Rereading the old and ignoring the new

[Valkyrion]

Particularly with the HH series, I find I tend to reread the first dozen or so, before they changed the size of the books, and I read them properly, cover to cover. Then, when it comes to the A5 size (I don't know book sizes...) I tend to rapidly skim through it. 

I know I've read Pharos, and Angel Exterminatus, and Path of Heaven, but I can't tell you what really happened in those books. 

But I can tell you all about Cyrene, and Sindermann, and Hawser, and Bronzi and that's just the human characters. I can picture vividly Dorn smashing Garro to the deck in Eisenstein, but I forget why he has such a downer on Sigismund, for example.

 

Is it that the series just gets worse after The First Heretic? Is it readers fatigue knowing that there are 54 sodding books to get through? Is it something as silly as the size of the books act as a sort of watershed moment and I just prefer everything in the smaller tomes? 

 

I don't know the answer, but if all my years on B&C have taught me anything, someone does. 

[Scribe]

They lost the plot, and went from a story, to a setting.

 

Everything became less meaningful, when we had a dozen different threads sucking up the oxygen for the actual Story.

 

The betrayal by Horus.

The key moments of the Heresy.

The Siege of Terra.

The battle between Emperor and Horus.

 

Like, I don't even want to look up when this series started, it will just depress me.

[theSpirea]

Interesting, I actually consider books like Scars and The Path of Heaven the absolute best in the series and they are #28 and #36. I think I would have to sit down and rate (and reread) all the books in the series to see if I actually prefer the beginning, middle or the end.

[Scribe]

I looked, and my son who is about to graduate was TWO when this series began.

 

Taking 'milk it for all its worth' to the next level GW!! 

[Bobss]

This is a huge topic but in my opinion the Heresy has always had its bangers and its fair share of dross regardless of whether it's 2006 or 2016. People remember the early years fondly, but the low point between Fulgrim (yes Legion is a banger but it's a strange book regardless and not what people wanted at the time post-Dropsite Massacre) and A Thousand Sons was no better or worse than the period of time I like to call Anthologies Without End in the mid-2010s

 

I think it's worth stating that due to Heresy books up until... Angel Exterminatus(?) being released in a single edition, mass market paperback, the various communities on the Internet could really dig into what was happening in each book. I remember on my old forum, in 2009, dozens and dozens of pages dedicated to Fallen Angels. Not A Thousand Sons. Fallen Angels. So with that in mind I think people's discussions helped solidify certain events in their heads better than later ones. I mean, just look at Reddit, which is probably the biggest and most active repository of BL discussion on the Internet - there must be 10 Helsreach threads for each Mortis one. It is what it is

 

I've read every Heresy book, reread many of them and reviewed a fraction of them, and as of AD2021 this is all I care for:

 

Phase 1 - The Heresy Begins | The Fog of War

1. Horus Rising

2. The First Heretic

3. Know No Fear

4. Betrayer

(i. Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris insertion point)

5. Scars

Phase 2 - The Heresy Continues | The Battle Lines Are Drawn

6. The Master of Mankind

7. Praetorian of Dorn

8. The Path of Heaven

9. Slaves to Darkness

10. The Solar War

Phase 3 - The Heresy Ends | The Grand Homecoming

(ii. Valdor: Birth of the Imperium insertion point)

11. Saturnine

12. Mortis

13. Warhawk

14. Sanguinius vs. Angron

15. The Emperor vs. Horus

 

The rest are either great books detailing stuff I don't care for (Legion, Descent of Angels), meh books detailing stuff I do care for (Galaxy in Flames, Tallarn, Titandeath, Graham McNeill) or just straight up stuff that isn't my jam (Prospero Burns, Imperium Secundus, Garro)

Edited October 1, 2021 by Bobss

[cheywood]

I’m with Bobss on this. The series has always had writers of varying ability and the books reflect this. Galaxy in Flames and Battle for the Abyss in no way measure up to Path of Heaven and Master of Mankind. Even False Gods is a pretty significant decline in quality from Horus Rising.

 

I do think there’s something to be said for the novelty of the earlier works though. Eat enough of anything and it starts to taste bland.

