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So read this yesterday as I just could not wait to get my greedy little hands on this. Non spoiler review:

Great book 9/10 does what the primarch series is suppose to do and lets us get to know sanguinius a little better without it going to far in any direction. 100% Worth the read for HH, BA or Primarch fans.

 

Spoiler Review:

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Ok I could go on and on about this book, but I need to stop myself. BUY IT PEOPLE!

Edited by Nagashsnee

It was pretty good, still working through all my thoughts about it.

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  On 11/28/2022 at 7:17 AM, Lord_Ikka said:

It was pretty good, still working through all my thoughts about it.

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Edited by Nagashsnee
  On 11/28/2022 at 6:44 AM, Nagashsnee said:

So read this yesterday as I just could not wait to get my greedy little hands on this. Non spoiler review:

Great book 9/10 does what the primarch series is suppose to do and lets us get to know sanguinius a little better without it going to far in any direction. 100% Worth the read for HH, BA or Primarch fans.

 

Spoiler Review:

  Reveal hidden contents

Ok I could go on and on about this book, but I need to stop myself. BUY IT PEOPLE!

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Ty for the review!

 

Horus kept the Luna Wolf identity for the first bit of his time as Warmaster, it was only later on that he changed the name and livery. Take it as you will but I tend to take it as one of the first signs of him falling to vanity and cracking under pressure. 

 

The entire events of Horus Rising (Including Murder) have the Sixteenth still being Luna Wolves. 

I'm actually happy that it goes back to Murder, because it's basically the first campaign we see Horus and Sanguinius interact in, way back in Horus Rising. However, it's not the focus of that book - instead, we get the Emperor's Children angle. But it was a meeting that had an impact, and there's really no need to invent another similar campaign in that similar timeframe just to not reuse locations in a short novel that wasn't going to spend all that much time on establishing a new thing anyway.

 

And yeah, Horus refuses to adopt the Sons of Horus name for years after becoming Warmaster. He considers it too self-aggrandizing, like it might look to his less-favorable brothers that he's drinking his own warmaster-branded coolaid. It takes a shift in perspective and being bogged down in Imperial bureaucracy, having to deal with plenty of petty issues that distracted from campaigning. I suppose he realized at that point that he had to put himself on a pedestal more directly, starting to look way too important to deal with nonsense on a regular basis.

  On 11/29/2022 at 9:53 PM, DarkChaplain said:

I'm actually happy that it goes back to Murder, because it's basically the first campaign we see Horus and Sanguinius interact in, way back in Horus Rising. However, it's not the focus of that book - instead, we get the Emperor's Children angle. But it was a meeting that had an impact, and there's really no need to invent another similar campaign in that similar timeframe just to not reuse locations in a short novel that wasn't going to spend all that much time on establishing a new thing anyway.

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Who cares where we see them first? Like what significance does it make? Nostalgia for a book many readers will have never read? Do people get nostalgic for first time primarch meeting scenes?   Re using locations should happen for a reason, the galaxy IS HUGE, having things take place at random new locations only adds to the setting, a name drop and a sort description that adds one more planet to the 30-40k Universe. Hell you can have them meet in deep space, on a station pretty much anywhere, New minor species, new minor wars, new minor planets, always be adding even if we never ever ever see or hear from them again. Tho I understand it might take more effort/time it is in my view always worth it, and I always enjoy it when we see a place/race/thing we have not before. 

 

Thanks all for setting me straight with the whole sons of Horus/Luna Wolf armor thing, could not remember when the flip happened. 

 

  On 11/29/2022 at 3:56 PM, Scribe said:

Sounds like another Wraight winner.

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100%. Wraith has easily become one of my buy on release authors with ADB and Fehervari.

Edited by Nagashsnee

Sanguinius: The Great Angel - Chris Wraight

 

Damn, not just one, but two defining Blood Angels novels in a single year. We are spoiled on that front.

