Rogal Dorn - The Emperor's Crusader book

[Tolmeus]

Hello Black Library community,

unsure if there is already a topic/ thread about the new Primarch book of Rogal Dorn, but since I do not find anything about it and am rather new on Bolter and Chainsword, it would be my pleasure if somebody more experienced could testify that. Should that not be the case, I would glady open this topic to discuss or chat about the novel.

Kind regards,

Tolmeus

[Kelborn]

Hello there, 

 

You are correct, there is no dedicated thread yet.

Thank you for starting one, I'm.eager to hear about it. :)

cheers

[Tolmeus]

Thanks for the reply!

Hopefully the following bit is vague enough to not put it all in a spoiler section!

Since it took a long time for the release of the Rogal Dorn book, I was really excited to get my hands on it. During the Horus Heresy he is maybe the most important Primarch, but due to his credo "duty before all else" one sees him rarly in action (in his role as an field commander in battle). So that is what I had expected was going to be his role in this novel. In my perspective, that has not rather not been the case, which brings me to the following review:

Gav Thorpe choose one of the biggest campaigns during the Great Crusade for this story: The Night Crusade, which should bring the Occluda Noctis in the palm of the Imperium. The Occluda Noctis is a vast area cut off from the bright beacon of the Astronomicum, covering thousands of systems as well as a hidden dread. To reunite these systems with the Imperium and uncover the threat, which has already cost four expedition fleets, four whole Astrates legions are pulled together, one of these the Imperial Fists.

The crusade is described in terms of the different phases of its progression. From the joined employment of three legions, to the development of varying strategies and the ensuing division of forces. While the other legions follow their own paths, Dorn knows only one way to ensure the fullfillment of the Emperor's order to the letter: The Imperial Fists need to head straight to the center of the Occluda Noctis. There, the VII Legion faces an unknown enemy who remains impenetrable. Again, it takes Dorns full strategic genius to overcome this threat.

But it is not what I was longing for. I would have loved to see a Dorn who does not outwit his enemies with tactical bravado, but must prove himself masterfully in battle.
The campaign itself is huge, one of the biggest ever fought. Sadly, the novel cuts it short. One always gets the key events that lead to Dorn's final strategy but not more than that. You experience extensive settings, from void battles to skirmishes, to planet-wide wars of conquest. But again only the necessary insights are provided. This also includes the charakter design. In my perspective they are rather plain and lack the depth they got in the Horus Heresy. Sometimes, at even felt more than fanservice instead of giving the characters their deserved progress.

So I applaude Gav Thorpe for chosing such a grand setting, but given the limitations of the scope of a Primarch book, I notice this at every turn. A solid enough novel, but given my high expectations I was rather left disappointed.

Would be glad to hear other opinions about the novel though!

Edited September 10, 2022 by Tolmeus

[bluntblade]

When you say the limitations, do you mean the scope or the size of the book?

[Tolmeus]

The latter. It feels like the book needed 100 more pages but didn't get them. Accordingly, many elements are dealt with briefly. Of course, one can also argue that this inevitably puts the focus only on those outcomes that advance the story in a meaningful way. However, in my opinion, there are too many scenes whose beginning, execution or end have been described. But not the sum in total. 

[cheywood]

38 minutes ago, Tolmeus said:

It feels like the book needed 100 more pages but didn't get them. Accordingly, many elements are dealt with briefly.

This is the one thing I despise about the current state of BL. The lack of info about new releases and the constant limited editions are annoying, but the focus on exceptionally short releases frequently results in poorly paced and underdeveloped books. I don’t mind shorter works when they’re good, Valdor was great at 200 pages, so were Alpharius and Ghazghkull. The problem is that these short novels are often interesting concepts seemingly limited by artificial restrictions on word count. It’s not like the average BL novel has ever been particularly long, especially compared to the doorstoppers frequently published in the SFF genre these days. Sad to hear Dorn was affected by this.

[Kelborn]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I'll take it that there's nothing about Inwit then?

[Roomsky]

Thanks for the excellent review Tolmeus!

In all honesty, I was considering skipping this one, but funnily enough your issues with the book actually sold me on it. Reduced descriptions of battles? A focus on Dorn's mental acumen first? Sign me up!

[Tolmeus]

1 hour ago, Kelborn said:

I'll take it that there's nothing about Inwit then?

It is all about the Night Crusade. So yes, nothing about Inwit. 

Question: Does this answer counts as spoiler and should therefore be marked as spoiler?

 

 

Edited September 10, 2022 by Tolmeus

[Taliesin]

No its fine.

[Kenzaburo]

It's really weird that we get almost nothing about Inwit anywhere, isn't it? I mean, several of the Primarch homeworlds are not exactly well developed overall, but I always felt that Inwit is quite special, a small empire of it's own which had the Phalanx...or was there ever any book that went into more detail about Dorn's homeworld? 

[Noserenda]

Most of the Primarch homeworlds are tragically underdeveloped unfortunately, and then half of them get exterminatus-ed so wont ever be getting that development :( 

Its weird really, but then it was only relatively recently that GW noticed they had never named the Blood Angels fortress monastery and they are apparently top 2 in popularity among players! 

