The Siege of Terra: The First Wall

[bluntblade]

Nope.

[mc warhammer]

Are there any credible arguments that the HH novels might be in-universe texts?

i don’t know if adb, marc gasciogne and gw in general have ever explicitly argued that they are but they’ve certainly opened the idea that if you want them to be so....then sure

 

though i do remember someone making the point that each author could be seen as an in-universe scribe, but can’t recall if that was an employee or audience peep

Edited November 28, 2019 by mc warhammer

[Marshal Rohr]

LG laid it out as the Black Books are histories of the events written afterwords, and the novels are what happened. The golden mean here is the Black Books are history books and the novels are the ‘movies’ or novelizations of what happened.

[Sandlemad]

I remember in Pharos the black book sketches they used as interior art were described as being from Dantioch's sketchbook.

 

Which is like a hail mary background save considering they were only used for Pharos as a last minute backup thing because of in-BL organisational trouble, one of the things Golding cited as being an issue from the 'dark days' when BL was briefly part of GW publications.

[b1soul]

The reason I ask is that the HH novels don't read anything like in-universe texts, unless some scribe or scribes in the 41st millennium wrote novel-like tales (complete with dialogue and internal monologues) based on the accounts in the Black Books by AK. But that seems to quite a stretch. 

 

A similar issue occurred in the Dune universe when Brian Herbert framed his father Frank Herbert's original Dune novels as accounts written by Princess Irulan and not word of god. That was a rather clumsy attempt IMO, as in-universe texts recounting the Dune events should read like history books or diaries, not novels with near-omniscient third-person narrators.

[Marshal Loss]

There is no credible argument for the HH novels being in-universe texts. The black books & HH series are designed in places to deliberately intersect (e.g. AK describes the activities of the Word Bearers between Monarchia & Isstvan V as being a mystery, one that is in effect answered by the novels) and the novels provide one or more in-universe perspectives: a bottom-up approach to history, as opposed to the top-down approach of the black books.

 

There is no easy way to discuss the relationship between these two mediums. AB was always extremely aware that the novels often contradicted each other & obviously by the time they began working on the black books there had already been numerous major retcons. In theory, the novels are meant to show an in-universe perspective, while the black books are pseudo-historical texts compiled by a trained scholar with access to immense resources. The black books are designed to read like they were written with authority. In practice, there are bound to be conflicts even when approaching it holistically, and so I'd advocate a sort of postmodernist approach with regards to objective truth (i.e., there is no objective truth in 30k/40k). Everything, no matter the context, should be taken to be inherently subjective.

 

That being said, there isn't actually a right or wrong way to weigh these things. I generally hold the FW books to be far more reliable simply because BL's slapdash approach in the real world is a pretty stark contrast with the erudite approach of AB and his team.

Edited November 28, 2019 by Marshal Loss

[Kelborn]

Please remind me, how or why is this attempted clearance relevant or related to the novel the First Wall?

[bluntblade]

We're still arguing about Corvus and Sons using Raven imagery besides their sigil.

[Marshal Rohr]

Please remind me, how or why is this attempted clearance relevant or related to the novel the First Wall?

 

Because Gav did what no one else has. Put exact figures of a Fist shield wall in this novel :D

[mc warhammer]

i don’t think anyone could argue that the HH books have been intentionally written in an in-universe scribesy sorta way no

 

that’s not what the BL staff have argued either in the past; what they allow for is that interpretation to take place. you can treat each BL author that way; as an interpreter of the universe rather and they may treat themselves and each other in a similar fashion

 

to that degree it does feed somewhat into their approach and the idea of fluid canon and contradictions (intentional and seemingly unintentional) between books etc etc

 

it doesn’t fit neatly into a box for every reader but hey that’s art

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/bob100/are_40k_novels_considered_official_lore_or_should/

 

even if we want to nail down the HH novels as cohesive word of god type things- does the “artwork” need to be?

[StrangerOrders]

i don’t think anyone could argue that the HH books have been intentionally written in an in-universe scribesy sorta way no

It could be done if we go very silly though. Maybe the Scribes are powerful necromancers? Explains how they keep getting written accounts of things the PoV character never told anyone about before they died.

 

I am also now chuckling at the idea of a little scribe sitting on a rock taking notes from the Hive Mind's account of Baal by a surrounding horde of Tyranids chittering on about organisms and the things they get and don't get.

 

Or how on earth you would get access to Ku'Gath's opinions. Gets kinda tricky to figure out how you get the account of how it feels like to get perma-killed though, nothing left to question.

[mc warhammer]

yeah, taking the idea to its logical conclusion gets way silly (but i’m also one of those that embraces the silly in this setting)

 

but substitute scribe or historian for the homer of 40k and things may flow a (tad) easier

[DarkChaplain]

.....guys, we finally figured out what Malal has been up to all this time. He's collecting all dead dudes' memories when they enter the warp and writing novels based on them.

[m_r_parker]

Lets try to keep this on topic to the content of the novel...

 

I finished the book a couple of days ago and have had some time to reflect, and the final third of the novel doesn’t let it down in the most. Gav has actually done a good job here, and has redeemed himself in my eyes after some of his latter works.

 

In Gav’s own words, this novel is broken into three main threads; the physical (the Astartes battle of the Space Port), the mental (Zenobi and the human conscripts heading to war), and the spiritual (Keeler, the rising cult of the Emperor, and the inherit dangers). The Astartes depiction is spot on for the majority, even with my earlier misgivings about a continual reliance on a small number of characters. The Keeler section was solid too, and good to see the hardline view of the Custodes versus the cult and its supporters.

