Thoughts about the HH anthologies/collections?

[b1soul]

Man...I have really fallen behind with these.

 

Please share your thoughts about the quality of each of these (or provide a rating/score if you'd like). Also, please share your thoughts about which stories in each anthology are the stand-out bests.

 

I stopped following up with the anthologies after Shadows of Treachery...but I've recently gone through some of them and there are some gems.

 

Anthologies:

Tales of Heresy

Age of Darkness

Shadows of Treachery

Mark of Calth

Legacies of Betrayal

War Without End

Eye of Terra

The Silent War

Corax

Garro

Shattered Legions

Tallarn

The Burden of Loyalty

Born of Flame

Heralds of the Siege

 

Collections:

Angron

The Imperial Truth

Sedition's Gate

Echoes of Ruin

Death and Defiance

Blades of the TraitorMeduson

Betrayal at Calth

Echoes of the Imperium

Virtues of the Sons/Sins of the Father

Echoes of Revelation

Sons of the Emperor

[Roomsky]

I'd count Corax and Tallarn as novels. While technically anthologies, the stories are best read together and create a compelling enough overall narrative. Tallarn especially is ace if you're a fan of John French, it's the only "anthology" I've collected in hardback. Can't cover them all today, and I don't think an average rating would be especially fair. I've underlined the ones I've collected myself / not donated.

 

Tales of Heresy - Doesn't hold up especially well, IMO. After Desh'ea is awesome, but many of the stories are outdated/retconned, and The Last Church is pretty lazy in its theology. 

 

Age of Darkness - A true mixed bag. Most of the later stories are really good, I love Little Horus and Savage Weapons especially. To get there though, you need to put up with some truly awful Ultramarine drivel, James Swallow's immense oversimplification of sending an entire planet into disarray, and Nick Kyme. The good probably outweighs the bad, all told.

 

Shadows of Treachery - A pretty excellent anthology. Not huge on Mcneill's truncating the Night Haunter turning renegade, but everything else is quite good. Don't skip this one.

 

Mark of Calth - Today's theme is that Graham Mcneill ruins everything. Calth that Was is basically terrible, with flat and completely incompetent Word Bearers, and none of the meaningful energy Abnett brought to Know no Fear. Everything else is alright, bar The Traveller. While I've been coming around to Annandale, that's probably his worst piece.

 

Legacies of Betrayal - A must buy for Brotherhood of the Storm alone, as nothing else is offensive. I'm not a fan of Honour to the Dead in prose, but it's bearable enough for some of the other gems from the usual suspects.

[Orwell84]

Tales of Heresy: I'll second Roomsky's opinion that 'After Desh'ea' is the best piece while 'The Last Church' was really just a tired rehash of atheist dogma. As to the rest of the stories, 'Call of the Lion' was a nice tie-in with Angels of Darkness, ditto for 'Scions of the Storm' and Reynold's Word Bearers work, and 'Blood Games' is a decent look at the Custodes and how the Loyalists on Terra might work at cross-purposes with each other.

 

Age of Darkness: Not a fan of McNeill or Kyme's stories. 'Savage Weapons', 'Little Horus' and 'The Last Remembrancer' were my three favs in the piece, with 'The Iron Within' and 'Liar's Due' leaving favourable impressions as well.

 

Shadows of Treachery: The two novellas in this piece each outrank many a full novel in quality, IMHO. 'Death of a Silversmith' was one of McNeill's stories I liked, not so much the other two.

 

Legacies of Betrayal: Definitely Brotherhood of the Storm as the stand-out work in this collection. Other stories that left a favourable impression were 'Warmaster' and 'Butcher's Nails'.

 

War Without End: 'Twisted', 'Daemonology' and 'Lord of the Red Sands' were the standouts in this one.

[bluntblade]

I have to put my hand up and say I don't get the point of Death of a Silversmith at all.

 

Second the Brotherhood of the Storm remarks. Burden of Loyalty is alright, though Binary Succession didn't wow me as it did some others.

[SchultzChaos]

Shadows of Treachery is a must read if only because of 'Prince of Crows' and 'Crimson Fist', both tales that really emphazises the best of the Heresy's storytelling. 

