What is your least favorite HH novel?

[DarkChaplain]

This thread is gonna get nuked soon, isn't it?

[Snazzy]

I'm still struck by the decisions made in Fulgrim.  I was looking forward to a portrayal of Fulgrim that would make him relatable.  Fulgrim was not that book.  He never came off as likeable.  Even his friendship with Ferrus seemed shoehorned in so that he seemed relateable.

 

At the time i was growing tired of the trope about divisions between Terran marines and those from the Legion's recruiting worlds.  They had used that plot device in the DA novels and with Qruze.  I felt no attachment to Saul Tarvitz.  The only thing i remember liking was the conversation about how attacking up the middle was not artful, unless you do it well enough.

[mc warhammer]

agreed on all counts on fulgrim, it was just...so obvious

 

there were some things to enjoy in it despite that. and it's a book that many many readers seem to love. mileage definitely varies

[bluntblade]

I think it needed a clearer through-line, and McNeill doing a Back to the Future 2 meant that it often didn't feel like its own story. Edited January 26, 2020 by bluntblade

[Xisor]

agreed on all counts on fulgrim, it was just...so obvious

 

there were some things to enjoy in it despite that. and it's a book that many many readers seem to love. mileage definitely varies

I'd heard it described as a case of mistaken identity.

 

That Fulgrim's written in such a way that its easy to infer into it ideas that don't seem to have actually been intended, but that are interesting all the same, and fit with the text.

 

Join it up with The Reflection Crack'd, Angel Exterminated etc and suddenly those implications are clearly figments of the reader's imagination, and not cunning webs woven in deliberately trippy-seeming, hallucinatory-styled mists.

 

Maybe not mistaken identity, but paredoilia?

[Scammel]

I'm not sure either are my worst, but I definitely want to give shout-outs to both The Crimson King and Wolfsbane. The former has the Sons outsmarted at every turn and getting thrashed by opposing psykers, with yet another 'Death of Prospero' psychic-metaphor thing. No, the books aren't meant to be fanservice but for a legion as small and relatively non-involved as the Sons you'd assume the trade-off is that they take names when they do finally decide to commit.

 

Wolfsbane features Russ on a wolfy visionquest while cementing his title as worst decision-maker of the entire Heresy. Yawn.

[Shield-Captain]

Worst for me is either Abyss or Vulkan Lives. Abyss was just bad and I found most of the Salamander stuff boring and everything about Vulkan Lives was just the worst for me. Pythos is also up there. It was too enamored with things happening to really explain why things were happening. But I suppose the issue with these novels is a lot like the issue with comic books. Too many tie-ins can be confusing.

[Indefragable]

agreed on all counts on fulgrim, it was just...so obvious

 

there were some things to enjoy in it despite that. and it's a book that many many readers seem to love. mileage definitely varies

 

 

 

agreed on all counts on fulgrim, it was just...so obvious

 

there were some things to enjoy in it despite that. and it's a book that many many readers seem to love. mileage definitely varies

I'd heard it described as a case of mistaken identity.

 

That Fulgrim's written in such a way that its easy to infer into it ideas that don't seem to have actually been intended, but that are interesting all the same, and fit with the text.

 

Join it up with The Reflection Crack'd, Angel Exterminated etc and suddenly those implications are clearly figments of the reader's imagination, and not cunning webs woven in deliberately trippy-seeming, hallucinatory-styled mists.

 

Maybe not mistaken identity, but paredoilia?

 

 

I kind of like Fulgrim the HH novel (as opposed to the Primarchs novel, which I love, but that's separate). 

 

Your points are not wrong, but I think why Fulgrim stands out to me is that, especially for being so early in the series, it is arguably the most self-contained of all the books. It can be read on its own and its story arc shows pre-fall III Legion to post-Isstvaan corrupted dudes. As a result, it feels like what at the meant was meant to be the "Emperor's Children one" which would then have similar showcases for all 18 Legions. Instead plots became further and further intertwined and we got less and less case studies on each individual Legion/Primarch (until an entire other novella series was developed for that reason). There was Thousand Sons, and Prospero Burns, and kinda sorta maybe but not really but I guess  Fear to Tread that took up the one-book-one-Legion structure....and then of course there is Scars which took that format and injected it with cocaine-laced jetfuel being pumped directly into the aorta. 

 

Is Fulgrim a great book? Maybe not. But as a self-contained one with one of the most complete arcs, it's definitely not a terrible book IMHO. 

[DarkChaplain]

I'm honestly surprised by the mentions of Fulgrim. As far as I remember, it used to be one of the most well-regarded and nigh-universally appreciated books in the series.

