 50 books, and could have been given the tiniest of moments being the Solar Auxillia in the Sollar War. But like the Glorianas, and the Phalanx, and all the rest....just doesn't appear.  Its perplexing. 

 

Like if you must have Sammus show up to get beat down yet again, have him take out the Solar Auxilia HQ, spend a whole 1 chapter on this unique to the era part of the setting, show us something new, let the Phalanx finally fight and been forced to flee due to the sheer numbers, have loken have to go the Solar HQ to get his girl there, have the red tear lead a rearguard and go down in flames.  Have the solar auxilia (and i dont know Sigusmund or whatever marine) have to launch a mass boarding to take down one of the Word Bearer queen ships. TIE THINGS TOGETHER AND USE THE THINGS THAT CAN ONLY BE USED IN THE HERESY. At less then 400 pages the room was there.

Edited February 20 by Nagashsnee

[The Scorpion]

The Solar Auxilia neglect is real. They were mentionned for the first time in Lion's Primarch book and they didn't plan an important role in the story until Saturnine.

[Nagashsnee]

16 hours ago, The Scorpion said:

The Solar Auxilia neglect is real. They were mentionned for the first time in Lion's Primarch book and they didn't plan an important role in the story until Saturnine.

 

The one i will never forgive is Ferrus Manus, one of the few Priarchs to die die. And he dies super early in the heresy. And they did nothing with him, or the Iron Hands, for 50+ books, Best they got was team ups or thown into anthologies or Salamander books. Hopefully Solar get a little time in the sun during the scouring before they get disolved into the navy/guard. 

 

 

[wecanhaveallthree]

Nah, Ferrus' death works. The guy is all about wasted potential: his own, his Legion, the Imperium's consistent warping of people who would be better at creation into engines of destruction. Ferrus failed everyone. If he could have tempered any aspect of himself, if he could have ever thought before acting, then the whole conga line of trauma wouldn't have happened. I appreciate that we only see him through what others thought of him, and how badly he let everyone down. Old Earth (and Damnation of Pythos) are such incredibly good Iron Hands books because they show how the Iron Hands have absolutely no capacity to cope with dad's death, how he never prepared them for anything and how even then - even then - not staying true to him got planets murdered and Madail born.

 

We got Shadrak out of Ferrus' death, and I consider that a fair trade. 

[Nagashsnee]

2 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

Nah, Ferrus' death works. The guy is all about wasted potential: his own, his Legion, the Imperium's consistent warping of people who would be better at creation into engines of destruction. Ferrus failed everyone. If he could have tempered any aspect of himself, if he could have ever thought before acting, then the whole conga line of trauma wouldn't have happened. I appreciate that we only see him through what others thought of him, and how badly he let everyone down. Old Earth (and Damnation of Pythos) are such incredibly good Iron Hands books because they show how the Iron Hands have absolutely no capacity to cope with dad's death, how he never prepared them for anything and how even then - even then - not staying true to him got planets murdered and Madail born.

 

We got Shadrak out of Ferrus' death, and I consider that a fair trade. 

I may not have been clear. I am not disapointed he died or when he died. I am disappointed we never got to experience or explore his character BEFORE he died.

 

I agree with what you say in part, but we also saw him thru the eyes of many of his brothers and other legions, who claim he was one of the best commanders/brothers/friends in the Imperium. G man had him as one of his dauntless few, horus went full evil monologue with his skull in hand lamenting how much he would have wanted him by his side, fulgrim went thru clone Ferrus therapy and still did not get over him. People liked and respected Ferrus manus and BL never ever showed why. If anything your post showcases the absolute gulf between what little we saw, with the man many claim to have know.  Look at the Ultramarines in Betrayer, or Horus on Davin, Primarchs getting really angry and making bad tactical calls is not iron hand specific. 