[Sandlemad]

I'd count Corax and Tallarn as novels. While technically anthologies, the stories are best read together and create a compelling enough overall narrative. Tallarn especially is ace if you're a fan of John French, it's the only "anthology" I've collected in hardback. Can't cover them all today, and I don't think an average rating would be especially fair. I've outlined the ones I've collected myself / not donated.

 

Carrying on from Roomsky's point about Corax and Tallarn, it also feels slightly weird to elevate an anthology for the novellas they contain. Brotherhood of the Storm, Wolf King, Crimson Fist, these tend to be the best things in their respective anthologies but they also feel like they have an independent existence as well? More so than the shorts.

 

Can't disagree with what's been said about the earlier books, though I feel that 'Blood Games' from Tales of Heresy stands up very well and that the good in Age of Darkness just about outweighed the bad.

 

Shadows of Treachery: very fine indeed, even if we were to ignore the two excellent novellas. 'The Lightning Tower' and 'Death of a Silversmith' are great and 'The Dark King' is decent. To my mind it's better than Abnett's later depiction of Curze, if not as good as ADB's.

 

Mark of Calth: Missed opportunity, this, despite some good stories. McNeill's story is dull bolter porn, Haley's is so-so despite the solid premise, Reynolds' is fine but probably looking forward to 40k a bit too much with its characters. Annandale's and Sanders' stories are solid impressionistic pieces that get across the grimness of an underground war through vaguely horror inflections. ADB's and French's stories are great, both slightly experimental in technique. ADB doing the 'it was all a dreeeam' sort of thing and actually making it work evocatively was impressive. French makes what could be a highschool writing exercise - "you are a doorknob ritual warp-dagger" - into a fine story with depth of time and prehistoric creepiness. Abnett's, eh. Well-written but the Oll Persson stuff still largely feels unnecessary.

 

Legacies of Betrayal and War Without End: probably the weakest anthologies as they are the most obviously roundups of various web-shorts and four/five page bits of flash fiction. Not entirely - if this is the only place you read Brotherhood of the Storm, that's still an absolutely fantastic novella - but these largely hew close to the idea of anthologies as thick paperbacks for folks who are going for the full shelf or who didn't sample the christmas collections. There's still a few (very short) gems though. 'Warmaster' and 'Butcher's Nails' in Legacies of Betrayal and 'Howl of the Hearthworld, 'Hands of the Emperor' and 'Daemonology' in War Without End are all decent-to-good.

 

Eye of Terra: Fairly slim pickings. Aurelian is obviously great, 'Ironfire' is insane unsophisticated fun, 'Vorax' is surprisingly good for something that might as well be an extended codex unit description. The two adapted audiodramas are alright in prose but really work much better in the audio format, particularly in how 'The Eagle's Talon' works with pseudo-vox records. Other than that, nothing too memorable.

 

The Silent War: Some good stuff here. I quite like the Garro-adjacent stories, they seem to get the opportunity to show the death of innocence frequently enough. The Purge is a fine novella, one of the best non-ADB Word Bearer stories. 'Templar' is brilliant. 'Distant Echoes of Old Night' and 'The Sigilite' are also standout.

 

Shattered Legions: Disappointing. The idea of the shattered legions was a great one, something like the WW2 resistance movements and an opportunity to go into detail on the small-scale impact of the heresy, so it's a shame that all the shorts added up to less than the sum of their parts. 'Grey Talon' was good though.

 

The Burden of Loyalty: A mixed bag, probably more mediocre/bad than good, but Wolf King elevates it. 'The Binary Sucession' is solid though and 'Ordo Sinister' is wonderfully evocative for something so short.

 

Heralds of the Siege: Obviously not out yet but we know what's in it. Bangers almost all the way through, this might be the best anthology in terms of pure quality and it even has a definite theme, focusing on the eve of the siege/where those who might not be at the siege will wind up. The short shorts - 'Now Peals Midnight', 'Magesterium' and 'Duty Waits' - are fantastic. Quiet, tense, completely forward-looking to the siege, they do a lot to set the stage. The adapted audodramas are also great, though I suspect 'The Soul, Severed' will probably suffer from not having screeching sonic weapons.

