Horus Heresy Book 8: Malevolence

[Marshal Loss]

Finished the narrative. I found Malevolence pretty good; not the best HH book in the series by a long shot, but far superior to anything GW puts out (not a very high bar, but still). Bligh is definitely missed, with the wording being repetitive in places, often missing that erudite edge present in AB's writing. There are also numerous errors I picked up (e.g. Luna Wolves landing with Sanguinius, and being described as wearing sea-green armour). Particularly enjoyed the White Scars section.

 

EDIT: I will say that Sanguinius gets a good showing in this book, which was badly needed. They clearly wanted to convey why he was often thought of as a candidate for Warmaster.

[Vazzy]

Loved the start disucssing warp phenomena, probably my favorite book after Calth and Conquest. Also, anyone think Golden Keshig aren't worth taking? Especially in Chogorian Brotherhood? 

[Argel Tal]

Do you guys know what is the "Outsider"?

 

This name comes across on multiple occasions but I'm not sure what is means...

 

It can't be the C'tan, maybe Chaos as the primordial annihilator. It is also said that the Alpha Legion meets forces of the Outsider before the Heresy so maybe it refers to Legion BL book?

[Supe robot gangster #1]

Do you guys know what is the "Outsider"?

 

This name comes across on multiple occasions but I'm not sure what is means...

 

It can't be the C'tan, maybe Chaos as the primordial annihilator. It is also said that the Alpha Legion meets forces of the Outsider before the Heresy so maybe it refers to Legion BL book?

Possibly could be the cabal?

[Cerbero666]

Do you guys know what is the "Outsider"?

 

This name comes across on multiple occasions but I'm not sure what is means...

 

It can't be the C'tan, maybe Chaos as the primordial annihilator. It is also said that the Alpha Legion meets forces of the Outsider before the Heresy so maybe it refers to Legion BL book?

 

I guess is a term for Xenos (including the Cabal). Not sure why they've started using Outsider though....

[Argel Tal]

It says that it also helps Horus so I don't know but I'm only at the beginning of the book

[Cerbero666]

It says that it also helps Horus so I don't know but I'm only at the beginning of the book

 

Well, technically the Cabal helped Horus (or tried to) as a mean of Chaos destroying itself in its victory. So maybe it mean just that. Or maybe is the fact that the writer of the document is not aware of what the Cabal really is. "AK" (Amendera Kendel?) is writing all the story through various texts and testimonies, but all of them are incomplete and biased so...

 

F'rex there's an account about Chondax that I don't really understand. It's stated that Horus sent the Khan to Chondax to trap him there (ordering the Alpha Legion to isolate the White Scars from the rest of the galaxy) so he wouldn't join the war against the Emperor, and if he did, it would be at Horus' side. Also is indicated that his plan was a way to stop Jaghatai from intervene at Prospero helping Magnus, so the Thousand Sons and the Space Wolves could destroy each other to the point of being of no trouble to Horus. But Horus' fall to Chaos (followed by Istvaan and Prospero) was years later, after the WS started their campaign on Chondax. 

 

Could be a mistake by FW's writers or the lack of complete information by "AK".

[Arkangilos]

Finished the narrative. I found Malevolence pretty good; not the best HH book in the series by a long shot, but far superior to anything GW puts out (not a very high bar, but still). Bligh is definitely missed, with the wording being repetitive in places, often missing that erudite edge present in AB's writing. There are also numerous errors I picked up (e.g. Luna Wolves landing with Sanguinius, and being described as wearing sea-green armour). Particularly enjoyed the White Scars section.

 

EDIT: I will say that Sanguinius gets a good showing in this book, which was badly needed. They clearly wanted to convey why he was often thought of as a candidate for Warmaster.

How so far Sanguinius? That’s pretty exciting!

[Sandlemad]

I'm taking the Outsider to be a general name for xenos as a whole. They say as much on one of the first pages, "the misunderstood influence of the xenos, the Outside", as distinct from 'the Other', i.e. daemons and the powers of the warp.

 

Working through the background at the moment and there's some excellent stuff. Tons of snippets that could be brought out:

• Malcador's Elucidators as a proto-inquisition
• the Imperial Fists and Death Guard as the premier anti-warp/cult legions after the Word Bearers and Thousand Sons
• Guilliman setting up his own research unit to weaponise the warp and the Iron Hands using more than just the Keys of Hel
• the Alpha Legion's attempts to piggyback on Lorgar's research into the warp
• an actual detailed account of a pre-heresy detachment appearing in the post-heresy imperium and not finding it to their liking
• the absolutely killer vignettes in the section on warp-corrupted societies, like SCP accounts for the 30k imperium - the XIIth legion fighting living mountain creatures!
• the overall trying-and-failing attempts to systematise and rationalise the warp, still done in a secular 30k manner but increasingly not working...

but there are two broad trends I've noticed in the writing:

 

1. an increased number of references to the events of the Black Library novels. The events of Crimson King, Angel Exterminatus, The Lion and others are explcitly referenced and make up a seemingly greater proportion of the listed events (as opposed to events created by the FW writers) than in previous books.

