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

[SkimaskMohawk]

58 minutes ago, matcap86 said:

 

On this point, the traitor advance doesn't mean that they occupy those areas completely and have control over them. It means the loyalists lost control over them.

So not every square mile is covered and guarded by traitor forces (there's no central command to facilitate that anymore), those forces are ebbing and flowing towards where resistance and fighting pops up.

Having a thrust at the eternity gate doesn't mean that 360 degrees around the sanctum everything is gone and captured. It just means they broke through and are threatening those areas, bypassing Bhab, which falls at a later point. I imagine the end of Echoes to look something like this when looking at "area control":

 

Echoes tells us Pythias, meru, Avalon, razavi, sheol, cydonae and arjuna have all fallen. And that's before the delphic battlement fight. The entire structure of the book was how all the last protective ring around the sanctum fell, how the surviving loyalists have to retreat to the sanctum while being pressed and attacked by the traitor horde, and a final siege to the battlement. The traitor horde assembled helms deep style, set up a whole picket line of torture, and then attacked for days. Lotarra describes the area around the battlement as a wasteland and that the traitor forces are mustering there. Zephon remarks that the entire Battlement will be attacked, but the Archway is the focus. 

 

The traitors control the Palatine zone before the climax of echoes. They definitely, unarguably, control the gilded walk and grand processional. There shouldn't be any mass-resistance in those areas, period. 

 

The more I look back to echoes text and look at the maps, the worse it gets. The running battles of End come off as happening mid-echoes, as the bastions are falling and before the bombardment reduces the zone to a wasteland. But the gates been closed. 

 

[Matcap86]

59 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

Echoes tells us Pythias, meru, Avalon, razavi, sheol, cydonae and arjuna have all fallen. And that's before the delphic battlement fight. The entire structure of the book was how all the last protective ring around the sanctum fell, how the surviving loyalists have to retreat to the sanctum while being pressed and attacked by the traitor horde, and a final siege to the battlement. The traitor horde assembled helms deep style, set up a whole picket line of torture, and then attacked for days. Lotarra describes the area around the battlement as a wasteland and that the traitor forces are mustering there. Zephon remarks that the entire Battlement will be attacked, but the Archway is the focus. 

 

The traitors control the Palatine zone before the climax of echoes. They definitely, unarguably, control the gilded walk and grand processional. There shouldn't be any mass-resistance in those areas, period. 

 

The more I look back to echoes text and look at the maps, the worse it gets. The running battles of End come off as happening mid-echoes, as the bastions are falling and before the bombardment reduces the zone to a wasteland. But the gates been closed. 

 

I still think you're underestimating the size they're trying to portray. Yeah they occupy the gilded walk and the grand processional, which is like 10-20% on the bottom right of the map as shown above. That leaves plenty of space for running battles and refugees in other places. There's a bunch more Bastions than the ones you name here (some we see being conquered during tEatD) so isolated pockets of resistance have plenty of room to pop up. The protective ring having been broken/fallen does not mean that every single thing is 100% done and crushed to dust with all inhabitants, it means it no longer functions as a protective ring around the sanctum because the breaches are big enough to reach the Sanctum unopposed. 

The area being a wasteland doesn't mean everyone in those areas are instantly dead. Plenty of times we've seen in the HH (and 40k) that ground assaults are necessary because orbital and artillery barrages aren't enough to cleanse an area.

The situation is also fluid with troops and warhosts moving around as they see fit. So they controlled the run up to the gilded avenue, and when the fighting was done there, they move on to different locations. 

Edited March 4, 2023 by matcap86

[RedFurioso]

1 hour ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

The more I look back to echoes text and look at the maps, the worse it gets. The running battles of End come off as happening mid-echoes, as the bastions are falling and before the bombardment reduces the zone to a wasteland. But the gates been closed. 

 

The answer is warp distortions. Events of Echoes and TEATD happen at the same time, because there is no linear time any more.

[Karhedron]

2 hours ago, Corinthus said:

I would even argue that the Codex Blood Angels and successors are the most cohesive "almost-Legion" after the Imperial Fists, given their shared traits of Black Rage and Red Thirst.

 

I agree, Astorath for example is a Blood Angel but travels among all the sons of Sanguinius to bring his mercy wherever it is required. Only the Knights of Blood were outcasts IIRC and they sacrificed themselves during the Devastation of Baal.

