Buried Dagger: Doom of the Death Guard

[Bulwyf]

I finished reading half the book last night. Thanks to being warned in here that literally half the book (it is actually a little over half) is completely wasted on Garro/proto GK nonsense I was able to skip that entirely.

 

This novel further reinforces what I have said for years: the worst Black Library writer was C.S. Goto (here's a small list of why https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/7beon5/why_the_hate_for_csgoto/ ) and James Swallow is a very, very close second. They are in fact the only two BL authors who simply are bad at writing. They may be great people individually but judged on the merit of their works? Ugh. The poop emoji was invented for their combined efforts.

 

I give this book 2/10. It isn't the worst BL novel I have ever read but it is definitely the worst HH novel I have read. That the HH ends with this complete turd is a shame. When it was announced before that Chris Wraight who has been nothing short of amazing writing Death Guard would not be writing this novel I was disappointed. When it was announced James Swallow was writing it I had to reach for a bottle of amasec er Scotch, single malt, aged 17 years.

 

There sadly is not enough finely aged Scotch to make this book slide down easier. Mortarion is reduced to a present timeline bumbling buffoon contrasted with an emo kid in the past. My non fathers never really loved me! I had to breathe toxic air and go to my room at 8 pm and missed out on Jane's party! Why can't I go down to the village and play with the other kids?

 

This is the worst portrayal of Mortarion since C.S. Goto's Heart of Mortarion. I never thought as a DG fan I would be subjected to such terrible depictions of one of the most awesome and flat out cool primarchs in the setting. But sadly here we are. Mortarion blindly trusts Typhus despite Typhus being a psyker...being gone for years with his own splinter fleet...demanding that Mortarion travel in Typhus's ship instead of his own...killing all the Fleet's Navigators while Mortarion stood there and did nothing to prevent it.

 

I can keep going but no one, absolutely no one, would have allowed Typhus to do the things he did in this novel. They even retconned Typhus from being a Terran and psyker that always hated Mortarion for hating psykers and Terrans to being...a half breed xenos from Barbarus. That's right folks: the Imperium with its well known love for all things Xenos especially in the Great Crusade era somehow missed Typhus blood work and DNA work that showed he was only a half breed.

 

It isn't like they test those things before gene seed implantation. Or listened to literally any other human on the planet who all hated Typhus as being a half breed except for dumb ol' Morty who just loved his old friend thaaaaaaaat much. Typhus the half breed who is revealed has always had Nurgle whispering in his mind since the Barbarus Overlords were all Nurgle worshippers. He literally stood directly in front of the Emperor and the Emperor didn't even notice that Typhus was a half breed xenos or that he was tainted by Nurgle.

 

It turns out almost every Death Guard character we've heard about is from Barbarus. And they are all the same person. There was nothing at all in terms of character work done with the other Death Guard characters outside of Morty and Typhus. You could have called them Bozo 1 and Bozo 3 and wouldn't blink an eye at it. Perhaps if the book had been only about the Fall of the Death Guard we could have cared more as readers about them. Did every one of the Death Guard submit to Nurgle in the end? Did some of them rebel and keep finding ways to die because they didn't want this?

 

We'll never know. The scenes of Death Guard turning are so brief and treated with such disdain and disinterest that you almost forget it happened. We get treated to Calas Typhon becoming Typhus by Morty trusting a demon (seriously) and then a confused Morty agreeing to serve the Emperor and Nurgle at the same time. While even muttering does an oath given during madness even count or something along those lines. Which to Nurgle apparently it does? Because Morty becomes his champion and we have to assume since we're not even bothered to be told ALL the rest of the Legion join him.

 

I can keep dissecting this novel but what's the point? It is a terrible book. Mortarion the crafty general that led a world of medieval era humans to overthrow xenos technology of the Overlords on one hand is in the same book reduced to a simpering moron that trusted his "brother" to a degree that blows the mind away. The "Death Guard book" does not even give them the dignity of having chapters. The useless Garro drivel are the proper chapters. The advertised "Death Guard book" sections are simply called intervals.

 

I highly suggest skipping this novel. If you are a Death Guard fan you will be either enraged or savagely disappointed. There is nothing for you in this.

[carlisimo]

I wouldn’t put Swallow that low on my list of Heresy writers, but he does have a tendency to write indistinguishable characters. It’s a pity to hear it’s happened again.

 

And I think Laurie Goulding wrote Mortarion’s Heart, mostly as an attempt to make sense of the Grey Knights codex story.

