Rate what you Read, or the fight against Necromancy

[Nagashsnee]

15 hours ago, Roomsky said:

 

Hard disagree, especially if you enjoyed it (you re-read the train book, don't skip something you liked!) McNeill's Siege books are in many ways what I wanted the Siege to be for everyone - a chance to wrap up their dangling plotlines against the backdrop of humanity's greatest cataclysm. For anyone who enjoyed McNeill's Thousand Sons work, this is the climax and definitely shouldn't be ignored. 

 

Plus, ADB is the king of unreliable narrator in Black Library, his books' statements shouldn't be taken as over-writing what came before just because they released later. What many take as spitting on Fury of Magnus I take as the Emperor lying to Vulkan so he'll go through with ernestly trying to kill his brother.

 

Now if they'd just get around to releasing McNeill's third Siege book...

 

2 hours ago, Lord_Caerolion said:

Yeah, in regards to Fury of Magnus, the fandom has a constant habit of taking statements in novels as 100% gospel truth unless it outright states they lied, and sometimes not even then. 
 

edit: I mean, the whole “the Dark Angels are traitors” meme started because people took the word of a Fallen as 100% truth. 

Ok ok fury of magnus will be read. Only reason i decided to skip is the mess they have made of Magnus and Ahrimans between Mcneil and Frenchs books. And yes i know Mcneil took a break then came back and somehow did not know what French had done, and no one told him, and the editors dint say anything... But it put me off the whole Magnus and shards story.  And then to pull the whole 'heres two versions of events have fun'. Like the last thing Magnus story needed was more muddled facts for me. And the last thing Mcneil and Magnus relationship needed is ANOTHER time authors go over each other.  I have no problem with unreliable narrators but unrealiable authors putting out work that HAS to be unrealiable because they (and BL ) did not do the reading is not cool.

 

Like i said i have generally good memories of the book itself, but that is more Magnus and friends going thru the Palace and talking to Malcador as scenes. Not the actual story as a overall story. I have always believed (0 proof this is pure speculation on my part) that Mcneil and BL KNEW the mess that happened with the Crimson king, and just decided to publish anyway as the HH title would secure sales.  

[byrd9999]

The best thing about The Fury of Magnus for me (speaking as someone who adores the T Sons) is that it basically negates any reason to ever read The Crimson King again.

 

I pretend that TCK never happened, and TFOM is the true follow-up to Thousand Sons.

[Roomsky]

OOOOOOH you meant the Ahriman stuff. I've heard so many people dismiss Fury because of Echoes I totally forgot that the entire back half of Magnus' Heresy story got beaten to the punch by French. Even so, I think the character work in Fury is strong enough to make it worthwhile anyway, much moreso than Crimson King. 

 

But also, fair. I enjoy all of McNeill's TSons work but I sort of just mentally censor the bits that contradict the Ahriman books.

[DarkChaplain]

I still feel like I missed something regarding Magnus and the Shai-Tan of Morningstar. I expected something big from that Primarchs novel / audio short angle for Magnus during the Siege, but... eh

[Krelious]

Hell's Last 7.5/10

 

Id say its just in the okay territory and it kinda just shoves the plot along from the last book, very slow takes about 1/2 the book for any sort of action to get going, typical fare of Cadians are tough and will stand their ground and fight in any situation. The Ending is literally resolved in two pages and honestly doesnt make any sense as well defenders expect rescue but then cant get reinforcements because of terrain, but shouldnt they have that mapped out on the planet they control? Honestly all the tension surrounding the ending battle makes no sense and then is poorly resolved so they can get onto the next book where Minka Lesk will be dealing with Necrons maybe? 7.5 because the book is largely competent in its writing and engaging enough to hold your attention but nothing wows me about this book. Might skip the next one if its more of the same.

 

One good thing about the book is a certain character in this book dies and the benefit of that is that I dont have to read his name because it always bothered me. 

[wecanhaveallthree]

I reread LUTHER: FIRST OF THE FALLEN last night. 100/10, no notes.

 

...okay, maybe one or two.

 

Perhaps Thorpe's style just works for me where it doesn't for seemingly many others, but First of the Fallen is exactly what I wanted out of every single Primarch novel: their humble beginnings. It's no mistake that my favourite Primarch series novels Hammer of Olympia and particularly Bearer of the Word - also by Thorpe - follow a similar style and formula. Maybe I'm just a sucker. WHATEVER.

