Astorath: Angel of Mercy by Guy Haley

[Blindhamster]

Can’t wait for audio version. Sounds like a really good book. Humor added to grim darkness are my favorite moments (RIP Tarik Torgaddon).

There isnt oodles of humour, it's really just one character that legitimately has quips that are funny. But it works well because of it.

[Taliesin]

This sounds extremely good and way more interesting than I expected for a book about a character I don't normally like much. I'm catching up on Devastation of Baal right now, actually, and I think Haley has a knack for Blood Angels, so I'm looking forward to being able to read this one. Any idea when we might see it in ebook form?

 

Between April and June most likely.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Taliesin

[b1soul]

I approached Fear to Tread with some trepidation (as I couldn't get through Flight of the Eisenstein or Swallow's Raffen stuff) but I bit the bullet after reading a ridiculously good review of FtT. Got burned badly...so never again.

 

I really hope the primarch book goes to someone else, but Guy isn't my first choice. If ADB is doing the SoT Eternity Gate novel, would be amazing if he also did the Sang book.

[Blindhamster]

I approached Fear to Tread with some trepidation (as I couldn't get through Flight of the Eisenstein or Swallow's Raffen stuff) but I bit the bullet after reading a ridiculously good review of FtT. Got burned badly...so never again.

 

I really hope the primarch book goes to someone else, but Guy isn't my first choice. If ADB is doing the SoT Eternity Gate novel, would be amazing if he also did the Sang book.

I do love ADB, but I don't think anyone has done quite as good a job with Blood Angel's as Guy so far. Although I do like Zephon as a character

[DarkChaplain]

I concur, hamster. I'm honestly a bit confused whenever Zephon is helt up as the exemplary Blood Angel to prove ADB would be perfect to write them, to be honest. He's atypical, if anything. It's kind of like taking Uriel Ventris and pointing at him as being the quintessential Ultramarine, when he's an outlier.

 

In essence, I haven't really seen why ADB is being held up as such a prime candidate to write Blood Angels at this point, outside of 1) his own desire to write them sometime during the Siege and 2) his general popularity with fans. I simply don't get it.

Edited December 27, 2020 by DarkChaplain

[Scribe]

I concur, hamster. I'm honestly a bit confused whenever Zephon is helt up as the exemplary Blood Angel to prove ADB would be perfect to write them, to be honest. He's atypical, if anything. It's kind of like taking Uriel Ventris and pointing at him as being the quintessential Ultramarine, when he's an outlier.

 

In essence, I haven't really seen why ADB is being held up as such a prime candidate to write Blood Angels at this point, outside of 1) his own desire to write them sometime during the Siege and 2) his general popularity with fans. I simply don't get it.

 

I'd chalk it up to ADB being simply more highly regarded than Guy, and even with limited exposure, his BA being well received.

 

People just trust him far more with Marines than most. I dont put Guy on his level at all, not even close.

[Cleanse And Purify]

Agreed with Scribe. I am not a particular fan of Haley's. ADB writes the best marines in the business, other than maybe the dear departed Josh Reynolds. And ADB has a clear love for the BA, given his own homebrew chapter is a BA successor.

[theSpirea]

I wouldn't mind French or Harrison taking on BAs, rather than ADB. All his books are way too similar.

[b1soul]

I didn't like the Zephon character actually...I kinda wanted a representative BA character to have the chance to shine in MoM. Got a handicapped outlier instead (still...anything by Bowden is well-written)

 

I think it's just the fact that Aaron is one of the best BL authours out there and he clearly has some interest in Sang and the BA. So I'd love to read his take

[Roomsky]

I personally like Zephon because his outlier status is used to outline what the Blood Angels are all about. He remains fully capable of the legion's beatific kindness but is unable to actualize their passion for art or combat. He's effective at showing what the Blood Angels value precisely because he's unable to fulfill those values. I love Zephon, and ADB's marines in general, because he shows that they become dysfunctional without the ability to do what they were made for (kill), or operate in the environment they were meant to operate in (surrounded by their brothers.) This is true even for the ninth, despite their love of "more civilized" virtues.