 

We have never been show ANYTHING to justify any of that. All we ever got to see is 'angry ferrus got killed lol'.  We know he thought he was failing his sons, we know he was putting plans in place to deal with both  his own and his legions issues and failures which he acknowledged. Like which other Primarch actually self reflected to that degree BEFORE the heresy. Meduson is just as much a son of Ferrus as any PTSD team killing iron hand. We only ever got shown half of Ferrus Manus and that was also done poorly and scattered in half a dozen books and stories.  Angron failed his Legion, Fulgrim failed his legion, Lorgar failed his legion, Perurabo failed his legion so hard he killed 10% on day 1 for no reason. Jesus Magnus failed the species. Ferrus was just not a perfect dad, but he was the ONLY DAD to self reflect and realize he needed to change and needed to help his sons change.

 

Nothing BL did with the Iron Hands in the HH, and there was precious little it did do comes close to amount of wasted potential. 

 

PS: Old Earth is not a Iron hands book, its the book they shoved the scraps they gave the iron hands into. 

 

 

 

 

[Nagashsnee]

The Horus Heresy Siege of Terra book 2, The lost and the damned by Guy haley.

 

Well another week of painting and another book down. Terran Orbital Space Belongs to the traitors and the Sol System has fallen.  I remember years ago when i first read this book that i was disappointed that we never got to see the fall of Luna, now years latter i know we kinda get that in Sons of the Selenar Novella, which despite coming out a year after this books contains the events that happened between books 1 and 2.  Despite knowing this i was still irked when 'Luna fell two days ago' is said in this book, i was once again disappointed to know that such a major thing happened off screen so to speak, and despite then reminded myself of sons of the selanar exist i was then forced to wonder why the hell that is placed after this book.  But i cant dock points of the fact that BL could not organize a piss up in a brewery off this book, still weird tho and a omen of the true level of planning and organization that the siege series was conducted under. 

 

Back to this Book, this is Guy Haley doing what Guy Haley does, space belongs to Horus and this books follows a solid by the numbers structured and decently written story of the traitors first landings and the opening stages of the Siege.  We are (i believe) introduced for the first time to Katsuhiro, a terran civilian and fresh conscript of the Imperial Army.  And i love Katsuhiro, he is a great way to show the Siege thru the eye of a everyman, and a great way to introduced a character that can be at every stage of the Siege, starting as the armies finished speed bump and following the flow of the battles.  I wish we had more Katsuhiros in the Horus Heresy and far less pages given to named 40k characters. 

 

This book doesnt do anything SPECTACULAR, but hot damn is it a solid read, filled with fun if not 'start whole army off this scene memorable' scenes. You get to see war councils of the two sides, the disposition and plans of both are layed out, both receive logical criticism and support from other characters and the Siege if very much set out.  Guy Haley makes almost every character feel like a real character, be it someone with major lore and pages to his name, or a once and never seen again Dark Mechanicum magos and like all my fav siege books he makes the conflict FEEL BIG. Characters talk thru holograms, the vox is used, the Palace zones are treated like unique conflict zones despite all being part of 1 'palace'.  Terra is a planet defended by Billions of soldiers and its not enough, it will never be enough and it cannot be enough.  All the elite elements of the defence have been drawn to the Emperor and his palace, the rest of the planet doesnt get Primarchs and Legions and Titans, they get the Imperial Army and Mechanicum elements that were not good enough for the palace, but too good for speed bump duty. And Characters who have not been on Terra long and have not made peace with this sad reality REACT to it. The conversation betweeen Sanguinius, Dorn and the Khan about terra, the civilians and how they use their forces is a simple but fantastic scene that does more character work then other ENTIRE HH books accomplished.  Sanguinius can see the future, but its not 100 pages of 'i do not die this day', its also him using this increasing in power gift to change the future. To actually use this power in the here and now.  The Khan finally makes full and total peace with his decision to side with the Emperor and faced with Mortarions choice and fall to Nurgle  dismisses any lingering middle ground feelings he clung to. 