 

My suspicion is that this is at least partially subject matter; Malevolence has a greater focus on warp-related events, which tend to invovle the high-profile characters in the novels.They're nicely worked into the military history style so it works quite well.

 

2. a noticeable difference in writing style, as Loss, carlismo and Rohr said. Not worse, I think, but different in a few subtle ways. I actually think there's less in the way of repetition and run-on sentences than Alan Bligh sometimes exhibited. The milhist style is still rock solid but there's the occasional deviation into a more standard descriptive prose, like when AK describes how Dorn felt after the siege or the thought process of Sanguinius as they drift into the Signus system. It's not done badly and could be missed but it's there and feels a little odd.

Moreover I think we get a better idea of the author-character, AK, as a person here. The FW black books always had plenty of features - gaps in knowledge, references to documentation, presentation of varying hypotheses - that made it clear that these were in-universe works of history produced by an educated writer working on immediately post-heresy Terra, a loyalist who nevertheless has a cynical view of imperial power and the lofty goals of the crusade. That's ramped up here.

The historian's voice is generally still coolly professional but there's a obvious scorn for the nascent cult of the Emperor that bleeds through and a rather touching sense of betrayal when the author attempts to understand and explain the Emperor's policy of actively surpressing knowledge of the warp: "Knowledge could have been Mankind's greatest weapon. [...] His gamble with the fate of humanity was a failure, and His denial of the true nature". The fourth wall isn't be broken but AK is more willing to contribute their views and plainly express their emotions.

 

It's most visible in the poignant 'Death of Hope' section at the end of 'Piercing the Veil', where AK seems to fall into near total despair. They look on Dorn, brooding and trying "to find one stone large enough to place upon another in the rubble" and Guilliman "in the banquet halls of the great [...] shaping the propaganda of the next age", discussing this as current events. They go over the 'if onlys': if only Sanguinus had got out of Signus sooner, if only Magnus had not broken the edict, "If only Horus had won his war and Mankind's perpetuated suffering had been avoided".

 

Now that's grim, the full bloom of what we saw in the forewords of the previous black books. That's hitting the core of what the heresy should be, the death of a dream. Someone who was there for the glory days, saw it all fall apart, realised the rot at the core, and knows what grim dystopia is coming. That's the good stuff.

[Marshal Rohr]

I thought it would've been cool if they'd had a new author replace AK like those old texts where the first half of the history is done by one academic, and the second is done by another. 

[Azorius]

I have to admit that I'm more than a little surprised at the author's bitter, negative description of Elucidators. 

[Sandlemad]

I thought it would've been cool if they'd had a new author replace AK like those old texts where the first half of the history is done by one academic, and the second is done by another. 

 

Depending on their plans for the War in the Webway I think they might have to do that. AK's made it pretty clear that they knew something was up in the dungeons but not the details.

 

 

I have to admit that I'm more than a little surprised at the author's bitter, negative description of Elucidators. 

 

I suppose as a sort of proto-inquisition they're emblematic of what AK hates, a forshadowing of the coming post-heresy imperium. If this is indeed Amandera Kendel, I think we're looking at someone who eventually split off from Malcador.

[Icarus1138]

I've noticed some of the same things mentioned earlier: an increase in references to events covered in Black Library novels, as well as more errors than I remember from earlier books. The errors are mostly concerned with timeline issues. There's the Sons of Horus wearing green armor too early, Horus plotting to tie down the White Scars before he was disloyal, and I believe they tied him into the planning at Signus despite describing that taking place many years before Ullanor even.

[Azorius]

Overall, my impression is that tone of writing is somewhat reminiscent of the End Time books, more descriptive and charged with emotion and opinion. Whilst the quality is still superlative, I would prefer the previous iterations of AK. 

[Nova_Dew]

There's also a hinted date as to when the two missing legions were destroyed, a some point before Sang was found and also states they were failed legions, so they've changed the timeline a bit apparently

[Brofist]

• An actual detailed account of a pre-heresy detachment appearing in the post-heresy imperium and not finding it to their liking

Dang! That's awesome. What section is it in?

[carlisimo]

The Greek word that we get “xenos” from basically means outsider. Though when book 8 says, “...it is the Outsider, the xenos and the outcast…” I take it to mean that the Imperium also counts mutants as outsiders.

 

The timeline issues… I don’t think they’re new (except for the green Luna Wolves thing). It had always been suspicious how Horus had sidelined the White Scars by sending them far away before his fall at Davin. (Am I right that he assigned the Blood Angels to Signus and told the Ultramarines to muster at Calth after Davin?)