 

Luther is bugnuts crazy. Kinda. He's seeing visions of past and future, he's being tormented by evil spirits, by the Watchers, by his once-brothers - and being dragged in and out of stasis isn't helping any. And that is FANTASTIC framing for what is, essentially, a tidy little anthology of 'what was Caliban like before the Imperium'. We see a world of danger and mystery, of 'mid tech' as we understand it - crude power armour and bolt weapons - and themes that would, of course, echo the Age of Strife and the Unification Wars. Caliban wouldn't be out of place in a Dark Coil story: it hates the people who live on it, but it feeds from them, too. It pits them against each other, it sends the Beasts against them, it sows discord and disunity. Luther - through these stories of his growth, and his reflections - tries to impart lessons on the increasingly fanatical and disconnected Dark Angels who come seeking answers from him. And as he found in his fast, he sees his own rushing to judgment, his own fear and paranoia, his own doubts and fears reflected in the Chapter and how it is twisted over time. Isn't that perfectly ironic: the traitor trying to speak truth, to warn others away from his path, but his words failing to reach them - or those words having wholly unintended, negative consequences when they do? 

 

I love the introspection, the insight and the ego of the man. He's become miserably well aware of just how pathetic and petty he was, how close he came to damnation, and how stepping off the Eightfold Path isn't free or easy. He and the Dark Angels are suffering for his choices just as much, if not possibly more than if he'd high-fived Erebus and backflipped right into damnation... but that's not who he is, how he was raised or what his goals (however misguided) were. Luther refusing to take that last step, to use the most forbidden sorcery, to wield the athame, to betray his brothers completely is a wonderful indictment of those who say one may use Chaos against itself, or that they will be safe only taking a little power from the Dark Gods.

 

Caliban is a beautiful setting and exploring it with young, idealistic (at least in his mind!) Luther is a treat, to be sure. I like how Luther is - again, perhaps only in his self-delusion, his self-justification - a lonely patriot, leading a rebellion that could never be with methods that could never have worked. His reach exceeds his grasp, over and over again, this man who in any other story would have been (and was) the Grand Master, the knight champion extraordinary, a hero and leader like no other... but he made the choice to save the feral Lion in the woods, to take a chance on a strange man, and now here we all are.

 

He could never have done any differently, though. That's who he was.

 

And who he once again may be.

 

Great book. Short, sharp - plenty of detail where it was needed, a loving attention to the world and its minutiae - everything I wanted and came out with a real interest in seeing more of the character in the future.

 

 

[LordCypher]

I recently got back to reading 40k after a year-long hiatus (no thanks to BL...) and decided to pick up Elemental Council. Heard some promising things about it and looked like a more appealing read than what BL has published recently. Not a Tau reader, so was not interested in standalone Tau character stories and my only substantial prior exposure to Tau came from Dark Coil and War of Secrets. 

 

The prose was fine. Adequate. Didn't need to consult a thesaurus for once, so that was good. Pace was decent. Didn't subconsciously tune out (especially in the first half). The story itself? Ah... where to begin? The first half was amazing. As someone not that familiar with Tau, it did a great job at making me engaged in their faction, ideas, their way of life and thinking. The interactions between different caste members helped to understand exactly in what ways they're different and similar. I was shocked at how invested I was in the story and central mystery of the first half. And the main antagonist? Amazing showing. Artamax is everything I wanted to see of such a character and then more. There was one scene specifically when

 

Spoiler

A water caste diplomat happily commingles with local humans and even offers a resting place and some food to people who are most likely hostile to him. And you could almost feel that maybe Tau have a point. Thankfully, the pure hatred from the Space Marine Artamax soon after snapped me out of such delusion lol, but I do think that it was a testament to the author that you can very well imagine a peaceful coexistence - at least for a few seconds - in 40k. 

 

Now... what went wrong? Well, there's a certain chapter in italics somewhere in the middle, and when I read the first few lines, I immediately felt the potential built up in the first half of the story would be squandered. And unfortunately, it really did go downhill from that moment onwards. What is in that nefarious chapter?

