Skipping Heresy Novels

[cheywood]

I’m relatively behind on my Heresy and would like to catch up to the siege sometime sooner rather than later. I plan on reading the remaining books that interest me, but there are three Heresy novels that I’d like to skip: The Crimson King, Old Earth, and The Buried Dagger. Are those three novels essential for understanding the siege? I’m not worried about missing details here or there, just the big themes and pivotal moments.

 

 

TL;DR: can I skip The Crimson King, Old Earth and The Buried Dagger without missing out on essential plot lines during the Siege?

Edited June 20, 2020 by cheywood

[m0nolith]

I’m relatively behind on my Heresy and would like to catch up to the siege sometime sooner rather than later. I plan on reading the remaining books that interest me, but there are three Heresy novels that I’d like to skip: The Crimson King, Old Earth, and The Buried Dagger. Are those three novels essential for understanding the siege? I’m not worried about missing details here or there, just the big themes and pivotal moments.

 

 

TL;DR: can I skip The Crimson King, Old Earth and The Buried Dagger without missing out on essential plot lines during the Siege?

Well, if you want to understand the Thousand Sons in the Heresy, don't skip the Crimson King.

If you want to understand the Salamanders and Vulkan in the Heresy, don't skip Old Earth.

If you want to understand the Death Guard in the Heresy, don't skip the Burried Dagger.

Otherwise, yeah you could easily skip those and not miss out much when it comes to plot progression.

 

Also skip The Battle for the Abyss. It's painfully bad. 

[JH79]

You're not missing out anything too essential. Each can be summed up very briefly as follows:

 

TCK - Magnus wants his shards back, weird time travel back and forth, Emperor is bad, lets get to Terra.

OE - Vulkan wants to get to Terra, Shattered Legions plot threads tied up, Iron Hands are morons.

TBD - Mortarion Primarchs story that never was, Death Guard turn to Chaos because reasons, Knights Errant have an adventure and go to Titan.

 

There's a plot mechanic from TBD also used to much better effect in the opening Siege novel.

 

Check each novels discussion thread on here for full spoilers and in depth discussion from the usual suspects if you want all the gory details. Happy reading, or not as it were

Edited June 20, 2020 by JH79

[cheywood]

 

 

I’m relatively behind on my Heresy and would like to catch up to the siege sometime sooner rather than later. I plan on reading the remaining books that interest me, but there are three Heresy novels that I’d like to skip: The Crimson King, Old Earth, and The Buried Dagger. Are those three novels essential for understanding the siege? I’m not worried about missing details here or there, just the big themes and pivotal moments.

 

 

TL;DR: can I skip The Crimson King, Old Earth and The Buried Dagger without missing out on essential plot lines during the Siege?

Well, if you want to understand the Thousand Sons in the Heresy, don't skip the Crimson King.

If you want to understand the Salamanders and Vulkan in the Heresy, don't skip Old Earth.

If you want to understand the Death Guard in the Heresy, don't skip the Burried Dagger.

Otherwise, yeah you could easily skip those and not miss out much when it comes to plot progression.

 

Also skip The Battle for the Abyss. It's painfully bad.

Thanks!

 

I think I’ll probably read The Crimson King since Graham’s contributing those novellas to the Siege and leave the others for whenever I do a reread.

 

I read Battle of the Abyss long long ago. I’ve got 10 novels and some short stories left to go in the series.

[cheywood]

You're not missing out anything too essential. Each can be summed up very briefly as follows:

 

TCK - Magnus wants his shards back, weird time travel back and forth, Emperor is bad, lets get to Terra.

OE - Vulkan wants to get to Terra, Shattered Legions plot threads tied up, Iron Hands are morons.

TBD - Mortarion Primarchs story that never was, Death Guard turn to Chaos because reasons, Knights Errant have an adventure and go to Titan.

 

There's a plot mechanic from TBD also used to much better effect in the opening Siege novel.

 

Check each novels discussion thread on here for full spoilers and in depth discussion from the usual suspects if you want all the gory details. Happy reading, or not as it were

Thanks, that’s a good idea on checking the discussion threads. I think I’ll get through TCK and leave the others for a re-read.

[Fedor]

The siege is only halfway through at most, so it's not a question that can be properly answered yet.

 

So far imo you could understand reading the siege without having read the series at all as long as you have been around the setting for a while and know the basic heresy lore or have read the artbooks.So having said that, see this as moment to take the less travelled path and and skip all the books that interest you, while reading those that do not.