 

If I had to hazard a guess, it might be down to posthumous dissatisfaction about Ferrus Manus and the Iron Hands, as well as Graham's choices via The Reflection Crack'd and so forth.

[Indefragable]

I'm honestly surprised by the mentions of Fulgrim. As far as I remember, it used to be one of the most well-regarded and nigh-universally appreciated books in the series.

 

If I had to hazard a guess, it might be down to posthumous dissatisfaction about Ferrus Manus and the Iron Hands, as well as Graham's choices via The Reflection Crack'd and so forth.

 

I think it's a victim of age and the "first wave" of HH books compared to later gems that are drooled over. 

[Red_Shift]

TBH all I remember about Fulgrim is that at some point he took out an Eldar Avatar and it caused a lot of controversy at the time.

 

The worst heresy book that I have read was The First Heretic, but it might not have been badly written as much as I just was completely uninterested in the plot and it failed to draw me in. Kymes Salamander series was the only 40k book I gave up on half way through so I have no difficulty believing that any Salamander heresy book by him would have been a hard read.

[aa.logan]

Partially inspired by this thread and partially driven by Audible’s recent sales I’ve revisited both Descent of Angels and Battle for The Abyss as audiobooks.

 

They’re certainly not the strongest entries in the series, but neither are they totally devoid of merit.

 

On my first read through, way back in 2009, I guess, when I devoured the series as far as it had been written, I found no real fault with the either of the Dark Angels novels- maybe because I was newly returned to GW and BL and full of the joys of boltguns, maybe because they offered a nice escape from a job I hated or maybe because they’re not actually that bad and as others have set the tone of the series hadn’t yet solidified, I can’t say for certain. I was, however, completely put off by the reception that Battle for The Abyss got and the fact the school I was working in didn’t have a copy of it in the library unlike the prior books in the series so I didn’t actually read it until 2013 out of sequence and after some of the total series highlights. I thought it was alright at what it did, but essentially throwaway- admittedly because it’s essentially self-contained, it doesn’t feature any major players in the Heresy nor does it explore any significant lore. It’s a book that BL must have put out half a dozen times, two ships chasing through the warp. Sometimes, you strike gold and get Mark of Faith. Other times, you get... this.

 

So, did returning to them add anything to my appreciation of them? Yes. But also no.

 

I’m not always the best at keeping track of character’s names, so I could never remember which of the protagonists of this book got on the wrong side of the Lion. I thought the re-read would help me do that, but other than one being a psyker and the other not, the two aspirants were bland as anything and largely indistinguishable. The look at pre-Imperial Caliban is pretty good and I guess sets the precedent for what we see in the Primarchs novels, so that’s a strength of the book, and there are plenty of nicely ironic references to schisms between brothers, rivalries, betrayals and the actual Cabal that I didn’t pick up on first time round. Ultimately though, not much happens and what does isn’t that important. There’s potential for a good story to be told about the arrival of the Great Crusade at a planet from the rediscovered people’s PoV, but this isn’t it. Also, the books features one of my biggest bugbears- repeated words. This is especially noticeable in an audio- at one point during a battle I felt compelled to shout “STOP SAYING BLADE!”; a synonym or two would really have helped...

 

Battle for The Abyss has some good stuff on how astropathic communication works, exploring the importance and duality of symbolism. Genuinely some of the best in BL. The idea of the Word Bearers having an even bigger plan than just messing up the muster at Calth is not awful? Not having lots of named characters beyond the core of Captains prevents confusion? I quite like the comedy of where the big gun is hidden? I’m really struggling for positives. The characters are shallow, the plot is flimsy and ultimately you know reading it that none of it matters; had I cared about a single character I might have been invested but I didn’t. It was a nice frothy listen. The voices for the Word Bearers were nicely overblown, the loyalists dull and almost parodic. I’m glad the tone for the series veered away from this book, and it probably doesn’t deserve all of the vitriol it receives but it is probably the weakest entry in the series. There may be worse stories, there may be flatter characters, but I can’t think of any that combine both factors in quite the same way. It kept me company on several very early and long dog walks though, so I did get *something* out of it...

[Lord_Caerolion]

TBH all I remember about Fulgrim is that at some point he took out an Eldar Avatar and it caused a lot of controversy at the time.

 

The worst heresy book that I have read was The First Heretic, but it might not have been badly written as much as I just was completely uninterested in the plot and it failed to draw me in. Kymes Salamander series was the only 40k book I gave up on half way through so I have no difficulty believing that any Salamander heresy book by him would have been a hard read.

