Siege of Terra - Saturnine by Dan Abnett

[b1soul]

I think most Gladii are simple combat blades, but some can be outfitted with powerfields or force circuitry or whatnot

[Lucerne]

This was solid but I do hope we get replacement SoH viewpoint characters and Horus stops sulking in his tent sooner rather than later.

[Izlude]

I just finished the book and managed to read without hitting up this thread. Of course being an Abnett book I expect a lot of chatter on this one. So in a nut shell I love this book, I love Abnett and in general he has put out really home runs (KNF being my favorite…I know being a UM whore KNF is THE book). Some thoughts and comments:

 

General: First off the book has the largest cast and page count in the SoT and perhaps all of the HH series clocking in well over 500 pages. While the cast is massive, obviously some names are there for like a page but I will have to say the thing that stuck out to me was how awesome he did to balance character appearances. Unlike First Wall (a very good book to me) we don’t spend 100+ pages on a single arc. There were some really sweet moments involving Diaz, the task force sent to Saturnine wall, etc. Dan does an amazing job to show the shear scale of this conflict in a way that never felt overwhelming and transitions well between scenes.

 

Primarchs: He nailed this plain and simple. Dorn was awesome and more humane…forced to make the tough choices and clearly seemed to regret these choices but knowing it must be done. Also as I mentioned the book starts off with what is basically Lightning Tower Part 2 (perhaps top 3 short for me). Khan is awesome and the Khan. Perturabo was brilliant and not the Horus a** kisser that he has been portrayed as. Sangy wasn’t Mr. Emo…all in all awesome. 

 

Human POV: I think many have commented that Abnett is one of the few authors who gets the human-astartes interaction right (not overly awed or scared). This is no different and I really enjoyed the human POV and how he rolls in some key ones we know from other stories. I thought the Angron part in the end was a nice touch. My favorite human-astartes scene was with Niborran and Caldawar (IF). It was a nice evolution from beginning to end, was very touching as well. 

 

Perpetual: I am indifferent to this stuff. I don’t mind reading it but don’t gush over it as well. If the perpetuals are your thing, they provide nice context to the book…probably the whole HH series. Dan handled this one well, I felt they were there to shed some “ah ha” moments but was not the thrust of the book. Obviously John is here and his role is minor except to introduce Erda and the giving more context to the Emperor. 

 

Emperor: Yeah to me this is what MoM should have been. This has to be the most controversial part of the book with Erda and the whole Primarch project. I am sure it will generate some conversation like Wriaght’s Valdor book with the Thunder Warriors. Much like MoM, you get the perspective of a perpetual on how the Emperor is like. I think in general it does make his actions make much more sense to be honest. I am not sure if this was drawn from old lore that we know about him but I felt fit in well. If anything just gives another perspective on the big E. I did enjoy ABD's MoM although it was little depressing but Abnett is another author who could have done a killer MoM type book. 

 

Saturnine Wall: So the whole premise of the book is based on this section of the Eternity Gate (I think this is part of the gate yes?). The whole book is driven by this wall and Dorn’s whole plan is centered around this as well as the implications for the traitors on how they approach this. IMO I went gush on how this all played out. Very believable and made from some crazy battles! All I have to say about Marr and this…payback is a b@(TCH! Without getting into spoilers, the main battles as well as the action surrounding the actual Saturnine wall is worthy of a movie. I think more grade B characters died in this one chapter then the entire series…crazy!

 

The end of the book: The book ended strongly as it started. Abaddon's arc was satisfying and he gave as good as he got so I think fans of him will be pleased. I loved his thoughts towards the end of the book, in particular with his interactions of Perturabo which made me smile. Lesson is don't F with the Lord of Iron...he will get you one way or another. Just another example of how brilliant he is with sieges. Nice touch that Abnett did to highlight this fact.  The Krole arc was also done well via the book and I really like Abnett's take on the sisters. Also the conclusion of her arc was so 40k and fit in very well with the whole scale of this siege. 

 

Conclusion: There is no question Abnett did his homework here, there was really no editorial oversight like TLatD. He even (IMO) addresses the Dorn/Vulkan thing in the LatD where it was clear to me Dorn forgot he met Vulkan alive. From a technically standpoint, I think the book flowed very very well and the prose was just easy to read. The characters I have grown to like such as Land got some good limelight. The whole Fulgrim and III was also a highlight of the book and also loved how it all played out...typical Fulgrim responses to things which is always good for a laugh on how arrogant he is. I don't it is a spoiler to say that Fulgrim trying to cram himself and the entire Legion on some section of the wall is funny to imagine...like some sick orgy...EC style of course.

