Sanguinius Primarchs novel: speculation

[pandion40]

Given the poor showing of the BA in the Heresy novels I was looking forward to the Sanguinius Primarch novel so was like most here very disappointed to find out swallow was writing it. I strongly dislike his 40k BA novels and thought Fear to Tread was ok at best, though I also think that novel tried to fit to much in one book and that may not have been Swallows decision.

 

But then has any author done a good job with the BA, it seems at times that BL is actively avoiding writing about BA in The Heresy. Honestly I’m really pessimistic about the BA in the Heresy novels and I fully expect them to sideline the BA for the siege as well, we’re at the end why would they choose to develop the BA characters now when they have so many other characters that are far better developed and ready to go.

 

So I’ll hope for the best from Swallows book and maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised, at least Forge Worlds Malevolence is out soon and I’ve high hopes for that at least.

[b1soul]

Haley has done a pretty good job with 40K BA (Dante and Devastation were solid).

 

I wasn't impressed by Haley's Sang or BA in Pharos.

[Angel_of_Blood]

I’d say ADB managed to give the BA so much more character and personality with just one of them in Master of Mankind. Zephon wasn’t even in it that long, but he still made the 30k BA seem so much more interesting than anyone else.

[b1soul]

I can't remember anything unique about Azkaellon, Raldoron, Meros, or Kano in Fear to Tread...and I always confuse the latter two

[Blindhamster]

Kano was a librarian, and a surprisingly strong one at that, willing to push the limits to save his gene father.

 

Meros was a damaged and worn apothecary who made the decision to sacrifice himself in his father's place because he believed in his father.

 

Raldoron is basically the perfect 1st captain, calm, level headed, balanced humours in a legion that tend toward aggression, not proud but still incredibly skilled. He tries to carry the burdens of his father to ease the load he sees him baring.

 

Azkaellon is just standard over protective bodyguard and Amit was initially just standard hot headed aggressive warrior. His redeeming feature was how he was portrayed toward the end of the book.

 

 

I liked raldoron a lot, same for kano and meros.

Also, I agree that zephon is one of the best characters in the series.

[Angel_of_Blood]

Really? I found Raldoron to be one of the most boring one dimensional characters in the entire series. I saw no reason why he was such a famed captain. In The First Heretic, his name is mentioned with the same reverence and awe as Sigismund, Abaddon and Sevetar. So I was expecting so much more from him. But it just wasn't there. I saw nothing to suggest an incredible tactical or strategic insight. Nothing to show an amazing prowess in combat, and no commanding presence or charisma. He was just bland and utterly forgettable, could have been from any legion, though that by extension applies to just about any Blood Angel from that novel, as Swallow just forgot to give them any identity or character like the other authors have done for the other legions.

[mc warhammer]

i’m willing to give swallow the benefit of the doubt, but doesn’t the idea he described more or less sound like the point of the primarch series anyway?

[b1soul]

He can't execute

[Petitioner's City]

This is a *very* negative thread....

[m0nolith]

This is a *very* negative thread....

Yeah, it’s almost like people’s opinion of him is negative. 

[b1soul]

@ AoB

"Swallow just forgot to give them any identity or character like the other authors have done for the other legions"

 

Yes, that's a major problem shared by his 40K and 30K BA...they don't have any personality at the individual or organisational level. They're just there to drive the already-decided plot

[Djangomatic82]

I'll admit that I've only recently (within the last 6 months) begun to read any 30k/40k fiction, starting off with Dante, moving on to DoB and just finishing Fear to Tread before the new year. While reading the first two, i thought they we ok, but not amazing. Dante had a definite shonen feel to it, but that just may be my fatigue with "origin" stories in general. DoB was the better of the two as it wasn't constricted by the need to set the foundations of Dante's character to the same extent that the first book did. I personally really like the brief focus's that were given to members of successor chapters and how it showed the difference in customs and attitude that has developed between them and their progenitor over the millennia.

 

One thing that has continually bothered me about both of the stories is the sort of BA kitche, the constant need for everything around them to be blood this,  angel that, rage blah blah blah and might be one of the things that i liked most( or more accurately, the absence of) in Fear to Tread.

