Buried Dagger: Doom of the Death Guard

[1000 Sons]

Eisenstein was the only good Death Guard book, all the rest, including this one, they are just bumbling moustache twirling bad guys. Like others have said, it's a shame the Heresy ends with this tire fire. The knight-errant story line was so much better.

[Ascanius]

I have to say though, I like that Swallow structured the book in 7 and 7 chapters and a coda at the end. You know, with 7 being the number of Nurgle and all that. Seven chapters, seven intervals. It's thematic, if nothing else.

 

Even better, aren't the seven intervals all split into "Now" and "Before", which means there are three groups of seven?

[Ascanius]

My main gripe is more that it flies in the face of just how alien the overlords were in prior fluff. As in, it just overturns really good evocative fluff to give some dubious flavour to a character.

 

I kind of thought both Typhon's heritage and Malcador's genetically modified confidant were kind of winks to the Rogue Trader-era background where the Ultramarines had a half-Eldar librarian.

 

If you're worried about Typhon's overlord parentage, I'd suggest that their genetic deviance from the human norm was within acceptable limits (and involved a degree of awakened psychic talent) but that the overlords, as a "race", extended their lives and changed their forms with Nurgley goodness - which wouldn't be passed on sufficient to corrupt Typhon's genetics. *shrug*

[1ncarnadine]

Finished this on audio last night.

 

Not a fan. Not at all. I'm only going to be referring to the Death Guard sections from here on, as that was what I'm personally invested in. The Knights Errant sections were relatively fine (except for that stupid, stupid hate-bomb silliness), but I don't really care about the founding of the Grey Knights or Garro.

But those Death Guard sections... Well, I'll throw my rant in spoilers:

I think this book did a massive amount of damage to things I would have preferred were left ambiguous. There's very little that benefited from being touched by Swallow.

Typhon is utterly absurd. I saw somewhere that in an interview on WHTV's twitch, James Swallow referred to Mortarion and Typhon as a father-son relationship. I think that's kind of a neat idea! It could be used to illustrate how Mortarion keeps giving Typhon a pass. And how could Typhon be a more perfect son of Mortarion than to resent and seek to overthrow a father? I just wish I could see that in this book, because I read that before listening and I was looking for it. Sorry Jim, if that was what you were going for, I don't think it came across.

The struggle on Barbarus felt rushed and trivialized. The DG section in the Betrayal black book makes repeated mention of the feral population of Barbarus, yet we end up with Typhon flying around in a a steampunk airship, there are "wandering tech-nomads" (wat), and "Dural" Rask (jfc that persistent typo) is the guy that made the OG Death Guard suits? There are so many references elsewhere to Mortarion's totalitarianism and his tinkering. It felt like he was reduced to "just" the general who led them. There's a great bit in Betrayal's section detailing the tip of the iceberg of the horrifying menagerie that the Overlords employed, yet here we mostly just see.... "golems?" I felt no sense of horror in what Mortarion and the Barbarans have to deal with. The description of one Overlord late in the book actually came across to me as comical. 

 

As for the fall itself... I can echo some of the same points above. Rushed, little tension, little horror, no interesting conflicts, interchangeable characters. 

On the plus side, I thought Mortarion's character was well-done at times, and the actual moment of his fall flickering between his moment on Necare's mountain was admittedly kind of neat. Otherwise, this was a load of reductive junk. The Death Guard would have been better off without a fall novel at all. 

 

As a final aside (I'm done griping I swear!) It's also interesting to see that Swallow is not writing a Siege novel, because he did set up a Garro/Mortarion Siege confrontation here. I guess he's passed that baton off, possibly to Chris Wraight? Nice.

 

 

 

My main gripe is more that it flies in the face of just how alien the overlords were in prior fluff. As in, it just overturns really good evocative fluff to give some dubious flavour to a character.

 

I kind of thought both Typhon's heritage and Malcador's genetically modified confidant were kind of winks to the Rogue Trader-era background where the Ultramarines had a half-Eldar librarian.