[Plaguecaster]

Well looks like my fears proved to completely true, won’t even bother with this book I’ll just ignore it and leave the Death guard’s fall shrouded in mystery probably better than even trying to read this utter disgrace of a Death Guard novel I’ll just read Lord of Silence again

[Lord_Caerolion]

Bulwyf, Typhus has always been stated to have had descended partly from the Overlords, hence his psychic ability. This just changed it so that it's his father. Secondly, the feeling I get from this book isn't that the Overlords are xenos, but rather that they're Nurgle-worshipping humans.

[DarkChaplain]

Easier to explain away chaos taint as xenos, after all. That was the original tune about daemons to begin with, Imperial Truth and what not.

[Tymell]

It certainly never confirms them as xenos. If I remember, there's a line like "If they [the Overlords] were human, they'd since gone beyond it", suggesting they could just be a heavily mutated abhuman branch. The fact that they -can- breed with a human woman, to me, just indicates they are still (mostly) human.

Edited March 7, 2019 by Tymell

[mc warhammer]

. And they are all the same person. There was nothing at all in terms of character work done with the other Death Guard characters outside of Morty and Typhus. You could have called them Bozo 1 and Bozo 3 and wouldn't blink an eye at it. 

 

 

 

uh actually, that would be bozorg twogul and borztago threegor thank you very much

[Bulwyf]

Well looks like my fears proved to completely true, won’t even bother with this book I’ll just ignore it and leave the Death guard’s fall shrouded in mystery probably better than even trying to read this utter disgrace of a Death Guard novel I’ll just read Lord of Silence again

 

The classic brief description and the first Horus Heresy FW book is where I would leave it. This novel was an epic failure on all levels for any Death Guard fan from hard core to the casual.

[Bulwyf]

Bulwyf, Typhus has always been stated to have had descended partly from the Overlords, hence his psychic ability. This just changed it so that it's his father. Secondly, the feeling I get from this book isn't that the Overlords are xenos, but rather that they're Nurgle-worshipping humans.

 

No, actually, this is not correct.

 

Canon Conflicts

In the original background, Typhon/Typhus was a Librarian of the Death Guard possessing the rank of "Captain-Epistolary". However, the Horus Heresy Series ret-cons his position to that of First Captain and, accordingly, he appears not to have any psychic abilities.^[4] The novella The Lion by Gav Thorpe rectifies this, stating that Typhon/Typhus is a minor psyker and prior to Mortarion's joining with the Dusk Raiders he actively trained his powers. As Mortarion did not like or trust psykers Typhon/Typhus stopped training and using his powers and focused on his duties as First Captain. He resumed using them in secret after the Death Guard's declaration for Horus.^[5]

Additionally, Typhon/Typhus was originally said to have been born on Barbarus^[3], but The Lion mentions that he had practiced as a Librarian in the Dusk Raiders Legion, before Mortarion assumed control and renamed it the Death Guard.^[5] This implies that he may have been born elsewhere, perhaps on Terra.

 

In the old fluff he was  Librarian in the Dusk Raiders which was the Death Guard's original Legion name. He had to have been from Terra as a result. They retconned this.

 

It also, frankly, does not answer the more bewildering question: every single person on Barbarus knew Typhus was a half breed of a human and a xenos/possible Chaos tainted mutant human. There is no chance the Emperor or any Ad Mech would have allowed Typhus to become a space marine once they tested him. This is one of the many, many multi laser problems with this book.

[bluntblade]

It's also a head-scratcher when other sources say the overlords were incapable of normal reproduction and, in any case, "thrice the height of a mortal man."

[DarkChaplain]

As per Lantern's Light, Mortarion and the other original Death Guard from Barbarus took well over a year to be upgraded to Legiones Astartes, with it being at least a year before the Emperor even returns to have a second talk with Mortarion. The only real conflict now is more the question as to when exactly he completely renamed the Dusk Raiders to Death Guard. It was one of his first actions upon taking charge of his Legion, but while he was left with a garrison, he didn't actually leave Barbarus for a year.

 

We've already seen how Zahariel El'Zurias was trained as a Librarian before venturing out into the sea of stars with his Legion, so chances are, the ascension to Space Marine may have come with some training in Typhon's case, too.

 

Besides, Typhon has been pretty consistently changed to being from Barbarus these days. There's no point getting upset over it now, when that has been the HH Team's decision for at LEAST the past 34 books.

[Morovir]

The problem is, Lords of Silence writes it as if the first time Typhon sees Mortarion was when he renamed the Legion as the Death Guard.

[Lord_Caerolion]

 

Bulwyf, Typhus has always been stated to have had descended partly from the Overlords, hence his psychic ability. This just changed it so that it's his father. Secondly, the feeling I get from this book isn't that the Overlords are xenos, but rather that they're Nurgle-worshipping humans.

