Siege of Terra - Saturnine by Dan Abnett

[drooling blood]

He might really lose it when the deaths heads or world eaters smash the walls down.

[Marshal Loss]

 

 

 

The Traitor Host of Horus Lupercal tightens its iron grip on the Palace of Terra, and one by one the walls and bastions begin to crumple and collapse. Rogal Dorn, Praetorian of Terra, redoubles his efforts to keep the relentless enemy at bay, but his forces are vastly outnumbered and hopelessly outgunned. Dorn simply cannot defend everything. Any chance of survival now requires sacrifice, but what battles dare he lose so that others can be won? Is there one tactical stroke, one crucial combat, that could turn the tide forever and win the war outright?

Edited February 3, 2020 by Marshal Loss

[Preliminary Bombardment]

Any word on LE pre Order date?

[Grey Angel]

Any word on LE pre Order date?

No dates yet!

[Ubiquitous1984]

That cover might just be the best one yet.  Simply sensational!

[aa.logan]

No ‘might’; absolute best. The shadows! The wings! The light! Genuinely unsure if the content will live up to it (Obviously, it will)

[Lucerne]

Here's hoping this at least has a competent grasp of scale...

 

Though it is Abnett so it won't be the dumpster fire that was the rest of the Siege.

[DarkChaplain]

I'd argue that Abnett's last Heresy outing was worse than anything in the Siege to date, by a large margin. The Unremembered Empire, like the Siege, also involves many moving parts from other authors and plotlines.... and Abnett hasn't handled that particular instance well. I fear we'll see lots of hulk smash Angron, if his Vulkan is anything to go by, and a bunch of Oll and Grammaticus, at the expense of stuff other authors had been developing the past years..

 

I want to be cautiously optimistic, but I can't shake the disappointment that was TUE, especially on account of 3rd party characters.

[Indefragable]

My favorite part about that artwork is the way it seems that no one--Imperial Army, Conscript, Astartes, or even vaunted Custodies--is directly blocking Angron's path into the glowing door. It's like Daemon Angron is such a force--mathematical, physics-equation, pure computational force--that any living being can't help but part ways before him. It's amazing.

 

*********

 

The cynical part of me can't help but quip that, based on Abnett's history, Angron will not show at all up in this one until the last 10 pages. 

 

The more optimistic part of me suspects that this is the book where the Siege really "gets going" and all the threads we've seen before are connected to the threads that will be covered in the rest of the books. 

 

The realistic part of me suspects that this one will be different from the rest, both in a good and bad way. Say what you will about Abnett, his stuff is so often quite standalone and apart from other things. Sometimes that comes off gloriously, sometimes it's jarring. For my count, I'm a Believer who thinks the Siege stuff, both Saturnine and ​The Big End One (title to be confirmed) will be some of Abnett's best stuff to date. 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Indefragable

[Knockagh]

Abnett writes in two very different mediums. Comics and novels and he can do both really well. But sometimes I think he gets the two confused and writes 40k like it’s a comic book. I am slaughter was for me the worst example of this. Double Eagle is another example, it’s pure cheese. But thankfully these are rare, most of the time he’s bang on the money, particularly when he can write about humans.

I’ve been delighted so far in the seige series how prominent humans have been in the books. The small people telling the big story. If Dan follows this I think this book will sing. Obviously he has to do some fights and Maine love and hopefully he can step past his love of comics when it comes to these larger than life characters and do what he did in Horus Rising and Legion and give us some great characters.

I’m way more worried I won’t get the limited edition than I am if it’s any good, which really is appalling when I put that feeling in print!

[Laughingman]

Does Angron still use gorefather at this point in the canon? I thought at some point he takes up The black blade.

[b1soul]

Daemon Primarch Angron looks T-Rex sized, and Gorefather is the size of two Custodes

 

Looks like both weapon and primarch grew in size

 

On Unremembered Empire, I still found it eminently more readable than anything by Swallow, Thorpe, or Kyme in the HH series

[Laughingman]

Funny enough its a relic for world eaters characters  in 40K.  head-cannon says  the chain axe  is effectively warp-touched (it was in Angron hand when he ascended), and therefore probably takes on some measure of his power.. 