[Newtoncain]

Garro is worth the read.  All short stories, but all the same character.

[Fedor]

I'm pleased to have them as i didn't get a lot of the ebook and limited edition stuff.  I get the feeling a number of the stories will work better on a more chronologically structured re-read of the series. but a good job was done with the compiling for the most part.

 

The Dark King by McNeill is an odd one. The Night Haunter slaughters a number of loyal astartes in it before going renegade, it's hard to imagine someone like Dorn ever forgiving that considering the unprovoked context, though i suppose there is stuff like the World Eaters vs Wolves confrontation to give a kind of precedent to legions moving on from killing each other.

 

That gap between the Night Haunter fleeing custody and showing up at the dropsite is one of those areas that could be quite interestingly explored if the HH remains open for new entries after the siege finishes.

[TheRealMcCagh]

The Primarchs was a mixed bag, if that counts as a collection/anthology. Feat of Iron was a bit of a struggle for me to get through, Reflection Crack'd is absolutely off the wall. The Lion was pretty good and Serpent Beneath has been one of my favorites so far

[DarkChaplain]

I'm pleased to have them as i didn't get a lot of the ebook and limited edition stuff.  I get the feeling a number of the stories will work better on a more chronologically structured re-read of the series. but a good job was done with the compiling for the most part.

 

The Dark King by McNeill is an odd one. The Night Haunter slaughters a number of loyal astartes in it before going renegade, it's hard to imagine someone like Dorn ever forgiving that considering the unprovoked context, though i suppose there is stuff like the World Eaters vs Wolves confrontation to give a kind of precedent to legions moving on from killing each other.

 

That gap between the Night Haunter fleeing custody and showing up at the dropsite is one of those areas that could be quite interestingly explored if the HH remains open for new entries after the siege finishes.

 

I mean, there is Artefacts by Nick Kyme from War Without End. It talks about how Vulkan, Horus and Jaghatai captured Curze after the events of The Dark King, and Horus tried to have his brothers rehabilitate Konrad, with Vulkan taking him first, later Dorn, in an attempt to mend their rift. After Davin, Horus apparently came around to the idea of using Curze as a weapon of terror rather than trying to change him, and while Vulkan disagrees, Curze is, at this point, not a renegade and has spent a good deal of time alongside his brothers before the Dropsite Massacre. Long enough to be part of the force going up against the Traitor Legions.

[Tymell]

Tales of Heresy: After Desh'ea remains one of the best stories in the entire series, and I respect The Last Church for the balls-y attempt, even if it could've been better developed. But Call of the Lion and Wolf at the Door are pretty poor. 7/10

 

Age of Darkness: Some really good stuff here in here, though also a few weaker entries, but I think more consistent than Tales. The Iron Within, The Last Remembrancer and Savage Weapons are all great, and I'd say Rebirth is the only real stumble (and an odd one for Chris Wraight). 7.5/10

 

Shadows of Treachery: A fair spread. Prince of Crows and Raven's Flight are highlights for me, but I really disliked The Lightning Tower's take on Dorn, and The Crimson Fist has some pacing issues. 7/10

 

The Primarchs: Pretty good, all told. I like Feat of Iron more than most, I think, though I also probably like The Serpent Beneath less so, Sanders' writing just doesn't gel with me. The Lion is okay, and I really enjoyed the continuation of Fulgrim in Reflection Crack'd. 7.5/10

 

Mark of Calth: A very "solid" anthology, with only one really bad story (A Deeper Darkness), but that aside, everything is consistently decent, with The Traveller being my personal favourite. 7/10

 

Legacies of Betrayal: As many already know, Brotherhood of the Storm was (and still is) the highlight here, the start of Chris Wraight's superb take on the Scars. Aside from that, this one runs the range from excellent (Warmaster, Khârn: The Eightfold Path, Butcher's Nails) to the crappy (Thief of Revelations, Cypher: Guardian of Order). 7/10

 

