Sigismund

[Ubiquitous1984]

So I read this or Warhawk first?

I'd read this, and then Warhawk.  

[Petitioner's City]

Yeah this is great context for Warhawk - as well as The Last Remembrancer and so many other stories.

[Scribe]

Yeah this is great context for Warhawk - as well as The Last Remembrancer and so many other stories.

 

I still say Last Remembrancer is up there with the greats of the HH series.

[DarkChaplain]

I re-read The Last Remembrancer in preparation for Sigismund, and honestly, even this time I still feel lukewarm on it. Or rather, it doesn't seem particularly outstanding to me.

 

Then, I'm glad that Sigismund keeps the tone of Solomon Voss, as an arrogant, self-absorbed historian who believes he understands people so quickly, to such a deep degree, that he can judge or berate them, their ideals or speak with authority about the state of the galaxy in absolute terms.

[Scribe]

I re-read The Last Remembrancer in preparation for Sigismund, and honestly, even this time I still feel lukewarm on it. Or rather, it doesn't seem particularly outstanding to me.

 

Then, I'm glad that Sigismund keeps the tone of Solomon Voss, as an arrogant, self-absorbed historian who believes he understands people so quickly, to such a deep degree, that he can judge or berate them, their ideals or speak with authority about the state of the galaxy in absolute terms.

 

Really? Its been a super long time, but I seem to think it very succinctly put the lie of the Imperium undeniably out front and center, and that is worth its weight in gold.

[Roomsky]

Siggy-Diggy, the Eternal Crusiggy - John French

 

Hell, it's been a while since I was up into the small hours of the morning finishing a book. This was everything I wanted and more - and with the recent announcement of Thorpe tackling Dorn's Primarch book, a great consolation prize for French.

 

I admit that going in I was curious what was left to cover in Sigismund's life. Quite a lot apparently, as every vignette here is illuminating. Like Valdor, Sigismund is a character type that 40k excels at -not the simple made complex, but characters complex in their simplicity. Drawing a character so straightforward as Sigismund in such a believable way is no small feat.

 

And we get what anyone could ask for out of a prequel. You get Warhounds and World Eaters. You get Night Lords and a particularely infamous duel. You get Solomon Voss, a remembrancer so well utilized that I wish his fate had been covered in a full novel instead of a (n admittedly excellent) short story.

 

The closest thing I have to a complaint is that the opening chapters were the slowest - but even they are essential to show that yes, even Sigismund got kicked around once upon a time. They really help the impression that he won his reputation through hardship, not just some innate skill. Oh, and Khârn's portrayal is somewhat contradictory, but that's hardly new for the character.

 

It's svelte, it's to the point, and it's masterfully done. 9.5/10? I think so.

[Fedor]

That bad short where he had Sigismund beating hundreds of marines and a dreadnaught have somewhat irationally put me off getting this. Is it action heavy?.

[theSpirea]

That bad short where he had Sigismund beating hundreds of marines and a dreadnaught have somewhat irationally put me off getting this. Is it action heavy?.

Far from it, this is a solid character study novel.

[DarkChaplain]

I'm on chapter six now, and I had to start over on listening to it a few times already. The scene changes don't translate well to the audio, in my opinion, and that chapter seemingly jumps back and forth a lot through it, so it's not as straight-forward as I'd expect Sigismund to tell it to Voss.

 

"You know, Voss, that one time, I apparently had a duel with this Iron Hand for reasons, I'd look back on it a little like this after that happens, but waaay before this thing happened and one thing led to another and half my life flashed in front of me because of xenos and so somehow at some point I ended up in a duel but also Daddy's favorite".

 

Just imagining it makes me shake my head. For someone so straight-laced, this particular chapter seems a bit scatterbrained for Siggy.

 

Other than that, I'm enjoying it well enough, though it's most definitely a French novel.

Still curious as to how Dorn justified literally having a Temple on the Phalanx to his father. At least name it something that doesn't mock the Imperial Truth, Rogal!

[Ubiquitous1984]

That bad short where he had Sigismund beating hundreds of marines and a dreadnaught have somewhat irationally put me off getting this. Is it action heavy?.

Do you remember the name of this short?

[Fedor]

Champion of Oaths.

[Ubiquitous1984]

Champion of Oaths.

Thanks, I need to give that a re-listen as I have no memory of it.

