SoT book 7: Echoes of Eternity - Aaron Dembski-Bowden

[ADarke]

Finished it yesterday. It's a good book, but honestly needed some serious editing. And some of the prose was bad, not up to ADB's usual writing quality. But overall good. 

[Fire Golem]

My limited edition still hasn’t turned up and I moved before it did so I ordered the standard hardback to my new place. Read it in less than a day. I thought it was magnificent. As always, nothing really to add that hasn’t been covered, but there was so much here that I loved. Well worth the wait. 

[Scribe]

Finally got it, about 100 pages in and I dont want it to end. 

[Scribe]

Completed. I truly could have another book from ADB in my hands right now, or a Book 7 - The Continuation, and just keep going, and going, and going.

I'll drop this all in a spoiler tag, but be aware, I'm an ADB fan and this book changes nothing.

I kept thinking of the 2 major tag lines for Chaos as I was reading it.

"Slaves to Darkness, the Lost and the Damned."

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This is the book I would have wanted as a Blood Angel fan, and a Sanguinius fan. It covers the various facets of the Legion, and it paints Sanguinius in an incredibly favourable light. I cannot imagine anyone having complaints here.

The forces of Horus though? I mean at this point, you got what was coming to you. Victory, Defeat, meaningless in the grand scheme of things because you are screwed. Every single one of them, as they should be. And they know it! The Word Bearer knows it, and despite their fanaticism, honestly they all do, nobody is getting out of this clean on the Traitor side...and this would pass into my view on my beloved World Eaters, Angron and the Nails but well ok.

The Nails are freedom. Its a sick freedom, a perversion of what we as reasonable people would (should?) think, but it IS a kind of freedom. 40K at its best, twists and perverts the things we consider true, hold's up a mirror and forces us to ask the questions that many of us have now spent decades considering.

I've made mention before on some of my personal views on things, and the Nails are this to an extreme degree. If you have done any meditation, or counselling, you may have been introduced to the concept of being in the moment to the exclusion of ALL else. There is no past, no future, not even a present, there is a breath. That is the Nails.

There is no fatigue, there is no sorrow, no doubt, no judgment. There is only the driving need and, when Nails Lost, the serenity of the obliteration of the self.

Ever trained to failure? Not just 'oh I'm tired.' but repeatedly driven yourself to muscle failure, throwing up, dragging yourself back up, and continuing? You can lose your hearing, your vision blurs, you certainly cannot waste time speaking. Its an experience.

The Nails would be, to me, even after this novel, an obliteration of the self, and in 40K, thats as close to free is you are going to get outside of the soul consuming fate that awaits EVERYONE. Yes, everyone.

To me, that is why Angron didnt want the Nails ripped from his brain. They are the gift of serenity. I mean the fact is, it essentially IS what constitutes his brain at this point, and I dont know that I would want to part with that either.

I've said it a million times, very few express the underlying framework of the setting, as clearly as ADB does. His books are a balm to my soul, not because they uplift (though certainly this one can) but because his expression of the setting so closely matches my own view on it. Every segment, every short scene, is punctuated not only by the horror that IS THE SETTING, but also the black comedy of it all.

I...have no meaningful issue with anything in this book. A line here or there seemed out of place perhaps, but I devoured the book, got misty over a few passages, laughed at a few pages. I mean its an ADB book. At this point, I know what I'm getting, I know what I want, and the man just DELIVERS.

If there is a criticism, its that some of the notes play like we have seen in prior books. We have seen this now across a few entries, and a few characters, so its certainly not ADB's singular fault, and I'm not sure it even is a fault. ADB calls this out in the end when the Word Bearer is chastising Kargos. He mentions that just like Khârn, he cannot slay who he is meant to kill, and guess what, neither does Angron. So its not like ADB is unaware of what hes done in this book.