 

The book does what Siege books should do, advances the overall story by following a select number of characters who experience this stage of the siege. While also taking heed of previous books (The Nod to the Titan Legions being angry at Sanguinius for the Titandeath is page/word wise a nothing sacrifice, but it makes the Universe and characters feel lived in) while also logically pushing character stories forward (Khârn starts to properly lose control of hiself, Angron is going more and more full mindless Deamon, ETC). But it also delivers fantastic Siege scenes, the White Scars sally! Sanguinius calls in favours to help the army fall back, the Death Guard begin their new way of plague war and the Dark Mechanicum starts to truly shows how it differs from its former brothers.  All while advanving the siege moment by moment. 

 

This is not a GREAT book, its not going to win best book of the Siege or be the book that brings anyone new into the HH. Fan art will not be made in bulk, and BL will not make minis off this book. But it is a GOOD book. It does what its suppose to do, and it does it well, its well written, well thought out (not going to win any military strategy awards but thats Warhammer) and well presented.  It offers no huge OMG moments but since half of those in the HH are utter dog :cuss: that is no bad thing this late in the game, and knowing what coming I am doubly ok with that. 

 

My only major nitpick is the presence of civilians in any great numbers within the Palace. Ok they cant get them off world, but Dorn had 7 years, anyone within the Palace should be a needed member of personnel be they civilian or military, with their families long evacuated, this is the siege of sieges WHY ARE THEY ALREADY running out of food or water on the outer defences.  Why are they debating where to take families and civies, this should have all been dealt with literal years ago. But like i said , Warhammer aint the place to go for in depth logical military strategies. 

 

Still cant believe there is ANOTHER book to go before we see the fall of Luna, it genuinely beggars my belief. 

 

7/10 Solid stuff but no flash of brilliance.  ....Oh god its the train book next isnt it? 

[Roomsky]

7 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

Guy Haley makes almost every character feel like a real character,

 

The only point I'd truly disagree with. Almost every primarch is flattened into their most basic traits, and often stray into "you can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!" territory. Considering they're the big movers and shakers here, I take pretty big issue with their being so hollowed-out.

[Nagashsnee]

14 hours ago, Roomsky said:

 

The only point I'd truly disagree with. Almost every primarch is flattened into their most basic traits, and often stray into "you can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!" territory. Considering they're the big movers and shakers here, I take pretty big issue with their being so hollowed-out.

See i find this interesting and kinda hope you elaborate.  I truly feel this is one of the few books we see a pro active Sanguinius that isnt just 'i will not die this die' 'my death makes me sad'.   The Khan is just the Khan doing Khan things, but i never get the Impression he is being presented as 'mongol in space', nothing jars with the person we saw in the Chris Wraith books.  Little things like him going back for the intel videos on his bike rather then having just be 'angry mongol king' are there.

 

I kinda see it with Dorn, but that is how Dorn is presented most of the time. Stiff, rigid, duty focused.  On the traitor side its much worse, but for me that makes sense, the Deamon Primarchs are now well Deamon Primarchs, they are becoming representations of their patron and the hyper focus on certain things that brings. 

 

The one i totally agree with you is Perturabo, but he has been butchered as a character so often and presented as this petulant angry man child more often then not. It doesn't even phase me anymore. Which is weird cause Haley also wrote the fantastic Hammer of Olympia. But showing the traitor side be full of angry bitter personalities who can barely stand eachother is also the way the Siege went in general, so its not Haley dropping the ball.  And lastly Horus follows how the Siege will present him in all books, slowly slipping deeper and deeper in chaos and being a withdrawn and at times unfocused leader, before he goes fake 'old man horus' on us. 

Edited February 28 by Nagashsnee
=] Removed a word [=

[Rain]

Perturabo is a petulant man-child. That’s Perturabo’s whole thing. He’s a genius-savant with no emotional control. He is brilliant at tinkering with machines, and planning sieges, but he has no people skills, misreads social situations, and throws fits like a giant genius toddler.