 

I like it that way. I think Horus’s fall is easier to understand if he had already been preparing contingencies, preparing for a rebellion if his suspicions proved right and the Emperor was going to get rid of the Astartes after the Great Crusade. The Word Bearers (and to a lesser extent, the Alpha Legion) just had to use that to nudge Horus in their direction.

[1ncarnadine]

The green Luna Wolves reference is probably a goof, but the Chondax section is reasonable unreliable narration. A lot of it is informed by the Unbalanced Scales, which seems somewhat trustworthy in some ways but... there's always room for fun possiblities. For example, it's questionable whether Horus ordered the Alpha Legion into Chondax originally, or if the Word Bearers were actually involved in some kind of warp transmission-blocking activity vs the Alpha Legion lying about using xenos-related means, etc

 

I suppose as a sort of proto-inquisition they're emblematic of what AK hates, a forshadowing of the coming post-heresy imperium. If this is indeed Amandera Kendel, I think we're looking at someone who eventually split off from Malcador.

 

A.K. is most likely Allum Karpyn, a note-taking aide to Malcador who Laurie Goulding has said was based on Alan Bligh

[Daemon Prince Marbas]

Is there any information as to whether there's rules for the Fallen faction of Dark Angels?

[Charlo]

Is there any information as to whether there's rules for the Fallen faction of Dark Angels?

 

There won't be any. They basically don't exist until the early stages of the scouring, let alone the heresy!

[Marshal Rohr]

I think the greatest success of this was taking a weaker heresy novel that didn’t really convey the scale or reality on the ground of the battle and turning it into one of the stronger entries in the series. Easily on par with Massacre. Also, it successfully did something we have only seen twice, which was conveying how a legion operates en masse on the ground (Phall being a fleet engagement, Isstvaan being too large to get a macro picture of legion deployments). Tempest and Inferno both had legion sized deployments, but both were exceptional engagements - Signus on the other hand was how a legion would’ve fought against an enemy of comparable strength in normal circumstances. I really appreciated the details of that they included. I don’t think we will see a legion sized deployment again until Molech when all of the Sons of Horus invade. Angelus will be more focused on the sector wide combat.

[Sandlemad]

 

• An actual detailed account of a pre-heresy detachment appearing in the post-heresy imperium and not finding it to their liking

Dang! That's awesome. What section is it in?

 

 

At the end of the Chondax campaign background. It's definitely cool, maybe the first time I've seen GW/FW explore on of the most common player army backstories.

 

Essentially the Brotherhood of the Blue Hawk return from the southern edge of the imperium in 087.M31 only to be attacked by some Alpha Legion warbands in what is referred to as the 'last battle of the legiones astartes', everyone else having become chapters. Only 28 shocked legionaries survive to get to Chogoris. Considering they left at the height of the great crusade they're pretty horrified to see what the Imperium has been reduced to, even just in terms of extent.

 

Word gets to Guilliman on Terra and he summons them, seeking to make a big deal out of integrating them into the new imperium, show the value of his reforms, etc. Instead he receives a letter from their Khan saying that they're going to return to the galactic edge, for "in the uncertainty of our demise lies the salvation of our Great Crusade. For while one of the Emperor's Legions still fights in His name, the Crusade is not ended and those lives spent in its cause will not have been in vain." They vanish and no evidence of their death was ever found.

 

It's a strong part of the theme of lost potential/death of a dream that runs throughout Malevolence more clearly than the previous black books.

 

EDIT: you know what, there really is a lot of dunking on Guilliman here. When discussing the whispers about Guilliman's ambition in setting up Imperium Secundus, AK adds "Of course, in these latter years, with the fall of the Warmaster, there are few who dare speak ill of the Lord of Ultramar as he gathers more of the Imperium's sceptres under his gaze". AK is presumably one of the rare few who is there to look on all of Guilliman's post-heresy reforms but knows full well what he did in Ultramar during the heresy and what has been surpressed.

[No Foes Remain]

I've noticed some of the same things mentioned earlier: an increase in references to events covered in Black Library novels, as well as more errors than I remember from earlier books. The errors are mostly concerned with timeline issues. There's the Sons of Horus wearing green armor too early, Horus plotting to tie down the White Scars before he was disloyal, and I believe they tied him into the planning at Signus despite describing that taking place many years before Ullanor even.

 

I noticed that too, just started the Chondax part and it does mention that Horus tasked the XXth before he was even corrupted. Although we have to remember that this is written from Imperial perspective with a dash of XXth Legion (lies? truth?), so it could be ignorance from the Imperial side or misdirection from the XXth side.

[b1soul]

WS7 Khan really rubs me the wrong way...other than that, fluff seems solid

[noigrim]

Funny how custodes hoplites are now a thing sice spears don't have two handed, also whre the :cuss are the sisters?

Daemons seem a bit situational good vs hordes and gunlines, not so much vs mechanised and flyer lists, htey are expensive, sure but they can show up in the enemy's backfield turn one, and with the khorne army you win vp for your units killed in combat, and since you're gonna charge when you show up it's an easy win