I almost think, its part of the collaborative process at play, the fact that this is a series of Brother vs Brother tropes, and that well if you want something intimate you are not going to get much more so than going blade to blade, eye to eye, to the point of (maybe, was it?) death, with a Brother you have fought and bled beside, chained to, over and over. These guys all talk, email, text, hours on end, and yeah we see similar tropes crop up across these books, that we then take far too seriously, and dissect ad nauseum, because...its what we do.

Do I love the Monkey? Yes. Do I love Tee? Yes. Did I love when Land expressed his hate for the Astartes? Yes, but I loved MORE that Zephon could not say he was wrong. ADB just gets it. When we got Shenkai's journal entry? Glorious stuff.

I cannot fault this book. If it has faults, I put them at the feet of trying to recover from prior entries missteps.

10/10, and just as with ADB's other books. If you want to know, feel, and understand what 40K (30K) really are, you read his books.

Oh and in the off chance ADB read's this. Thank you for continuing to be excellent.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Scribe
Thanks!

[Ayatollah_of_Rock_n_Rolla]

  On 9/22/2022 at 12:13 AM, Scribe said:

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This is the book I would have wanted as a Blood Angel fan, and a Sanguinius fan. It covers the various facets of the Legion, and it paints Sanguinius in an incredibly favourable light. I cannot imagine anyone having complaints here.

 

 

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I was very disappointed with the way pre-Sang BA were portrayed. ADB went way too far with the

tabula rasa treatment showing them deprived of any meaningful rituals or traditions. Even the most crude warrior cultures had more sophisticated, well, culture and for me they feel just bland. We were shown big nothingness before Sang. I also do not get the language used by ADB to describe reactions to pre-Sang BA, which in some places implies existance of notion of war crimes in Crusade era and I am at loss how is it supposed to fit in what we know about imperial way of war. He should have limited himself to unnecessary brutality etc, but not illegality/lawlessness.

Likewise, even though I am OK with Sang in general, I am not a fan of his speach. We have numerous examples of such speaches ranging from ancient ones, being more or less conventionalized literary peaces, to modern exhortations transmitted to troops before crucial campaigns. There are good reasons, why some themes reoccur in them and why nobody goes "Do what you want, whatever, YOLO". Coupled with Land's initial remarks it comes across as a try-hard attempt at subversing convention/expectations and ADB does it several times in the book - Kargos-Amit part was eye-rolling for me.

[Scribe]

Can't agree. It's not a Blood Angel book, but it sets a tone quickly.

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What's your issue with Kargos/Amit?

 

[Ayatollah_of_Rock_n_Rolla]

  On 9/22/2022 at 2:16 PM, Scribe said:

Can't agree. It's not a Blood Angel book, but it sets a tone quickly.

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What's your issue with Kargos/Amit?

 

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Kargos' thoughts when Amit strikes him down, when he expects that their eyes will cross for one final time acknowledging how far they came (this phrase literally appears in the text, if I recall correctly) etc. No Astartes is shown speaking/thinking like that in the book during Siege and Kargos himself shows no signs of similar romanticism in the flashbacks. ADB instead of writting a character choses to play meta games with the reader based on our knowledge of literary/movie tropes to "subvert" them with Amit not giving :cuss:. Land plays same role before Sang's speach. For me it's too meta

[Scribe]

Hmm, not the way I read it. But all good. :)

[Noserenda]

The Great crusade was a galactic genocide, im not sure war crimes really come into it? :D 

[Scribe]

  On 9/22/2022 at 7:50 PM, Noserenda said:

The Great crusade was a galactic genocide, im not sure war crimes really come into it? :D 

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I mean, yeah. There isnt a single Legion coming out clean, thats part of the point. Ignorance, hypocrisy, arrogance...the hits keep coming.