 

The main difference between the two series ( i'm counting Dante and DoB as one series for the sake of this argument) is that I see the first as good entries into a licensed franchise that effectively tell a story set in the IP as well as selling said IP. While reading Fear to Tread, i didn't get that feeling at all. more, i was engrossed in a well paced Sci-fy/Fantasy/Mystery novel that HAPPENED to be set in the 30k universe. The creeping dread that begins to permeate the blood angels armada as they draw closer and closer to Signus Prime is something that i cant even begin to envision happening in the other two novels, that feeling just is not part of the heroic pallet that is being drawn from to weave the story.

[mc warhammer]

pretty much how i felt about those 2 BA book (haven't read FtT). the really obvious naming is kinda a 40k wide thing. 

 

 

so...do the rainbow warriors have ships called "the rainbow bright" and "pot of gold"? 

[Arkangilos]

I guess different strokes for different folks.

 

Fear to Tread just so completely hit the mark. “Oh, pretty much every other legion has different tiers of command? Not these guys, they just have a 300+ companies. No other level, just squad and company.”

 

I felt not real character at all from anything. And on top of that they almost had Sanguinius betray the emperor to save his sons.

[DarkChaplain]

Contrarily, I'd point out that Dante isn't so much meant to showcase Dante's origin story itself as the culture of the Blood Angels and both changes and static tradition throughout Dante's roughly 1500 years of life within the Chapter, from before recruitment to leadership. Especially when combined with The Devastation of Baal, and the oft-criticised entrance of Guilliman and his chat with Dante, the flavor of Dante hits.

 

Dante itself also serves as a nexus between the 8th edition's events, including the return of Guilliman and the Great Rift's emergence, and the end stages of the Shield of Baal campaign from a few years back, which saw the story ending at a critical point exactly *because* the timeline was static at that time, and no resolution could be shown. So rather than Dante being a piece set in the 41st Millennium, it's one set over the previous 1500-ish years in intervals, sketching out the Chapter's many unexplored aspects while also highlighting the hero's rise through the ranks and how he is set apart through his experiences. It is both a very personal take and one that benefits the Blood Angels as a whole.

 

To put it in contrast to Swallow's works - Fear to Tread was not his first Blood Angels novel. He wrote 4 (obviously non-canon) entries for 40k forever ago, and they felt about as flat. They were contrived to a ludicrous degree and failed to really draw up the Chapter into its own. If anything, I'd consider the Shounen Manga comparison more apt here, as the hero of those books, Rafen, is usually the focus - to the point of tie-in shorts exist between Fear to Tread and the Rafen series, including timey-wimey coma experiences based around the legacy of geneseed and sarcophagi. It was silly.

 

If you look at Dante as a novel, you won't find a clear external antagonist that works its talons throughout the book. Yes, it is set during the Tyranid invasion around Baal, but beyond the first chapter or two, there's no action to be found in the present day. While some sections harken back to Dante's battlefield experience against various foes, they're not the focus. They're incidental to showcasing the nature of the Chapter, where the true antagonist can be found: the dual nature brought about by the Red Thirst and Black Rage, the near-constant need to suppress their baser, genetically-informed insticts, the efforts to balance their darker, more extreme violence by pursuing art and craft.

 

The Blood Angels are not travelling around in magnificent cathedral ships of red and gold stuffed with precious vintage art pieces or mosaic windows because they're throwing their inner hipster about and want to grandstand and revel in decadence, the way the Emperor's Children might, but because it is literally part of their very identity as Blood Angels to pursue the creation of art as a matter of sanity. Guy Haley has previously written a Space Marine Battles novel involving both Novamarines and Blood Drinkers, with the latter showing this aspect as well - their artsy endeavors are an escape, a form of meditation, to remind them that they are more than rage and thirst.