 

Spoiler

The main Ethereal just... coming back from the dead? After being dispatched by a Callidus assasin? Because... reasons? and after that it was plot armour and deus ex machina one after another. In one of the scenes the Earth caste Tau Ke has so many levels of plot armour I thought she'd singlehandedhly finish off Arthamax herself. And Sixes? Oh boy... after being described as near death a number of times and suffering pretty serious injuries at many point of the story (especially when the operating base is destroyed) she's dispatching heavily armed human opponents left, right and centre with 0 issues. And at the end of the story, you don't even remember that she was supposed to be near death this whole time. And the Kroot who should have been crushed to death by any stretch of imagination... is alive and unscathed?! 

 

The reason the Etehreal's resurrection is so grating is because it makes little sense and cheapens the story. He just comes back from the dead and... fixes everything?! What could have been an amazing storyline of a catastrophic Tau failure, which would be subsequently heavily covered up, with a multitude of heavy moral ramifications, turns into a generic, tidy ending. At the end of the story, the Ethereal even remarks that the Callidus assassin trick won't work on Tau again, all is well and nothing bad happened. Of course, he's a Tau Ethereal, so you would expect this to come from his mouth, but the story itself doesn't seem to treat his utterings with any sort of scepticism. The ending did not feel either earned or fitting to the story. To the point where I'm wondering if there was some editorial meddling involved. The author clearly gets the Tau, but the second part of the story really left a sour taste in my mouth. 

 

Finally, the way Artamax's story ends was such a downer. After being depicted as this ruthless and clever antagonist the whole time, in his last scenes, he devolved into a monologuing Saturday morning cartoon villain. 

 

I think I'm too harsh on this novel precisely because I could see such a high potential for it in the first half. If this were a generic bolter porn story, I would have been much less miffed about it. First half for me is 9/10 but the second part and ending with 5/10 really brings it down. I would still give it a 7.5/10 because of some great scenes and Tau lore sprinkled throughout, like

 

Spoiler

one of the local human leaders (who seems to be much more amiable to Tau than most) says:

 

Quote

You steal my people’s families at night for re-education. Return them as drooling dogs, little better than servitors, or not at all. 

 

or the Tau discussing what punishment awaits the human population and mentioning how

 

Quote

..the world’s civilians will be separated from their familial units and broken into work groups. They will undergo indoctrination. Heritage proctors will monitor them for individualist behaviour. They will remediate nonconformity with psychotherapy and re-education.

’

 

With the other Tau noting:

 

Quote

‘They’ll be treated like us?’ Ke asked, almost relieved. ‘That doesn’t sound so bad.’

 

Or how even thinking about harming an Ethereal is nigh impossible for other Tau castes. But at the same time, you do get the optimistic and bright outlook the Tau represented very well too.  

 

Special praise is attributed for the very clever inclusion of Fehervari's infamous and beloved death world in a couple of places. And not just some offhand remarks, but names of entities as well, which recontextualize some of the characters if you're acquainted with Fehervari's work. 

 

I'd still recommend this even to non-Tau fans, as it is clearly above your run-of-the-mill bolter porn, but cautioning to temper your expectations and just enjoying the ride. 

[LordCypher]

On 4/25/2025 at 8:59 AM, wecanhaveallthree said:

I reread LUTHER: FIRST OF THE FALLEN last night. 100/10, no notes.

 

...okay, maybe one or two.

 

Perhaps Thorpe's style just works for me where it doesn't for seemingly many others, but First of the Fallen is exactly what I wanted out of every single Primarch novel: their humble beginnings. It's no mistake that my favourite Primarch series novels Hammer of Olympia and particularly Bearer of the Word - also by Thorpe - follow a similar style and formula. Maybe I'm just a sucker. WHATEVER.

 

Luther is bugnuts crazy. Kinda. He's seeing visions of past and future, he's being tormented by evil spirits, by the Watchers, by his once-brothers - and being dragged in and out of stasis isn't helping any. And that is FANTASTIC framing for what is, essentially, a tidy little anthology of 'what was Caliban like before the Imperium'. We see a world of danger and mystery, of 'mid tech' as we understand it - crude power armour and bolt weapons - and themes that would, of course, echo the Age of Strife and the Unification Wars. Caliban wouldn't be out of place in a Dark Coil story: it hates the people who live on it, but it feeds from them, too. It pits them against each other, it sends the Beasts against them, it sows discord and disunity. Luther - through these stories of his growth, and his reflections - tries to impart lessons on the increasingly fanatical and disconnected Dark Angels who come seeking answers from him. And as he found in his fast, he sees his own rushing to judgment, his own fear and paranoia, his own doubts and fears reflected in the Chapter and how it is twisted over time. Isn't that perfectly ironic: the traitor trying to speak truth, to warn others away from his path, but his words failing to reach them - or those words having wholly unintended, negative consequences when they do? 

