Rate what you Read, or the fight against Necromancy

[Nagashsnee]

13 hours ago, Roomsky said:

 

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.

Thanks for the reply!  Look on the loyalist side i don't agree, but i respect the points you raised.  I think i am just happy we got consistent and well written scenes with them, i dont need them to be inspiring i am just grateful they are good enough.  While not the best way to do it, i always treat any HH book vs low points of the HH and i am content so long as its ok, i just wanted the ending to not suck and can live with middling-good quality if it means they don't throw anything that approaches the low points of HH primarch work or silly retcons into the works.  I am not saying they are the best scenes with these characters, but they are fine and compared to the bad version actually good,

 

On the Deamon side i have to disagree with you tho, i have always held the position (which has plenty of support in the lore) that when they  ascended they like any deamon are affected and perceive time in the warp. Now you could argue they are still in that process tho i would disagree. They are/always have been/always were deamon now, past present and future. Sure as primarchs their primarch side is dragging along a far greater degree of character and personality, but how much of that is actually them, and how much of that is simply the deamon of the creature which was fulgrim/Angron/etc. Is deamon Angron angry because he is Angron as a deamon? Or because he is a deamon based on what use to be Angron?

 

Latter on we see Vulkan try to point this out to Magnus, that his god is in effect only allowing him to see/experience/remember what it wants for its own chaos reasons, that Magnus in effect cant even see himself anymore, he sees what it wants him to see and he did not get a vote. In lord of silence we see Mortarion explain to Vorx how he perceives and experiences time differently, and how things that he has seen happen have not happened in the material just yet.  Now as anything GW this is not presented consistently, and there is just as many other examples where this is not true, But for my head cannon the moment they became deamon-primarchs they are more deamon then anything else. And while they need to learn (tho again Fullgrim had no real learning curve, tho he did seek it out) the new ropes, they for all purposes exist outside of linear time. Its funnily enough something that gets showcased in the last Siege book with Samus.  So them being more or less day 1 caricatures of their gods aspects like any deamon is what i expect. 

Edited March 1 by Nagashsnee

[DarkChaplain]

On 2/28/2025 at 3:50 PM, Rain said:

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.

 

To add to that, post-Siege, he is still obsessed with beating Dorn somehow, and humbling him. And then he ascends to daemonhood and... buggers off, to lock himself up on Medrengard, isolating himself from even his own Legion for the next ten millennia and however long it was within the Eye. He rages at his sons, he wails, he lashes out, and laments his own fate. He didn't move on, he didn't make plans, he didn't decide his own future.... he got stuck in an emotional trauma spiral.

[Lord_Caerolion]

The one thing I’ll just point out in defense of Perturabo is that orders you don’t like are still, y’know, orders. He was part of the Great Crusade, and while he had control over his Legion, he was still under the authority of the Emperor and later the Warmaster. There’s no “but I don’t WANNA” exception to your orders. 
 

Sure, some Primarchs would ignore or reinterpret orders, and they were basically universally looked down upon for doing so. 

[Karhedron]

9 hours ago, Lord_Caerolion said:

Sure, some Primarchs would ignore or reinterpret orders, and they were basically universally looked down upon for doing so. 

 

This is a valid point. Dorn's Primarch novel highlights that one of the reason he was entrusted with the role of Praetorian of Terra was that the Emperor knew he could be trusted to follow orders to the letter when necessary.

[Rain]

The Imperium was not a modern military, and the primarchs were given far more autonomy than real world generals. Multiple primarchs disobeyed the Edict of Nikea, which was a much more explicit and emphatic order than the orders presumably given to Perturabo regarding his legion’s assignments.
 

Perhaps he would have been looked down upon for refusing or taking his case to the Emperor, but he wasn’t exactly the belle of the ball to begin with. The only primarchs more antisocial than Perturabo were Angron and Kurze.