 

If you're worried about Typhon's overlord parentage, I'd suggest that their genetic deviance from the human norm was within acceptable limits (and involved a degree of awakened psychic talent) but that the overlords, as a "race", extended their lives and changed their forms with Nurgley goodness - which wouldn't be passed on sufficient to corrupt Typhon's genetics. *shrug*

 

 

Yeah this is definitely one of my gripes, too. It would have been so easy to keep it mysterious. As an example, what if Typhon's mother was seen taken by the Overlords and was found again by the villagers having lost her mind and carrying a child? Wouldn't that have been fine? I feel like a lot of work has been done by other authors over the years to keep this open-ended, and James Swallow rashly ended the possibilities. 

Edited March 20, 2019 by LetsYouDown

[mc warhammer]

“rashly ended the possibilities” sums up my response to prior swallow work

 

man, i was actually rooting for this book but you’ve all bummed me out

[Tymell]

I was reading the short "Verdict of the Scythe" today, and it got me thinking of even more things I dislike about Buried Dagger in hindsight. Like how the concept of sorcery and Mortarion's hatred of it barely comes up (even in the flashbacks to his time on Barbarus, where it was more about the Overlords' experiments than psyker abilities), or how we've had so many references (over literal years) to Typhon's time away, Mortarion wanting to bring him back...and that all really added up to nothing. Typhon could've been away for a decade devoting himself to Papa Nurgle or a month working on his tan for all the difference it feels like it makes.

[DarkChaplain]

Not just that, but The Path of Heaven directly teases a proper confrontation with Calas Typhon. Mortarion is increasingly upset about his subordination.

 

 

‘I thought Typhon yours [your shadow].’

Mortarion hacked a contemptuous cough. ‘Who knows what Calas does, or where he is? I seek him myself. If you should run across him, be sure to tell me.’

 

 

But what of Typhon? That element, at least, had eluded his control. Calas emerged ever more often in Mortarion’s fevered dreams, marching at the head of Legion detachments he barely recognised. There would have to be a reckoning with Typhon before the assault on Terra. The Legion had become too distributed, too caught up in the sprawl of the burning galaxy.

 

 

‘First Captain Typhon may not have received the summons, lord,’ he said, his voice a low growl.

Mortarion shot him an acid look. ‘Oh, he received them. This is the first order he has actually defied. What do I make of that? Has he recanted his choice?’

 

 

Calas’ absence nagged at him, spoiling like a poison embedded in wine. There had never been any explanation, just a sudden silence, echoing through the void. Typhon might have been killed, though that was hard to imagine. Even harder was the thought that he had turned to some other cause. That was surely impossible. What other cause existed for them now?

 

and the book ends with Mortarion wanting Eidolon to take him to Typhon.

 

 

Mortarion looked down at Eidolon, at his finery and his debauchery, and his weakness and his strength, and felt sickened by it all.

‘So take me to my First Captain,’ he said. ‘Bring me Calas Typhon.’

 

 

And what did The Buried Dagger give us? Typhon just appears with his fleet, kills Mortarion's target for execution willy nilly, and goes "Hello there", then has a short chat that feels just sloppy and Mortarion... agrees to board his ship without even chewing him out first? Oh, right, you were on a spiritual journey, don't worry, it's okay you missed well over half the bloody war to do your own thing.

The entirety of The Buried Dagger doesn't even mention Eidolon in passing. It's like Swallow just completely ignored the plot strands set up over the past 5 years.

[Marshal Loss]

Another excellent example of why so many of us desperately wanted Wraight to handle the doom of the DG. :P

[Tymell]

Aye, there was also a bit in The Soul, Severed where Eidolon says he helped Mortarion "find something he'd lost". It could maybe refer to the Khan, but Typhon seemed to fit better.

[1ncarnadine]

Yep. Swallow either wrote this in isolation after skimming the Betrayal DG section, or talked to other authors and did more research and decided he'd do his own thing, to our great misfortune.

