Black Library Siege of Terra - Garro: Knight of Grey

[wecanhaveallthree]

It turns out the real Emperor's Champion was the friends we made along the way. Who knew?

 

As a send-off, I was underwhelmed. It was nice to hang out with Garro one last time, but man, it couldn't be more obvious that he's literally had the life sucked out of his character by Loken. There wasn't much to really ground it either in the context of the Siege or for what will happen in the future - Garro quite literally wanders into the story. I don't know. I was hoping for something a bit more epic, and I wouldn't have minded the story leaning on Keeler a bit more... even the afterword suggests that nobody really knew what to do with Garro, which is more than a little disappointing. But not at all surprising, sadly.

 

I haven't read anything from Swallow in awhile, but Knight of Grey is technically proficient and a pretty easy read. I'm not sure spending pages on an already-light story literally retelling the events of previous books was a great idea, but hey. 

[DarkChaplain]

Speaking of the afterword, this section is very telling about the lack of audio dramas:

 

Quote

From the start, I’d hoped to end Garro’s narrative as I’d started it, as a full-cast audio drama, but changing reader tastes for Black Library fiction brought us to a different place, and it was my long-time editor, Nick Kyme, who encouraged me to reimagine and present Knight of Grey in the novella form that you’ve just read. As a book, it’s allowed me to go to places I might not have been able to visit in audio, and dwell on moments that bring this character’s journey into sharp relief.

 

...and I call Bull on the statement; if anything, they might've realized that audio dramas are unattractive value propositions on Audible, where a credit can get you a 60-70 minute drama or a full-length 14 hour audiobook instead.

 

Also this part:

 

Quote

There will be some among you reading this who may not be happy about Garro’s ultimate fate – but to those readers, I can only remind you that the Horus Heresy has always been a tragedy. It’s a story about belief and sacrifice, and the truth behind the lies. It was never going to have a happy ending.

 

That's almost strawman-level. It's not that people didn't expect or want a "tragic" end to Garro's arc. Heck, we've known he'd be in some way martyring himself, considering Swallow himself told us in Weapon of Faith, and Mortarion's Heart also implies things about Garro and the Grey Knights founding.

 

The problem I see that right now, from everything I've seen said about the novella, it's that it's ending the arc on a whimper, with Garro not even living up to the setup by the selfsame author of Knight of Grey. That he's been sucked out of life by Loken replacing him in the narrative. I highly doubt that resentment would ever genuinely be about what happens to Garro in the novella... but about how it happens, in which context, in passing, as a sidenote, his role usurped and underutilized. I doubt anybody gives a damn about Garro having a "happy ending". They just want it to be narratively satisfying, not the tosh that Swallow has provided with books like Fear to Tread or The Buried Dagger.

Edited January 17, 2023 by DarkChaplain

[Roomsky]

I'd assume that point is also why French's Cypher audio drama has transformed into a novel. Despite them both being pretty entertaining, it seems clear that even among the 40k fandom, almost no one has listened to Our Martyred Lady of Saga of the Beast, either. The Audible credit theory does seem likely.

 

That said, I think I'd have preferred if this was BL's big last hurrah for audio dramas, they could have even sold it as a WH+ incentive. Swallow's put them into prose before anyway, he could have done it again down the line for the print-only folks.

[Sothalor]

How are people even reading this a week before release?

[Allart01]

I agree with the general sentiment.

The book looks like a quick write-off after the team "kinda forgot" about Garro and gave his storyline to other characters. 

Even the final duel felt somewhat redundant with what we've already seen in the main SoT series, with Sigismund's faith-based arc and the Khan defying Mortarion.

Too little, too late for one of the oldest characters in the series, and one I used to love a lot.

 

To be entirely fair, though, I'm not sure Swallow could do much better with the hand he's been dealt at the moment of writing this novel down. 

The finale was well written and still managed to move me.

Edited January 17, 2023 by Allart01

[SkimaskMohawk]

Does anyone have a summary they want to share about what happens? Like I assume Typhus kills him eventually in a duel? Guess we have chaos back on the board with one Loyalist Main Character slain in a duel.

[DarkChaplain]

I only took a look at the final pages to see how Garro reaches his conclusion, so take this with a truckload of salt, as I don't have the context from the rest of the novella, but...

 

If you've read Warhawk, you know what's coming. Yes. It's probably meant to deliberately echo/foreshadow/resonate with Warhawk, but considering the release schedule, it definitely comes across as a joke to me.