 

Yes, Dorn was a dour order follower. That was Dorn’s whole thing. Many primarchs represent a certain emotion or personality type turned up to 11.

[Lord_Caerolion]

The Legions that ignored Nikaea were by-and-large either those already turning traitor, or did so only in overwhelming proof of their necessity. Then you’ve got the Space Wolves, the Emperor’s Specialest Boys, to whom no laws apply and consequences are a thing for other Legions. 
 

As for being “a dour order follower”, that was Perturabo’s thing too. It was what the Legion was known for even before he arrived. It’s literally why they got picked so often for garrison duty, because they were the ones that followed orders. 
 

Edit: I’ll also add that the Primarchs had latitude and freedom to command, but seemingly only in how they handled the actual deployments. The Emperor/Horus would still give an unarguable order of “Sanguinius, take your Legion to X System”. Once there, they could carry out the campaign in the way they saw fit, but they were still ordered to carry out the campaign. 

Edited March 3 by Lord_Caerolion

[Rain]

(1.) Didn’t the White Scars also continue using Stormseers? Also, the Thousand Sons did not voluntarily turn traitor, and even the World Eaters and Night Lords would likely not have turned but for Horus, who had not been corrupted yet, though I could see the argument that the WE and NL were effectively renegades, if not full on traitors.

 

(2.) Yes, they are two sides of the same coin. They are also both siegemasters. But Dorn does it out of a deep sense of duty, whereas Perturabo does it because he is passive aggressive and would rather have something to be bitter about than to stand up for himself. Later on during the Siege of Terra, he has another pity party and quits the siege. Dorn would never have done that.

 

(3.) Maybe. I’m not sure if it’s ever explained how much latitude Primarchs had. Logically it probably depended on the threat. If a major threat was identified, certain Legions might be ordered to attack it, but during “business as usual” the primarchs probably had more latitude. Also, older IW lore explicitly stated that other primarchs flatly refused to do garrison duty and split their legions, though I’m not sure what’s canon anymore.

[Karhedron]

Primarchs seem to have had considerable latitude as long as they continued the contribute to the Great Crusade. Lorgar was censured because his Legion slowed to a crawl building monuments to the Emperor rather than getting on with conquering new worlds. Conversely, Fulgrim once chose to conquer a world with a force of just 6 Marines basically to prove he and Legion were ready to fly solo.

 

Despite their questionable methods, both the Night Lords and World Eaters were largely tolerated as long as they kept racking compliances. Even Corax was not chastised after refusing to serve alongside Horus again after his Legion was used as cannon-fodder by the Lunar Wolves during the battle for Gate Fourty Two. When Russ challenged Angron over the use of the Butcher's Nails, it is not clear whether he was acting in his capacity as the Emperor's enforcer or simply as a concerned older brother.

 

Given the massive differences in personality of the Primarchs, I think that a lot of the job of Warmaster was in understanding who would follow what orders and how. This becomes especially relevant when you consider the difficulties of astropathic communication. The White Scars took themselves to the very edge of the Great Crusade and largely managed to avoid contact with Imperial command.

[Lord_Caerolion]

No, Dorn didn’t have a pity party, he just threw the tantrum to end all tantrums after the Siege and decided that the only thing left to do was “suicide by Traitor”. 
 

As for the Primarch latitude, we know that Primarchs were routinely deployed by the Crusade Command. Sanguinius was sent to Signus, Khan to Chondax, Guilliman and Lorgar to muster at Calth, etc. Each of those was not mentioned as being unusual in a Primarch being ordered to deploy in a particular location. 

[Krelious]

9 hours ago, Lord_Caerolion said:

No, Dorn didn’t have a pity party, he just threw the tantrum to end all tantrums after the Siege and decided that the only thing left to do was “suicide by Traitor”. 
 

As for the Primarch latitude, we know that Primarchs were routinely deployed by the Crusade Command. Sanguinius was sent to Signus, Khan to Chondax, Guilliman and Lorgar to muster at Calth, etc. Each of those was not mentioned as being unusual in a Primarch being ordered to deploy in a particular location. 

