Seige of Terra series news

[Kelborn]

Oh damn...

That'd be a worth one to get along the very last.

 

French has (for me) become a safe bet along Chris and Aaron. I loved PoD, StD and overall his Fists' stuff, etc.

[Taliesin]

 

 

Snip

 

 

Now the real hype begins.

 

I mean, I don't buy LE's, but damn does that look fine. Almost as fine as the name John French on the cover, who I am now convinced can do no wrong. Perfect guy to tackle some of the logistics of the siege. But is he the perfect guy to write the naval battles therein? I don't know, maybe he does a couple things wrong.

 

The higher-end collectors are gonna have one weird looking shelf by the time this is done, though.

 

 

 

Hmm yeah they won't fit well my with my HH hardcovers, which is what most of my HH books are.

However it will fit well with my expensive 7 ( soon 8) part HH Black books collection from FW.

[Knockagh]

Solar war has mysteriously vanished from BL coming up section also disappeared from the main GW site. Is it just a screw up? Or is something more sinister afoot??

[Brother Lunkhead]

And so it begins...… 

 

Eight novels: That to me is a very reasonable number to cover this epic conclusion to the Horus Heresy. Unfortunately, I won't be picking up any of the hard covers so I'll be lagging behind all the way..... sad about that

 

Dan Abnett: The man who started the show and sucked me into this glorious mess is finishing it as well....EXCELLENT

 

As I've read and listened to just about everything HH so far, it has been long slog and to be honest it's good to see the light at the end of the tunnel. In spite of it's many flaws, the Horus Heresy started off strong and I have high hopes that it will end strong...… I'm stoked

[Izlude]

I was looking at the BL coming soon section and noticed that the March section use to have Book 1 for the Seige but not anymore...was this available as a pre-order already? I was planning on getting when it was available as pre-order but I assume this would be around March or so.

[cheywood]

I was looking at the BL coming soon section and noticed that the March section use to have Book 1 for the Seige but not anymore...was this available as a pre-order already? I was planning on getting when it was available as pre-order but I assume this would be around March or so.

Maybe they want to announce the release date at the HH weekender and it went up by mistake? Or they just put it up in the wrong month. BL website’s been a little inconsistent lately. I don’t think they’d put it up for preorder months in advance when other titles go on preorder about a week or two before the shipping date at most.

[Knockagh]

I was looking at the BL coming soon section and noticed that the March section use to have Book 1 for the Seige but not anymore...was this available as a pre-order already? I was planning on getting when it was available as pre-order but I assume this would be around March or so.

The conspiritor in me says they are going to move the date up. But I think it more likely they pulled it off as they seem to be moving towards releasing limited editions unannounced to boost sales. It worked with emperors spears.

[Noserenda]

Limited Editions suck for those of us who want to keep up but dont have money to burn :/ At least theyve shortened the margins a fair bit!

Im torn on having Abnett finish, i love his novels and world building but he is reeeeeaally bad at finishing books, especially recently. Which could work if the series finishes on the vengeful spirit and everything else is a new Scouring series but i do worry he will rush it again.

[Izlude]

I generally have avoided LE these days since they seemed overpriced for what you get (just hard cover). ABD's Emperor's spear was beautiful so got that one. Book 1 looks really slick plus the map...sounds pretty sweet.

[Ascanius]

Not wanting Dan Abnett to write the final book in the Siege of Terra series is one of those "Interesting, and what colour is the sky in your universe?" opinions to me.

 

I'm extremely excited for The Solar War and the only thing preventing me from shooting for the LE hardback is the certain knowledge I'll neither be able to afford it nor organised enough to buy it in time.

[DukeLeto69]

Im torn on having Abnett finish, i love his novels and world building but he is reeeeeaally bad at finishing books, especially recently. Which could work if the series finishes on the vengeful spirit and everything else is a new Scouring series but i do worry he will rush it again.

You see I think this "Abnett is bad at finishing books" has become a bit of an urban myth. He has without doubt been guilty of that a few times and Unremembered Empire is the best/worst example but... You said "especially recently" and I am intrigued by what you mean? Which books recently suffered with rushed endings?

[b1soul]

I still found Unremembered Empire highly readable...had no trouble finishing it.

 

I liked Horus Rising, Legion, Prospero Burns, and Know No Fear more, but UE wasn't bad. Still better (IMO) than any HH entry by Annandale, Kyme, Thorpe, or Swallow

[Scribe]

The bar for 'capstone on the Series that has ran for years and is central to the entire mythos' should not be 'readable'.

[Sothalor]

Sure, but the 'Series that has ran for years and is central to the entire mythos' gave us things like Battle for the Abyss, Deliverance Lost, Vulkan Lives, The Damnation of Pythos, Deathfire, Ruinstorm, and the mother of all cluster:cusss of limited editions combined with shorts released in a dozen formats and anthologies, and can't even be bothered to complete itself under its own series title, so I think 'readable' is probably the highest realistic bar to set at this point.

[b1soul]

@ Scribe

 

Yes...but I view Abnett's assignment as a guarantee Nick Kyme won't be capping off the series

[Scribe]

@ Scribe

 

Yes...but I view Abnett's assignment as a guarantee Nick Kyme won't be capping off the series

 

Yeah but why not shoot for the stars, and have ADB, or French, or Wraight? Someone who actually fundamentally 'gets' 30K/40K?

 

Either way, it is what it is.

[b1soul]

Wraight or ADB would be incredible. French would be the runner-up IMO.