Edited October 1, 2021 by cheywood

[Noserenda]

Definitely agreed that splitting the fans and generally making the series less accessible really hurt it, I don't think any era was particularly exceptional quality wise, there are clunkers and gold scattered all along. Though obviously the periods of limited releases while the studios merged also sucked!

[byrd9999]

Having read 44 HH books since I started reading BL fiction in 2017, I can say that I agree with the posters above that there are great books and terrible books and redundant books scattered throughout the series from beginning to end.

 

However, which ones fit into these categories often depends on the individual reader. There are a few that everyone seems to agree on (Horus Rising = superb, Battle for the Abyss = awful), but most of the rest will depend on things like which writers you prefer, and legion preference.

 

One benefit of not reading the series from its inception, is that I really enjoyed deep dives into the Dark Angels (Descent of Angels, Fallen Angels) and Alpha Legion (Legion), which almost read more like Primarchs series entries, and I was less frustrated by the series turning from a progressive narrative into a setting.

 

Having read most of the 44 HH books in order, with hindsight I would have preferred to follow narrative threads through the series, i.e. reading the Thousand Sons arc, or the Luna Wolves arc, as it makes keeping track of the characters and events easier. Like you, Valkyrion, I struggle to recall most of what has happened in those 44 books.

 

It would be interesting to streamline the Heresy (the 54 HH books) down to the stories written by Dan Abnett, ADB, Chris Wraight and John French and seeing if there is much that is actually missed before starting the Siege...

[XeonDragon]

Yikes. And I thought the Wheel of Time series dragged on! 

[DarkChaplain]

Where I started to lose "faith" in the series would be around the time corporate GW started to interfere with the creative process, turning shorts into model ads, and ForgeWorld starting in earnest to produce the Black Books and kits of characters. The initial excitement over the game being a thing quickly rotted away when the retcons, redesigns and special unit types started piling up, and up, and up.

 

Suddenly, the product placement felt much more apparent in the novels, too, namedropping new kits of elite troops, and characters from FW kept cropping up here and there, with me as the reader having no bloody idea anymore why this new person is a big deal, what they've done, and what events or campaigns would be referenced.

 

All at once, it seemed like the series was no longer its own thing, with its own creative freedoms and rules, and instead a vehicle to drive model sales - the absence of which is something I now realize hugely contributed to me being so much more interested and engaged with the Horus Heresy novel series. Of course there were characters we knew from 40k, and of course there were plenty of projects from fans to interpret what they'd read creatively on the table.

But the series seemed far more in the hands of the authors involved and isolated from the present day 40k, oozing fan passion. The moment it lost that independence, the studio proper took notice and began pushing to exploit the setting as a full premium 40k alternative, the conversation within the fandom shifted. Instead of incredible conversions you'd see default models painted up, stories not being written only because the authors and editors thought that this thing there might be cool - and whatever you say about stuff like Battle for the Abyss, at least it was daring to be something for its own sake.

 

By the 30s, with Betrayal at Calth, there was also a sort of shizophrenia between wanting the Heresy to be a setting and not actually following up on plotlines, before abandoning them in a bid for the "Gauntlet" phase where everybody and their dads were heading for Terra all at once. While yes, of course there were complaints about the story being padded with stuff like Imperium Secundus at that point, but in my experience browsing comment sections, the ones screeching the loudest about "never reaching Terra" were folks who admitted to not even reading the series and just playing the FW game, if even that.

That they then didn't even allow for a proper transitioning phase to wrap up things and arcs they started shows very weird management on the novel series - but later on, it seemed like the stance ended up being "no worries, we'll fill in the blanks with FW and Titanicus".

 

Just look at Beta-Garmon; it was a story we weren't even going to get, despite a bunch of things happening there. Sanguinius on the frontlines, the Khan, Titans all over, Horus in his last engagement before going into magic coma, a massive undertaking. We even had references to Beta-Garmon being a big narrative event for a few years before they decided to commission Haley on short notice to write a novel after all.

 

So the narrative consistency started to suffer not because of the authors' failings or aspects of the series changing as the story grew in the retelling, but because corporate interests tore it in every direction at once. The Heresy series was no longer its own thing, with stand-alone reading suffering as a result.