And if its the history of the Legion that is the subversion...is it? I would put a small sum on that being right out of a FW Black Book? EDIT: Yep, Book 8. ADB didnt subvert anything.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Scribe
Clarification x 2

[Fire Golem]

If the ‘war crimes’ bit is a reference to 

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Dorn dressing down the Revenant Legion, it’s not the first time a legion has been sanctioned (World Eaters) and not even the first time Dorn has been seen to do so (Curze in the Lightning Tower).

I don’t think there was anything there incongruous with previous occurrences in the Great Crusade. 

[Scribe]

  On 9/22/2022 at 8:55 PM, fire golem said:

If the ‘war crimes’ bit is a reference to 

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Dorn dressing down the Revenant Legion, it’s not the first time a legion has been sanctioned (World Eaters) and not even the first time Dorn has been seen to do so (Curze in the Lightning Tower).

I don’t think there was anything there incongruous with previous occurrences in the Great Crusade. 

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I'm thinking it would be when Amit smashed the defeated soldier's head in with a rock, to get the Guard to leave the body so he could eat the brain.

 

[Ayatollah_of_Rock_n_Rolla]

  On 9/22/2022 at 9:00 PM, Scribe said:

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I'm thinking it would be when Amit smashed the defeated soldier's head in with a rock, to get the Guard to leave the body so he could eat the brain.

 

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To me the issue is how they are chastised. And I am not saying that other Legions were not sanctioned but that the description of it is a bit off knowing how Imperium exterminated whole worlds and used logic of collective responsibility on daily basis.

“There were reports, he knew, of the grey warriors eating the foe – and their families – for the purposes of crushing enemy morality” – here ADB stresses existence of civilian population as opposed to the military. Why should they care? Those were mutants, that would get exterminated anyway. Why would eating enemy civilians be less permissible than eating enemy soldiers? It presupposes existence of some customary protections for non-fighters in warfare, all circumstances notwithstanding, not just simple condemnation of cannibalism. It’s weird.

In the scene with the wounded Nithandan soldier again we see Imperial Army caring for wounded enemy soldiers in our contemporary manner and criticizing Amit for killing wounded enemy as if it was all obvious in the setting and as if their higher moral ground was granted in this confrontation. And we are talking about someone who actively opposed compliance by fighting, someone who should be the last to bother Imperium and certainly the last to spur an Imperial soldier to talk back to an Astartes.

I simply don’t get what were (and are) the rules (besides "cannibalism bad").

[Scribe]

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I think we are looking at it, and I read the book quickly, a passage of time.

The source for the history seems clearly based on the FW books. Now, I have beef with those books, as I've noted in the foggy past around here, but we need to take that at face value, because ADB is not one who just changes things on a whim like some other authors.

So, my thought process is this.

1. The root of the Legion was a bunch of mutants, and the original Legion was pretty brutal, as the root behavior was never discouraged. You had some flesh eating mutants, you made them into genecrafted weapons, you let them loose, and they never had a Primarch (or Emperor) keeping them in check. Oh, and now they get an added benefit in eating the fallen. Great.

2. FW has become about as subtle as a hammer. They clearly wanted the proto-BA to be ghouls/revenants, ties to Baal's mutant past, and Sanguinius as the Angel of redemption.

3. Dorn, is not of this breed. He's different. Hes reserved. He's stiff upper lip, and HIS view on the Crusade, is one to chastise what he see's as base behavior. Did the Emperor send him? I doubt it. Did he simply take it on himself? Probably. Not like that would be a new thing. All the uppity Primarchs did this. Rob, Dorn, Russ. The hypocrisy is delicious if you know of the lore.

4. Sanguinius comes to the Legion, who he knows are seen as monsters, mutants, flesh eaters, and who have previously gone off the rails, like the War Hounds. He also has feelings of doubt, of being judged, of being worried he is corrupt, and is sympathetic to the Legion he is given. Again, what is up for debate here?

5. Fast forward, and now Sanguinius expects more BUT, so does the Imperium. We know people complained before about the proto-BA, so why is a soldier standing up to Amit and saying "I'm going to complain." an issue? So what? Amit is of the old breed. We are told he was a mutant, reformed into an Angel on the outside, but a ghoul on the inside.