 

I love the introspection, the insight and the ego of the man. He's become miserably well aware of just how pathetic and petty he was, how close he came to damnation, and how stepping off the Eightfold Path isn't free or easy. He and the Dark Angels are suffering for his choices just as much, if not possibly more than if he'd high-fived Erebus and backflipped right into damnation... but that's not who he is, how he was raised or what his goals (however misguided) were. Luther refusing to take that last step, to use the most forbidden sorcery, to wield the athame, to betray his brothers completely is a wonderful indictment of those who say one may use Chaos against itself, or that they will be safe only taking a little power from the Dark Gods.

 

Caliban is a beautiful setting and exploring it with young, idealistic (at least in his mind!) Luther is a treat, to be sure. I like how Luther is - again, perhaps only in his self-delusion, his self-justification - a lonely patriot, leading a rebellion that could never be with methods that could never have worked. His reach exceeds his grasp, over and over again, this man who in any other story would have been (and was) the Grand Master, the knight champion extraordinary, a hero and leader like no other... but he made the choice to save the feral Lion in the woods, to take a chance on a strange man, and now here we all are.

 

He could never have done any differently, though. That's who he was.

 

And who he once again may be.

 

Great book. Short, sharp - plenty of detail where it was needed, a loving attention to the world and its minutiae - everything I wanted and came out with a real interest in seeing more of the character in the future.

 

 

 

It truly is amazing. First of the Fallen, Cypher: Lord of the Fallen (yes, I'm a DA fan) and the whole Dark Coil anthology are the only pieces of 40k narrative that I have read/listened to from start to finish more than once. Highly recommend the audiobook of First of the Fallen. The narrator does a phenomenal job of bringing Luther's confusion, madness and glimpses of greatness to life. There's just something about the way First of the Fallen is written that you get new insights every time you engage with various stories Luther tells throughout his captivity. He gives somewhat cryptic interpretations which are open to being moulded by the reader into whatever they wish to glean from them. This is the type of story that stays with you for years. 

[Osteoclast]

Lord of Excess by Rich McCorcmick 3/5

 

I guess it’s more sword porn than bolter porn, but same principle. Pretty sure one character got chopped in two and then reappeared a couple scenes later. The bit that I was most interested in, Chaos trying to remold a world that they’ve taken, is subjected to an eight year time skip and pretty much ignored. The protagonist, Xantine, is not merely an unlikable person, but is actively annoying as a protagonist. 

The back two-thirds of the book can be summed up as a series of “Argh! Curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal!”

 

A few chief annoyances in spoilers:

Spoiler

Space Marine dueling a knight sized daemon. Just no.
 

Did they fall from such a height that they surely are dead? Nope. At least three times.

 

’Nid fleets move at the speed of plot.

 

i don’t understand the Istvaan V scene at all.

 

If you have a character sharing a body with a daemon, and actively show them losing more and more control to said daemon, you cannot turn around and go “Ah hah! Look at all these plot contrivances I did and kept secret from everyone including the daemon!”

 

[The Scorpion]

12 hours ago, LordCypher said:

 

It truly is amazing. First of the Fallen, Cypher: Lord of the Fallen (yes, I'm a DA fan) and the whole Dark Coil anthology are the only pieces of 40k narrative that I have read/listened to from start to finish more than once. Highly recommend the audiobook of First of the Fallen. The narrator does a phenomenal job of bringing Luther's confusion, madness and glimpses of greatness to life. There's just something about the way First of the Fallen is written that you get new insights every time you engage with various stories Luther tells throughout his captivity. He gives somewhat cryptic interpretations which are open to being moulded by the reader into whatever they wish to glean from them. This is the type of story that stays with you for years. 

The Cypher book is almost as amazing as the Luther book, but the last one comes out on top because of the themes @wecanhaveallthree speaks about: the remorse, the passage of time, the degeneration of the Imperium, the slow but steady spiraling of the Dark Angels into paranoia and fanaticism, all while Luther gets to learn from the very lessons he imparts upon increasingly deaf ears

 

Im this book, Caliban isn't just a bygone place: it meant something. It was a microcosm of humanity's fight against the encroaching dark. It means more now than it did then, with the End Times inching closer.