He also threw a tantrum and tried to kill Garro when told of Horus' betrayal, and then sulked in his room for a few days afterwards. Understandable response but hes perhaps not the emotionless order follower hes painted as and essentially he might be traumatized by the Horus Heresy and is basically going through the motions to get :cuss: done while not processing his grief.  This could be a good example of why Khorne attempts to tempt him in TEATD. At the end of the day I think Dorn might be misuderstood as a man who appreciates loyalty and simplicity. He has a deep reservoir of emotion but doesn't use it in most circumstances because he doesnt want to make a mess or be untactful. Dorn is a man who when hes on the job hes on the job but he's a weekend warrior. He appreciated the beauty of the imperial palace and hated turning it into a fortress, yet he still did it because it needed to be done.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. 

[Nagashsnee]

11 hours ago, Lord_Caerolion said:

No, Dorn didn’t have a pity party, he just threw the tantrum to end all tantrums after the Siege and decided that the only thing left to do was “suicide by Traitor”. 

 

Seeing as he is the last loyalist primarch (not counting Vulkans 2 weeks back in the war of the beast) to disappear i would say more of a 'Dorn punch the pain away' phase.  

 

As for the Primarch latitude for me it has always been portrayed as 'what they think they can get away with'. If they want something more then the believed consequences they have almost all show a willingness to just do what they want. 

Edited March 4 by Nagashsnee

[darkhorse0607]

On 3/3/2025 at 9:56 AM, Rain said:

But Dorn does it out of a deep sense of duty, whereas Perturabo does it because he is passive aggressive and would rather have something to be bitter about than to stand up for himself.

 

On top of the points that others have already said, it's also worth mentioning that a sense of duty and bitterness are not mutually exclusive. Just because you hate what you're doing, or think it's stupid when you do it does not make you're reasoning for doing it any less valid

 

[Roomsky]

Roomsky's Beast Arises Re-Read - Part 4

 

The Hunt for Vulkan

 

It's an odd feeling, recognizing that this is where the rot starts to set in properly, but also enjoying this book more than I did the first time. The rot, in this case, being poor structural planning. It still doesn't really feel like they're writing by the seat of their pants (there are a few contradictions, but they're minor,) but Annandale fails to make this anything approaching an "even," well-paced read. A disappointing step down from his work in The Last Wall.

 

So what happens in The Hunt for Vulkan? Civil war with Mars is averted, Kubik is properly leashed by Koorland, Veritus reveals Vulkan is on Caldera, a big fleet goes and helps Vulkan save Caldera (and in the process discovers the means by which Attack Moons are built,) then they bring Vulkan back to Terra.

 

Now, these are pretty seismic events, and as a reader I'd like them to continue the balance of Terra politics and ork action that made the series so interesting. Instead, we get 2 chapters of averting a civil war with Mars, and then far too much uninterrupted ork battle, then a page-and-a-half long epilogue of Vulkan showing up in the Senatorum. This structure is cracked, and it gives neither the events on Mars, nor Vulkan's significance outside a battlefield, due attention. A stronger denouement or alternating chapters between the crisis with Mars and the fighting on Caldera would have gone a long way to make this book as strong as its predecessors.

 

So why was it better than I remembered? Well, I remembered a book of so much ork killing on the ground that my eyes glazed over, and I was surprised to find that wasn't the case. First of all, while far too quick, the opening chapters are still very good. This kind of schism is teased all the time and it's fun to see the Imperium actually throw its weight around and bully Mars into staying loyal. And while I think Kubik has a change of heart a bit too quickly (I would have preferred he'd just feigned agreement instead of actually admitting his fault,) genuinely convincing him to cooperate does provide some set-up for the eventual result of the war being "the only thing holding the Imperium back was itself."