 

And to make matters worse, instead of fully utilizing primary characters we've had been with from the start, we got presented with "upstart" newcomers from Forgeworld crossovers. Instead of reading about Horus Aximand, Falkus Kibre and the likes, we got introduced to Argonis, who suddenly becomes the Warmaster's equerry after somewhat failing in his job in Tallarn. Instead of Erebus, or survivors from The First Heretic and Betrayer, we got ourselves a Zardu Layak. Instead of Garro we got Loken Reborn who barely even resembles the original trilogy anymore, even accounting for what he's been through. But he had a model, so leaving him dead or letting him die for good in Vengeful Spirit probably wasn't feasible...

 

Characters I'd already bonded with and wanted to go through their arcs just got written out or forgotten as the series progressed, often only to be brought back for their dying moments. It's not like promotions don't happen, mind, but the way it happened just rubs me the wrong way. It's something that's also soured me on French (on top of how rubbish I found Resurrection). Him being in both worlds, FW *and* BL, has blurred lines in his books, too, and a lot of these late game introductions and character "hyping" (for lack of a better term) seems to occur in his books specifically.

 

To me, this is a "don't cross the beams" situation. I'm not against FW tackling HH per se. But I seriously despise that they started mid-series, changing the rules of engagement for the novels as well, often resulting in conflicts that didn't need to exist. They shouldn't have been conflated, with pivotal events and character arcs straddling media, or references being thrown in. It's not even that I actually dislike a lot of the changes and additions on their own merits - but they muddy the waters of the novels, by having to be rapidly introduced and sometimes not even fitting the characters we have been introduced to before. Timeline-shenanigans and blatant retcons like with Luther recognizing Loken despite returning without ever campaigning with the Sons of Horus initially, certainly didn't help the novels feel coherent - they did, however, fit a setting delivered by FW.

 

It's not nearly as easy keeping track of everything in the novels as it used to be - not that the novellas and short stories helped, but I'll at least give them credit for putting out anthologies with almost everything included - but I don't think it's really the amount of books so much as the way the series has been in flux so much that it has become difficult to fully nail down what a character, event or faction actually is.

 

The biggest winners being the White Scars, though, does not surprise me at all in that light - they've been consistently written, had few changes happen to them overall, and their arc has been firmly in the hands of Chris Wraight, with Scars happening late enough and leaning into the "you didn't really know the Scars until now anyway" theme, they were basically proof against this sort of messing about. The losers, meanwhile, are plenty.

 

The biggest losers I'd say are the Sons of Horus, who have really lost their throughline. They appeared so sparingly in the series past the opening trilogy, it's like every time they would show up again, they were extremely different from what had come before; gang customs, fetishes, daemonic possession, Horus as a meat puppet, Abaddon being whatever, existing characters being killed off left and right... There was about as much permanence to them as a Legion as there is about a rapidly mutating Chaos Spawn of Tzeentch.

 

It's a death of a thousand cuts situation for the novel series, when what you read before becomes unreliable, while still featuring many of the most important and impressive scenes of the entire series. There was a gravitas to much of the early books, despite their more limited scope and often a little more experimental nature. I honestly don't think we'd have gotten a book like Legion under the policies we saw later into the series. Heck, there's been Primarch inflation as well, which certainly robbed the awe we still had back in the mid-2000s to early 10s.

 

It's a mess. An oftentimes glorious mess, for sure, but there's so much I wish they could go back and redo, fix and reorder that I almost wish for a do-over.

Then again, looking at the Siege, I have little to no faith in the current editorial department to do it right on a second attempt, either. It'll probably be worse.

 

...and those are my feelings.

[Scribe]

 

Phase 1 - The Heresy Begins | The Fog of War

1. Horus Rising

2. The First Heretic

3. Know No Fear

4. Betrayer

(i. Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris insertion point)

5. Scars

Phase 2 - The Heresy Continues | The Battle Lines Are Drawn

6. The Master of Mankind

7. Praetorian of Dorn

8. The Path of Heaven

9. Slaves to Darkness

10. The Solar War

Phase 3 - The Heresy Ends | The Grand Homecoming

(ii. Valdor: Birth of the Imperium insertion point)

11. Saturnine

12. Mortis

13. Warhawk

14. Sanguinius vs. Angron

15. The Emperor vs. Horus

 

I think you need A Thousand Sons in there, but yeah thats a solid list, and thats the thing. You could literally break the whole thing down to sub-20 books.