 

edit - looks like it was book only, which probably means I have never read it hence why I had no recollection of it.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Ubiquitous1984

[Bobss]

I'm going to get this because John French is my 4th favourite Black Library author and I generally enjoy his Horus Heresy era work, but when I saw this announced I rolled my eyes a little bit. I mean this seems to dig into a few of the breadcrumbs dropped in The Solar War where young Sig is fighting kids in squalor and whatnot, but like, haven't we had enough Sigismund by now lol? He's one of those rare characters who's got multiple excellent renditions already. John French's HH work, ADB's portrayal in Black Legion, Chris Wraight's bit in Warhawk which came out of nowhere and was brilliant. Like I said, I'm gonna get it, I'm gonna enjoy it, and French seems to be a machine this year what with Ahriman IV and his Age of Sigmar debut

 

Then again the same could be said for Gav Thorpe and Luther, and people seem to be very positive towards that book. I get the impression this Horus Heresy Character Series is more a case of authors going up to the BL brass and being like ''hey I have a month or two free in my writing calendar this year and I have an affinity for Custodes/Dark Angles/Imperial Fists, I want to write about Valdor/Luther/Sigismund'' and the response is ''yes, this would be cool, you're experienced with those factions/characters and fans would enjoy it,'' whereas I initially thought this series was going to be more of a ''hey, so like, Kelbor-Hal REALLY needs a bit of fleshing out. Fancy writing about him?''

 

As others have said, the Horus Heresy Primarchs Series by comparison seemed to have more design to it where primarchs were (mostly) assigned to authors who hadn't really touched them to sort of get a bit of variety going, whereas the Horus Heresy Characters Series seems to be more how we think with the whole French=Fists, Thorpe=Dongles etc. Also on that topic, does it feel like BL is really trying to complete the Primarchs series before Siege of Terra 8? Out of the 4 remaining primarchs there's Dorn and Mortarion coming, have heard rumours McNeill bagged Horus and Wraight might've bagged Sanguinius?

[Roomsky]

@Bobss - yeah, when the announcement was first made I was definitely on the "really?" train, much as I love French. But the book really did win me over; I think the moment he starts interacting with other legions the book becomes more than justified.

 

@DarkChaplain - It does indeed work better in prose (I think.) The breaks between the Voss/Siggy conversation helps keep things fresh, and the Iron Hands chapter is just one of those literary techniques that doesn't really work anywhere but on the page. 

 

This book also reinforces that feeling I get when I know a Black Library author is one of my favourites - a longing that they had just written the whole Heresy (or another sequence of your choosing.) I get it with Wraight, ADB, Abnett, and French - that versatility and understanding of factions that would have avoided so many disappointing entries (and Crowley seems like he's going to be joining the club, too.) In this book alone French demonstrates a mastery of Horus, The Iron Hands, the War Hounds AND World Eaters, and the Night Lords on top of his usual Fists goodness. Every legion is flawed, every legion gets respect and is cool. French just gets the ritual that must be ingrained in these legion cultures, not just their surface-level temperaments.

 

The only legion French has ever disappointed me with was the Dark Angels in Mortis - not that they were any worse than their usual fare -but considering French's aforementioned talent for ritual and tradition the legion of rule-bound knights seemed undercooked.

[Bobss]

Here's something I just thought of. I've always expected ADB's eventual Sevatar novel to be set in some post-Heresy Scouring-era type sandbox BL may set up in the mid 2020s, but what if it ends up being part of this series, ehhh? I doubt the page count would be sufficient, but you never know...

[Scribe]

Here's something I just thought of. I've always expected ADB's eventual Sevatar novel to be set in some post-Heresy Scouring-era type sandbox BL may set up in the mid 2020s, but what if it ends up being part of this series, ehhh? I doubt the page count would be sufficient, but you never know...

I don't think it would need be much longer than Valdor, a book I quite enjoyed.

[Fire Golem]

I read this over the weekend, and I really really enjoyed it. I’m a big fan of French anyway, and he’s written Sigismund and the Fists very well in the past, but as others have said he also handled the other legions and characters that pop up really well. Sevatar was a particular highlight, and I’ve always liked Sigi’s affinity with Khârn and the WE. I was also a bit like ‘do we need this?’ When it was announced, and while I don’t think it was at all necessary, I’m very glad we got it.

[Tymell]

Late to the party (finishing up a Master's Thesis takes a lot of your reading time away, who knew?), but I finally got round to this one, and I liked it well enough, but I don't think I was as enamoured with it as most seem to be.

The writing itself was really good: Sigismund is a solid character, and things kept moving at a decent pace. Despite a lot of it being focused on battles and duels, it never got bogged down in overly long descriptions of them. It just did what it had to, and kept focus on Sigismund himself. I also give it credit for the duelling scenes making Sigismund's skills apparent but also not having him just curbstomp everyone. Whether intentional or not, it seemed to paint a picture of someone who needs to let himself go to really excel: a lot of his early fighting seems to be him playing it safe at first, then dominating when he goes all out on the attack.

But it also just didn't grip me as I was hoping. I think maybe because a lot of it was already reasonably familiar: Sigismund dislikes the Night Lords, feels a bond with Khârn, has resolute loyalty to Dorn, thinks the fighting will never really end, is a supreme duellist. These are all things we already know and have seen before. We do get some greater detail of it here, but still, it doesn't carry quite the same excitement for me that the Valdor book did because these events and this character are ones I'm more familiar with.

I think my main critique would be the length: it's over very quickly, and this exacerbates that feeling of "I've read this before". If they're going to do a Sigismund novel diving deep into his character, great, but it needs to be comparable in length to the main HH novels to allow it to stand out properly from what we've seen of him before.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Tymell