 

The one real weakness of the novel was the Zenobi thread in the book. It was initially a nice change of pace to see a more human aspect to the war, but as the ongoing trudge towards the palace that they face, reading it was a similar trudge - and I quickly became bored. As I want to speak more about this I will put the rest in spoilers, so read on at your peril (and if you want to talk about it further, please continue to use spoiler tags):

As I mentioned before, I had a suspicion that with such a focus on these events there was going to be some sort of twist, and there was. The initial idea before the twist was good - the conscripts we’re heading to a hidden / cloaked staging area outside the palace, as Dorn was keeping by for a strategic counter attack against the walls. With the Iron Warriors placing huge amounts of ground-based firepower against the Lions Gate shields, this was the call to them to come out. As they do, surprise, the regiment is actually supporting the Warmaster (as Zenobi unfurls a company banner that she’s been told to keep with her at all times throughout the novel, a red background with the eye of Horus emblazoned on it) - and that would be ok, if that thread didn’t stop there. Dorn receives reports that various imperial army elements are rebelling, and that’s the end of that plot point and those characters. Worse still, it didn’t even feel that they had a decent reason to rebel and fall in with the Warmaster. So there wasn’t a real payoff, nor was there a compelling reason why, for something that occupies ~20% of the novel.

 

Overall, better than Lost and the Damned but not Solar War. I’d say it’s a solid 8.5/10

[Ubiquitous1984]

Can anyone confirm if we have seen the big guns that the Lion gifted away at the end of one of the earlier books (descent of angels?).  Sorry it’s years since I read it so can’t recall all the details or what the weapons actually were.  

[DarkChaplain]

Weren't those ordinatus cannons, that were then turned on the loyalists during the Isstvan V Massacre? But yeah, they might still pop up during the Siege I guess. Judging by the Blackshields dramas by Josh, both Horus and Malcador were intent on collecting as many of them as they could.

[Kastor Krieg]

I just read a scathing review. If its contents are true, just on merit on what is decribed, omitted and how much space devoted to the sub-plot of the mustered human soldier... Yikes.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/e4553r/siege_of_terra_first_wall_is_an_epic_letdown_is/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

[Beren]

I'm inclined to be cautious regarding such an... 'extreme' review, given that the commentary in this thread so far - even where criticism is applied - doesn't seem as polarised.

 

Edit: Especially since so much of it seems to be about the reader not getting the exact things they wanted, and their disdain for a specifi storyline that others might find rather more interesting.

Edited December 1, 2019 by Beren

[bluntblade]

I'm so starting a thread on the "List of Demands" question next time I get bored.

 

Give it two hours before it gets taken down.

[Marshal Rohr]

“Please upvote so the community is aware” makes anything that genius says invalid.

[m_r_parker]

I just read a scathing review. If its contents are true, just on merit on what is decribed, omitted and how much space devoted to the sub-plot of the mustered human soldier... Yikes.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/e4553r/siege_of_terra_first_wall_is_an_epic_letdown_is/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

 

I'll come out and say it - whoever wrote that review is a complete moron, who has far too much time on their hands and has no understanding of what a 'series' is.

 

Yes this novel does next-to-nothing to build on the Blood Angels and the White Scars, but that's not the job of this particular part of the story. I'm sure in the next couple of books there'll be plots around the White Scars helping the civilian population, and as we get towards the end of the series the Blood Angels will get a lot of page time - but this is neither of those times, as the focus is on the Lions Gate space port.

 

As I mentioned before, the Zenobi thread of the novel isn't fantastic - but it's not as bad as what's being said. It has problems, I didn't enjoy it and thought the page count could have been better spent elsewhere, but it's not worth that level of bile that's being presented.

 

There are some gaps in logic at times, but honestly there's always going to be something that's missed when writing fiction. 

 

And I got a little suspicious when he called this book a 'dumpster fire' that 'should not only be ignored by fans of the Siege of Terra series, but actively avoided to preserve your love of the series', and yet Haley's Lost and the Damned was 'absolutely riveting'. Honestly I found LatD to be much more of a slog to read, and TFW was better than LatD. 

 

 

This is why I stay off Reddit and try to keep to B&C - people here have a more measured response to things.

[Beren]

I'm also fairly sure that the matter of how to bring down the shielding - as described by Pertuabo - was mentioned in the Lost and the Damned?

[Marshal Rohr]

I'm also fairly sure that the matter of how to bring down the shielding - as described by Pertuabo - was mentioned in the Lost and the Damned?

Yep. He calculated it so they could bring them down effectively with minimal resources. That guy is just looking for attention.

Edited December 1, 2019 by Marshal Rohr

[Taliesin]

Only a 100 pages in so far, but I am definitely surprised by how page time there is for the African conscripts soldiers. Its had more showing than any other storyline so far.

[Roomsky]

I just read a scathing review. If its contents are true, just on merit on what is decribed, omitted and how much space devoted to the sub-plot of the mustered human soldier... Yikes.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/e4553r/siege_of_terra_first_wall_is_an_epic_letdown_is/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

 

That is literally the worst review of that length I have ever seen.

 

I'm not finished with the book yet but a good few statements in there regarding scenes I've finished stretch beyond opinion and into "factually incorrect."

 

Oh, my mistake. He's right everyone. Pert and Rogal should really have just started hitting each other, this 60 book long series needed much more of that.