[Cerbero666]

So sad to see such a great character being send off in such a careless way. When Abnett used him in Saturnine almost killing Abaddon I thought we could still have some hope for a great ending for Garro and his arc, even when Loken absorbed part of his narrative, but again I cannot avoid the idea that the Siege of Terra planning has being done very poorly. Too rushed for something too massive IMHO. I'm still chewing the continuity inconsistencies wth Magnus the Red between Echoes of Eternity and Fury of Magnus.

Edited January 17, 2023 by Cerbero666

[lansalt]

2 hours ago, Cerbero666 said:

I'm still chewing the continuity inconsistencies wth Magnus the Red between Echoes of Eternity and Fury of Magnus.

If you are referencing what Magnus is told in EoE...

Spoiler

I read that as the Emperor possesing Vulkan and gaslighting/playing mind games with Magnus to break him.

 

[Felix Antipodes]

I sort of take issue with the “Loken stole my role (along with my lunch money)” meme that has developed.  There has always been room for more than one path in any storyline, so having two characters trading similar paths isn’t the issue imho.  In the end it is down to the author(s) to make the character(s) distinctive within their narrative paths.  We could have had Keeler with two converted followers, each a distinct personality, rather than two cyphers trading places in the one story.  

In Abnett’s Ghosts series we have multiple characters that are effectively exactly the same, travelling the same (story) path, but most are more than just interchangeable names.  Loken and Garro could have trod the same path without stepping in the same footprints.  That they didn’t is down to bad direction from the editor(s) and lack of imagination by the author(s). Imho of course 

Edited January 18, 2023 by Felix Antipodes

[wecanhaveallthree]

It probably comes down to whether you believe the intent was for Loken to die with Galaxy in Flames or not. Personally, I think he likely was: there's a 'passing of the torch' moment between Loken and Garro. Loken goes down to die fighting for the 'old' Imperium that he believed in, while Garro goes with Keeler and the nascent Imperial Faith towards the 'new'. Garro is a character of change, of conflict, of questiond loyalties pulled in a hundred directions - to Malcador and the Knights Errant, to Keeler and their bond, to faith and its reward, to his old Legion and gene-sire. Garro represents a nexus, a crossroads. He is the bridge between old and new, and his ability to 'endure' those seeming contradictions is what makes him a strong character (and a 'true' Death Guard, natch). He fights for the 'little guy', which is something both Horus and the Emperor have, and will, attack.

 

We like Garro, but he can't carry that all the way to the future, either. He was always a vehicle, a martyr, a symbol. This was always the core of his character, and remained consistent through the series as his fundamental motivation and understanding of his place in the world. He knew his duty, and while that makes him on occasion a bit boring, that cleaving to what he understands as 'right' - rather than what people demand him to be or do, 'just following orders' or succumbing to corruption - is what makes him and his stories engaging. Especially in the totalitarian hellscape of the Imperium.

 

The problem is that Loken didn't have a clear direction when he was picked up again. His narrative function had been served, his character completed. He died fighting his Mournival brothers, he died with Saul Tarvitz to show the Traitors that those they'd considered 'weak' or 'unworthy' or somehow lesser were just as capable, if not more so, than the Traitors themselves. They hadn't 'cut out the rot' - they were the rot. Loken's death forces the Traitors to go fully mask off and expose the division even in their 'pure' ranks.

 

But then he comes back, and what exactly is he back to do? He just parasites Garro's story as Knight Errant. Loken's actual character never develops further from the opening trilogy. He never learns anything new, he never changes his opinions based on his experiences. Even his space PTSD just serves to give him a SUPER POWERED EVIL SIDE, it's not actually, like, important or critical to his character, because that character simply has nowhere for it to go without drastic shifts, and nobody wants to see Loken-but-not, they want Loken-as-he-was. He's a popular character, and he needs stuff to do. So he starts taking over Garro's roles, and they share those (to their detriment). He takes back Keeler, but he doesn't have the fun dimensions of the Imperial Faith. He takes back REVENGE AGAINST TRAITORS, but he already had that. Qruze literally dies so Loken can steal his entire payoff in Vengeful Spirit, and boy does that one sizzle my gizzards. Loken's all over the Siege in everybody else's books, doing things other people should be doing, and Garro suffers from it the most by being unceremoniously shuffled off into the ether and going out in a very light novella.

 

It sucks. Knight of Grey doesn't add anything to Garro, it doesn't give him anything important to do or have done in the time he's been off-screen. He's just been wandering around the Siege fighting people. He runs into Keeler by literal accident (OR WAS IT THE GRAND DESIGN OF THE EMPEROR???). It's such an unsatisfying end because it's written as 'Garro just coincidentally manages to find Keeler, just in time to have his thread cut by Mortarion'. Nothing more than 'oh, we should probably give the husk of Garro a cool moment'. There's nothing more to it because there's nothing left for Garro to be or do.