[Fedor]

Buried Dagger and Crimson King were definitely two books that had a vibe that made me feel like the authors were doing their own thing and had maybe drifted away from being as in touch with the overall happenings in the HH series/40k in general as they were earlier. Though that might just be me projecting what i know of Graham mainly working for LoL now and Swallow with all his other tie-in work and original novel success.

 

As well as not picking on where Path of Heaven set Mortarion up, descriptions of the overlords don't match well at all with what Wraight had expanded on, nor did Barbarus feel anything like it was described in the Forgeworld lore. Crimson King was just plain odd with the way it went down a very similar shards plot as French had with Ahriman.

Edited March 21, 2019 by Fedor

[DarkChaplain]

McNeill actually admitted that he hadn't read Ahriman: Unchanged yet when he wrote The Crimson King, so discrepancies are unsurprising. He really missed his moment by having the writing drag on for as long as it did, and I can't imagine communication being nearly as smooth as before, with him overseas and what not.

 

But Swallow was at more recent author roundtables with the rest of the crew, wasn't he? He should have been better involved and picked up on more of the details laid out. Heck, I can't help but think that this may have had better oversight if it had still been a work under Laurie's editorial oversight. It just feels like such an anticlimactic letdown.

[Moonreaper666]

McNeill actually admitted that he hadn't read Ahriman: Unchanged yet when he wrote The Crimson King, so discrepancies are unsurprising. He really missed his moment by having the writing drag on for as long as it did, and I can't imagine communication being nearly as smooth as before, with him overseas and what not.

 

But Swallow was at more recent author roundtables with the rest of the crew, wasn't he? He should have been better involved and picked up on more of the details laid out. Heck, I can't help but think that this may have had better oversight if it had still been a work under Laurie's editorial oversight. It just feels like such an anticlimactic letdown.

Who else is responsible for oversight besides Laurie?

[DarkChaplain]

Not sure, but Laurie left... 2? years ago

[Biscuittzz]

 

I have to say though, I like that Swallow structured the book in 7 and 7 chapters and a coda at the end. You know, with 7 being the number of Nurgle and all that. Seven chapters, seven intervals. It's thematic, if nothing else.

 

Even better, aren't the seven intervals all split into "Now" and "Before", which means there are three groups of seven?

 

 

It seems more thought went into this by the author than the actual story itself.

[1ncarnadine]

It's just struck me that there was probably a heavy-handed Lord of the Flies reference in the Lord of the Flies' dialogue. I'm not checking again (through audio...) but can anyone verify via ebook? He said something like "I'm within all of you" at some point right? Or am I misremembering

[Tymell]

It's just struck me that there was probably a heavy-handed Lord of the Flies reference in the Lord of the Flies' dialogue. I'm not checking again (through audio...) but can anyone verify via ebook? He said something like "I'm within all of you" at some point right? Or am I misremembering

 

I had a look just now, but couldn't find anything. I tried a search for "within you"/"within all", then skimmed through Lord of Flies' dialogue (easy thanks to the bold text for him :p ), but couldn't see anything of that sort. But I also haven't read Lord of the Flies, so maybe I missed something.

[1ncarnadine]

one of the themes from Lord of the Flies is that there's a beast within men ("maybe there is a beast on this island... maybe it's only us")

But yeah, I must have confabulated that. Thank you for checking for me!

Edited March 23, 2019 by LetsYouDown

[Charlo]

Finished it earlier. I really enjoyed it!

 

The Death Guard have always been tragic and this story is just that, a grand tragedy. You really get some powerful emotion from Mortarion at the 11th (14th?) hour as he is left without any choice in how to proceed and his entire world crumbles around him.

 

The opening with them subjugating a world was fantastic and I liked the stuff about Barbaros and Mortarion's early life a great deal - I could basically picture how awful it was and had a great sense of it all while listening.

