'Siege of Terra - The End and the Death Volume 1' by Dan Abnett

[Scribe]

1 hour ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

 

I mean, tens of thousands of years of 'not holding a grudge' is probably a stronger indicator than a statue in some backroom.

 

But then again, the person responsible for literally ruining the Primarch Project is apparently allowed to just kick around on Terra without any issues, so the Emperor seems to be a live-and-let-live kinda guy.

 

Yeah which all makes a whole lot of sense....

[Sothalor]

It actually sort of does, given some of the depictions of the Emperor advanced by the series. He's getting so inhuman in his pursuit of the golden path and precognitive guidance and millennia-spanning perspectives and plans that he kinda doesn't grok regular people anymore. Like the questions that pop up so often about "why didn't the Emperor treat this-or-that Primarch better" - maybe he's such a sociopathic, authoritarian, autistic shut-in who's so used to Mentally Overmatching people into compliance with boundless psychic powers that he doesn't get how to anymore. People are either useful to his purposes or they're not, and there's no benefit in holding grudges.

 

Or maybe Erda was full of :cuss: and high on her own self-importance, believing herself to have been the pivotal key in derailing the Primarch program while the Emperor and Malcador are looking at the four primordial forces of ruin trying to ass:cuss: material reality who are actually responsible and going "Oh, now they're a problem we have to deal with."

[Scribe]

If only a series of books could have built out a cohesive picture of the characters in question.

[Moonreaper666]

Spoiler

Ollianius Pius has to be teleported into the Vengeful Spirit

 

Some of his companions would join him while others stay to help Vulkan protect Malcador

 

Less than 10k Blood Angels are still alive at this point. At this rate only a few hundred would be alive when Sanginius dies

 

[Karhedron]

38 minutes ago, Moonreaper666 said:

  Hide contents

Less than 10k Blood Angels are still alive at this point. At this rate only a few hundred would be alive when Sanginius dies

 

 

There are 6 Blood Angels successor Chapters from the 2nd founding which implies around 6K survive the Heresy.

 

Either that or they have rebuilt up to around 6K by the time Guilliman issues his Codex reforms.

[Nagashsnee]

Well 1000s of marines from all legions are also not at the siege.  For the BA we have the blockade/siege of baal that is ongoing. Not that i agree with some of tge numbers thrown around in the thread.

[Arkangilos]

14 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

There are 6 Blood Angels successor Chapters from the 2nd founding which implies around 6K survive the Heresy.

 

Either that or they have rebuilt up to around 6K by the time Guilliman issues his Codex reforms.

At least six. There has never been a definitive number. 

[grailkeeper]

Because of the new Lion release I had a look over Codex: Angels of Death from 2nd ed. It says that 

 

"It would take many pages to describe in full the the attack of Horus upon Earth and his subsequent defeat".

A bit understated now that we have almost 60 books on the subject.

[Moonreaper666]

10 hours ago, grailkeeper said:

Because of the new Lion release I had a look over Codex: Angels of Death from 2nd ed. It says that 

 

"It would take many pages to describe in full the the attack of Horus upon Earth and his subsequent defeat".

A bit understated now that we have almost 60 books on the subject.

 

You mean 8 books. Horus only attacked Terra during Solar War

[Moonreaper666]

It feels like the Three Loyalist Legions have been recruiting A LOT of Marines to defend Terra

 

In one instance...

 

Spoiler

Daemons killed many of Fafnir Rahn's men in one battle

 

At this rate, only a few hundred Loyalist Marines will survive the Siege

[Scribe]

Well...this cinderblock arrived, so I guess I better read it...

[Lord_Caerolion]

It’s amazing how you can read similar passages, Moonreaper, and come to the alternate conclusions of “Loyalists got shown being killed, this means that less than a thousand total survive”, and “Chaos Marines got shown being killed, this is obviously the sole extent of their losses, they must take barely any casualties at all and come out with hundreds of thousands each.”

[TrevorLoLz]

I enjoyed the book, but it had some issues.

 

In terms of the good, below are some of my highlights:

 

Spoiler

- I enjoy Abnett's writing for the most part. He takes creative risks, inputs new ideas into the setting, adds plot points beyond "yee ha Space Marines" and tests the boundaries of the universe.  He does that here, but within reason.  You can see him begin to draw together threads starting in Horus Rising and Legion towards their conclusion here, which is exciting after so many years.