 

I will defend Fulgrim in as much as the critics of the Avatar death claim that Fulgrim 'choked' the Avatar, saying that they don't need to breathe, but the novel has him crush its neck entirely.

[mc warhammer]

 

agreed on all counts on fulgrim, it was just...so obvious

 

there were some things to enjoy in it despite that. and it's a book that many many readers seem to love. mileage definitely varies

I'd heard it described as a case of mistaken identity.

 

That Fulgrim's written in such a way that its easy to infer into it ideas that don't seem to have actually been intended, but that are interesting all the same, and fit with the text.

 

Join it up with The Reflection Crack'd, Angel Exterminated etc and suddenly those implications are clearly figments of the reader's imagination, and not cunning webs woven in deliberately trippy-seeming, hallucinatory-styled mists.

 

Maybe not mistaken identity, but paredoilia?

 

that's interesting and probably the case for the majority, but i kinda hated it on my first read. along with FotE, it brought me close to dropping the HH.

 

i'm also not to married to "authorial intent", if a book is "accidentally" imbued with more meaning and complexity by the readership than the writer is consciously capable of...even better.

Edited January 31, 2020 by mc warhammer

[mc warhammer]

 

agreed on all counts on fulgrim, it was just...so obvious

 

there were some things to enjoy in it despite that. and it's a book that many many readers seem to love. mileage definitely varies

 

 

 

agreed on all counts on fulgrim, it was just...so obvious

 

there were some things to enjoy in it despite that. and it's a book that many many readers seem to love. mileage definitely varies

I'd heard it described as a case of mistaken identity.

 

That Fulgrim's written in such a way that its easy to infer into it ideas that don't seem to have actually been intended, but that are interesting all the same, and fit with the text.

 

Join it up with The Reflection Crack'd, Angel Exterminated etc and suddenly those implications are clearly figments of the reader's imagination, and not cunning webs woven in deliberately trippy-seeming, hallucinatory-styled mists.

 

Maybe not mistaken identity, but paredoilia?

 

 

I kind of like Fulgrim the HH novel (as opposed to the Primarchs novel, which I love, but that's separate). 

 

Your points are not wrong, but I think why Fulgrim stands out to me is that, especially for being so early in the series, it is arguably the most self-contained of all the books. It can be read on its own and its story arc shows pre-fall III Legion to post-Isstvaan corrupted dudes. As a result, it feels like what at the meant was meant to be the "Emperor's Children one" which would then have similar showcases for all 18 Legions. Instead plots became further and further intertwined and we got less and less case studies on each individual Legion/Primarch (until an entire other novella series was developed for that reason). There was Thousand Sons, and Prospero Burns, and kinda sorta maybe but not really but I guess  Fear to Tread that took up the one-book-one-Legion structure....and then of course there is Scars which took that format and injected it with cocaine-laced jetfuel being pumped directly into the aorta. 

 

Is Fulgrim a great book? Maybe not. But as a self-contained one with one of the most complete arcs, it's definitely not a terrible book IMHO. 

 

 

yeah, i can see that as both a strength and something that annoyed me a bit at the time too, because it essentially felt (to me) like a condensed retread of all the acts from the opening Sons of Horus trilogy. just with more pervy stuff.

[mc warhammer]

I'm honestly surprised by the mentions of Fulgrim. As far as I remember, it used to be one of the most well-regarded and nigh-universally appreciated books in the series.

 

If I had to hazard a guess, it might be down to posthumous dissatisfaction about Ferrus Manus and the Iron Hands, as well as Graham's choices via The Reflection Crack'd and so forth.

for me, it had all the same issues that "reflection..." and every other mcneill book i've read tend to have. like most, i consider "ats" his best, but i also suspect that's because he had such great source material to mine. when he creates from the ground-up, he's just an author that doesn't capture my interest or fascination.

 

not bothered in the slightest by the ferrus stuff and only marginally more by the avatar thing (i was more confused by that than anything else)

 

on the flipside, unlike some, i think he can turn out some really beautiful prose.

Edited January 31, 2020 by mc warhammer

[Fedor]

Fulgrim also punched his fist through the avatar's face if i remember correctly. It was the daemon in the laer blade telling him that the spear was going to come back in comedic IT's BEHIND YOU FOOL fashion to save him from a swift impaling and then him using it as a throwing stick to distract the Avatar that i thought was bad about that fight..