 

His original lore from back in the IA days had him throw a fit and storm out when Dorn said that he could hold the Imperial Palace against the IW (hypothetically, pre-Heresy.) He decimated his Legion upon receiving it because they weren’t the best, and if his toys aren’t the best, he’d rather just break them.
 

Instead of speaking up and standing up for himself over his legion being given garrison duty and the most grueling assignments, he just pouted and grew bitter until it all boiled over in a massive self-destructive overreaction.

[Roomsky]

10 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

See i find this interesting and kinda hope you elaborate.  I truly feel this is one of the few books we see a pro active Sanguinius that isnt just 'i will not die this die' 'my death makes me sad'.   The Khan is just the Khan doing Khan things, but i never get the Impression he is being presented as 'mongol in space', nothing jars with the person we saw in the Chris Wraith books.  Little things like him going back for the intel videos on his bike rather then having just be 'angry mongol king' are there.

 

I kinda see it with Dorn, but that is how Dorn is presented most of the time. Stiff, rigid, duty focused.  On the traitor side its much worse, but for me that makes sense, the Deamon Primarchs are now well Deamon Primarchs, they are becoming representations of their patron and the hyper focus on certain things that brings. 

 

The one i totally agree with you is Perturabo, but he has been butchered as a character so often and presented as this petulant angry man child more often then not. It doesn't even phase me anymore. Which is weird cause Haley also wrote the fantastic Hammer of Olympia. But showing the traitor side be full of angry bitter personalities who can barely stand eachother is also the way the Siege went in general, so its not Haley dropping the ball.  And lastly Horus follows how the Siege will present him in all books, slowly slipping deeper and deeper in chaos and being a withdrawn and at times unfocused leader, before he goes fake 'old man horus' on us. 

 

Haley is very committed to the "primarchs are humanity magnified, which means their emotions are always magnified" approach, which I find turns out poorly across the board if he isn't given enough time with the primarch he's writing. As you mentioned, he delivers a good short novel focused on Perturabo, but he comes across as a parody of himself when he's one of many.

 

While I always advocate for daemon primarchs being daemons foremost, I'm also an advocate for them still at least wearing the metaphorical skins of their past selves, and for characters to not be the same character at the end of the Heresy that they are in 40k. Fulgrim titters and chuckles at proceedings like any Slaaneshi daermon. Angron yells "I shall kill them! Grrr I am infuriated I don't get to land first!" like any other Khorne daemon, and in a weirdly bombastic way that matches none of his previous daemonic appearances. Mortarion shows up completely confident in his new plague skin as if he's not only wielded Nurgle's power for ages, but is now totally confident in it instead of the conflicted man we know him to still be. Perturabo, meanwhile, is an easily-flattered man-baby, ignoring all the development French gave him in his last 3 appearances. They're all cartoons and not in a tragic way; it's just shallow.

 

Dorn, Sangy, and Jaghatai are better, but are harmed by Haley's apparent decision to write this book as an introduction to new readers, and his generally uninspired primarch dialogue. They all talk about things they already know about and flatly explain their personality traits instead of just demonstrating them. Sang comes across the best thanks to his visiting the front lines and having other things on his mind than "I don't die today" (though Haley is the one guilty of bringing that to comical levels in Titandeath.) 

 

Really, I think it comes down to all of them failing to say anything interesting and being incapable of having a normal conversation. It's all pseudo-Shakespearian slop of "Brother, I shall do this thing, and you shan't stop me!" "Brother! I must insist upon stopping you, for the thing is bad!"

 

This bleeds into a few other characters as well. My first read left me asking "holy crap, what happened to Layak?" I really wish the primarchs and other big figures had been more distant, because the Katsuhiro stuff is great. A proper on the ground book with the characters occasionally brushing against the primarchs would have been way more effective than seeing them as much as we did. There are times when less is more.