 

No, actually, this is not correct.

 

Canon Conflicts

In the original background, Typhon/Typhus was a Librarian of the Death Guard possessing the rank of "Captain-Epistolary". However, the Horus Heresy Series ret-cons his position to that of First Captain and, accordingly, he appears not to have any psychic abilities.^[4] The novella The Lion by Gav Thorpe rectifies this, stating that Typhon/Typhus is a minor psyker and prior to Mortarion's joining with the Dusk Raiders he actively trained his powers. As Mortarion did not like or trust psykers Typhon/Typhus stopped training and using his powers and focused on his duties as First Captain. He resumed using them in secret after the Death Guard's declaration for Horus.^[5]

Additionally, Typhon/Typhus was originally said to have been born on Barbarus^[3], but The Lion mentions that he had practiced as a Librarian in the Dusk Raiders Legion, before Mortarion assumed control and renamed it the Death Guard.^[5] This implies that he may have been born elsewhere, perhaps on Terra.

 

In the old fluff he was  Librarian in the Dusk Raiders which was the Death Guard's original Legion name. He had to have been from Terra as a result. They retconned this.

 

It also, frankly, does not answer the more bewildering question: every single person on Barbarus knew Typhus was a half breed of a human and a xenos/possible Chaos tainted mutant human. There is no chance the Emperor or any Ad Mech would have allowed Typhus to become a space marine once they tested him. This is one of the many, many multi laser problems with this book.

 

 

It was that at first. In the 3.5 Chaos Codex, which introduced Typhus, and it states "Barbarus was home not only to men but also to inhuman overlords who preyed upon them. Typhon had some of their blood in his veins for he was possessed of formidable latent psychic powers that made him especially valuable as a recruit. Subsequent things may have retconned this, but Typhon/Typhus was originally from Barbarus, and was originally part-overlord.

 

I do agree though, that it definitely doesn't excuse how someone who was at best half-baseline-human managed to get through all the screenings to become a Legionary.

 

EDIT: Removed the snarky-sounding wording, that wasn't my intention.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Lord_Caerolion

[Tymell]

Do we even know how stringent legion recruitment screenings would be back then? And especially for basically the best friend of the newly-discovered primarch, I feel like that person would get a pass, provided they can survive the process.

 

And again, the Overlords may be deviations of humans rather than outright xenos, and as a psyker, Typhon is already a mutant of sorts anyway.

For me, getting in at his age at that point is a much bigger leap of logic than him simply being allowed to attempt it.

[bluntblade]

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.

[Rob P]

I really wanted this book to be great, but I didn't enjoy it.

 

It's basically the mono-legion style book that everyone wanted at the beginning of the series when their was an expectation that every legion would get it's own book. It has both the origin story and the climax of the Death Guard story. It even has the climax of the Knights Errant story and the origin of the Grey Knights. It's a two-for-one and should be top tier on paper.

 

The Death Guard story takes the source material (in the same way that Fear to Tread did) and somehow imagines it in the most dull way I could have imagined. The same could be said for the other story in the novel. I genuinely believe this book is skippable and that whatever you guess happens will be better.

 

I'm trying to draw a theme between the stories but don't think I can - 'Second in command being a shifty dude?' - don't think that is a theme as such,

 

Frankly, the origin story for Mortarion should have been avoided. It did nothing amazing and one scene (the one where the suits were revealed barely did anything other than an incremental advancement in the story - very boring).

 

The Terra story was generally boring.

 

The characters are mono and are only really distinguished through knowledge gained from earlier books.

 

The two scenes involving winning over the protagonists were unconvincing - though, in fairness, I don't think I have seen a convincing conversion in the Heresy.

 

The things that immediately come to mind when I think of what I enjoyed is the bit where Varren fights the blight and the bit where Malcador is 'duped'. I kind of liked how Malcador was a bit of an ass but his character didn't really fit the gravity of the stage of the heresy. I also liked the companion angle for Malcador. Finally, I liked that that the story again raised questions as to foresight and what the hell the Emperor and Malcador are up to. I think the level of foreshadowing is going to cause a mess in the future.

 

Like many of the recent books, this book is narratively setting the way for the new series, but it is also clearing up certain loose ends to aid the Siege of Terra in being a tighter story.

 

My take is 'Be careful what you wish for'.

[Charlo]

Haven't read the thread (spoilers)...

 

But for those wondering this is on Audible.