 

Caldera, while it takes up too much of the book, is actually quite varied. There are several passages devoted to the void battle which were properly engaging and a welcome break from the fighting on the surface. The book also briefly cuts to Dark Angels, Ultramarines, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves receiving Koorland's call to come and defend the Throneworld. Zerberyn even gets a brief POV. There's still way too much green tide, but Annandale handled it more adeptly than I gave him credit for.

 

All that said, it's still hard to see this as anything but a disappointment. Annandale is perfectly competent with introspection, and yet we get almost none from Vulkan. A loyalist primarch lamenting the state of the Imperium is half the reason anyone likes Dark Imperium! We needed more here; as it is, Vulkan is treated more like a superweapon than a man, and that's lame. Characterization in general is almost completely sapped from the book after the actual Hunt for Vulkan begins. I'm anticipating that by the end of this re-read, my biggest complaint isn't going to be that the war's resolution is an asspull, it's going to be that the authors failed to keep Terra relevant in the fighting to come. Surely we could have checked in on Vangorich in the middle of all this battle? At the very least, have some assassins or proper Imperial functionaries tag along.

 

While this is still my least favourite entry so far, I bumped it up in my estimation to a 5/10, a passing grade, from my previous 4/10. It's functional.

 

 

The Beast Must Die!

 

Holy cow, Gav Thorpe wrote a grand-scale war book that didn't suck. What's more, it's good!

 

Despite how mid The Hunt for Vulkan was, this didn't feel at all haphazard. The climax of this series is famously messy, but for now? A return to form.

 

This book has more war in it than the last book, but it is done so much better. Vulkan's ruminations open each chapter, so we get a proper idea of just how fatalistic he's become, and why he continues to tell the Imperium and his pseudo-subordinates "sink or swim." There's dissent regarding exactly how the war should be fought, which advances several characters. Krule's presence helps the Terran plotlines feel relevant without having to actually cut back to Terra. The ground war involves meaningful Mechanicus and Guard POVs in addition to marine ones. No set piece lasts too long. It's basically everything I want from a dedicated 40k war book.

 

But wait, there's more! We get a proper look at the Beast's new Orkish culture, with religion, dedicated rest areas, leisure activities beyond hitting each other, and functional supply chains. The Imperium's attack, though desperate and facing some wild tech, forces the Beast's hand by cutting off said supply chains (the Ork army is already resorting to cannibalism by the end,) which feels way more earned than the usual "we outdid their superior warfare through sheer force of will." Vulkan's death is thematically resonant for the setting at large in a way I love, putting the final nail in the coffin of the idea that the heroes of the Great Crusade will save the day in the Imperium's darkest hour (at least, until 8th ed. happened grumble grumble.) Daddy's not coming to save them anymore, and the sins of the father are many.

 

Critiques? The ending is abrupt - by design, but still. Vulkan refuses to meet with any Salamanders, which is a colossal waste. Why not give it a chapter? It's the sort of thing you bring a primarch back for! Bohemond has a brief arc that only seems to materialize when he's around Koorland; Vulkan puts him in his place at one point and he doesn't seem to give it any thought after the fact. I do think everything we've seen so far has effectively characterized the Beast by association, but this is really the only time the Orkish leadership is forced into a 1v1 in this series, and I would have liked to hear it talk a bit more. The Orks' lacking direct characterization remains a major weakness in these books.

 

Overall though, surprisingly good? I can't wait for the narrative to shake itself apart in the next entry.

 

 

Re-read observations:

 

This series was written well before the Siege of Terra was properly itemized, and it released a year before Old Earth. As such, I was surprised about how explicitly The Beast Must Die! alluded Vulkan's presence on Terra, holding back the Webway's flood of daemons. At the time of release it struck me much more as vague Heresy stuff, but it's really quite specific. Neat!

[Nagashsnee]

Say what you want about The Beast Must Die!  but the ending left me (at the time) HYPED for the next one.