War Without End: Probably the best of the numbered anthologies in my opinion. All four of the separate anthologies that make this up are high quality: The Harrowing is the only one I'd give anything less than a 7 to, and Sermon of Exodus, The Devine Adoratrice, Gunsight, Howl of the Hearthworld, A Safe and Shadowed Place, Daemonology and Twisted more than make up for that. 8/10

 

Eye of Terra: There are some corkers in here (Aurelian, Iron Corpses and The Final Compliance of 63-14), but a lot of the work here hovers around the "passable, but nothing special" area. 7/10

 

The Silent War: Another one with a wide range. The Purge, The Sigillite, Child of Night and Templar are great looks into their respective central characters, some really nice work there, the sort of thing that suggests a whole different meaning to "The Silent War": the one going on in the minds of the combatants. But then you have disposable stuff like The Gates of Terra, Army of One and Distant Echoes of Old Night, which, even if not outright bad, contribute next to nothing. 7/10

 

Corax: Dominated by the three novellas of course, which do (I feel) get better as they go. Soulforge is forgettable, Ravenlord does the same sort of thing but better, and Weregeld works well with the tragedy of Corax's nature. Though the short Raptor is frustratingly bad. 6/10

 

Garro: Swallow's Garro stories have seemed pretty consistent in quality over the years, and even if they don't often blow the reader away, they're well done on the whole. I do have a slightly sour taste over this particular anthology due to the repeated insistence that "It's not just a collection, we've added lots of new material", which really just amounted to "a bit of tweaking here and there to make the stories fit together a little better", but it's still a decent book for those who haven't experienced the stories separately. 7.5/10

 

Shattered Legions: The Meduson shorts here have some good ones among them (The Keys of Hel, Unspoken, The Either, Grey Talon), but The Seventh Serpent is kind of a mess. 6.5/10

 

Tallarn: It's a shame, really. Executioner showed such promise, and remains a great novella. The "Siren" short is good too. And to be fair, Ironclad isn't truly -bad-, but it can be messy, confusing and hard to get invested in as much as you should. 7/10

 

The Burden of Loyalty: Wolf King and The Binary Succession are really good (even if the latter is better experienced in audio drama form), but Cybernetica and The Thirteenth Wolf are dross. 7/10

 

Born of Flame: I may not beat down on Nick Kyme's stuff as much as some, but I won't lie: his characterisation of the Salamanders, both as individual legionaries and the legion as a whole, has been sorely lacking. Like the novels, these novellas do improve as they go, but even Sons of the Forge is still only passable, and Promethean Sun is downright terrible. The best bit here is the short, Artefacts, which can be found in War Without End anyway. 5/10

 

Heralds of the Siege: This one contains The Grey Raven, which is my personal least favourite short in the entire series. However, that aside, this is actually a solid anthology, with a lot of really good tales of the later Heresy (The Last Son of Prospero, Magisterium, The Soul Severed, Now Peals Midnight, The Board is Set, Dark Compliance). 7.5/10

 

 

Most of the collections are covered in the above, but:

 

Betrayal at Calth: Meh. The Unburdened had some good ideas but dragged on for too long, while The Honoured was just awful. 5/10

 

Sons of the Emperor: One of the best anthologies in the series, possibly -the- best. Prince of Blood, The Abyssal Edge and The Emperor's Architect are among my favourite stories, and The Passing of Angels and Mercy of the Dragon are good too. Shadow of the Past is the only weak one here, and even that's not terrible, mostly just feeling rushed. 8.5/10

[Phoebus]

They vary in quality, and most of the reviews above sum things up well enough.

 

The two major failings of the anthologies don’t come down to the authors. The timing of their release, for one, was a mistake. In an effort to maximize sales, Black Library ensured that a significant portion of the Horus Heresy series — to include stories whose plots and characters have an impact on numbered entries — was released out of order. Then there’s the perhaps even bigger problem: the anthologies maintained a microscopic view on the Heresy, focusing on a small minority of the Legiones Astartes and in a tiny portion of the galactic landscape of the conflict. In short, they were the least ambitious portion of a very ambitious project.