[Red_Shift]

I enjoyed it, although I had hoped for more. The premise and initial set up were excellent. I found the end foe to be rather disappointing,  I had hoped for something more horrific. I also found the prose quite grating at times. Dorn was the competent tactician expected but I feel we didn’t see any new aspects to his character. 
 

I'm finding it hard to say much more without spoiling it and I’m aware only the few of us lucky to have the limited edition have read it. I would say overall it was good but well below great. 

[Taliesin]

Mixed reviews then for both this and the other just released Primarch book, Mortarion by Annandale.

Still expecting greatness from the upcoming Sanguinius book by Wraight.

[DarkChaplain]

Once again, the limitations put on the Primarchs novels are proving the bane of their existence. You'd think that Black Library would've learnt from that recurrent criticism by now... but nah, they also enforce it on the Characters series, both for the Heresy and 40k.

[Roomsky]

25 minutes ago, DarkChaplain said:

Once again, the limitations put on the Primarchs novels are proving the bane of their existence. You'd think that Black Library would've learnt from that recurrent criticism by now... but nah, they also enforce it on the Characters series, both for the Heresy and 40k.

 

I've definitely found it a mix - if anything, I wish authors of a series were given something more like a 200 - 500 page count, length of their choosing, for most series. I totally get shelf OCD and the oddity of having a series noticeably fluctuating in size, but for the sake of good stories it would be a worthy sacrifice, non?

Of those I've read, Guilliman, Vulkan, Russ, and the Lion all needed a higher page count, but not one more word devoted to fighting. All are worse than they could be because the interesting parts are strangled by battle scenes. Meanwhile books like Haley's entries, Lorgar, Angron etc. all sat comfortably at their 200 - 250 page range and I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything. 

At this point I'm cautiously optimistic for this one. I don't personally need more ink spilled on the minutiae of fighting during the Great Crusade. But details of a campaign I know nothing about at the macro level? That sounds intriguing.

[DarkChaplain]

I completely agree with you, Roomsky. Even as somebody who liked what Annandale was going for in Guilliman, I wish it could've spent more time on quieter, reflective moments (re: Monarchia & Destroyers) than with the (most assuredly mandated) volume of battle scenes.

The recent Ghazghkull novel I feel was one that worked at its pagecount, but would have definitely benefitted from more room towards the end. There's one aspect in particular that just happened off-page that looks like it clearly had to be cut for room. I believe there was an entire section that the author commented on over on Reddit, which didn't make the cut but sounded awesome. I can't see a version of the book that would've been worse off with these sections than without them.

And I haven't read the Huron novel yet, but it very much sounded like it suffered for its brevity. Meanwhile, the Horror imprint has repeatedly suffered from the short novel hardback format - The Oubliette, Deacon of Wounds and even The Bookkeeper's Skull all have a point where something feels missing, or a turning point is reached from which they drop too quickly towards the end, not fully utilizing their built-up potential.

It's also pretty evident which authors are more adaptable. McNeill, for instance, pushes the limits almost like it's tradition - Vengeful Spirit was a two-parter in non-English editions, A Thousand Sons was a doorstopper and so forth. James Swallow also manages to write big chunks like Nemesis or Fear to Tread, just that it's a lot of spinning wheels with little impact.
Haley, meanwhile, plans per format. I'd argue Josh Reynolds was excellent here, too. Annandale suffers more from action setpieces than length - I've read plenty of short stories from him that worked very well, and will go to bat for his Yarrick novella.

With the Primarchs, I get the feeling that a lot of the problems stem from editor-author-combos combined with content checklists (read: required action), rather than the format specifically. You can tell where authors had ideas that couldn't be fully realized, and where the action is more of an afterthought and not the point.

At the end of the day, Black Library needs to be better when it comes to accomodating their talents - it's evident that many of them no longer believe in the publisher being as rewarding to work for - or more importantly, with.

Edited September 15, 2022 by DarkChaplain

[Tolmeus]

5 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

You can tell where authors had ideas that couldn't be fully realized, and where the action is more of an afterthought and not the point.

Have to agree. The Dorn novel deals about the execution of the Night Crusade for the most time (about 100 of its 190 pages). One may disagree about the following statement but I feel that there were some scenes that did not continue the main storyline. They clarify a point already made. 

I get that if you choose such a grand setting you can't throw the reader in but have to explain it. Nevertheless, to use half the books content as introduction (oversimplified) is too much in my eyes. 

As a consequence, the main plot has to cope with what pages it is left with, ergo "just" key elements of action scenes and key elements for character evolvement, but nothing that feels as immersive as in Perturabo or Curze for example. 

Edited September 15, 2022 by Tolmeus
Word order

[bluntblade]

On 9/14/2022 at 9:15 PM, DarkChaplain said:

Once again, the limitations put on the Primarchs novels are proving the bane of their existence. You'd think that Black Library would've learnt from that recurrent criticism by now... but nah, they also enforce it on the Characters series, both for the Heresy and 40k.

But also... surely they should conceive stories that work within that framework. Was hardly beyond Wraight or Reynolds to do that.