Edited October 2, 2021 by Scribe

[Marshal Rohr]

When people ask me where they should start I always ask if they are gonna build an army for 30K or just wanna read the lore. If they pick option A, I just tell them to read the black books and it’s interesting seeing the way they respond to FW characters and not BL characters. Guys we think of like Sevatar and Loken are just ones of many and guys like Autek Mor end up being show stoppers for being so legit.

[Splog]

When there was a format shift, it almost drove me away from all things GW. My main tether during that period was following online background discussion and in particular for the Horus Heresy series. Wanting to stick with the same style books (MMPB) I faced a sudden drought of access and then years of being about a year or so behind a large chunk of the community. It reduced my online engagement because it reduced what I wanted to read and raised the risk of spoilers. Then there wasn’t much scope to join in that discussion of the books when I had read them because some forums are against ‘thread necromancy’.

 

The exclusive event-only stories did not help either.

 

As others have said, there has always been variable quality in the books. I think early on, the combination of the great start from Abnett, the freshness of the setting, the momentum, and momentousness of what was going on, carried the series over its bumps.

 

It lost focus along the way. Stuff (short stories, audio dramas etc) started coming out that was not in chronological order. And because of that, the publication delays, and some of the books being not great or memorable, led to me having a poor grasp on who some characters were and little incentive to find out. As I was working my way through Angel Exterminatus I realised reading the series had become a *chore*. I think if it hadn’t been immediately followed by Betrayer, or something similarly good, that would have been my exit from the series.

[DukeLeto69]

Yep to all said by everyone above. Studio interference. Format and release pattern changes. But most of all (for me) the whole setting vs story hokey cokey!

 

I get that scope changes (it does in most projects) and we all have our personal preference for how BL should have approached the HH.

 

For me they should have done two things:

 

1) Have the core storyline focused on Horus. All other Primarchs as supporting characters but NOT the main focus. Tell the story of Horus Rising (see what I did there), his fall and his journey to and confrontation with the Emperor. (By default that also keeps the focus on the Sons of Horus).

 

2) Have a wider The Horus Heresy setting (branded/labelled as such just like The Primarch series is) that allowed for multiple other story arcs and focusing on different factions and protagonists. You want to know about the Dark Angels, we gotcha with this trilogy. Why weren’t the Ultramarines at Terra, here’s another mini series covering their story! Etc.

[nagashnee]

I agree with allot of what other posters said, however for me the greatest thing the HH did, tho sadly did in a much smaller scope and range then it should have is explore aspects of both the era and setting we will either never be able to see otherwise, or rarely do.

 

Mechanicum is a great example of this, the HH is the only time we can EVER eplore the Mechanicum, the faction doesnt survive the heresy, and the Adeptus Mechanicus and Dark/True Mechanicum while also great are simple not the same entinty that entered the era.

 

Like wise the imperial army, the solar auxillia, the remeberances etc are ERA specific. This carriers on to the legions and what for me is the greatest error in the series, Ferrus Manus, we always knew he would die early on, so did we get a book on him? His legion? What made the pre death iron hands who they are? NOPE off with his head. BL seemed hell bent on ignoring the apects of 30k and cannot ever be explored after the HH. I dont want to see how X thing from 40k started i have over 9k years to explore 40k, but this series is pretty much the only chance much of 30k will ever get, and it was by and large wasted in favour of setting up 40k.

 

Mechanicum, Scars, First Heretic, Know no Fear are books i love cause they give us a look into actual 30k, 30k, even if only in tiny glimses. 

 

But in 50 books would it have been so bad to see the Imperial army? The solar auxilia who have a whole model range? Ok you want to focus on marines, give us some pre primarch legions, some ferrus manus leadership, where are my Blood Angel veterans who are more scared of failing to live up to what Sanguinius showed them they could be then any death in battle.

 

For me the HH is the death of the dream of the Imperium and the birth of the Imperium of Grimdark, but we were never allowed to see the Imperium, only told about how sad we should be that its dying. Coming back to Mechanicum it made me CARE that the HH is happening because it stopped the Mechanicum evolving, it stopped its internal growth, it chocked any hope that those who followed the Emperors message had of leading them out of their worse tendecies. But by showing me a thriving, growing, evolving mars BEFORE it burned it to the ground it made me care the fire was set in a way not 50 books about how angry the Iron Hands are now could make me feel for their loss, as i dont know what they had.  Oh is Sanguinius sad now? When wasnt he in the HH? Etc.