 

I don't know if there's been an editorial change surrounding this subseries, but for my money everything since and including Alpharius has been an absolute banger. Divisive though Mortarion and Dorn were, they both outstripped my expectations for author and premise. And oddly, I think this book is going to be divisive as well, despite the author. I can't wait for the army of Redditors complaining there's not enough Sanguinius in this book.

 

I was mildly worried going into this, Wraight doesn't have a 100% hit rate with me like ADB. The man absolutely gets 40k, and his vision for the setting is 100% in tune with my own. His prose quality is great too, but I think he sometimes suffers, like Annandale, from losing what makes his writing interesting. Wraight's character writing and character payoff are almost always superb, but occasionally his stories wander too far and for too long. Leman Russ was way too action-heavy for a book that was ultimately not really about the action. Valdor, upon further review, falls too often into his "reasonable people having reasonable conversations" habit that sucks most of the interesting elements from a scene. Both result in ~100 pages of slogging to get to the great stuff.

 

Sanguinius is thankfully not guilty of that.

 

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TL:DR This is awesome. 9.5/10

I need time to chew on this before I write a review... 

 

But I think Ive gone crazy. I genuinely hate this book, its probably the single worst thing I've read by Wraight despite the basic structure being his typical brilliance and a clever idea.

 

But... the result is literally horrible, I actually think its my least favorite Primarch book by a country mile. I need time to organize my thoughts on it before I try and defend it in a review but... dear god do I think its a terrible book.

 

This is a book about incompetent and kind of horrible people being horrible in the most blase and kind of silly ways possible. And somehow it does not even achieve being funny in the process. I am flaberghasted since I am usually a Wraight fanboy.

Edited by StrangerOrders
  On 12/3/2022 at 10:40 PM, StrangerOrders said:

I need time to chew on this before I write a review... 

 

But I think Ive gone crazy. I genuinely hate this book, its probably the single worst thing I've read by Wraight despite the basic structure being his typical brilliance and a clever idea.

 

But... the result is literally horrible, I actually think its my least favorite Primarch book by a country mile. I need time to organize my thoughts on it before I try and defend it in a review but... dear god do I think its a terrible book.

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Oooh, very excited for that, confused as I am.

 

EDIT:

  Quote

This is a book about incompetent and kind of horrible people being horrible in the most blase and kind of silly ways possible. 

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Now I'm even MORE confused!

Edited by Roomsky
  On 12/6/2022 at 12:16 PM, Nagashsnee said:

@StrangerOrders honestly looking forward to your review.  I love totally different view points on books/film.  And worse primarch book yet is a low low bar to set. 

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Indeed, I still resent the neurons I wasted on Vulkan.

As a slight tangent I'm wondering is, or could, the main PoV character be the same AK who wrote the HH Black books?

 

Thought only occurred as I was re-reading the first couple of chapters and the bit with him thinking the other rembrancer pronounced his name, then combining the remarks throughout the story regarding his previous work from different characters, how it was written, perceived and apparent censorship, makes him a good candidate in my opinion (got a wry smile when it's title was mentioned) 

 

 

We actually know who AK is, thanks to Laurie Goulding's Malcador audio drama (in which Mal is telling a dying "friend" half-truths to soothe her into a peaceful death, while lamenting having to lie for the Emperor's sake).

  On 12/7/2022 at 10:15 AM, lansalt said:

Malcador's friend cannot be FW's AK, since that fluff is supposed to be written many decades after the Heresy.

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Yeah In Malevolence it talks about how the imperial cult began to spread after the HH and he lamented the changes lol

Ok comprise solution, the work started by Malcadors mate and got taken over by their children with the same name, John 1-2-3-4 etc thus leaving the initials the same. 

 

Tho Laurie Goulding's  work being badly though out suprises me little. 