 

Spoiler

Vulkan down, the beast dead, the Imperium victorious! As we all knew must happen. Only for the beast to be back, but Vulkan is dead and it took everything they had to get even that down! 

 

It was a actual gut punch, and i was geuily excited to see where it would go and what new exciting ideas they had to top the invasion of Ullanor in The Beast Must Die!.  Having the Primarch return and death NOT be the series ending but the 2/3 twist was a honest to god great idea.

 

Edited March 5 by Nagashsnee

[Firedrake Cordova]

Interceptor City by Dan Abnett

 

Set nearly two decades after Double Eagle, we see the return of Wing Commander Jagdia of the Phantine Air Corps, somewhat worse for wear and now a reserve logistical pilot.

 

Whilst the novel keeps a similar overall "feel" to its predecessor, it's also quite different (in terms of tone and setting). As in Double Eagle, each chapter represents one or more documented days, and is sub-divided into sections for specific times and locations.

 

The detective arc is something of a change of pace from the dog-fighting, and was somewhat unexpected.

 

It ends on something of a cliff-hanger, but this also provides an element of symmetry to the beginning of the book, which is what I assume Mr Abnett was going for.

 

Overall, if you enjoyed Double Eagle, you'll like this - it's sufficiently similar to be of interest whilst being sufficiently different that it doesn't feel like a re-hash or unnecessary. I'd give it a rating of "To Taste", purely because if you don't like planes, it's probably not the book for you.

 

Whilst the above is a little "content-free" in terms of the storyline, I've tried very hard to keep as far away from any possible spoilers, given that it's a new release.

 

Audiobook format notes: the audiobook version is generally well produced (there aren't any obvious bad cuts or repeated sections), although there are some minor issues at the start (you can hear Mr Longworth's intakes of breath a few times). Some of the chapters are significantly longer than others, with the longest ones nearing 2 hours - this can be a little bit of a problem in the audiobook form, given that you can't just "peek ahead" a few pages to see if there's a change of scene coming up, making it harder to easily find a "stopping place".

 

Addendum: Warhammer 40,000's slightly questionable scale shows up, with a Voss-pattern Lightning being described as simultaneously having heavy armour plate, whilst only weighing 11 tonnes (2 tonnes lighter than an F-35).

Edited March 5 by Firedrake Cordova

[grailkeeper]

3 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

Interceptor City by Dan Abnett

 

dog-fighting

 

Spoiler

And now the penny drops as to what happened when she was shot down.

 

She was dog fighting. As in literally fighting dogs.

 

Man that pun went over my head.

 

[1ncarnadine]

Quote

The detective arc is something of a change of pace from the dog-fighting, and was somewhat unexpected.

 

It ends on something of a cliff-hanger, but this also provides an element of symmetry to the beginning of the book, which is what I assume Mr Abnett was going for.

 

Ok I just want to say regarding the mystery arc, that it really felt like this clip. Like, yo, Bree, come on. I guess I have to spoiler tag this:

 

 

When the killer went on a disturbing, drug-fueled rant, HOW, just HOW did Bree Jagdea RULE HIM OUT until the kill tally reveal much later? I was like, instantly, it's this guy. It's absolutely this guy. It's going to turn out it's this guy, for sure. He literally just foreshadowed a final duel. As I was powering through the end of the novel, I audibly yelled "I FREAKING KNEW IT. COME ON BREE" and startled my fiancee, whose name also happens to be Bree.

 

Otherwise, great book.

Edited March 6 by 1ncarnadine

[Nagashsnee]

Horus Heresy Siege of Terra Book 3 The Train One The First Wall

 

We get to the first truly divisive book, some people dont mind the train, but most either like it or hate it. There is no way to talk about this book without bringing it up, no way to ignore it, eating at least 33% of the page count the train ride cannot be avoided.  So i thought we should just start there, i did not mind the story of Zenobi and the train. I HATED the fact that it took up 33% of a siege of terra book. This right here is at best a Novella, but more rightly a anthology story. Why did we not get a siege of terra anthology? I do not know, there are many events and characters who would have benefited from it. But alas instead i am stuck with a one shot new character whose story commits the one cardinal sin. It does not support, enhance or contribute to the main story of this Siege book. Namely the Fall of Lions gate space port.  