 

- Malcador's ascension to the Golden Throne was a great part of the book.  I didn't get distracted by the language, which many in this thread oddly seemed to.  Sending out his effective "last will and testament" to various agents was a great touch and look forward to see where it ends.  If there is one person in the Horus Heresy who can be singled out as a puppetmaster, it's Malcador, although I believe that this, disappointingly, was only explored a fraction of what it should have.  To me, that's a sign of how unadventurous Black Library writers are as a general whole - franchise writers who, apart from some exceptions, write solely within the brief required.

 

- The vignettes which take us to different parts of the Siege to show us the sheer and horror of it were very well done.  The disabled Blood Angel, high out of his mind on painkillers, floating out on a anti-gravity wheelchair with a lascannon is delightfully 2nd Edition 40k writ large.

 

- I also enjoyed the section where the Adeptus Custodes turned on the Emperor.  This wasn't a case of Custodian Bob willingly falling to Nurgle's corruption, but individuals being forced to do something that they clearly didn't want to do, on a ship which is described at that point as the intersection between reality and the Warp.  It made complete sense to me.  The follow on scenes where Custodians were being sucked into the flesh walls of the Spirit was also a great throwback to Bill King's piece.

 

- The investigation in the House of Leng by Loken and Sindermann had strong Bequin and Eisenhorn series vibes and I totally enjoyed it.  The "Inevitable City" blueprint they found is clearly pointed towards the Bequin series and the upcoming Pandaemonium.  When Loken found his way into the Vengeful Spirit through the House of Leng, it felt like a natural cliffhanger end point for me.  He obviously won't be surviving the next book.

 

Some of the negatives for me:

 

Spoiler

- This book was clearly padded out by Abnett to make it two books: 

 

• The Rann and Zephon parts were (save for the Sol Talgron scene) obvious filler.  Most of them could have been cut or truncated and it would have made little difference to the book's direction.  This is a book where the brief was "treat it like The Hobbit film series" and get it out to 2 or 3 books.  The focus should always have been on The Emperor, Dorn, Sanguinius and Valdor boarding the Vengeful Spirit and their battles through there.  They enter the ship quite early on in the book and then we spend entire chapters away from them.  The pacing, at times, feels very disjointed as a result and I got the feeling this was Abnett simultaneously trying to tell a story, pad the book out to satisfy Black Library directions and also self-indulgently set up his own 40k projects (Bequin, for example).  A strong editor would have benefited here.

 

• The Fo virus sections were just frustrating.  The character was introduced in the Siege series and has become another side-project of Abnett.  While, as I say above, I enjoy new plot points and ideas, they shouldn't distract the reader from the actual book.  These sections are, what I think, again directed towards the Bequin series and this induglence in particular is just too drawn out with little reason given to the reader why they should care.  They're well written in a technical sense, but, just like Erda being introduced only several books ago, read a bit too cynically in the greater context of the series.

 

• Sometimes less is more.  This book (Volume 1 and 2) is meant to be about The Emperor belting Horus, almost dying and setting up the 40k universe going forward.  There is certainly scope for new ideas, and teasing out the feelings of the differing actors. Some revelations here and there are definitely welcome.  Reading this novel, I'm unsure how Volume 2 is going to maintain the pace necessary to build the tension leading to the final battle. If this is indeed 3 volumes, then Volume 2 is going to be a complete plod.

 

[Felix Antipodes]

If there is a vol 3 imho it will be an epilogue type story focusing on the aftermath of the SoT.  It may also be a set up for the hypothetical Scouring series (if that happens).  Don’t know if the fans will be up for that after the sugar high of the Emperor vs Lupercal finale.  Feel it would be a bit of a letdown unless really, really done well.

Edited March 26, 2023 by Felix Antipodes
Fat fingers

[Lord_Caerolion]

I think they definitely need to have some form of epilogue closing off the stories of each Legion.

[SkimaskMohawk]

2 hours ago, TrevorLoLz said:

I didn't get distracted by the language, which many in this thread oddly seemed to

 

 Words are how we consume the information in it. If we can't understand descriptive words, we might get distracted trying to figure out what they mean. It's not a movie that has all the visual framing of the set and wardrobe, the actors non-verbal acting, and score to communicate information without dialogue. It's a book.

[TrevorLoLz]

1 hour ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

 Words are how we consume the information in it. If we can't understand descriptive words, we might get distracted trying to figure out what they mean. It's not a movie that has all the visual framing of the set and wardrobe, the actors non-verbal acting, and score to communicate information without dialogue. It's a book.

 

I absolutely agree.  But even if you don't have the vocabulary of a Thesaurus, the context of the events clarified the words' meaning.  I think it's being pedantic, but that's just my opinion.

[Nagashsnee]

3 hours ago, TrevorLoLz said:

I absolutely agree.  But even if you don't have the vocabulary of a Thesaurus, the context of the events clarified the words' meaning.  I think it's being pedantic, but that's just my opinion.