 

He's not the best Blood Angel in the series ONLY by virtue of the competition being poor, but for his own merits. That he wept on the return of his legion was just one moment that made me go "that's so Blood Angels" in a way the competition hasn't.

[Blindhamster]

All fair and good, Right now though, Dante stands up as probably the best Blood Angels book or book that features Blood Angels to any major extent. Devastation of Baal was decent, with some genuinely good parts (but a little forced on account of events happening with the game at the time), Darkness in the Blood was a very good Blood Angels book also IMO. Astorath I enjoyed because it features a very atypical blood angel (but in a different manner to Zephon) and an interesting look at a few other things (The rage, enslavers and of course,  Astorath). I've also been pretty favourable in my view on how Guy handled Sanguinius in the HH, frankly better than any other author did. I also enjoyed dark imperium and plague wars as well as being quite keen on the Cawl book

Not saying I wouldn't like ADB to write some more BA stuff, that would indeed be nice. Having said that, whilst I LOVE his night lords and black legion books and was quite keen on Master of Mankind and Spear of the Emperor.. i didn't overly enjoy the First Heretic, Betrayer or The Emperors Gift.

 

I guess what I'm saying is, I personally find Guy to be more consistent, not only that but his 40k stuff is also consistent in terms of the books continuity often having little acknowledgements to eachother (even if timeline issues caused by GW have meant reprints of a couple coming...). I think when ADB gets a solid hit, they are indeed probably "better" books overall even to me, but he's also had more "misses" for me.

Aaaaanyway, going offtopic a bit I guess. Astorath book equals another good addition to the Blood Angels 40k lineup IMO.

 

p.s. Raldoron is my favourite blood angel in the HH stories, specifically because of his portrayal in the siege of terra series. Zephon is a close second. Says a lot that they're both kinda outliers of the chapter though.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Blindhamster

[Scribe]

I personally like Zephon because his outlier status is used to outline what the Blood Angels are all about. He remains fully capable of the legion's beatific kindness but is unable to actualize their passion for art or combat. He's effective at showing what the Blood Angels value precisely because he's unable to fulfill those values. I love Zephon, and ADB's marines in general, because he shows that they become dysfunctional without the ability to do what they were made for (kill), or operate in the environment they were meant to operate in (surrounded by their brothers.) This is true even for the ninth, despite their love of "more civilized" virtues.

 

He's not the best Blood Angel in the series ONLY by virtue of the competition being poor, but for his own merits. That he wept on the return of his legion was just one moment that made me go "that's so Blood Angels" in a way the competition hasn't.

 

Exactly. In a not even secondary role, as a side character with next to no expansion, he provides a hook, and growth.

 

Best representation of the Legion, without question, over the entire series lol.

[Blindhamster]

To be fair, the actual Blood Angel's legionnaires have had surprisingly limited screen time. Sanguinius has had more than quite a few other primarchs, but the actual marines? Not really. So wasn't really a hard job.

[Scribe]

To be fair, the actual Blood Angel's legionnaires have had surprisingly limited screen time. Sanguinius has had more than quite a few other primarchs, but the actual marines? Not really. So wasn't really a hard job.

 

He had as much (minimal as it is unless you had the full novel) opportunity, or less, than anyone else, and did better than anyone else.

 

Down play it all you like, but it is what it is.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Scribe

[DarkChaplain]

The only Blood Angels we've really seen in the series were either set up / killed off by James Swallow in Fear to Tread, and poorly so, like Kano, or had brief appearances here and there. Azkaellon is probably the most interesting one to me, with Amit following suit - but a lot of the legwork on Amit didn't even happen in the Heresy series, but via Flesh of Cretacia by Smillie. Raldoron I find very boring, but he rounds up the trio of "relevant" Blood Angels in most works.

 

The others are more like redshirts (literally, in a sense), and Meros, whose name I had to check, isn't even himself anymore - yet even after becoming the Red Angel, he has barely even shown up or done anything of note. Imagine that, being a character on a giant double-spread artwork alongside Horus, Fulgrim, Kelbor-Hal, Ahriman, Erebus, Abaddon and a bunch of other traitor characters, just to never be touched again in earnest...