[Lord_Caerolion]

On 9/14/2022 at 1:26 AM, Noserenda said:

Most of the Primarch homeworlds are tragically underdeveloped unfortunately, and then half of them get exterminatus-ed so wont ever be getting that development :( 

Inwit is particularly bad, though. Even back to the Index Astartes, there was nothing on it. Every other Legion had a section on the Primarchs early life and rise to power. The Imperial Fists article had the entirety of Dorn’s history as “the Emperor arrived at Inwit, and Dorn was there on a big ship called the Phalanx.”

 

I think the first time we get any info on Inwit is in the short story Crimson Fist. 

[theSpirea]

The word count is often mentioned issue with the Primarch novels but as bluntblade pointed out, the authors know the word count and should work with it. Often they waste it on pointless battle-reports style of writing. 50+K words is still sufficient to tell a story about ONE character. If the authors can't do that, they failed as writers. 

[DarkChaplain]

On the other hand, we know there's a tendency to tackle subjects from the Black Books, and that not having a solid part of bolter action rarely flies.

There's only so much you can do off the beaten path to actually tell an interesting story when the brief is to handle campaign x or y, where a lot of stuff is pre-established.
Even the best of the Primarchs books still carry a lot of baggage in terms of action.

I'd also argue that it's not really about just ONE character, but how they interact with their surrounding cast, and since this is HH, how they act in war. That requires that cast and situations to also be developed, even if a lot of the characters are taken from other works. But the amount of legwork you can do in a standalone novel with such a limited word count, compared to the massive expectations from faction fans in particular, often comes up short.

There's no room to let things settle before moving on to the next part of the checklist. These stories often feel rushed, or cramped, or like they ended too soon. Even a novel like Alpharius: Head of the Hydra, which was excellent, could've used a few additional chapters around the middle section to properly build up some aspects.

I think we're generally prone to underestimating the level of freedom an author really has with the Primarchs books specifically. They're all meant to deal with something pivotal about the Legion and Primarch - the ones with more freedom tend to be those that already had plenty of material established beforehand, like Curze or the Khan. The others got some narrative setpiece to somehow make work in a short novel format, despite the campaign lasting months, like Ferrus. They're rarely small-scale engagements like with Fulgrim, which lent itself much better to exploring the Primarch and his Legion than a book that already expects a full-on war from page one.

Frankly, BL should have simply gotten rid of the restriction the way they did numerous times during the HH proper, like when Swallow or McNeill wrote their books. They should've realized that people wanted substance and something fresh from it, and not just prose versions of Black Book entries. Keep the word count as a baseline minimum, but allow authors to go well beyond it into full novel territory if they say they need that room.

...but then, they might've needed to change the hardback only nonsense.

[theSpirea]

If Alpharius needed a few additional chapters, what was stopping Brooks? It was under 52K words. Compare it to Fulgrim 60K, Brooks still could have added additional 8K words, that's extra 15% to his wordcount.

I'm aware it's not really just about ONE character and needs additional cast to tell the story but again that shouldn't stop the writer and the 60K word count is more than enough to tell the story. Perturabo was a terrible book and not because of limited word count. Additional characters didn't really add much to develop Perturabo's character. His sister can't even be called a character, that was a plot device, nothing more.

Mortarion was a battle-report, adding extra 40K wouldn't save it. It was under 50K, Vulkan was around 45K, Guilliman as well. If Annandale needed to write more, he could have. He had a room of at least another 15K words, that's 30% more in his case.

[cheywood]

1 hour ago, theSpirea said:

If Alpharius needed a few additional chapters, what was stopping Brooks? It was under 52K words. Compare it to Fulgrim 60K, Brooks still could have added additional 8K words, that's extra 15% to his wordcount.

I'm aware it's not really just about ONE character and needs additional cast to tell the story but again that shouldn't stop the writer and the 60K word count is more than enough to tell the story. Perturabo was a terrible book and not because of limited word count. Additional characters didn't really add much to develop Perturabo's character. His sister can't even be called a character, that was a plot device, nothing more.

Mortarion was a battle-report, adding extra 40K wouldn't save it. It was under 50K, Vulkan was around 45K, Guilliman as well. If Annandale needed to write more, he could have. He had a room of at least another 15K words, that's 30% more in his case.

I wouldn’t assume Reynolds going long means BL is fine with every primarch novel going that long. Maybe Josh wrote more than necessary, as he often did, but BL liked the work and made an exception, or didn’t see an easy way to edit it down. It’s entirely plausible they’re asking writers to target 50k words.
 

Stories are tricky things. Even when you plan them rigorously you don’t always know how many words a scene will take. I agree it’s not impossible to tell a good story in 50-60k words, plenty of BL authors have, but I do think it makes the authorial process a lot harder when you don’t have the leeway to follow a story wherever it goes because of word count.

[phandaal]

Lord of the First did a good job with what they had.

In other depictions, the Lion is just a really big person. Guymer is the first writer to make me feel like the Lion really was a demigod who grew up completely alone in the middle of a Chaos-warped death forest.

The book also had a nice snapshot of the Dark Angels doing what they do, and no Fallen (or pre-Fallen drama) for once.