[Splog]

Yes

[SkimaskMohawk]

You can easily skip all three and appreciate the siege perfectly well. Ive personally only read the crimson king, and it didn't really add much other than "they're officially traitors" to the narrative. I say that, because the actual meat of the plot was already done by French in his ahriman trilogy.

 

The fact that I haven't read anything in the knight errant/shattered legion/ salamander arcs (aside from unremembered empire) and feel like I haven't missed anything important in terms of plot threads is pretty sad.

[cheywood]

Thanks for the replies everyone! Happy to read more thoughts, but I think I’m going to read the Crimson King before the Siege and maybe go back to the other two if I have the time/inclination. Edited June 20, 2020 by cheywood

[Xisor]

 

I’m relatively behind on my Heresy and would like to catch up to the siege sometime sooner rather than later. I plan on reading the remaining books that interest me, but there are three Heresy novels that I’d like to skip: The Crimson King, Old Earth, and The Buried Dagger. Are those three novels essential for understanding the siege? I’m not worried about missing details here or there, just the big themes and pivotal moments.

 

 

TL;DR: can I skip The Crimson King, Old Earth and The Buried Dagger without missing out on essential plot lines during the Siege?

Well, if you want to understand the Thousand Sons in the Heresy, don't skip the Crimson King.

If you want to understand the Salamanders and Vulkan in the Heresy, don't skip Old Earth.

If you want to understand the Death Guard in the Heresy, don't skip the Burried Dagger.

Otherwise, yeah you could easily skip those and not miss out much when it comes to plot progression.

 

Also skip The Battle for the Abyss. It's painfully bad. 

 

If you want to understand the Thousand Sons (or indeed: anything) in the Heresy, don't read the Crimson King.

If you want to understand the Salamanders and Vulkan in the Heresy, don't read Old Earth. (Or Deathfire, or Sons of the Forge, for that matter.)

If you want to understand the Death Guard in the Heresy, don't read The Buried Dagger.

 

You can skip them, because they're not especially interesting, or unique takes on the Legions.

 

Thousand Sons? Cast more spells, Magnus hums and haws to no particular conclusion.

Salamanders? Be bad at being a Space Marine Legion, keep trying to do their own thing, and do it wastefully, inefficiently badly anyway.

Death Guard? I think the ones in TBD were a cosplay, to be honest, and not a very good one.

 

If you want Salamanders, check out Scorched Earth or Guy's short stories with Salamanders in.

 

If you want the plot of Crimson King, read John French's Ahriman trilogy (or a summary of it - if you're not a fan of the prose itself) - the plot is more layered and detailed in French's original telling. McNeill's retelling/plagiarism/carelessness is thinner, more incoherent, and less satisfactory.

 

If you want Death Guard, read anything about them from Wraight's perspective and imagine the blank bits for yourself.

 

I didn't hate the three books, by any means, but they're none of them the good versions of what they're trying to do.

 

Less is more for the Salamanders, as Guy shows - they're perfect for psychological, introspective stories. Epic, meandering quests are meaningless for them, and leave them looking like unreliable tools.

 

Etc.

 

--- 

 

Skip all three, no hesitation. (Only read them if you're interested in those authors' writings, generally.)

[Bobss]

 

 

I’m relatively behind on my Heresy and would like to catch up to the siege sometime sooner rather than later. I plan on reading the remaining books that interest me, but there are three Heresy novels that I’d like to skip: The Crimson King, Old Earth, and The Buried Dagger. Are those three novels essential for understanding the siege? I’m not worried about missing details here or there, just the big themes and pivotal moments.

 

 

TL;DR: can I skip The Crimson King, Old Earth and The Buried Dagger without missing out on essential plot lines during the Siege?

 (Only read them if you're interested in those authors' writings, generally.)

 

 

I agree with this so hard. We all know what happens in the Horus Heresy at both a major and a semi-minor level, even before the myriad online wikis started sprouting up, so all that really remains is to consume books for the enjoyment of it. You consume a book because you like the faction present, regardless of the author, or you consume a book because you like who has written it, regardless of the factions present - and sometimes you're lucky enough to get both. I've read enough Galaxy in Flames-es to last me a lifetime. I love 30k/40k, but I don't love everyone's vision or presentation of it

 

We all know how, where, when and why Mortarion falls to Nurgle. Do you really need a poor account of it - with a few bells and whistles attached - when you could be reading something like The Lords of Silence?

Edited June 21, 2020 by Bobss