 

Not as bad as Ferrus knocking himself out though. Fulgrim overall is good fun, in retrospect imo it would have worked a lot better to slow down and split that EC arc from circa Laeran to Dropsite into two books but we all know the series was suppose to be much shorter back then.

 

On the characters in Abyss....Brynngar is actually one of the very few Space Wolves i can remember as distinct characters from the series other than Bjorn. He's a gloriously over the top final showing of the older Bill King SW with just enough darkness added before Abnett altered things to a more serious tone. Overall i much prefer the Legion as Abnett, Wraight and Haley later depicted them to the older Bill King sort of stuff, but those books were more about Hawser and Russ.

[Roomsky]

I think Fulgrim suffers a lot from the series' progress since that time. It's a decently structured book with an "epic" story, lots of action, and a passable portrait of the legions in focus. But since then we've had better looks at Fulgrim and his legion, better looks at Ferrus and his legion, better action, a better look at a legion's fall, even a more interesting look at Isstvan V. It's not necessarily fair to hold it at the same standard to things published in the decade since, but I can't exactly read fair, can I? Mcneill set the groundwork, sure, but I still have a hard time enjoying it when Reynolds is doing it so much better nowadays.

 

 

 

The worst heresy book that I have read was The First Heretic, but it might not have been badly written as much as I just was completely uninterested in the plot and it failed to draw me in. 

 

*Heavy Breathing*

[aa.logan]

On the characters in Abyss....Brynngar is actually one of the very few Space Wolves i can remember as distinct characters from the series other than Bjorn. He's a gloriously over the top final showing of the older Bill King SW with just enough darkness added before Abnett altered things to a more serious tone. Overall i much prefer the Legion as Abnett, Wraight and Haley later depicted them to the older Bill King sort of stuff, but those books were more about Hawser and Russ.

He’s old-school, and nicely OTT, but he’s Fenrisian and that’s about it; you’re right, the later books have spoiled us with their duality, but it would have been nice to see him presenting a different side of himself and the Legion to the many unnamed Blood Claws following him around or frankly doing anything that wasn’t just a broad parody of a proud savage warrior who doesn’t trust magic. He has no discernible character beyond that.

 

But if he did , I suppose, he’d stick out like a sore thumb compared with the rest of the cast...

[Fedor]

Oh, i wouldn't call him a well-written character, he's just an over the top, shallow example of the older SW lore, but i found a lot of his scenes highly entertaining and memorable anyway. That probably had to do with the book being a simple battle/chase action story and not feeling like it ever had much intention of being some grand continuation of the overall HH plot. It wouldn't have worked for me in a deeper, more character focused story.... for instance sevatar surfing through space on the back of a fighter in the otherwise really good Prince of Crows just annoyed me.

[Xisor]

In fairness, Brynngar as a character isn't all that, but the arc he gets as a character is actually pretty swish. He's the wobbly, squeaking third wheel on the tricycle of decent characters in the book. Skraal & Mhotep being standouts at the time when the name Legionaries were basically indistinguishable from one another.

 

Loken & pals, Garro & pals, Tarvitz & pals,god knows what the Ultramarine lead was & pals. All extraordinarily interchangeable. See also Remembrancers.

 

In hindsight, Horus Rising was a powerful book for setting up such interesting stuff that - for a good ten novels - people largely squandered.

 

But of all that? Skraal, Mhotep and to a lesser extent Brynngar actually added something entirely new into the mix.

 

(That's not entirely true either - it only applies to Space Marines/Primarchs - and only the likes of "After Desh'ea" & others in Tales of Heresy, and Graham's mightily enjoyable [if somewhat dissatisfying] "Mechanicum" actually broke serious new ground. If you view Descent of Angels as something that could have been supported and encouraged into being a really neat Primarchs novel, there's some good things to be said about it too. And it's a serviceable book too... Just doesn't compare favourably with other books of the day. And - alright - "Legion" does great too. FINE! I'll never make sweeping statements EVR again.)

 

But for the focal characters of the series? Jesus can people write a lot of boring Space Marines.

 

Skraal and Mhotep (& Brynngar) showed that the "misfits" of the Great Crusade were infinitely more interesting than Interchangeable Space Marine Captain and his pal.

 

The problem with Battle for the Abyss, of course, is that they're side-characters, and the supposed story is once again about two Interchangeable Space Marines: heroic Ultrama Rine, and villainous Wordbe Arer, and their respective pals.

 

Goodness those Ultramarines and Word Bearers were Not Fun.

 

(The Word Bearers also suffer from markedly diminishing returns on the Erebus/Abaddon -> Grulgor/Typhon -> Lucius/Eidolon theme.)