Ultimately? There are no rules, beyond the ones enforced by might.

Who sanctioned the World Eaters? Nobody. Who sanctioned the Night Lords? Nobody, but themselves. Who sanctioned the Word Bearers?! The Ultramarines, on order of the Emperor. Why?

Because the Emperor was just as much a beast as the proto-BA, Night Lords, and World Eaters. He knew what he had made these Legions to be, and he was not concerned about it.

But it looked bad in the later years of the Crusade, its not a good look for a Mighty Empire to be protected by raving monsters and madmen, in an age of supposed reason and enlightenment.

 

[Knockagh]

Finished this, loved it. Always knew Aaron’s book would be great and this lived up to every expectation for me. 
I find Vulkan the most boring of Primarchs and he is bound to be hard to write. Aaron  did well with him, but the Vulkan bits are probably the books only low point, and they are coupe in no way be described as poor. 
The book is beautifully written. A real pleasure to read, Sanguinius in particular.

[Helias_Tancred]

  On 9/16/2022 at 7:25 PM, ADarke said:

Finished it yesterday. It's a good book, but honestly needed some serious editing. And some of the prose was bad, not up to ADB's usual writing quality. But overall good. 

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After reading it I really enjoyed it, but I also felt the same way you did. It was not ADB's best work by far.

 

[Fedor]

I didn't particularly like a lot of the choices with Angron, Vulkan or Magnus in this book, but overall i'd actually rate it as return to form after a slump. I didn't have the interest in the character to justify picking up Ragnar, but Black Legion was a mess with some great scenes, and SotE just ended up being quite boring, despite a cool concept. This was closer to the quality of First Heretic, Betrayer, Helsreach and MoM. The prose was arguably better than ever, though that can perhaps be attributed to the lengthier time in gestation; not many BL works are allowed such a time to polish.

[System Sound]

Heres a drinking game for ya'll. Drink every time Volkite is mentioned.

Also

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Hover rhinos? Did ADB mean those Custodian tanks?

 

[SkimaskMohawk]

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Pretty sure he meant rhino.

The caladius and all that are basically new inventions for the custodes; the old collected visions art had hover stuff, and was referenced quite a bit in Master of Mankind.

 

[Guiltysparc]

This one made me really love Sanguineous. 

I also really enjoyed the scenes with Kargast and Amit, and Shiban's 2 sentence cameo has me punching the air in joy, so great.  I also really, really liked what he did with Lotara.

[Typhonian]

Finished it today. A little disappointed, maybe because ADB's previous works have set such a high bar. Kargos' fights were grisly. The Lotara twist was interesting.

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Not sure what to make of some of the Magnus scenes, does that mean that Fury of Magnus is now just an illusion or vision that Magnus had? Also, I remember Sanguinius using his last ounce of strength breaking Ka'Bandha's back over his knee, here he just thrusts his swords between Ka'Bandha's wings.  Right after defeating Ka'Banda, the exhausted (?) Sanguinius proceeds to destroy Daemon Angron. For such a legendary fight it felt rushed.

Also, since Sanguinius ripped out Angron's Nails (and eyes and brain) does that make any difference for Angron? I assume Chaos gods can just reconstitute a being as they desire so they could recreate the Nails but how different would a Daemon Angron be with or without the Nails?

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After this one, I am wondering what Abnett will write in the last 2 books. 

Edited September 27, 2022 by Typhonian
messed up spoiler tag

[DarkChaplain]

Fury of Magnus should still stand. That's why Malcador and Vulkan are expecting him to make contact again. He was banished from the throneroom in Fury, as he submitted to Tzeentch and turned fully daemonic, and thus was expelled by the Aegis. Now he's trying to get back in there through the backdoor, which Vulkan was supposed to secure in the first place.