 

Dante is under constant pressure in his leadership, not only due to the external threats, the recent 3rd War on Armageddon, and now the Tyranids, or the uneasy alliance with the Necrons against the Great Devourer, but also because he knows he is slipping. That he has a physical need to drink the blood of a living thing, but attempts to suppress it to the barest minimum, or none at all, to the point of it being a detriment to his qualities and focus. He knows fully well what his Chapter subjects are going through. He knows what others like Gabriel Seth have to contend with, too. He holds the supreme vote even in councils and courts of the successor chapters, as was shown during the Trial of Gabriel Seth. He knows the highest points of the sons of Sanguinius, but also their worst, with some successor Chapters having turned renegade, or just as well.

 

So generally, I don't think Dante is to be read as an individual adventure novel or the likes. It isn't. It presents a hero's journey, of course, but it is all contextualized and rooted in many things we've seen explored over the history of the faction, while adding strokes and connecting dots. It develops things beyond what they were and becomes ever more valuable a defining book as your familiarity with the Chapter's previous coverage grows.

 

James Swallow, who had dibs on the Chapter for the past decades you could say, has not been living up to the role of being a driving force behind the Chapter's nature and turmoil. When he wrote Fear to Tread as the 21st Horus Heresy novel, it was, in many ways, still on the level of his Deus Sanguinius or Red Fury - a relatively bland action piece with cringeworthy Chaos villains, a lackluster rendition of the Chapter's defining flaws, a missed opportunity to depict their virtues and glory, all the while almost every other Legion and Primarch had been refocused in the Heresy series already. The Space Wolves felt distinct thanks to Abnett's Prospero Burns (for all its flaws under the hood), and his Know No Fear kicked much of the "default Chapter" expectations out of the faction. AD-B had worked wonders with the Word Bearers, with Betrayer adding the World Eaters soon after FTT. McNeill turned the Thousand Sons into a rather fantastic Legion that people argue about to this day when it comes to their role in the Heresy, the justifiability of the Emperor's Sanction on Prospero and so forth. Graham also did a good job in the early days tackling the Emperor's Children in all their budding decadence and arrogance. I don't think we even need to speak of the opening trilogy and Abnett's cues for the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus.

 

So when Swallow came along and wrote Fear to Tread, it felt shallow by comparison to some of the greatest hits in the fandom up to that point, and was easily overshadowed by multiple titles coming after it. I'd argue that John French's The Crimson Fist in the next book, Shadows of Treachery, did more to illustrate the Imperial Fists than Fear to Tread did for the Blood Angels. Graham came back with a vengeance and, while relying too much on his old characters from Storm of Iron, his Angel Exterminatus worked wonders for two Legions, especially the Iron Warriors. Mark of Calth served as a mostly pretty good way to show various aspects of the Underworld War and its effects on Word Bearers and Ultramarines, and by the time Scars rolled around, we had one of the best From Zero to Hero Legion novels in the series, which still holds true almost as many books after it as it took getting to the White Scars in the first place.

 

What, exactly, did Fear to Tread do, to justify the Blood Angels as one of the most respected and feared Legions within the Imperium? What did it do to showcase Sanguinius as Horus' closest brother, his rumored rival for the role of Warmaster, the only one Horus expressly ordered the death of even when confronted with a chance for him to turn? If anything, it may have taken away one of the most impressive scenes people expected from the Siege, and turned it into a floppy action setpiece. The daemons in the novel did not feel powerful, overwhelming entities. I felt no dread at the daemons whatsoever. Or, let me rephrase that, I only dreaded the way they were displayed for how laughable they were. Comparing Ka'Bandha to AD-B's depiction of An'ggrath in Aurelian, for example, is like night and day.

 

Even looking over the Dramatis Personae for Fear to Tread, almost every single listed Blood Angel is utterly inconsequential to the story and does nothing of note even in the spur of the moment. The entire list can be reduced to Sanguinius, Azkaellon, Amit, Meros, Kano and Raldoron, with an "assorted, utterly exchangeable and almost faceless Blood Angels" entry at the end. The list is 33 entries long without Sanguinius, and barely five of his listed sons even mattered.