[Rob P]

Read Eidolon: The Auric Hammer. It's ok. I just wanted more character transition for Eidolon.

 

Edit:

 

I think Eidolon is an interesting element of the Emperor's Children and the cast-out-son angle gives him something interesting. There is also the fact that he's an actual commander of capable soldiers and, up to this novel, his exact relationship with Slaanesh was occluded.

 

The resistance to Slaanesh along with his unspecified situation in 40k gave some opportunities for a novel approach and we do get something a bit different than ascension but I guess I wanted a little more.

 

6/10

Edited May 1 by Rob P

[Roomsky]

Ahriman Undying - John French

 

I can see why a lot of people wouldn't vibe with this book, but I loved it. This won't change anyone's mind on the Ahriman series' quality (and would, in fact, be completely incomprehensible to a newcomer,) but if you enjoy French's brand of Tzeentchian spaghetti plots, he's outdone himself here.

 

The story begins with Ahriman having already lost in a way there's no coming back from; it's a bombardment of catastrophe that we follow up with a "how we got here" story. I think this is a good choice, because in a series about established characters who can't die, the threat would feel toothless if we didn't see the apocalypse of the Thousand Sons actually happen. Of course, Ahriman still finds a way out of it in the most convoluted way possible, but it was a blast to read about from front to back. It's a mystery novel more than anything: who are the traitors? What are the gaps in Ahriman's memory? Who sent the daemon attack? How are future Ahriman and Setekh using the Key of Infinity to change the past? There's no time to ponder, the book moves at a breakneck pace as scheme mounts upon scheme in impressively Tzeentchian fashion.

 

Now, I can see how basically all those elements would irritate people. French is trying to outdo himself in the amount of 4d chess being played. Ahriman himself gets minimal focus; Ctesias is more of a protagonist than ol' Ahzek. Time travel features heavily and the story basically ends with "these 2 books didn't occur." The Harlequins mostly stay in the periphery to keep the play on track. Ahriman defeats Setekh and the Pyrodomon before either realizes what's happening. But for me personally, it all engaged and kept me on my toes.

 

I love the characters and ideas at play. Ever since his introduction I've found Ctesias the series' most interesting POV, and I'm glad he gets so much time here. The way French writes daemons is superb, each major warp entity gets a unique presentation and a description of what specific emotions feed their power. Stetekh isn't anything wild character-wise, but French's grasp of 40k means both the Necrons and the Harlequins feel like ancient relics of a deep and layered culture. Helio Isidorus' dissonant serenity makes him the perfect contrast to Setekh's megalomania, and the constant danger he presents is palpable. Maehekta the Curator is fascinating; both for a Pariah's relationship with a legion of psychics, and through her obsession withy seeing her order restored at any cost. The Key of Infinity, while not a groundbreaking timetravel plot device, is appreciated because the Necrons' ability to manipulate time is frankly underused across Black Library and I love seeing it take such a major role here.

 

There were still a few things that made me scratch my head. This book's specific plot really couldn't be extended across 2 entries, it's all knotted too tightly together, but I still think the decision to make this second series only 2 books long is an odd one. I would have liked to see more of Setekh, more of the Harlequins, and more of Pyrodomon at full power. I appreciate the threat was so existential that the only way to stop it was to remove it from the timeline, but there's a degree of "epic" set-up here for a clever but not terribly climactic conclusion. I appreciate that French at least gave us a theoretical final conversation with Helio Isidorus before he gets deleted.

 

Still, love love loved it. There's a fun symmetry to the series now, with Ahriman's second Rubric in Unchanged forming the literal centre of it all. Plus Ahriman's now properly begun his search for the Black Library. I really hope French gets to write more (if he wants to.) If nothing else, I'd love a coda novel set close to the present timeline to cover Ahriman's encounter with Yvraine, and to contrast his well-meaning bastard novel series personality with something even more callous and villainous in the present.

 

To Taste, because plenty of people are probably just going to just find it annoying? But it's a 9/10 for me, I devoured it in 2 days and wanted to read it again immediately afterwards to appreciate all the little details and pieces of foreshadowing.

[The Scorpion]

That's a good review. I feel like a sensical Tzeentch book would be inherently wrong anyways. Sorta like "Fulgrim" without the degen stuff

 

Things like the End and the Death, or the Dark Coil, wouldn't work without weird Chaos hjinks

Edited April 30 by The Scorpion

[Rob P]

Khârn: Eater of Worlds - 6/10

 

Continuing on with the character novellas ...