[Fedor]

 

I'm pleased to have them as i didn't get a lot of the ebook and limited edition stuff.  I get the feeling a number of the stories will work better on a more chronologically structured re-read of the series. but a good job was done with the compiling for the most part.

 

The Dark King by McNeill is an odd one. The Night Haunter slaughters a number of loyal astartes in it before going renegade, it's hard to imagine someone like Dorn ever forgiving that considering the unprovoked context, though i suppose there is stuff like the World Eaters vs Wolves confrontation to give a kind of precedent to legions moving on from killing each other.

 

That gap between the Night Haunter fleeing custody and showing up at the dropsite is one of those areas that could be quite interestingly explored if the HH remains open for new entries after the siege finishes.

 

I mean, there is Artefacts by Nick Kyme from War Without End. It talks about how Vulkan, Horus and Jaghatai captured Curze after the events of The Dark King, and Horus tried to have his brothers rehabilitate Konrad, with Vulkan taking him first, later Dorn, in an attempt to mend their rift. After Davin, Horus apparently came around to the idea of using Curze as a weapon of terror rather than trying to change him, and while Vulkan disagrees, Curze is, at this point, not a renegade and has spent a good deal of time alongside his brothers before the Dropsite Massacre. Long enough to be part of the force going up against the Traitor Legions.

 

 

I have War Without End and must have accidentally skipped over reading this. Sounds interesting.

[b1soul]

I think I forgot to include The Primarchs. I actually did read that one, but thought most of the stories were rather meh

[Jareddm]

I'm gonna go against the grain and say Shattered Legions was one of my favorite anthologies, but with a caveat.  I read it when it was Meduson and the addition of The Seventh Serpent does not do it any favors.  So I'm throwing it out.  For me, every story in it other then Immortal Duty felt like it was adding something to the Heresy that I hadn't seen before.  Unforged and Unspoken especially I consider the best representation of the Salamanders outside of a FW Black Book.  Grey Talon was a key link between several prior strong stories and includes one of my favorite lines in all of the Heresy.

[Roomsky]

A lot of great thoughts here. Continuing my own list:

 

War Without End:

 

Nothing truly exceptional, but a nice, even quality across the board. Oddly, everything in here by Nick Kyme is quite readable. More than most though, this feels like a "throw everything in but the kitchen sink" sort of anthology, the splay of tiny gaps it fills in is kind of astounding. Worth a go.

 

Eye of Terra

 

Another very solid catchup anthology, filled out better by a novella this time (and it's Aurelian, so grab that shiz). Audios are of course never quite as good in prose, but overall its a set of very solid stories. Again, no standout bad pieces mean its a safe grab.

 

The Silent War

 

Happily moving on to the themed anthologies, this has more than enough standout pieces to warrant a buy. The Purge is great, Swallow fares far better in shorts, and I love me all that John French. Fluff like Wolf Hunt and Army of One are easy to forgive, and the only awful piece is The Watcher.

 

Garro

 

Stick to the audios, if you must have more Garro. Inconsistencies abound with some truly remarkable travel time, events being longer or shorter than they should be, and Malcador's useless omniscience. The audiodramas, at the very least, have some spectacle. Give it a skip.

[Marshal Loss]

Tallarn & Sons of the Emperor are the only ones I'm really fond of. The rest all have some stories in them I like and others I dislike.

[Xisor]

I have to put my hand up and say I don't get the point of Death of a Silversmith at all.

 

Second the Brotherhood of the Storm remarks. Burden of Loyalty is alright, though Binary Succession didn't wow me as it did some others.

For what it's worth, The Binary Succession is for listening.

 

I don't think reading it (when there's a possibility of listening) is a wise choice.

 

I prefer prose to audio in almost all situations.

 

But the Binary Succession is a case where the written version might as well be nonexistent (save for accessibility purposes).

 

Well, maybe I'm just too big a fan of the audio.

 

----

 

I'm pleased to see I'm not alone in being aggrieved at McNeill's short fiction.