[Krelious]

I have to say after reading EoE and then following it up with Spear of the Emperor I feel like ADB just did dirty things to me and I need a cigarette.

I feel if I had two criticisms of the book is that on a meta level it definitely felt like ADB was hamstrung by Abnett who called dibs on all the good stuff for his final two books and so we got was a lot of narrative foot dragging like oh the traitors have gotten to the gate Kabandha and Angron got stomped. I'm not going to complain as ADB did an amazing job writing as usual proving him to be an S tier writer but going back to my earlier point I think the ending of the book suffers a bit because its basically a sprint where Sanguinious fights Kabandha and then Angron one after the other and it feels tedious and forced not giving the reader any time to digest what happens narratively and I had a hard time in my mind picturing what the final battle looked like. (Were the traitors scaling the walls like it was helms deep?)

I have to say the book did a great job of feeling rather bleak like the traitors were eventually going to win no matter what until Angron dies and the world eaters turn on everyone. I think on a meta level it showed the strength and weakness of the Chaos forces just acting as a horde rather than a unified force, deadly because they had unrelenting numbers to crush the defenders.

I think on a side note the book reminded me a bit of a war memoir of Leon Degrelle called the Eastern Front in terms of how bitter the fighting was and the absolute despair the soldiers felt fighting a losing battle against what they believed to be true evil. That the Axis forces had truly elite soldiers being ground down by an unrelenting tide of an unskilled but better supplied and more numerous army. I can tell you that book was one of the hardest reads anyone would ever come across and kind of put things into perspective that Warhammer 40k paints a bleak picture but real life is much much worse. I know at the very least ADB contacts vets to get inspiration/technical advice on how to write war novels so in part that's why I mention this.

 

I felt a bit odd after completing EoE as it didn't sit entirely right with me but after a couple of weeks to digest it I think it was extremely good I just thought the ending could have been executed a little better as I really felt after finishing this book it was just 540 pages of how do we get Sanguinious, Angron, Zephon, Amit, Land and all the rest from point A to point B.

All the other stuff was very nice flavouring, spices and whipped cream to fluff up the book but it can essentially be boiled down to Imperials engage in fighting retreat to gate, Vulkan walks to Magnus in funky town talks with him then kills him, Sanguinious has 2 back to back fights and closes the door. I would also say the book should have ended with the fight between Amit and Kargos not like 100 pages before hand or whatever it was as that felt personal and meaningful and instead we get a 1 sided bout all around which I would say surprisingly that ADB writes interesting character moments and development but he seems to fail in delivering good action or meaningful fights. How about Kargos and Amit are fighting at the same time Sanguineous is fighting Angron, Amit wins and then picks up Land's Doat pistol and shoots Angron in the head giving Sanguinious the opportunity to cut or rip his head off.

I still enjoyed the book and highly recommend it, I just wish it was a little bit better or more satisfying. Ultimately it leaves me with the feeling that ADB should be writing the ending and I feel mortified that its left to Abnett which in my unpopular opinion is not the best option as I did not enjoy Saturnine very much and I think he is mediocre as a writer. Really what i think it comes down to is the siege of Terra novels feel kind of hamstrung because being a 9 book series in the main arc they feel massively dragged out and padded with unnecessary bits that the good stuff just feels like a chore and what ADB did in his genius was make the chore parts/filler feel really really good by linking the story to his earlier works while tying off loose ends. 

Here's hoping 8 and 8 part 2 are good books.

[DarKnight]

What was the legend Amit was said to have taken his name from?

[Loquille]

  On 10/20/2022 at 1:42 AM, DarKnight said:

What was the legend Amit was said to have taken his name from?

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I don't think it's mentioned in the novel beyond 

"Nassir Amit - a character name from an ancient play set in the Old Himalazia". 

Page 194.

 

Having a quick look I haven't been able to find anything so hopefully for once it's from later than us in the timeline.