 

- Good balance of internal and external conflict

- Characters aren't super developed but they are distinctive and their motives are well explained

- Good use of human characters as required

- I liked the plot

- May not be enough Khârn for some but he felt more like a plot device to me and the other characters and plot were enough to work with

- Made World Eaters feel a little more explicable at this point compared to some of the presentation in the Siege of Terra series - allowed multiplicity of World Eaters rather than them just being bezerkers now

- Puts a fairly satisfying spin on the reason that legions turned on each other after Heresy

- Ending felt a little stilted - it resolved (for now) the big question posed by the novel - "What is the future for the World Eaters?" - It didn't feel like it resolved any micro-scale character arcs other than possibly Dreagher's arc

- Right length - I wouldn't have wanted 400 pages of this

- A bit too much descriptive action for my liking (but I like next to none)

- Feels like it should have a sequel

Edited May 1 by Rob P

[Rob P]

Just finished Bad Loon Rising but I'll leave it at that as we're strictly not allowed to discuss AoS.

 

I'm very early on to The Wolftime. Good? Bad? Ugly?

 

I quite like Gav Thorpes' Dark Angel novels but can generally find his style not to my taste so not sure what to expect and it's a bit long compared to the last 3 books that I've read.

[Roomsky]

38 minutes ago, Rob P said:

Just finished Bad Loon Rising but I'll leave it at that as we're strictly not allowed to discuss AoS.

 

I'm very early on to The Wolftime. Good? Bad? Ugly?

 

I quite like Gav Thorpes' Dark Angel novels but can generally find his style not to my taste so not sure what to expect and it's a bit long compared to the last 3 books that I've read.

 

The Wolftime is widely hated, for various reasons. I actually think it's very good, some of Thorpe's best, after the first 150 pages. The good portion of the book has no unecessary fighting, is a fun deconstruction of the Space Wolf identity and exceptionalism, and includes basically all you'd want about their dislike of Guilliman and the primaris roll-out. Obviously, Russ doesn't come back, which was always an unreasonable expectation.

 

To be clear, I think opening a book with 150 pages of awful bolter porn is, from a critical standpoint, unacceptable, but what can you do?

[theSpirea]

The Wolftime has excellent novella buried there. But it's a horrible DoF novel.

[Krelious]

The Path of Heaven 8.5/10

 

Pretty solid and epic continuation from Scars. Nifty idea with the Dark Glass project. Ending is a little rushed and at points i felt like the novel was cliche or even confusing like oh the demons escape their wards and possess some marines and thats your ending fight seen, kinda felt forced like oh the Khan is so great he just beats these demons like they are the weekly power ranger villain. Kinda felt like oh the Khan cant fight the big bad yet so here's a toss away villain for him to beat in order to have some conclusive action sequence where he proves hes still a badass. Good ideas but somewhat clunky execution stops this novel from being 9+

 

Also with the heavy foreshadowing on Mortarion it felt like Wraight wanted to write the Buried Dagger story.

[DarkChaplain]

On 5/8/2025 at 9:12 PM, Roomsky said:

 

The Wolftime is widely hated, for various reasons. I actually think it's very good, some of Thorpe's best, after the first 150 pages. The good portion of the book has no unecessary fighting, is a fun deconstruction of the Space Wolf identity and exceptionalism, and includes basically all you'd want about their dislike of Guilliman and the primaris roll-out. Obviously, Russ doesn't come back, which was always an unreasonable expectation.

 

To be clear, I think opening a book with 150 pages of awful bolter porn is, from a critical standpoint, unacceptable, but what can you do?

 

I concur. The Wolftime does a fantastic job highlighting the self-sabotaging nature of the Wolves. It's the Wolves having a really bad time but instead of accepting help and face necessary changes, they're about ready to burn what they have left to chase after prophecy - Logan Grimnar in particular.

 

It's looking at what the Wolftime even is supposed to be: The end of the Chapter, or the end of the Imperium? Is it worth risking the Chapter going to its death if it might force Russ to return? Would he, even? Can he? Or should they acknowledge that it's not going to happen and it's wishful thinking out of desperation and straight-up fatigue?