For many many readers English will not be their first language.  And as BL does aim at a global audience using words that most native speakers will not know and then expecting the reader to figure it out by context alone is asking allot from your audience.  It can also heavily disrupt the flow and draw you out of your reading.  Personally i did not mind, but some of my mates ( Greece) did find it detrimental to their experience. 

 

I wonder if the translated versions also sought out obscure words to use or just made due with common usage words.  

[lansalt]

1 hour ago, Nagashsnee said:

expecting the reader to figure it out by context alone is asking allot from your audience

No, it's a staple of genre fiction, just like using neologisms, made up words, or latin words like "Auspex" instead of scanner. It's a way to set the tone of the text, the characters, and make it more immersive. Somebody having problems with those words in english probably hasn't read much either on its own native language (specially in the case of european languages). It's not like Abnett or other BL authors write like James Joyce or something.

 

And part of a translator's job is to use obscure words where the original text uses obscure words.

 

[tgcleric]

11 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

 Words are how we consume the information in it. If we can't understand descriptive words, we might get distracted trying to figure out what they mean. It's not a movie that has all the visual framing of the set and wardrobe, the actors non-verbal acting, and score to communicate information without dialogue. It's a book.

 

What level of vocabulary should all books be restricted to? 5th grade? 

 

Or just black library? 

 

Also, you can often infer the meaning of a word you don't know simply by the context of the surrounding text. 

 

Also, it's fun to learn new words!

[Scribe]

58 minutes ago, tgcleric said:

What level of vocabulary should all books be restricted to? 5th grade? 

 

Why talk about all books? I couldnt care less about 'all books'.

 

Someone leaning into pretentious, grandiose, self gratification just so he can use 'new words' isnt my idea of 30K/40K.

[SkimaskMohawk]

1 hour ago, tgcleric said:

What level of vocabulary should all books be restricted to? 5th grade? 

 

Or just black library? 

 

Also, you can often infer the meaning of a word you don't know simply by the context of the surrounding text. 

 

Also, it's fun to learn new words!

 

6 hours ago, lansalt said:

No, it's a staple of genre fiction, just like using neologisms, made up words, or latin words like "Auspex" instead of scanner. It's a way to set the tone of the text, the characters, and make it more immersive. Somebody having problems with those words in english probably hasn't read much either on its own native language (specially in the case of european languages). It's not like Abnett or other BL authors write like James Joyce or something.

 

And part of a translator's job is to use obscure words where the original text uses obscure words.

 

 

Both of you mention the same thing, though only tgcleric actually makes a disingenuous statement out of it.

 

Authors can and have used made up and obscure words in books and that's fine. I can read Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen and run into a lot of words I don't know in each book. A lot of words and terms, over a huge page count. And it doesn't disrupt the flow of the reading; as tgcleric notes, I'm able to infer most of the meaning as I go, but that's because it's written in a way to aide the reader and not disrupt the story.

 

Abnett doesn't do that. The point of these words is to stand out and make you go "duh...malcadors smart and know things". And here's the thing, I actually really liked the early moment with the Greek word κατακτώ; Horus is like "oh ya conquer is super loaded, he actually said this instead" and then you look it up and it still means conquer.  

 

 

[Scribe]

32 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

Abnett doesn't do that. The point of these words is to stand out and make you go "duh...malcadors smart and know things".

 

Yeah, and I think I get why, but it's not particularly well done so far.

[tgcleric]

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

 

Why talk about all books? I couldnt care less about 'all books'.

 

Someone leaning into pretentious, grandiose, self gratification just so he can use 'new words' isnt my idea of 30K/40K.

Grandiose is 30k/40k.

 

Also, for the sake of this discussion let's keep to simpler words. Maybe next time just say "someone leaning into smarty, big, and me-happy"

 

Whether or not it works for you, Abnett made a deliberate stylistic choice that is consistent both in lore and theme. Pretty hard to argue its just to show off big words (dude has 50+ novels he isn't showing off)

 

He wanted to make sections of the novel unique, and highlight the baroque and grandiose feel.

[EverythingIsGreat]

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

Someone leaning into pretentious, grandiose, self gratification just so he can use 'new words' isnt my idea of 30K/40K.

 

This may be a little harsh, no? I mean we are talking about over-the-top science fantasy here happening 28000 years in the future, assuming this is an extension of our universe. It is possible that he's just having fun with bits of in-universe linguistic grandstanding. After all most characters, real and warp-based think of themselves as having cosmic significance, with eye-wateringly grandiose language in tow.