 

I've just started :D

[DukeLeto69]

Not read this yet (will be c18mths as only buy HH in MMPB) but I have to wonder whether BL’s decision to do Siege of Terra as seperate mini series forced the decision to wrap up main series a bit more quickly than originally planned and so Swallow was forced (or suggested a solution) to combine Doom of Deathguard with closing KE arc? I bet original plan was a seperate final KE novella and standalone D of DG novel.

[Charlo]

Not read this yet (will be c18mths as only buy HH in MMPB) but I have to wonder whether BL’s decision to do Siege of Terra as seperate mini series forced the decision to wrap up main series a bit more quickly than originally planned and so Swallow was forced (or suggested a solution) to combine Doom of Deathguard with closing KE arc? I bet original plan was a seperate final KE novella and standalone D of DG novel.

 

Doubt it.

 

There was no real need to wrap things up to any particular time frame. The novels always have a second story (like Zephon/ Arkhan in Master of Mankind, or Cawl in Wolfsbane) and this is no different :)

[DukeLeto69]

 

 

Not read this yet (will be c18mths as only buy HH in MMPB) but I have to wonder whether BL’s decision to do Siege of Terra as seperate mini series forced the decision to wrap up main series a bit more quickly than originally planned and so Swallow was forced (or suggested a solution) to combine Doom of Deathguard with closing KE arc? I bet original plan was a seperate final KE novella and standalone D of DG novel.

Doubt it.

 

There was no real need to wrap things up to any particular time frame. The novels always have a second story (like Zephon/ Arkhan in Master of Mankind, or Cawl in Wolfsbane) and this is no different :)

Hmmm except what you describe is called a sub plot whereas this is a 50/50 split.

 

And BL have decided to finish the main HH line for precisely the reason that the marketing guys know that packaging up SoT as a mini series provides all manner of sales benefits. Otherwise the last 8 novels covering SoT would simply have continued as main series HH

[Tymell]

 

Not read this yet (will be c18mths as only buy HH in MMPB) but I have to wonder whether BL’s decision to do Siege of Terra as seperate mini series forced the decision to wrap up main series a bit more quickly than originally planned and so Swallow was forced (or suggested a solution) to combine Doom of Deathguard with closing KE arc? I bet original plan was a seperate final KE novella and standalone D of DG novel.

 

Doubt it.

 

There was no real need to wrap things up to any particular time frame. The novels always have a second story (like Zephon/ Arkhan in Master of Mankind, or Cawl in Wolfsbane) and this is no different

 

 

While I do agree that this certainly isn't the only book to split its narrative, I do think it's more of a comparatively recent trend: earlier books in the series tended to be more focused on a single thread. I'm not saying either method is inherently better or worse though (and I do see how, as the story progresses and the threads become more tangled, it makes sense for books to follow suit).

 

I also think it can be done in different ways, and works better in some circumstances than others. In Master of Mankind, for example, while there were different characters and storylines, they were all linked together firmly by the Webway War. Same with seeing the two sides of the Solar conflict in Praetorian of Dorn.

 

At the other end of the spectrum, I felt the Shattered Legions parts of Angel Exterminatus, while enjoyable on their own, hampered an already crowded narrative, and similarly while I liked Cawl's parts in Wolfsbane, they felt very disconnected from the core story. I get the same feeling here: I like the Knights-Errant bits well enough, I just feel they don't belong here.

[mc warhammer]

the sad thing is, i can imagine ways to make the two strands actually intertwine and feel like one story. especially when you consider mortarian’s future encounters with the GK.

[DuskRaider]

This is upsetting to read... GW never really seemed to be able to grasp Mortarion as a character (just as FW didn't with his rules).

 

What could be an extremely interesting character pulled in different directions (as seen in the Khan novels) he's instead little more than a trope. At points they have hinted at him being a very powerful and intelligent warrior Primarch (he's Horus' right hand man and pretty much owns an entire Knight House) in others they make him seem like a nitwit.

 

Throughout the Heresy both Mortarion and his Legion have been wasted and to me that's the biggest tragedy of the series.

[godking]

This is upsetting to read... GW never really seemed to be able to grasp Mortarion as a character (just as FW didn't with his rules).

 

What could be an extremely interesting character pulled in different directions (as seen in the Khan novels) he's instead little more than a trope. At points they have hinted at him being a very powerful and intelligent warrior Primarch (he's Horus' right hand man and pretty much owns an entire Knight House) in others they make him seem like a nitwit.

 

Throughout the Heresy both Mortarion and his Legion have been wasted and to me that's the biggest tragedy of the series.

The only reason he is Horus right hand man is because he is "dependable" and Horus literally has nobody else amongst the traitor primarchs he can trust.

 

Not because of his intelligence or strength.

[DuskRaider]

And you missed the entire point of my post. Bravo.