 

So yeah, I absolutely agree that the Heresy series as a whole has done a piss-poor job at actually making the Blood Angels as a Legion appealing / giving them worthwhile characters beyond the few established names.

Meanwhile, Haley juggles various big and small names in Dante, The Devastation of Baal or Darkness in the Blood with success, and adding a significant amount of depth to them - especially Dante. Heck, Devastation of Baal alone does a lot of legwork to establish characters of all kinds, even from Successor Chapters, rivalries and their conflicting natures as Blood Angels. He even made Ka'Bandha actually threatening as a daemon, a character who Swallow drove so quickly against a wall, he made me laugh back in Fear to Tread.

 

Not having read Hinks' Mephiston books yet, Haley is certainly my go-to Blood Angels author at this point. A pity that he's at least on hiatus from writing more about them in 40k.

[b1soul]

ADB gave us a BA "special snowflake" character with Zephon, which was done well. Not using that phrase in a disparaging way.

 

I want to see what he can do with the legion at large and archetypical BA characters, so to speak. How would ADB handle Azkaellon or Raldoron for example?

 

I think he'd smash it out of the park, really.

[Blindhamster]

 

To be fair, the actual Blood Angel's legionnaires have had surprisingly limited screen time. Sanguinius has had more than quite a few other primarchs, but the actual marines? Not really. So wasn't really a hard job.

 

He had as much (minimal as it is unless you had the full novel) opportunity, or less, than anyone else, and did better than anyone else.

 

Down play it all you like, but it is what it is.

 

in your opinion. As it's a creative work, its literally nothing more than that, regardless of how much you might want it to be.

 

Look, I do like Zephon, he's one of my favourite characters in the entire Horus Heresy. But as DarkChaplain said, the only other author to give blood angels legionnaries screen time of note was swallow, and i personally really didn't think a lot of that representation.

 

I can't compare Guy Haleys Horus Heresy Blood Angels to ADBs, because he hasn't really written them in as characters, he's used Sanguinius a lot but the actual Blood Angel marines have been side characters at best and havent had any plot threads dedicated to them. What I *can* do is compare Zephon as portrayed in MoM or the Siege of Terra series to portrayal of Blood Angels characters in "Dante", "Devastation of Baal" and "Darkness in the Blood". Or Even to a lesser extent now "Astorath: Angel of Mercy".

 

 

It is notable that the little bit of Blood Angel marine time in "The Lost and the Damned" was very enjoyable for me, I very much loved Raldoron in that...

 

For me personally, Guy "gets" Blood Angels. I *know* ADB does too from posts on Facebook and the like and from Zephon, whilst Zephon is an atypical Blood Angel, his portrayal clearly shows ADB knows his way around them. But fact is, *I* prefer Guys Blood Angel work to anyone elses to date. You don't have to agree, that's fine. But its as valid an opinion as yours.

 

Cheers.

 

 

Worth noting, I would *not* be unhappy if ADB did write a Blood Angels novel, because I do very much love the majority of his books. But Guy has proven himself to be very capable hands when it comes to the Blood Angels so he's currently my first choice for any more 40k Blood Angels books at the very least.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Blindhamster

[nagashnee]

Sounds like we all agree that Zephon is the best written ba marine in the hh. Which is all the hh should fairly be compared to.

 

The issues arise when we go warhammer wide, but comparing actual 30k work with hypothetical 30k work based on 40k novels is not the best idea.

 

Fear to tread is the issue for me, the BA specific novel with nothing but pkanks of wood for ba characters. Anything after that was only going to be better.

Edited December 28, 2020 by nagashnee

[RedFurioso]

In essence, I haven't really seen why ADB is being held up as such a prime candidate to write Blood Angels at this point, outside of 1) his own desire to write them sometime during the Siege and 2) his general popularity with fans. I simply don't get it.