 

I'm typically a big fan of anthologies and compilations for their variety and ingenuity, with strict quality being an easily dismissed aspect. (If only one or two are 'good for me', I usually enjoy the entire anthology, and enjoy the diversion of shorts that I don't especially care for, out of enjoying the variety beyond my own very not-universal/not-objective tastes rather than bias.)

 

But McNeill's ones challenge even my desire for variety, because they take up space and are usually invariant in the extreme. His Calth contribution stood out egregiously - very long and very boring, with nothing remarkable about it. (In contrast to the Calth duology books, which weren't amazing [apologies to Rob!], but we're at least engaging yarns.)

 

To think that McNeill's Calth could have been replaced with two or three credible shorts from other (perhaps new!) contributors to the Heresy, and it just makes me a bit sad.

 

Otherwise - I really love the anthologies. I've a lot of time for them.

 

"War Without End" and "The Silent War" were mighty engaging too. Some really beautiful pieces in amongst them.

 

I was even surprised to find myself massively enjoying Corax, Garro and Tallarn, which whilst mono-author sets, Llowed the authors themselves to play with a few episodes of stories in a more free and imaginative way than the given author writing a specific single novel tends to provide.

 

So even this late in the day: Yes, 10/10, more anthologies!

 

Less Angel Exterminatus, Fear to Tread, the second Vulkan novel, etc.

[Roomsky]

Shattered Legions

 

Not perfect by any means, but I quite liked this one for how it handles the titular legions. That is to say, a mural of small stories for small players in the events at large. I'm still frustrated Vulkan got 3 books and a novella anthology, considering their relative importance to the Heresy. While I'm a defender of Pythos, the Iron Hand's post Istvaan depression is shown just as well here. It's all great character work in a fraction of the space of a novel, and I wish the shattered legions kept to the realm of shorts as is so well shown here. The seventh Serpent is passable, doesn;t really add or take away anything from when this was Meduson.

 

The Burden of Loyalty

 

Decent enough, Wolf King is of course the standout. I don't mind Cybernetica at all, and the accompanying shorts are pretty good. Definitely listen to The Binary Succession as well though, you are missing out to do otherwise, much as I prefer prose myself. 

 

Born of Flame

 

Lol.

 

Heralds of the Siege

 

The series' final anthology is probably its best. It's not without middle-of-the-road fare like Valerius, but it the number of standout stories is impressive. I won't list them, because they are most of this anthology. Definitely pick this one up.

[aa.logan]

I’m a fan of more of the anthologies than not; at the very least they all contain a story or two that really adds depth to the Heresy- some which I’ve enjoyed more than full novels.

 

I’m one of the saps who bought all of the limited edition novellas, and perhaps demonstrating I’ve far more money than sense have enjoyed re-reading them when compiled- their rerelease serves as a nice prompt to look at the stories again.

 

When I read Mark of Calth I was sort of wavering on the series, getting a bit bored but this really pulled me back into it. Can’t recall any of the stories in particular, but as a collection it hung together really well.

 

My favourite though might have been Meduson- the original books perhaps moved on too fast from Istvaan for my liking, so revisiting the massacre was more than welcome. The stories in it really explain the mindsets of both sides and explore the consequences of the betrayal in a way that the original sequence didn’t.

[Xisor]

Shattered Legions

 

Not perfect by any means, but I quite liked this one for how it handles the titular legions. That is to say, a mural of small stories for small players in the events at large. I'm still frustrated Vulkan got 3 books and a novella anthology, considering their relative importance to the Heresy.

It's doubly galling considering the sheer quality of the likes of Guy Haley's Salamanders stories, or the place they get as supporting cast in other stories (Wraight's springs to mind). The closest Nick gets on that is in "Scorched Earth", and even then it's a bit heavy handed.

 

I've always been keen to see what happened to the Salamanders (personal interest), but that itch isn't really scratched in any of the Vulkan stories.

 

Maybe I should have been more careful what I wish for!

 

(Nonsense. The Sigilite and Master of Mankind could have been written directly for me. Like some sort of mad billionaire commissioning them directly for an audience of one. Precisely what I wished for! Albeit, I probably wouldn't have stopped at two...)