 

On the story itself, it is also weird to me that conscripts are still being moved around in any big numbers this into the siege. It doesnt seem right. Surely the regiments that are being used to respond to anything are the trained, veteran forces. With the conscript waves long forced into their set positions, unable and untrusted to rapidly move around what is not a active battle zone? Ok Warhammer will be Warhammer and BL will be BL, 7 years of preparation and weeks/months since the traitors entered the Sol system conscripts are still being raised and transported gigantic distances, whatever.  Other then that even on my first read years ago i saw the twist coming, i was not impressed much then i am even less now. Its a fine little sideshow that in the right place would be a perfectly serviceable HH story.  Instead it just caused me to sigh and hope we get back to the 'checks notes' Siege of Terra every time it came up.  

 

I would have loved a traitor version of Katsuhiro, sure its book 3 but whatever this is where the traitors start getting serious anyhow. A non crazy non corrupted NON ASTARTES on horus side would have been a fun pov to follow along his loyalist counter part for the rest of the siege. And like Katsuhiro could reasonably be in each book as the story moves along.  Instead we have the books main focus, Lions Gate Space port. The first critical target the traitors need to seize to begin the fall of the palace. It is a logical target with a logical level of defense, both sides know its importance. Both sides know it should have been torn down as a weakness but also know why it wasnt. Dorn truly hopes for relief, and if relief comes it will need the space port. The traitors need titan and big siege tanks/guns and to get them into position before relief shows up rather then land them outside the palace zone and walk them up they need a port. The stage is set for a focused multi pov story that resolves around a set single location. So WHY AM I BACK ON THE GOSH DARN TRAIN.  Look i am not saying we cant go to other parts of terra, or outside the space port. But good siege books (Saturnine, EoE, Warhawk) know that it all has to flow with the main story. Even if the characters dont know it, we have to know it. The books flow and energy must feel organic and uninterrupted. Or if it does break it must be unavoidable (perpertuals, Ardas etc,) because the authors hands are tied.  The train ride doesn't in any way (anyone who tells me the reveal influences the space port see themselves out)  ever feel in any way, shape or form part of the main story of this book and neither is it something that had to be there. And THAT is why i hate it.

 

And unfortunately for me it is the single most dominated thing that comes to mind when i think about the First Wall. The siege of the Lions port itself is fun, its not the peaks of BL writing ability but neither is it bad. It has action, adventure, Primachs, twists and turns. It does some good worldbuilding on the space port itself but where it shines is Forrix, now i dont know how consistent his portrayal is. But him being stuck between insane boss and insane coworker who suddenly outranks you made me feel for him. And his Journey was the one i most enjoyed following. I did feel the fall of the port cam too quickly, too abruptly and in a non satisfying way, however the journey up to the sudden fall was fun. Dorn and Perturabo both showing up to just bad talk each other was a choice, not one i would have made but oh well.  The space port needed a proper third act fall, and more page count for me. And even with the train ride the book was small enough to get 20-30 more pages into it easily. 

 

Now i am not mentioning allot of specifics, but honestly it just comes back to the train for me. The port bits had plenty of plot holes and silly decisions, but it was never allowed to gather proper steam. I feel like this is the first draft, THIS is where the editors take the train bit out as a short story or cut it down to size as the E story it is. And tell Gav to add to the port fight, clean up some rough edges and come back to them with a polished and focused second draft.  But instead this is the finished product.

 

So siege of terra the first wall 4/10, its a mediocre book with a bad novella shoves into it. 

[Roomsky]

100% agree that Zenobi's portion should have been a novella. If she was a proper traitor parallel to Katsuhiro (and if Katsuhiro's presence ever actually went somewhere,) would have been even better!