 

He no doubt set-ups for the future books like the Khan re-taking the Lion Port, Sangy-Angron face-off, etc. At this point, John’s Solar Wars has been my favorite in the SoT thus far and this one is up there for the reasons above. They are both different books and do a great job to close out some minor characters’ arc and advance the big story lines for the remaining book. I am confident the last book (which sounds like he will do) will be gushy and will be like his first book in the series (closing it down with a nice bow).

 

I think with all great authors, this will generate some love hate stuff and one could easily nit pick small things but from my end, I absolutely loved this one. It combined great action which he thought about carefully where to place in the book, awesome light shedding (which some would not agree with), and some nice grim dark deaths that just shows that in the warhammer world, no one cares who you are (maybe except Abaddon ha ha). Can't recommend enough when it comes out for general release. 

 

Now to read some spoilers, I certainly have some questions like Fo’s secret weapon…

Edited May 8, 2020 by Izlude

[Knockagh]

I’ve just reached the half way mark and this is one beautiful book. Dans books had been hit or miss the last few years but this is superb stuff. BLs authors have done sterling work with this series so far. I would hate to be one of the authors who still have a book to come out. Resisted reading this thread so far. Some mental gymnastics about the potential threads to be pulled out of this I’m sure.

[BrainFireBob]

 

 

...The scattering of the primarchs used to be due to Chaos in the hard-lore, now it isnt. Or at least not fully. At the end of the day it doesn't change anything - ...

It does though, and it just irk's me that of anyone to do this, its always Abnett.

 

I want canon, to remain as such.

 

If I'm the only one that see's the Perpetual line as an aberration in the lore that came from one person and then perpetuated its own importance in the final books of a massive series as an 'issue'...then fine. I'll leave it at that until I read the book.

I hear you. Essentially, Abnett compulsively does Shyamalan- level, and style, twists. He does them superbly, but does do them. Every. Single. Time.

 

I don't find twists exciting or interesting in themselves either. Which means they also read as "needless" to me. But, I assume they inspire him to write.

 

This is why comics have massive retcons- like the Peter Parker clone.

[aa.logan]

“ I'll leave it at that until I read the book.”

 

Might be an idea.

[b1soul]

Saturnine tells us Erda had a hand in the Scattering

 

Valdor tells us Chaos was definitely involved

 

I don't think the old lore has been twisted or discarded, more like expanded to accommodate Perpetual influence

[mc warhammer]

yeah, i think the value of twists is worth discussing

or the overuse of twists

or even whether or not dan abnett has a twist in every one of his novels

 

but that comic book writers cant help themselves but write twists and retcons is...just...

[SpAcEGhOsT095]

yeah, i think the value of twists is worth discussing

or the overuse of twists

or even whether or not dan abnett has a twist in every one of his novels

Would Curze having real-time foresight count in The Unremembered Empire? It's certainly a twist on a character trait.

Before that, it was just horrible visions of the future. But it doesn't seem to work when Vulkan is involved. I guess really big hammers are Konrad's kryptonite.

[bluntblade]

yeah, i think the value of twists is worth discussing

or the overuse of twists

or even whether or not dan abnett has a twist in every one of his novels

 

but that comic book writers cant help themselves but write twists and retcons is...just...

Don't make me fetch that quote that I pretend is by Jon Favreau.

[b1soul]

I preferred Curze and Sang with prophetic visions rather than Jedi precog

[BrainFireBob]

yeah, i think the value of twists is worth discussing

or the overuse of twists

or even whether or not dan abnett has a twist in every one of his novels

 

but that comic book writers cant help themselves but write twists and retcons is...just...

Who said that? I said that comics- a shared universe with decades of history and hundreds of writers- have suffered historically from this, leading to their infamous whiplash retcons.

[RikuEru]

Saturnine tells us Erda had a hand in the Scattering

 

Valdor tells us Chaos was definitely involved

 

I don't think the old lore has been twisted or discarded, more like expanded to accommodate Perpetual influence

Agreed.

Erda TELLS us, she had in the scattering.

DID she reeeaaally tho?

As an agent of Chaos? Or an (unknowing) victim of Chaos? Did something in the vast oceans of the Warp react to a "Mother's" Plea for help, to "save" "her" "unborn" "Sons"? Or did she have a plan, but the Scattering happpened before she could act and she saw it as a wondrous miracle of fate? Or did she indeed try something and she just thought it was her doing when the Scattering happened?

(...which would be especially cruel, come to think of it. Chaos waiting for her to act, to snatch them away then, so the Emperor knows about her betrayal. No matter if he had a deal with Chaos about it or not. Given her implied role and how long and well they knew each other, it would be somewhat of a loss, even to someone as 'aloof' and distant as the Emperor.

 

I still get that some people dislike the side-/extra-plot of the Perpetuals.

 

But this bit is just another 'unreliable'/open-to-interpretation story told by a character in-universe.

 

We shouldn't be too shaken about this.