 

I feel that Dan does get 40K...he's just too outside-the-box for his own good sometimes

[Kelborn]

And keep in mind that we actually don't know yet, what exactly the book will cover.

 

Could either be that, for example, Aaron gets the Emperor/Horus fight including Sangi's sacrifice and Dan writes about the aftermath: Dorn placing Him on the throne, the remaining sons return, Primarchs on the edge and what to do next, etc.

 

His entire novel could be to take most of the narrative strings/arcs and conclude them, making it a novelized end of the series. And not ending the HH in the last two chapters of a single book.

[b1soul]

Excellent Kelborn...that could indeed be the case, and would make sense too

[DarkChaplain]

Sure, but the 'Series that has ran for years and is central to the entire mythos' gave us things like Battle for the Abyss, Deliverance Lost, Vulkan Lives, The Damnation of Pythos, Deathfire, Ruinstorm, and the mother of all cluster:cusss of limited editions combined with shorts released in a dozen formats and anthologies, and can't even be bothered to complete itself under its own series title, so I think 'readable' is probably the highest realistic bar to set at this point.

 

Deliverance Lost especially I found quite enjoyable, if flawed. It did exceptionally well with its running themes in the main. It kept the reader guessing about the infiltrators, for one, while on a re-read, you'll notice that Gav has placed many little hints and general foreshadowing all throughout.

While the labyrinth scene felt dragged out to me, I can't say that the book was bad. I wasn't particularly excited over it the first time around, but having re-read it in early 2017 (iirc), especially with the benefit of hindsight, just before reading Corax as a fully-realized numbered entry, I admit I've gotten fond of it.

 

As for the "Abnett bad at finishing", I have a bunch to point to, including more recent titles.

 

The Eisenhorn trilogy, for one, ends with a rapid blast through the final chapter(s), after a bit of a timeskip, in Hereticus. It ends just after the final duel between Gregor and the Big Bad.

Prospero Burns, as neat as it was in itself, also turned what was supposed to be the novel's premise into a brief section at the end, before closing with a highly ambiguous scene.

Know No Fear ends right at the climax of the battle for Calth, and basically just stops then and there.

The Unremembered Empire I have elaborated on earlier.

The Magos again rushes the end, again skipping parts of the climax after taking forever to get there.

I Am Slaughter basically skipped chunks again to cut the end short. Yes, it was a series opener and a cliffhanger is to be expected, but it really didn't feel fully realized to me.

 

Looking over his works, they frequently involve timeskips to reach the end point, often cutting out the peak of the climax, or to quickly get a character from where he ended up in the writing process to where he needs to be for Abnett to wrap things up. He spends a great deal of time building up the characters and setting, but often to the detriment of the novel's pacing in the finishing stages. As much as I love most of his books, these days I go in expecting a quick, flash-forward conclusion, rather than a properly wrapped story as-is.

[TheRealMcCagh]

I kind of like the way all the Eisenhorn/Ravenor books ended. The climax is almost always a fight, and I'm not usually looking for a twenty page long sword fight. There are only so many ways you can say they smacked their swords together without getting repetitive. I'd rather have it slowly unravel throughout the book, then finish off once the full picture is revealed. Like when he assaults the planet with the Deathwatch squad (was that Xenos I think?) or his fight with Quixos. I had read Magos before Pariah, which kind of killed the mystery of it, so if there was a similar problem with Pariah I missed it.

[Marshal Loss]

And keep in mind that we actually don't know yet, what exactly the book will cover.

 

Could either be that, for example, Aaron gets the Emperor/Horus fight including Sangi's sacrifice and Dan writes about the aftermath: Dorn placing Him on the throne, the remaining sons return, Primarchs on the edge and what to do next, etc.

 

His entire novel could be to take most of the narrative strings/arcs and conclude them, making it a novelized end of the series. And not ending the HH in the last two chapters of a single book.

 

That's a reasonable suggestion, but I can't see them not having the the climactic duel in the final novel. Think about it from a marketing perspective; you want the Siege of Terra to end with a bang, not a whimper. The headline act will be in the final book.

[Fedor]

I think some of the early Gaunt's Ghosts  books had his most rushed endings. Necropolis in particular. That's a series i just couldn't get into, a tame Sharpe in space homage that didn't really feel very 40k, at least in those early books. I gave up at Guns of Tanith.

[carlisimo]

Don’t forget Titanicus.

 

I still trust him with the finale, though.

[Tymell]

 

@ Scribe

 

Yes...but I view Abnett's assignment as a guarantee Nick Kyme won't be capping off the series

 

Yeah but why not shoot for the stars, and have ADB, or French, or Wraight? Someone who actually fundamentally 'gets' 30K/40K?

 

Either way, it is what it is.

 

 

I can't say I've ever read anything of Dan Abnett's that made me feel he doesn't "get" the setting. Even when his works do feel different, it's never felt (to me) like anything about the setting was changed or wrong, just that he's capable of (and usually pretty good at) writing from different perspectives or with different ideas. I'll take that over a predictable story that constrains itself to the strict boundaries of what's considered typical.

 

Ultimately, everyone has their favourites. I love ADB's work, but I know some take issue with his portrayal of the Emperor, and thus might have just as much problem with him handling the ending as you do with Abnett doing it. French and Wraight are both authors I'd consider high quality, but even they have works I like less, and I'm sure that's the case for others too. No author is perfect, so there's no "right" choice for the one to finish it. Personally, I do like the symmetry of Abnett wrapping it up, but I'd also be perfectly happy with any of those others doing it too.