There's also the Guilliman-hate for being the Legion-Breaker.... which is a grudge that grew in the telling, like so many things in modern 40k.

 

The hate for the Wolftime at release came down mostly to false expectations. The association with the title was huge - and it flew over many people's heads that defining what it meant was one of the things the book tried to do. It's not the Wolftime of myth.... but some Wolves actually wish it was.

 

Grimnar in particular has been shown repeatedly in the years leading up to the Post-Rift era going on great hunts to look for clues as to Russ's whereabouts. He even got himself dragged off to Commoragh or somesuch on one occassion, iirc. He's had a history of desperately searching for Leman Russ, and this is him having to come to terms that he might never meet his gene-father, despite being so bloody old. It's a hard pill to swallow, being over 800 years old - close enough to a tenth of the time since Russ's departure! Makes you wonder how Dante would be feeling, if he didn't have the certainty that Sanguinius was properly dead... That bloke is already tired :cuss: before the Devastation of Baal came along.

[SkimaskMohawk]

15 hours ago, Krelious said:

Ending is a little rushed and at points i felt like the novel was cliche or even confusing like oh the demons escape their wards and possess some marines and thats your ending fight seen, kinda felt forced like oh the Khan is so great he just beats these demons like they are the weekly power ranger villain. Kinda felt like oh the Khan cant fight the big bad yet so here's a toss away villain for him to beat in order to have some conclusive action sequence where he proves hes still a badass. Good ideas but somewhat clunky execution stops this novel from being 9+

 

See the ending felt more about remaining true and consistent to values, ideals, and culture than just one character being a badass. 

 

Shiban from the very start is shown to have lost his joy, which is a big part of the white scars culture, and was at risk of leading the legion down that path. Their method of warfare is shown to be vulnerable and loses them a champion (even if it was still technically successful). But at the end, even though the keeper of their culture died, the scars still stick with it. Shiban is able to reconnect with those values and gets his old skill back; the Sagyar mazan get a joyous, important, death, and the legion performs very well in the battle. Meanwhile the EC apothecary does whatever he wants and it backfires; the palatine betrays his values and gets possessed; Mortarion doesn't get the confrontation he wants because he's been doing sorcery (even though he tries to lock it back up). The daemons got steam rolled to prove a point that the scars were in harmony again, even after suffering huge cultural losses. 

 

[LemartesTheLost]

14 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

 

I concur. The Wolftime does a fantastic job highlighting the self-sabotaging nature of the Wolves. It's the Wolves having a really bad time but instead of accepting help and face necessary changes, they're about ready to burn what they have left to chase after prophecy - Logan Grimnar in particular.

 

The hate for the Wolftime at release came down mostly to false expectations. The association with the title was huge - and it flew over many people's heads that defining what it meant was one of the things the book tried to do. It's not the Wolftime of myth.... but some Wolves actually wish it was.

 

 

I haven't done a reread of The Wolftime, but I do remember it more fondly now that it's become apparent the series was just marketed in the worst way possible. A reread of DoF in general might be necessary in a couple of years. It definitely has its flaws but there's some good stuff in there as well might grow on us over time. Or maybe it will remain the most 5/10 series to ever Warhammer in the community's eyes, who knows? Hoping Guy gives us a really strong finish to round out the series.

[Rob P]

Finished The Wolftime and can't add a great deal to what has been said. Yep, first third is bogged down in action and reading speeds up once the meat of the question is asked: can offworlders be Space Wolves?

 

I was a bit lost with the overarching story as I can't remember the contents of the first two books in the series.

 

I felt Logan Grimnar was portrayed well. The prophetic fatalism seemed credible whilst also dumb. I felt that it is actually important for the Space Wolves that Russ doesn't return. Let the aeldari have the end times story.

 

I'm sure not the point, but I liked the bit where an account of the Orks was thought too crazy to be true. It felt like the unreliable narrator accounts of things we get in the codexes.

 

Overall 6/10

[kabaakaba]

The end and death part 3

Don't think I said something new about it. Good book, but I don't know why, first 3/4 of book I was frustrated somehow. Just can't read it. Yes there is plot come to end. All lines come together. But every time I see Horus monologue I just close the book. Amazing twist with Samus and Loken in the end. But don't think I'll open it again. 

Overall 6/10.

 

 

I FINISH THE HERESY!

Reading this last half a year. Just can't but share how this whole series(except for TEaD³)is magnificent.