 

Being fully honest though, my one re-read had it as my favourite part of the book, mostly because I hate Nirvana-Keeler (admittedly a personal bugbear,) and I consider the actual Lion's Gate portions to be a failure on basically every level. This was the Iron Warriors focus book, and it's taken up by Perturabo sending his least competent commander to lead in his stead. The mental contest between Perturabo and Dorn basically never happens, and this book is the biggest offender. What's worse is that the marine action has no structure, flow, or momentum, so when the Port is taken it feels entirely arbitrary. Complete disaster, at least when it comes to the advertised point of the book.

 

The only thing I can give Thorpe regarding those sections is he didn't forget Dorn's still pissed at Sigismund (looking at you, Abnett and Wraight,) and he doesn't forget what makes Rann a fun character (looking at you again, Abnett.)

[Nagashsnee]

I hear you and agree with you. But if i start grading BL books on 'what we should have gotten' 80% of the HH goes to 1-2/10 level scoring.  God knows i have raged long and hard on what should have been done.  Heck the fact that we  are talking about book 3 and the fall of the lions gate space port TO THEN GO TO THE FALL OF LUNA in the next book... 

 

It just leads to a A4 full of me ranting about how they should have planned it, they should have cross checked eachothers story arcs, the editors should have killed the 'lets himself get stabbed to get the final blow in' x2-3-4 times from happening. Some one should have laughed long and hard at the first draft of the first salamander book and told Kyme to stick to editing, speaking of, they SHOULD have edited the end and the death to the end and the death of their ability. I must restrict myself to with what they did. Or I wont actually talk about the book I just read (well heard).  Perturabo and what should have been done with him in the siege could be its own topic thread.

 

 

[darkhorse0607]

While that's true, if I bought a book based on the Black Library blurb on their own website, which for First Wall is

 

"The war for the fate of mankind blazes on. Though the outer defences have fallen, the walls of the Palace itself remain inviolate as Rogal Dorn, the Praetorian of Terra himself, uses every known stratagem and ploy to keep Horus's vast armies at bay. In Perturabo, the Traitor siegebreaker, Dorn faces an adversary worthy of his skill. A terrible, grinding attrition ensues. The crucial battle for the Lion's Gate space port is at the heart of this conflict. With it in their possession, the Traitors can land their most devastating weapons on Terran soil. Dorn knows it must not fall. But with enemies attacking from all sides, and the stirrings of the Neverborn drawn to the slaughter, can the Imperial defenders possibly prevail?"

 

And then got a book mostly about a train ride, I think its grounds for being upset

 

I've spent far too long over the years writing essays about how much I think this book botched the Iron Warriors so I'm not going to do it again other than saying this book botched all the work McNeill and French did for them

 

But I do get the feeling that the Zenobe portion was actually the book that Thorpe wanted to write, not the Siege section itself. Maybe he had planned it to he a novella before they needed someone to take the Lion's Gate section of the series and it got rolled into that? I dunno

[Nagashsnee]

I mean once they lied about the number of books in the limited numbered series trust kinda went out the window haha. 

 

That description by BL lied standards is honestly not that bad. Recently the Emperors gift LE description was just an outright lie. Like not even in the same planet as what you get lie.

[Nagashsnee]

Horus Heresy Siege of Terra 3.5 Sons of the Selenar

 

On i march from the fight for the sol system, to the landings of the lost and the damned, to the first wall and lions gate space port all the way back to the moon ok.... Ok lets get it out of the way the release order and reading order for this is wrong. This is very much between books 1 and 2,  and in my case going rapidly from 1-2-3-3.5 the chronological whiplash is real. 