 

From the sounds of it a lot of people were expecting a grand story about the Death Guard but this was never really going to be that, was it? We already knew they get all Nurgle'd in the warp on the way to Terra - it was just codifying these events as part of the series... And I think it was done brilliantly! Sadly, the DG haven't gotten any real attention in the heresy or any cool characters, just cameos in other books. It's a shame, but that wasn't about to change during the last book of the series.

 

The Knights Errant stuff was fine. Good to have those threads tied up and the bit with Rubio and Malcador in the dungeons was a blast.

 

Funnily enough, I'd give it a 7/10.

[1ncarnadine]

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Judging by the reviews on amazon, goodreads etc, yours is the majority take

 

From the sounds of it a lot of people were expecting a grand story about the Death Guard but this was never really going to be that, was it? We already knew they get all Nurgle'd in the warp on the way to Terra - it was just codifying these events as part of the series... And I think it was done brilliantly! Sadly, the DG haven't gotten any real attention in the heresy or any cool characters, just cameos in other books. It's a shame, but that wasn't about to change during the last book of the series.

 

but man, this is really condescending. I don't think you understand what I expected. I think you're brushing the criticisms under the rug. And are you actually implying I should be happy with the story we got because we knew what would happen?? Knowing what happens is true of a lot of the Heresy, but that doesn't mean a story has to suffer. And it absolutely could have changed in the last book. I can name several books where characters shine despite being given a limited page count, and I'm sure you can too. I don't think the length the Death Guard were given in the book is the problem, either, FWIW.

Edited March 31, 2019 by LetsYouDown

[bluntblade]

There is another detail in Path of Heaven, which I was thinking might get used. Ever since Molech, disease is there in the bowels of Mortarion's ships, and I was thinking that'd be the byproduct of Grulgor and all Mortarion's other sorcerous dabbling.

 

Hence Eidolon's remark about Mortarion deferring the gods. So is that in there, or does the Destroyer plague just suddenly happen?

[1ncarnadine]

There is another detail in Path of Heaven, which I was thinking might get used. Ever since Molech, disease is there in the bowels of Mortarion's ships, and I was thinking that'd be the byproduct of Grulgor and all Mortarion's other sorcerous dabbling.

 

Hence Eidolon's remark about Mortarion deferring the gods. So is that in there, or does the Destroyer plague just suddenly happen?

 

I'm pretty sure the creeping disease in the Endurance, reflecting that the actions of the Death Guard are resonating in the warp, is glossed over. We don't spend time on the Endurance in this book at all. It's mostly on the Terminus Est. There's actually a point after the Destroyer starts spreading where they mention that the Endurance is one of the ships that hasn't had any outbreaks yet.

[bluntblade]

Par for the course, it seems. This just gets more frustrating.

[aa.logan]

I’ve just speed-listened to this and Titandeath in order to read the Solar War, and waded through the threads on both to gauge the reaction.

 

Maybe I’m not as emotionally involved as some folk, but I liked this book. It managed to surprise me (the business with Rubio maybe wouldn’t have worked as well with a bunch of foreshadowing?) and entertain me. I listened to it, but really really like Keeble’s Voice work for Wintor, and his role in Malcador’s life added lots of depth to a character who has been getting more focus of late but who has largely been, fittingly, in the shadows.

 

I really dug the delve into Mortarion’s youth too- it’s left me wondering where the Primarchs novel for him will go since it explored his motivations and rationale pretty comprehensively. He trusts Typhon for the same reason that Corax trusts his comrades from the revolution, Russ his tribesmen, the Khan his lieutenants from the steppes and why Angron still mournes his fellow gladiators- these early bonds *matter*; the Primarchs are demigods, and as such are heightened and exaggerated versions of humanity, emotions are stronger and attachments equally so. The bond of shared history can be enough to forgive all kinds of transgressions and overlook many flaws.

[bluntblade]

Maybe, but as DC noted above, a whole thread of foreshadowing is woven through a prior book, all about Mortarion's growing distrust of Typhon and leading up to a confrontation.