[Lord Lorne Walkier]

I think most Gladii are simple combat blades, but some can be outfitted with powerfields or force circuitry or whatnot

Below is a copy of a conversation were in im trying to get Lexicanum to change Loken's page, to show that the sword he recovered from Rubio was Force.

 

 

==Garviel Loken==

Hello, I would like to see a screenshot of the text passage used as a source for the change of "power" to "force" sword, thanks. --[[user:Inquisitor S.|Inquisitor S., Großmeister des Ordo Lexicanum]] ([[user talk:Inquisitor S.|talk]]) 08:53, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Sure thing.  My pleasure / passion.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoxUpiK9qYThiUQ5RfAb4KkBWQ9u

Pg 48

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoxUpiK9qYThiUAzASsYIN54oe3h

Pg 100

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoxUpiK9qYThiUMBK1rtaeYBX2af

Pg 160

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoxUpiK9qYThiUGkmVbhYyrRmlNN

Pg 161

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoxUpiK9qYThiUIY8QotyYIpEcod

Glad there is quality control in effect, Lord Inquisitor.  This is proof Garvil is a psyker.  This is controversial, I know.

[Tymell]

I just finished this one. Staunchly avoided this thread until now in order to avoid spoilers (and given some of the...intense reactions I've read so far, I think I'll keep avoiding it for the most part )

 

Anywho, some of this I liked and some I didn't. At its simplest, I felt like the first half or so of the book suffered, but it really picked up in the last third for some of the best stuff in the Siege thus far.

 

The main issue I had early on was that it felt, to me, like there was just too much going on, too many different perspectives to juggle. I get what Dan was going for, and that wide cast does come into play later on in the book, but I'd be lying if I said it made it didn't hamper my enjoyment. The writing was still decent, but for that first half or so I really felt like we were getting the same problem yet again with the Siege: too many characters, and not enough focus.

 

For me, The Solar War got this balance down just right. There was still a lot going on, but most of it was anchored to either Mersaidie/Loken, Abaddon, or the handful of Imperial Fists leading the defences. I could point to them and say "Those are the main characters for this story".

 

Lost and the Damned and The First Wall suffered from not having this, though in different ways. In Lost and the Damned, there was just no focus beyond the conflict itself. I finished it, and no one stood out in my mind as a "main character" of the book, and even now I struggle to really recall that much of what happened. The First Wall has focal characters in parts (i.e. Amon/Keeler and Zenobi), but the Lion's Gate Port parts are another mish-mash of characters, compounded with bizarre time jumps, and the fact that the book as a whole is juggling all these different plotlines.

 

For a good chunk of its time, I felt a similar way about Saturnine. No one stood out as a main character, so I felt like I had no one to latch on to, nothing to really ground myself in. It felt like I was reading a Forge World book more than a novel. And don't get me wrong, I love the Forge World stuff. But it's inherently different to how a novel should feel.

 

However, as the book goes on it does sharpen that focus somewhat, as it starts to come together into the main battlefronts: Colossi, Gorgon, Eternity Port and Saturnine itself, with a few minor threads elsewhere. It's still a lot, and there are still a lot of characters involved, but I at least felt like I had a better general mental grip on it all, rather than a string of "And now this character, and now this character, and now this character...". And in the last third or so, my God-Emperor the hits just keep coming.

 

Grammaticus' talk with Erda, the gathering of our own Magnificent Seven and Dorn's speech to them ("I am the fortress now"), the Emperor's Children's assault on the wall, the kill teams brutally taking out the Sons of Horus and the sheer satisfaction of the loyalists pulling off such a move, Angron being blown apart and then reforming, Abaddon's suicidal battle, Dorn and Sigismund battling Fulgrim and his sons, Loken hunting down Aximand, all those last stands at the Eternity Port, and of course, Piers himself facing down Angron. And then Corswain turning up! I feel out of breath just typing it all out.

 

Seriously, so many fantastic scenes, moments and lines of dialogue, I couldn't stop reading. Even despite the sadness of some of the endings we see, it still felt so good to read, and like all those disparate threads earlier were coming together for a big set of pay-offs.

 

So all told, I'm in two minds. On the one hand, that last big part of the book is great, but I -did- struggle with the earlier parts, and while they still benefited from Abnett's strong prose, I can't simply say that the enjoyment I got from the later parts wiped away my struggles with the earlier ones. Personally, I'd rank this below Solar War, which remains king of the Siege so far, but above Lost and the Damned and First Wall, somewhere around a 7.5, maybe an 8 if I'm feeling particularly generous.