 

There've been a bunch of duds in the series. Fear to Tread was the first book in the series that made me actually angry at how poor it was, especially because of the highly anticipated subject matter. The only other novel that upset me more to date is The Unremembered Empire, again for how it squandered its potential, albeit in more ways and with a more solid starting point than Fear to Tread. FTT stole much of the Blood Angels' relevance and known feats of heroism in the pre-Siege Heresy, and threw them right in the bin.

 

Now, to read that Swallow first didn't even have an idea for the Sanguinius novel he had dibs on, as was shared by event attendees last year when it was announced as his, with him now finally having an idea that was approved, but sounds pretty much like what multiple other works, including the short story in the event anthology sold at the exact same event he told us about it this month, already did, is disappointing and not inspiring my enthusiasm.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Guy Haley's Dante did the exact same thing to a degree of success that may make the primarchs novel in many ways redundant. That his statement doesn't even touch on Sanguinius' role when it literally is named after him makes me dread what's to come. Between Haley's and Smillie's works for Heresy and 40k, I don't think Swallow rivals the strengths of either when it comes to developing factions, cultures and characters.

[mc warhammer]

blood hipsters lol

[pandion40]

Awesome summation DarkChaplain simply awesome. I’d love to know what goes on behind the scenes at BL and GW, how the hell does swallow keep getting dibs on the Blood Angels despite none of his BA books going above muh for the vast majority of people online. I realise were in a bubble here and most readers won’t feel as intensely about these books as those of us who spend time on forums like this, but getting people like us onboard can be a great marketing opportunity. Every time a thread comes up asking about Blood Angels info the Dante novel is suggested by multiple posters as the Blood Angels novel, same on YouTube videos and podcasts about 40k I’d theres a discussion about Blood Angels or Dante especially someone will often recommend the novel Dante.

 

Contrast that with the massive wall of negativity that is this thread and others discussing swallow’s proposed Sanguinius novel. All I can think of is nobody else is interested in writing a Blood Angels book, surprising given how big the fanbase is but when Haley wrote Dante and DoB he remarked in an interview how surprisingly little had been written about the BA.

[nagashnee]

Simple blood angels are popular. People buy books on them, these more or less guaranteed sales keep BL from caring if Swallow keeps his death grip on BA so long as the sales remain on level.

 

That and BL has always suffered from a culture of nepotism and friend bumping .

 

As others have said for me the news that the Primarch book is being done by Swallow is nothing but bad. Was really hoping for someone else.

[drooling blood]

Swallow doing Sanguinius.

Insert jpeg of Sanguinius on a not hover bike. Slapping his head. Either one, BL dont care.

 

BL you can stop kicking the angel while his down and done nothing so far.

 

Suspicion. Kyme wants to make something more dull than the Salamanders.

[Angel_of_Blood]

BIG SNIP

Just this...exactly this.

[m0nolith]

Awesome summation DarkChaplain simply awesome. I’d love to know what goes on behind the scenes at BL and GW, how the hell does swallow keep getting dibs on the Blood Angels despite none of his BA books going above muh for the vast majority of people online. I realise were in a bubble here and most readers won’t feel as intensely about these books as those of us who spend time on forums like this, but getting people like us onboard can be a great marketing opportunity. Every time a thread comes up asking about Blood Angels info the Dante novel is suggested by multiple posters as the Blood Angels novel, same on YouTube videos and podcasts about 40k I’d theres a discussion about Blood Angels or Dante especially someone will often recommend the novel Dante.

Contrast that with the massive wall of negativity that is this thread and others discussing swallow’s proposed Sanguinius novel. All I can think of is nobody else is interested in writing a Blood Angels book, surprising given how big the fanbase is but when Haley wrote Dante and DoB he remarked in an interview how surprisingly little had been written about the BA.

The reason why he got this book is because Fear to Tread sold very well.

Nagashnee is right when he says that they sell because BA are popular, and given Sanguinius near mythical reverence before the Heresy, I can see why Fear to Tread sold so well. People wanted to see Sanguinius and the early BA for the first time.

 

My only hope at this point would be that Swallow follows the culture of the BA that has been established via short stories in the Heresy and the Haley books.