[b1soul]

I thought Gorefather was lost after Angron adopted the black sword

[RedFurioso]

I can't shake the disappointment that was TUE

The Unremembered Empire was one of the greatest HH books. All Lion scenes were awesome. Damon Prytanis was such a fresh and interesting character, literally space Matt Damon who killed Martin Luther King. And this is the only book who shows Konrad Curze as capable and fearful primarch. Absolutely loved it then and now.

 

I wonder if Saturnine will be the greatest Heresy book ever. Perhaps only the the last, eighth book can surpass it.

[Marshal Rohr]

I love how the concourse below is a standing room only firefight

[Taliesin]

Any word on LE pre Order date?

 

Late March I suspect, since the hardcover comes out around end of June/start of July.

[Izlude]

I personally enjoyed UE alot, mostly it was a nice character study on Guilliman and the interaction with him and the Lion was well done. Also I love the Pollux and Dantioch stuff (one of my favorite HH duos...Pharos broke my heart...Dantioch is the man!). The Curze stuff was little over the top and I am neutral on the whole perpetual stuff (don't mind reading about it but can live without it). 

 

The coverart is pretty sweet. In general the art has been really great and this one really captures the scale of the battle with the background...you can see all those pretty flashlights...umm...lasguns working in overtime. I found a nice large hi-res image of the coverart on reddit. Great as wallpaper for the computer. 

[DukeLeto69]

Abnett writes in two very different mediums. Comics and novels and he can do both really well. But sometimes I think he gets the two confused and writes 40k like it’s a comic book. I am slaughter was for me the worst example of this. Double Eagle is another example, it’s pure cheese. But thankfully these are rare, most of the time he’s bang on the money, particularly when he can write about humans.

I’ve been delighted so far in the seige series how prominent humans have been in the books. The small people telling the big story. If Dan follows this I think this book will sing. Obviously he has to do some fights and Maine love and hopefully he can step past his love of comics when it comes to these larger than life characters and do what he did in Horus Rising and Legion and give us some great characters.

I’m way more worried I won’t get the limited edition than I am if it’s any good, which really is appalling when I put that feeling in print!

 

Different folks and strokes and all that but IMO Double Eagle was a fantastic book and one of Abnett's best! He is my favourite BL author and is way more hit than miss but within such a huge output there has been a miss. For me TUE was really weak and I hated the comic book feel to the Primarch's fighting. It felt like a superhero comic. Not my thing.

 

I think Abnett's output is actually one of the reasons he sometimes gets accused of rushing the endings of his novels. He literally runs out of time and pages to properly tie up plot points and finish the novel in a fully satisfying way (I suspect because he needs to move on to another commission for another publisher).

 

However, I do get the impression that THIS TIME BL have given him freedom for a longer page count and Abnett himself has better scheduled his time. So... I am quietly optimistic this could be awesome!

 

And the good news is he is now currently writing Penitent!

 

Edit - Oh and that cover is just amazing. Has anyone seen the full piece. Even more amazing.

Edited February 4, 2020 by DukeLeto69

[Fedor]

The last two books did well enough at setting the groundwork that i think Abnett has plenty of room to open things up now.

[Lazarus Primus]

I do honestly hope for some coverage on the outer-system planets, stations and dockyards and their cultures considering almost everything we know of the Sol system is almost exclusively limited to Terra, Mars, Luna or Titan.

 

(I still haven't read the Dorn vs Alpharius HH book set on Pluto yet so I may just be missing information though.)

[Biscuittzz]

Shout out to the two Guardsmen ( lower left and right handside beside the IF) who are the only ones shooting at Angron.

[Taliesin]

Listened to an interview from early December with Abnett, he had some nuggets about Saturnine.

Said it's been a major effort, and unlike other books he finished that he has mixed feelings about upon completion, he was actually really pleased with this one. He also noted that it was by far the longest of all his books, and came in at 147,000 words. Considering Anarch was already a pretty big book, looks like Saturnine will be north of 500 pages for sure.

He mentioned it required a great amount of plotting and consideration of all the details developed in the heresy in the last 13 years.

[b1soul]

I am excited for this

[rookie40K]

That is really exciting to hear!