[Mjasghar]

9 hours ago, Sothalor said:

How are people even reading this a week before release?

You can get the electronic versions from some sites other then GW and some release them before GW does 

[Felix Antipodes]

@wecanhaveallthree I obviously wasn’t as clear as I intended. I am a big fan of both characters hence my disappointment with their use during the SoT.

 

It was the authors that I was down on.  It was their job to keep the characters distinct and on their own HH path.  You sum up Loken and Garro’s roles succinctly and accurately.   Loken should have stayed dead along with Tarvitz.  Once they revived him though, it was the creatives who needed to come up with a distinct path for him, not shoehorn him into roles being filled already by others.  Wasn’t he supposed to be one of the original Grey Knights?  Isn’t that why he suddenly gained a (minor) psychic gift?

 

To be fair to the authors this could all be editorial directives, but we will probably never know due to GW’s ‘royals’ policy of never reply, never explain. 

Edited January 18, 2023 by Felix Antipodes

[Corinthus]

I don't really care too much about this one. Can someone post a quick rundown?

Spoiler

I guess Garro dies at the end?

 

[darkhorse0607]

After reading through people's initial impressions of the book, I can't help but wonder how much of it is Swallow, and how much of it was off to a bad start already given how it was handled by BL.

 

Up front, I'd say I don't mind going to a novella over an audio drama as I'm not a huge fan of the BL audio dramas, not their content but just the production side of things. The voice acting is great, but half of the time the background effects are so loud you can't hear the narration, sounds can be clunky etc. If I want something with effects I'll listen to things like the Thrawn series.

 

I'm still going to read Knight of Grey so I can finish out his arc and because I have a half painted Garro on my desk so it seems about a good a time as any to finish it.

 

That all being said, if Swallow originally planned for this to 60 minutes (ish) and be a much shorter, tighter experience then BL/Kyme having him stretch it out to 300 or so pages could be a reason why it feels so filler, at least going off of the reactions on here. (Note though, I am not reading the spoiler comments on here, at least not until I'm done my listen of the book, so my comments might be skewed because of that)

Additionally, we have talked about to death how the famous "massive" planning meeting of the Siege before it started has dropped the ball on occasion on building certain events. Garro I would say is one of them, much like him fading away during the main Heresy series in favor of other characters. How different would going into this novel be if they had followed Garro off and on through the Siege in the same way they have other characters, and seeing him reflect on the Imperium, the changes to the Legion he once knew, character beats after him getting dismissed by Malcador after all the work he did for him, etc.

 

Then you have the timing of the release. I would personally have put this right after Saturnine. The gambit is over, so you have Garro out resuming his fight before running into the events of this book, then post Knight of Grey it makes more sense as to why Loken is out hunting for Imperial Saints rather than Garro. Realistically, even if this had been the satisfying conclusion everyone wanted, it still would have been hampered by the fact we already know how Mortarion leaves the Siege and how that all concludes because of Warhawk. Plus right now everyone is focused on The End and The Death Volume One of Fifty and not on Garro because there has been no mention of him since Saturnine almost 4 books ago.

 

I don't know. I know that most folks on here don't care for Swallow's books which is fair, for me they've never been as bad as someone like Thorpe's. Flight was good, Fear to Tread was ok (self-admittedly though I am a sucker for Blood Angel books that actually talk about the legion and not just Sanguinius though), and The Buried Dagger again was just ok even though I didn't care for parts of it.

 

That all being said, when I do sit down to listen to this whenever it comes to Audible, I just wish that it was just going to be without any caveats attached to it like there is now. Yes I will be listening to the conclusion of a character that I've been with for years, BUT it might not necessarily be the original idea for the ending of that character before Black Library had the format changed and stretched out. Yes, Garro will finally be having the confrontation with Mortarion (again, I assume, didn't read the spoiler comments), BUT, we already know how that is going to go given the book was published out of order (not in the fact that Garro doesn't survive, but I guess in the context around the fight. The gravity of the final fight has been removed for me because we've already seen how it ends in Warhawk). Yes, it's good to finally be back with Garro, BUT, he is kind of popping out of nowhere and nothing has been built up for this.

 

I just hope not to hate it.

Edited January 18, 2023 by darkhorse0607

[System Sound]

14 hours ago, Corinthus said:

I don't really care too much about this one. Can someone post a quick rundown?

  Reveal hidden contents

I guess Garro dies at the end?

 

Spoiler

Yes, Mortarion kills him.

 

 

As some one who never liked Garro in the first place, this novella felt... pointless? This probably could have been condensed to a short story and still say what should have been said. This didn't even feel like the last great Hurrah!, just a final reminder to the reader that the character existed and that they needed to do something with him... Another victim of the great overreach that was HH/SoT...