Edited by Nagashsnee

I’m really enjoyed this; what with the remrembrancer parts being the highlights of Dorn and this book being so damn good I’m left wondering as to what might have been if their order was the common thread for every book in the series. 
 

certainly it may have been more consistent but 

  On 12/8/2022 at 10:20 PM, aa.logan said:

I’m really enjoyed this; what with the remrembrancer parts being the highlights of Dorn and this book being so damn good I’m left wondering as to what might have been if their order was the common thread for every book in the series. 
 

certainly it may have been more consistent but 

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I really should stop writing things as I drift off to sleep. But what? I’ve no idea…

 

The Primarchs series has, I think everyone will agree, been patchy at best. I think some of that unevenness has been down to it’s vague concept- origin stories? Exemplary battles? Fleshing out obscure references? Had the series have stuck with a theme of remembrancers, either as narrators, framing devices or even recurring characters I think it might have helped distinguish these books from the main Heresy series.

 

Anyway, Sanguinius is really very good. I like the way that Wraight plays with some of the tropes of vampire fiction and I do like the way it links directly to the start of the series. It’s less on-the-nose than other books that do the same and is more than a direct re-telling of already covered events.

  On 12/3/2022 at 10:40 PM, StrangerOrders said:

I need time to chew on this before I write a review... 

 

But I think Ive gone crazy. I genuinely hate this book, its probably the single worst thing I've read by Wraight despite the basic structure being his typical brilliance and a clever idea.

 

But... the result is literally horrible, I actually think its my least favorite Primarch book by a country mile. I need time to organize my thoughts on it before I try and defend it in a review but... dear god do I think its a terrible book.

 

This is a book about incompetent and kind of horrible people being horrible in the most blase and kind of silly ways possible. And somehow it does not even achieve being funny in the process. I am flaberghasted since I am usually a Wraight fanboy.

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Don’t forget your review! I’m wondering if it will line up some with my thoughts (I like the book, but I wish it wasn’t a primarch novel, especially Sanguinius’s).

  On 12/9/2022 at 6:54 AM, aa.logan said:

I really should stop writing things as I drift off to sleep. But what? I’ve no idea…

 

The Primarchs series has, I think everyone will agree, been patchy at best. I think some of that unevenness has been down to it’s vague concept- origin stories? Exemplary battles? Fleshing out obscure references? Had the series have stuck with a theme of remembrancers, either as narrators, framing devices or even recurring characters I think it might have helped distinguish these books from the main Heresy series.

 

Anyway, Sanguinius is really very good. I like the way that Wraight plays with some of the tropes of vampire fiction and I do like the way it links directly to the start of the series. It’s less on-the-nose than other books that do the same and is more than a direct re-telling of already covered events.

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I have not bought or read a single Primarchs series novel for that very reason. What is this series supposed to be?

 

I had hoped they would use this series as Origin/Great Crusade/Explain why they and their legions have certain traits etc. I definitely wanted a pre-HH setting for these to flesh out the Great Crusade.

 

So that, combined with mixed reviews, meant I avoided.

 

But if I was to pick up an individual book (rather than invest in another series) should it be this one?

Hail!


Well - I finished the book the other night, and I enjoyed it. It was good - and no doubt that it is among the best offered in this series. 

 

I liked the portrayal of Sanguinius and the pay-off in the end was - for me - satisfying. 

 

Faithfully,

Master Ciaphas

  On 12/14/2022 at 7:44 AM, DukeLeto69 said:

 

 

But if I was to pick up an individual book (rather than invest in another series) should it be this one?

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What factions do you pay if you play the miniature side? What are your favorite factions? 

 

For me the answer is yes but i am a BA fan. If you for instance like Iron Warriors their primarch entry was also great etc. 

  On 12/14/2022 at 9:02 AM, Nagashsnee said:

What factions do you pay if you play the miniature side? What are your favorite factions? 

 

For me the answer is yes but i am a BA fan. If you for instance like Iron Warriors their primarch entry was also great etc. 

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I have not played a TT game for about 20 or so years! I am an old timer who started out playing First Edition 40k (Rogue Trader) in late 80s. Played 2nd and a little bit of 3rd but then...life, wife, kids (same for all my gaming friends). However, Black Library (and codexes etc) kept me invested in the setting/lore which I still love.

 

When I did play my armies were strictly homebrew (and a bit crap, painting wise and my tactics lol).

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