 

I enjoyed sons of the Selenar, it was quick, direct and to the point. Its a simply action hero plot driven story about a quick in-n-out operation. Now the beggining vexes me, it vexes me a great deal.  You see we open in space during the ongoing solar war, specifically the book tell us we are in the Jovian engagement zone, currently home to 367 ships mostly escorts and destroyers.  We then run into a mars class battlecruiser, a oberon class battleship, one mystery ship and our crews strike cruiser. And i hate when a authors specifically points something out, in this case that its mostly escorts and destroyers, and then IGNORES WHAT HE JUST TOLD US. Now i suspect the mystery ship to be a escort, as with a tapered prow and torpedoes it points to a infidel class. But its never confirmed (or i missed it, if i did PLZ correct me). But if you are going to call attention to something dont just ignore it. And its such a silly thing, either make it 'mostly cruisers or greater' or switch the ships to escort classes. I mean our heroes ship is wounded, undermanned, and barely working, it would make sense to have it face down in tonnage. instead we get some...questionable moments. Also having terran orbital already in traitor hands raisers question about the distances this wounded, bleeding and undermanned strike cruiser can come and go without anyone noticing, especially lunar orbit. The book does tries to adress this, but i think having this book take part just as the traitor fleet is in the final stages of claiming orbit and the thrones fleets are finally forced to leave would have been better. 

 

This leads to one of my big gripes with the siege, the HH and the BL in general, its 30k, a long forgotten better time, you have absolute freedom to show off things that CANNOT be shown in 40k, and make some stuff up. Why are you using BFG 40k ships? Make some stuff up, give us a new class, describe it, gives us some basic info MAKE THE WORLD BIGGER. Its the same with the cadian guardmen on the lost and the damned cover and so many other things. Countless chances to make the universe bigger and the period unique WASTED. 

 

This ties in to the best part of the novel for me, exploring Luna and the Selenar. We dont see much, but what we see is interesting and makes me WANT MORE. Just like in praetorian of Dorn i want more Selenar, not to explore them until there is no mystery left, but to colour in and enrich this fascinating and fun part of 30k.  And this book scratched that itch, not as much as i would like, but the insights we got into Selenar life and tech was still appreciated. Like preatorian of Dorn the interaction between astartes and people who consider them part children part abomination part murder machine was fun and enjoyable.  

 

The core plot was serviceable, the question of why greater traitor forces were not present since they were there and available (they were not landing on terra just yet) for a prize we are told is greatly valued,  is a minor one. Its also the only time we see a escort/destroyer....its just nowhere near where it should have been  in the story haha.  Simple A to B to C plot to get the Mcguffin to safety. The shattered legionaires were also fine, I was never a huge fan of any of them so there was no emotional element for me, and the angry Iron Hands driven to insane anger got old for me a long time ago. But it was done in a perfectly serviceable manner. 

 

The ending with the T sons intervening had me rolling my eyes however. It makes no sense, if magnus knew of all this he never actually did anything to his own benefit, and BL suddenly trying to make it seem Magnus was already taking steps to make the primaris marines happen was just....ugh. I know they had set up Magnus taking a interest in the crew and it had to be paid off somehow. But it just makes no sense. Worse then that it makes the universe feel smaller, not everything in 30k has to tie in DIRECTLY into 40k.  In Chris Wraith book battle for the fang Magnus goes out of his way to make sure the Space Wolves cannot ever make other chapters or stabilize their gene seed.  Weird how he also made sure that they would one day make other chapters and stabilize their gene seed.... kinda makes you wonder what that whole Siege of the Fang was all about.  A simple scene showing Magnus doing all this just to spite Horus over prospero, or for some other reason would have been perfectly fine. 

 

All in all it was fine, fast and fun and with no major gripes to speak about. Plus it actually tried to end quite a few HH loose ends.  6/10.

Edited March 19 by Nagashsnee

[DarkChaplain]

The afterword also makes it clear that McNeill himself forgot about the whole Magnus-has-plans-for-them plotpoint until now :')

[Sothalor]

To be fair to McNeill, that could be said about a whole lot of the Heresy and Siege as a whole.