 

So books i loved, Mechanicum, Horus Rising, Titandeath, Tallarn, First Heretic, Betrayer,  Know no Fear, Master of Mankind, the Path of Heaven.Slaves to Darkness, Praetorian of Dorn.  

[Roomsky]

The time gap here should be considered as well. Not to downplay some of the garbage we've gotten from more recent releases, but the comfort of nostalgia is what creates a lot of this feeling. Hell, I'm nostalgic for the feelings I got first reading Galaxy in Flames, even though I think that book is crap.

 

It's been 15 years since it all began. We were younger, for many of us the Heresy series got us into reading again, or helped us discover how decent tie-in fiction could be. If we've been keeping up, 15 years of consistent reading is going to make anyone more jaded to what's coming out now - that's why film critics are so snooty, the honeymoon period has long since ended.

 

Which isnt to say most of what's been said in this thread isn't correct, it definitely is. But the Heresy books I love are spread evenly throughout the entire series - but it's Horus Rising and The First Heretic, the first 2 Warhammer books I ever read, that always calls me back.

Edited October 2, 2021 by Roomsky

[Cpt_Reaper]

I've read Horus Rising (that I got for free as an e-book). But the novels I have sought out are those that follow my two legions.

Descent of Angels, Fallen Angels, Angels of Caliban, Angel Exterminatus, Tallarn, Lion El'Jonson: Lord of the First and Perturabo: Hammer of Olympia.

 

Some of those have been amazing and other have been kind of meh, but as I haven't tried to read every single novel and follow the entire Heresy I feel I've avoided the Heresy Fatigue. I don't care what the White Scars got up to, nor how the Broken Legions fared, nor what the Custodes were doing. I only wish to follow the stories of the Dark Angels and the Iron Warriors.

[BrainFireBob]

In addition to the above, there was an artistic scope creep.

 

Consider the ground covered in the first three books. If they'd done the whole thing at that pace, we'd have 1/5 the books. The timeline dilated and resolution increased.

 

They should have structured the whole series not as a series, but with a "core" line of books with flank storylines. (The earlier books have cover colorbanding thar points to this, so I think it was planned.) As it stands, it's confused, and the book order is temporal by publication- it should start with First Heretic followed by Descent of Angels, then Horus Rising. A Thousand Sons should follow Fulgrim, then Flight of the Eisenstein.

 

They decided to turn subplots into full length novels, and then tack on alternate media (audiobooks) that was originally nice but complimentary into supplementary. The Shattered Legions plot is very confused as to its importance until the Primaris material, etc.

Edited October 3, 2021 by BrainFireBob

[mc warhammer]

I've read Horus Rising (that I got for free as an e-book). But the novels I have sought out are those that follow my two legions.

Descent of Angels, Fallen Angels, Angels of Caliban, Angel Exterminatus, Tallarn, Lion El'Jonson: Lord of the First and Perturabo: Hammer of Olympia.

 

Some of those have been amazing and other have been kind of meh, but as I haven't tried to read every single novel and follow the entire Heresy I feel I've avoided the Heresy Fatigue. I don't care what the White Scars got up to, nor how the Broken Legions fared, nor what the Custodes were doing. I only wish to follow the stories of the Dark Angels and the Iron Warriors.

kinda like you, i was picky with my HH list (less so than you though) so i came out of it more or less enjoying it as a "setting". if i read a book by an author i didn't like, i almost certainly never read another one by that author so i really did enjoy a HH to taste.

 

but the siege set up different expectations that are not really being met for me. it's not a deal breaker, just a "what coulda been" scenario.

[Knockagh]

And after sticking with it all these years, investing time and plenty of money, what grinds me down is now at the end I can’t even get the books.

[DukeLeto69]

Yep to all said by everyone above. Studio interference. Format and release pattern changes. But most of all (for me) the whole setting vs story hokey cokey!

 

I get that scope changes (it does in most projects) and we all have our personal preference for how BL should have approached the HH.