[Brother Captain Arkley]

4 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

I agree, Astorath for example is a Blood Angel but travels among all the sons of Sanguinius to bring his mercy wherever it is required. Only the Knights of Blood were outcasts IIRC and they sacrificed themselves during the Devastation of Baal.

Sentor Jool was awesome... I need to listen to that book again.

 

Regarding this book.

 

I will be out on a limb, for me it was average at best but then I am not the biggest Abnett fan and this book does not shift my opinion on that.

[tgcleric]

5 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

 

Or... HAS IT?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Don't you remember all the build-up we had for this 'Dark King'? Don't you remember all the foreshadowing and build-up for Erda, where it all suddenly clicked into place and we realised what had been in the shadows all that time? Don't you recall how Horus' arc through Wolfsbane and Slaves to Darkness and, heck, through the whole Siege has been a shell corroding from the power of the Pantheon it can't contain, just a vehicle to get that bloated strength into contact with the Emperor to destroy him - and how cunningly it was laced throughout that, actually, he was just pretending?

 

 

This is what 'Abnettverse' means. It means rolling back the work of other authors, it means new concepts and pet characters coming in at the final hour to take the stage. It means 'hey, I have this sweet idea that I'm going to write about, and the work of others and the setting in general be damned'. And for whatever reason, he's just allowed to roll with it, even if it pulls the rug out from the long-established narrative in favour of... whatever, wherever he's going. Forget all that other lame stuff. It's all Abnett now. Whether you like it or not.

 

Abnett started this all with Horus Rising.

 

He is the most consistent in his characterization. 

 

I feel like most of these complaints come from the fact so many other authors and novels are characterless statues walking around extended Wikipedia articles, and then Abnett comes in and writes an actual story with characters who talk and act like characters and people go "omg... he's ignoring all the stuff before."

 

He's not some outsider that doesn't talk to the other authors. If you've been reading black library, their afterward, acknowledgements, interviews... it should be pretty evident every author working talks to abnett, and that he is generous with his time. It's more often than not their failure to match what it is he is doing than the other way around.

 

Abnettverse is such a silly way for people who don't like his stuff to try to imply he is outside actual warhammer. He's been writing and done more to shape the universe than almost anyone. 

[wecanhaveallthree]

Respectfully, 'Abnettverse' isn't that Abnett exists in some intrudersphere, that's he's some literary mercenary who comes in with his choppa. It is possible to respect Abnett's role in the foundation myths of 40k, and especially the Horus Heresy narrative, and also acknowledge that his view of how things should be overrides the works, themes and goals of others. When you talk about 'actual Warhammer', you speak of it as though Abnett is the immutable authority, that everything he writes is necessarily good because it's his work. That Abnett is a genius and it's not his fault that everyone else can't keep up. Again, respectfully, I think that's an absolutely terrible take. 

 

Abnett is supposed to be writing as part of a stable, working on a series built with and by others. To come in at the end (and the death) and start piling in his own 'signature elements' without care or consideration of what came before is not, I think, what anybody truly wants. That's what the 'Abnettverse' complaint is. It's Abnett's elements bleeding out from his books, his corner of the setting, into the wider narrative and not functioning as well - if at all.

[SkimaskMohawk]

2 hours ago, matcap86 said:

I still think you're underestimating the size they're trying to portray. Yeah they occupy the gilded walk and the grand processional, which is like 10-20% on the bottom right of the map as shown above. That leaves plenty of space for running battles and refugees in other places. There's a bunch more Bastions than the ones you name here (some we see being conquered during tEatD) so isolated pockets of resistance have plenty of room to pop up. The protective ring having been broken/fallen does not mean that every single thing is 100% done and crushed to dust with all inhabitants, it means it no longer functions as a protective ring around the sanctum because the breaches are big enough to reach the Sanctum unopposed. 

The area being a wasteland doesn't mean everyone in those areas are instantly dead. Plenty of times we've seen in the HH (and 40k) that ground assaults are necessary because orbital and artillery barrages aren't enough to cleanse an area.

The situation is also fluid with troops and warhosts moving around as they see fit. So they controlled the run up to the gilded avenue, and when the fighting was done there, they move on to different locations. 