The truth is, it's not about Blood Angels at all, we simply expect some proper bolter porn from his Eternity Gate novel. You know, the book where Sanguinius held the Gate alone against all Traitors forces and simultaneously fought against Angron and Ka'Bandha.

Aaron can nail this scene and that's the reason.

[Scribe]

 

 

In essence, I haven't really seen why ADB is being held up as such a prime candidate to write Blood Angels at this point, outside of 1) his own desire to write them sometime during the Siege and 2) his general popularity with fans. I simply don't get it.

The truth is, it's not about Blood Angels at all, we simply expect some proper bolter porn from his Eternity Gate novel. You know, the book where Sanguinius held the Gate alone against all Traitors forces and simultaneously fought against Angron and Ka'Bandha.

Aaron can nail this scene and that's the reason.

Someone has to save the Ka'bandha arc. He's done similar before.

[nagashnee]

 

 

In essence, I haven't really seen why ADB is being held up as such a prime candidate to write Blood Angels at this point, outside of 1) his own desire to write them sometime during the Siege and 2) his general popularity with fans. I simply don't get it.

The truth is, it's not about Blood Angels at all, we simply expect some proper bolter porn from his Eternity Gate novel. You know, the book where Sanguinius held the Gate alone against all Traitors forces and simultaneously fought against Angron and Ka'Bandha.

Aaron can nail this scene and that's the reason.

Someone has to save the Ka'bandha arc. He's done similar before.

 

At this point my money is on Kabandha getting replaced with Angron or someone else. Keeping him in would be a very weird choice as we know Sangiunius can beat him ( thanks fear to tread!) . Hardly make for a epic moment/fight.

[RedFurioso]

 

 

 

In essence, I haven't really seen why ADB is being held up as such a prime candidate to write Blood Angels at this point, outside of 1) his own desire to write them sometime during the Siege and 2) his general popularity with fans. I simply don't get it.

The truth is, it's not about Blood Angels at all, we simply expect some proper bolter porn from his Eternity Gate novel. You know, the book where Sanguinius held the Gate alone against all Traitors forces and simultaneously fought against Angron and Ka'Bandha.

Aaron can nail this scene and that's the reason.

 

Someone has to save the Ka'bandha arc. He's done similar before.

 

At this point my money is on Kabandha getting replaced with Angron or someone else. Keeping him in would be a very weird choice as we know Sangiunius can beat him ( thanks fear to tread!) . Hardly make for a epic moment/fight.

 

This WarCom article confirmed Sanguinius/Ka'Bandha rematch in SoT series:

 

>And all that’s just from three novels! With five more to go, plus two novellas on the way, imagine how many more epic moments await… The last flight of the Sisypheum, the battle for Saturnine, Loken facing his erstwhile Mournival brothers, the truth of Magnus’ loyalties, Sanguinius and Ka’Bandha’s rematch, Sigismund’s rampage through traitor heroes… oh, and we think there’s some sort of battle on the Vengeful Spirit to look forward to as well.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/05/20/the-siege-of-terras-top-moments-so-far

 

And excerpt from Malevolence:

>It would be Ka'Bandha's battle against the IXth Legion that would define it and shake the very foundations of the Imperium, from the bloody plains of Signus Prime to the gates of the Imperial Palace on Terra.

[b1soul]

Zephon's only competition in the HH series is like what...the interchangeable apothecary and librarian in Fear to Tread? Sure, he beats those two Swallow "characters" by a country mile.

[Bobss]

 

 

Bloodstained Blood Angels, vanguard of the line, their beauty revealed as it had always truly been: as cruel and merciless horror, their noble legend put aside so they could kill unashamed, the way their genefather had made them to kill. No false myth of noble angels, that guise gone so that they, though unchanged in aspect, had become the truest, oldest, meaning of terrible. A coin reversed. A truth that had been obvious all along, but was now unmasked, unslipped. Their true selves, beings of awe, when awe is a weapon of itself.

 

As much as I love a good Guy Haley pile-on, focussed^TM Dan Abnett lays waste to the competition here

[Blindhamster]

I dont like abnetts marines typically.