Edited January 31, 2020 by Xisor

[Ingo Pech]

In "Battle for the Abyss" the characters are even more one-dimensional and comical than in all other books before... the only interesting part was seeing members of the "traitor legions" staying loyal to the Emperor.

 

But beyond that they always reminded me of a typical DSA-/RPG-party:

 

- the warrior and good guy (Ultramarine)

- the barbar (Space Wolve)

- the magician (Thousand Sons)

- the berserk and bad good guy (World Eater)

- the elf and the dwarf (well, okay, they've bypassed them of course.. )

 

Bland and stereotyped to the extreme...

[Bobss]

Galaxy in Flames by a country mile. Nothing grinds my gears more than people praising this entry like it's the best thing since microwaveable baked beans in plastic pots. It's really not. Even taking into account when it was written and published doesn't excuse all of its faults - after all Dan Abnett wrote the wonderful Horus Rising that has stood the test of time. The Isstvan Atrocity is my absolute favourite battle of the entire Horus Heresy, but what we got felt like a tabletop diorama inside a few ruins. Horus' betrayal was painted in the broadest strokes, with plenty of development missing between this and False Gods (also that book's fault) and a lot of the gripping themes of this battle were either clumsy or simply nonexistent

 

There are so man avenues of potential that could've been written about...

• The sheer misery the newly-orphaned legionaries must've felt to be cast away by their fathers, claiming this must be a mistake; a few of them desperately trying to get back into orbit on their remaining thunderhawks - only to be cruelly shot down again...
• The more level-headed survivors digging in with thoughts of the Emperor and of Unity entrenched in their hearts, vowing to bleed the arrogant Warmaster for every inch of his folly...
• The brutal clash between each Legion against their new counterparts: Loken's Luna Wolves scything down their better-equipped and brutally eager Sons of Horus foes led by Abaddon in orderly lanes of bolter-fire; to groups of Nails-less World Eaters baiting their brethren into obvious deathtraps; to the Death Guard struggling to break each other in a gruelling trench stalemate; to the Emperor's Children delighted to test their bladework against the finest opponents in the galaxy: each other; to the emergent Dark Mechanicum landing the first examples of their terrifying new arts against their kin (ADB mentioned he once wanted to write about the creation of the first Lord of Skulls, c'mon that would've be great debuted at Isstvan III)
• Each Primarch's reaction to the proceedings: Horus smugly impressed with Loken's defiance as the perfect Luna Wolf son; Angron weeping in joy as he slaughters his sons, giving them the glorious last stand that was in turn stolen from him; Mortarion building a grudging respect for the tenacity of the Terran holdouts; Fulgrim completely uninterested in the war as he embarks on his mission to win over his boyfriend...
• Heavy emphasis on dreadnought/Terran characters who recite tales of Unification and early campaigns to their brethren around campfires in the last few nights of their lives, raising morale and reaffirming their oaths to the Emperor, the Imperium and Unity...

I would also play up the nature of the 'war games' that each Legion uses to delude their ranks into forming up into unusual squads for deployment. I would also have more ships escape alongside Garro's magic bus to feel that bit more realistic, but they are a nevertheless scattershot thing and only the aforementioned bus actually reaches Dorn. Also, Horus gunning down the Remembrancers would be framed as more of as a middle-finger to Malcador and be a demonstration of 'an empire built by Space Marines will be ruled by Space Marines' that is still a cornerstone of many Traitors' ethos ten-thousand years later

 

A few nice scenes with Loken-Torgaddon and Keeler-Qruze doesn't change what we got. Rest in mother  peace, Isstvan III

Edited May 6, 2020 by Bobss

[Fedor]

I don't think Dark Mechanicum already going full on warp with daemon engines and stuff would have been well received at all back then. Such a big amount of the criticism around FG and GiF were about things being rushed after the slower pace Horus Rising had set and suggested the series would go at(which  as we know now with things being a pre-planned trilogy i'd have to say Dan has take a smaller share of criticism for that too)..something like that would have been red rag to a bull.

 

Agree that the actual battle in Galaxy had a weak small scale feel to it though. Other than the Mournival confrontation it was a bit of an anti-climax. Forgeworld took it a bit too far in the other direction though.

[Scribe]

I'm glad I wasn't back reading the forum a few months ago...

 

I'm stunned nobody said Prospero Burns.

 

Absolute trash entry, that wasn't even self contained, and it's flawed concepts spread throughout the series.

 

Worst part is that it soured me on everything else Abnett has written since.