 

For me they should have done two things:

 

1) Have the core storyline focused on Horus. All other Primarchs as supporting characters but NOT the main focus. Tell the story of Horus Rising (see what I did there), his fall and his journey to and confrontation with the Emperor. (By default that also keeps the focus on the Sons of Horus).

 

2) Have a wider The Horus Heresy setting (branded/labelled as such just like The Primarch series is) that allowed for multiple other story arcs and focusing on different factions and protagonists. You want to know about the Dark Angels, we gotcha with this trilogy. Why weren’t the Ultramarines at Terra, here’s another mini series covering their story! Etc.

A bit whack quoting myself but want to add another issue I have with the HH as a whole...

 

Prequelitis

 

The perennial problem faced by all prequels - we know the future fate of many of the characters and that reduces the drama and peril faced by those characters harming the impact of the narrative.

 

The HH series would rightly have a fair few of the big players from 40k but IMO there has actually been too many getting too much screen (page) time.

 

That is inevitable with the likes of Abaddon but we needed the HH to have MORE characters whose fate we do not know. More Loken and Garro types (and importantly on the chaos traitor side).

Edited October 3, 2021 by DukeLeto69

[MegaVolt87]

I think page counts BL imposes hurt much of their work. A common example, Buried Dagger should have been split between three books, Morty's OG story (primarch series), Part 1 setup to Typhus making his plans for the DG, next book plans happen and the road trip to Terra. The Garro stuff should have been a series of shorter works. While boring, every primarch book should follow the same pattern IMO- OG story, meet the Emperor, then their first campaign in command of their legion, epilogue of "present" wherever that is in the timeline. Konrad in post heresy fit well, Perty at the SoT, Horus before he gets to Molech etc. Obviously this would explode the page count and slow the release cycle, I don't see that as a bad thing. Only having say half the primarch books released so far to such a standard would be great. Quality over quantity. 

[Bobss]

 

Yep to all said by everyone above. Studio interference. Format and release pattern changes. But most of all (for me) the whole setting vs story hokey cokey!

 

I get that scope changes (it does in most projects) and we all have our personal preference for how BL should have approached the HH.

 

For me they should have done two things:

 

1) Have the core storyline focused on Horus. All other Primarchs as supporting characters but NOT the main focus. Tell the story of Horus Rising (see what I did there), his fall and his journey to and confrontation with the Emperor. (By default that also keeps the focus on the Sons of Horus).

 

2) Have a wider The Horus Heresy setting (branded/labelled as such just like The Primarch series is) that allowed for multiple other story arcs and focusing on different factions and protagonists. You want to know about the Dark Angels, we gotcha with this trilogy. Why weren’t the Ultramarines at Terra, here’s another mini series covering their story! Etc.

A bit whack quoting myself but want to add another issue I have with the HH as a whole...

 

Prequelitis

 

The perennial problem faced by all prequels - we know the future fate of many of the characters and that reduces the drama and peril faced by those characters harming the impact of the narrative.

 

The HH series would rightly have a fair few of the big players from 40k but IMO there has actually been too many getting too much screen (page) time.

 

That is inevitable with the likes of Abaddon but we needed the HH to have MORE characters whose fate we do not know. More Loken and Garro types (and importantly on the chaos traitor side).

 

 

On the topic of prequelitis and Abaddon, and the endless foreshadowing he's received during the Horus Heresy and most notably the Siege of Terra, I think it boils down to a matter of execution. I love John French, but Layak following him around was a bit on the nose. Some of the stuff Guy Haley and Gav Thorpe wrote in their respective books was even worse in my opinion, and it's really only with Saturnine and Warhawk that Abaddon's character development during the last days of the Heresy is dug into in any meaningful or subtle way: his distaste of those enslaved by Chaos, his hubris towards the Primarchs even during their zenith, his emergent role as Legion Master of the XVI. Those bits in Black Legion where Abaddon is either idolised or disregarded by the surviving Sons of Horus are most likely derived from the Legion's last days in the sun when one faction openly worshipped the distant, living Son-of-the-Pantheon that was Horus, and those who cleaved towards the Legion's finest exemplar who fought beside them in justly tearing down the False Emperor's realm

Edited October 20, 2021 by Bobss