 

Oh, and regarding all the stuff from the Grammaticus chapter:

even as I read it, I knew it was going to piss a lot of people off, but I'm certainly not among them. The information given was interesting to read about, was expanding on stuff that was quite vague to begin with (that's not a complaint btw, just the way it is), and can still be taken or left at your discretion, since it's all just one in-universe character relating it all. Could be that she's lying, misled, deliberating omitting or emphasising certain parts. I found it fun to read, and I think some people are really over-reacting to perceptions of "re-writing canon" or the like. Just my take.

Edited May 12, 2020 by Tymell

[b1soul]

Yeah, Erda could easily be emphasising her hand in the Scattering over the heavy lifting by Chaos, e.g. in her mind, she used Chaos rather than the other way around

...or she herself is deluded about how exactly the Scattering is enabled

A lot of ambiguity to play around with

[Knockagh]

I really feel sorry for any 40k fan who hasn’t feasted on chapter 3 part 2. Read it twice over coffee break this morning. Think I will read it again before moving on. Fantastic. I didn’t think BL would actually ever look at the emperor’s origins in such detail. Dan has done the impossible by making it so good.

I can’t help but see this as seed ground for a unity series. Got to be, especially given Dans desire to write unity books. After this nothing is off the cards, all secrets await the right moment.... as it should be

[Moonreaper666]

To be fair, he is killed by one of the most powerful/draining psychic constructs in the galaxy. It could just be that with the Perpetuals they still need to have a soul left over to reincarnate, and the Golden Throne utterly consumed his.

I feel the fact that both Olly Perrson and the Emperor being Perpetuals should not make them be safe when they fight Horus. One big mistake and they both permanently die at the hands of Horus, regeneration and psyker powers be damned

 

And unlike Vulkan no sacrifices or trading of lives can bring the two back to life if Horus kills them. The Chaos Gods and their most powerful servants should sever the immortality of Perpetuals they kill

 

This should continue in the present day. Warmaster Abaddon and others can permanently-kill Perpetuals like Anval Thawn and Mordrac

[Lord_Caerolion]

Yeah, that's been established for a while now, I believe.

[Lord Lorne Walkier]

The plot thickens...

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/e/e4/Lokenforcesword.jpg

[Brother Lunkhead]

How prominent a role do the Necrons play in this novel?.....

[Knockagh]

Finished this in the small hours of this morning waiting on a lorry coming to get a load of chickens! Great read loved it. Dan is indeed the man. Lots going on, perhaps too much but I felt Dan pulled it off as it was so readable.

 

I wonder will the perpetual storyline be inserted into 40k in some form what with all the changes swimming around there? I wouldn’t be surprised, a cabal / perpetual behind the scenes story would make for an interesting aside.

 

Anyone buys a corn fed free range chicken from Waitrose from tomorrow through to Tuesday pretty much guaranteed they are mine

Edited May 16, 2020 by Knockagh

[DukeLeto69]

I wonder will the perpetual storyline be inserted into 40k in some form what with all the changes swimming around there? I wouldn’t be surprised, a cabal / perpetual behind the scenes story would make for an interesting aside.

Hmmm I wonder if that is what will be making it into Penitent and Pandemonium? Abnett alluded to having to seek permission from BL and IP Gods to do something in that series that had serious lore ramifications (and they agreed).

[DukeLeto69]

 

 

 

I wonder will the perpetual storyline be inserted into 40k in some form what with all the changes swimming around there? I wouldn’t be surprised, a cabal / perpetual behind the scenes story would make for an interesting aside.

Hmmm I wonder if that is what will be making it into Penitent and Pandemonium? Abnett alluded to having to seek permission from BL and IP Gods to do something in that series that had serious lore ramifications (and they agreed).

Oh dang, when was that?

If you have the time and inclination read this thread...

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/345238-speculation-spoilers-regarding-the-magos-pariah-etc/

[RedFurioso]

Man, what a book. Right now it's the best book of all HH series.
My only complaint is the strange sense of the scale.

Eternity Wall space port is defended by 9k soldiers, meanwhile Perturabo mentions at least 659 millions of combatants inside the Palace. I mean, it's the strategic location. Dorn even sent some reinforcements... Only one thousand arrived. It's nothing in terms of the Siege. Lion's Gate space port was defended by 18k Imperial Fists and 790k troopers. And the whole point of Saturnine ruse is to show some decent defence of the port. But as we see, Dorn sent none of valuable assets. No Space Marines, no Titans, just rag-tag force and disgraced general. It's funny that both defenders and attackers (Khârn) see how poorly space port is defended.

Equally strange is the kill team strength. Did loyalists expect to kill godlike Horus and SoH spear-tip strike force throwing at them 700 marines?

Speaking of 700... 700 Imperial Fists on the Saturnine wall repelled full Third Legion (100k marines). How it's even possible?

The fall of Corbenic on the 18 of Secundus (5 days since the bombardment of Terra began) was ridiculous.

Edited May 24, 2020 by RedFurioso