[Moonreaper666]

4 hours ago, System Sound said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Yes, Mortarion kills him.

 

 

As some one who never liked Garro in the first place, this novella felt... pointless? This probably could have been condensed to a short story and still say what should have been said. This didn't even feel like the last great Hurrah!, just a final reminder to the reader that the character existed and that they needed to do something with him... Another victim of the great overreach that was HH/SoT...

 

Wow. That's predictable. I thought...

 

Spoiler

Typhus kills Garro before Mortarion does. Makes Khan's insults BURN MORE during his duel in Warhawk!

 

So Mortarion and Typhus together kill two Loyalist Death Guards and a garrison of Conscripts!?

 

Maybe this novella wouldn't be boring or pointless if Garro had SEVERAL Emperor Titans helping him! Only for Morty and Typhus to kill them all!!!!!

 

[System Sound]

8 hours ago, Moonreaper666 said:

  Hide contents

Maybe this novella wouldn't be boring or pointless if Garro had SEVERAL Emperor Titans helping him! Only for Morty and Typhus to kill them all!!!!!

 

Yes! Of course. All the titans that were lost on Beta-garmon and the ones pushing back Mortis.

[drooling blood]

Meh never cared for Garro. Dont care much for Loken either.

GWs piss, poor attempts at just about everything is shown again.

Its Swallows dumpster fire, but Kymes, the one drinking the cool aid. How that, ermm, guy manages to write stuff and be taken seriously astounds me.

Even though GW had a practice run with the beast, and they learn nothing and still manage to :cuss: :cuss: up.

[Fedor]

Anyone have the time to do a more detailed spoiler writeup?

 

Did Garro at least manage to defeat him in the arena of quips? Or open up a chink in his armour for the Khan to exploit? Something creative like that could save this imo.

[DarkChaplain]

46 minutes ago, Fedor said:

Or open up a chink in his armour for the Khan to exploit?

 

You'll laugh....

 

An excerpt:

Quote

‘No…’ Mortarion’s grave-rasp rose into a furious snarl. ‘Even in your death you hinder me.’
‘Aye,’ he breathed, gathering every last iota of strength still in his body, before the will leaked out into the thirsting dust along with his blood. ‘I deny you your victory. You will never have… what you wish. Such is the fate… of oath-breakers.’
And then, with a final bellow of effort, Garro pulled himself up the blade of the scythe, forcing it through his torso, the razored tip bursting out of his back, all so he could bring himself closer.
Close enough for one last strike.
The broken stub of Libertas still in his other hand, Garro rammed the shattered sword into Mortarion’s throat, burying it to the hilt. Toxic vitae spewed in a virulent spray, gushing down over the neck ring of the primarch’s rusted armour.
As Garro sank back into the blood-thickened mud, Mortarion ripped the broken sword from the cut and let out a gurgling, monstrous howl of pain. He pressed a hand to the wound, holding his flesh together. The righteous blow filled his throat with hot bile and sickly ichor, and despite the Mark of the warp on his flesh, the primarch’s new injury would not be quick to close.

 

Seems familiar? Yeah...

[drooling blood]

Ahh

Not laughing, not laughing at all

Edited January 20, 2023 by drooling blood

[Fedor]

Sometimes i wonder if the writers have got an established in-joke going, where they'll try and end as many climactic fights as they can with a very slight variation on this exact same outcome. Maybe some sly rebellion at BL's need for an action scene quota.

 

Tank an attack so you can land your own more successful counter, or at least get in a quip that cuts to the core and gives you the moral victory. Between that or someone jumping in at the vital moment to turn the tide, you've got a large chunk of the series' big fights covered.

 

It's not that big a deal at the end of the day, i mean i don't read these books for the melee blow by blow choreography, but c'mon..,

 

 

[SkimaskMohawk]

5 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

 

You'll laugh....

 

An excerpt:

 

  Hide contents

 

 

 

Seems familiar? Yeah...

 

 

Looks like swallow got the last laugh over wraight by making mortarion ultimately dumb. He gets baited back to back against opponents with personal grudges, to receiving a decisive counter-blow after mortally wounding them. 

 

In Warhawk, the point of the duel was to contrast it with the one in Scars. Now, mortarion was lightning quick and in control, with the Khan absorbing hits and powering through them to wear down his opponents (mental) strength. Their roles got inverted; it's interesting. But not if garro just did it first, without mortarion ever thinking about what happened (and the duel in warhawk was all from his pov....).

 

[Nagashsnee]

Good thing they all worked very hard in those big meetings to sort it all out. Sigh.