 

I think there's something fundamentally missing in our discussion.

 

I'm not trying to say that literally everyone is dead outside the Battlement and that it's fully ringed by an army that literally occupies the Palatine zone.

 

What I am trying to say, is that the whole theme of Echoes is a final medieval siege come-again (like it's echoing something). It gives us a lot of build up for this theme; all other points of refuge falling or needing to be abandoned, an extremely risky flight to the last source of safety, being surrounded by overwhelming odds, an ultimatum to all survivors and an inspiring speech to rally them, and finally the heroic stand and inevitable breach. 

 

That all gets undermined, both in actual text and theme by the concessions End needs to use those locations.

 

To accept that there's a lot more refugees and loyalist formations still behind those that made it to the sanctum, then apparently the traitor horde wasn't so elemental as it was made out to be. The frantic retreat wasn't really so frantic, because it was isolated to just those characters. Their numbers are more limited and spread out; the threat posed is diffused. It's like if at Helms Deep, the urukhai army showed up and there was a bunch of humans outside the walls, and they spent the entire battle still dealing with them, past the point they were battering the final keep door down. When theoden and aragorn rode out you could still just see people battling out in the field and even on the lead up to the causeway (because the urukhai inexplicably moved away from there).

 

To accept that main loyalist forces are able to get into the sanctum through other means than the Archway we have to ask how those locations are less vulnerable than the Arch. And why didn't Zephon go through that method instead of going all the way to the processional from razavi. 

 

They basically don't mesh for me.

 

Unfortunately, the more I've looked back at echoes while trying to explain myself, the more frustrated I've become with End, because nothing actually happens in it. When echoes ended there was the sense of the final chapter approaching; guilliman was in system, the shields were down, the sanctum was vulnerable with only the abandoned forces on the Battlement left to slow things down before the inevitable room-to-room. But End comes and the end doesn't come at all. People just talk in the palace while other people are still dying all across the Palatine zone. It somehow lessens the urgency, when it should be boiling over. 

 

Idk, I think I gotta change my score.

 

@RedFurioso

Quote

The answer is warp distortions. Events of Echoes and TEATD happen at the same time, because there is no linear time any more

 

Yea i understand that's the secret sauce to people being in places they shouldn't, and how nothing makes sense timewise. And maybe i would have accepted it if it had gradually been built up throughout the siege (along with the Dark kings ascension).

 

But it wasn't; it just suddenly got implemented, at the very end. After the entirety of the siege was concerned with bleeding time and the inevitable progression to the throne, it's tossed aside to justify what's essentially a new climax to the siege. We can't be worried about the retribution fleet or the traitors breaching the palace, because that's apparently not the end point of the siege any more. 

Edited March 4, 2023 by SkimaskMohawk

[lansalt]

The End and the Death is basically the setup half of a single book:

 

https://www.trackofwords.com/2023/03/04/rapid-fire-dan-abnett-talks-the-end-and-the-death-volume-1/

 

[Scribe]

Entering a spiral of despair here, it unfortunately seems to be matching my expectations...

[Corinthus]

I don’t want to throw gas to the fire but Abnett was for a long time the only good AND consistent writer for 40k. Gaunt’s Ghosts and Eisenhorn are not only fundamental for the setting but they are also great books.

 

Respectfully, I don’t care if Abnett goes all-in in the final episode of the series he started. After so many books, only Wright came close to his quality delivering the surprisingly amazing White Scars arch. ADB’s First Heretic and Betrayer were ok-ish but MoM was just better, and all of them are not as good as his 40k works. Each time I look back to EoE I get more pissed about how selfish and out of touch that books is. A complete waste of an entry in the Siege. Thats why you could skip that book and read “Sanguinius is hurt from vanishing Angron (copying the Khan maneuver against Morty) and he closed the Eternity Gate” in Vol. 1 and move on. The glorious bit from the old lore of him holding the gate wasn’t portrayed good enough. We got two equally lazy fights against daemons, the Siggy vs Khârn reboot (also happening two times in the book) and the lack of full picture / context. EoE was just lazy and I can’t forgive ADB for putting this forward at the closing of the Saga, I’m sorry.

 

So yes, I think it’s great that Abnett took full control of the final episode. He is the clutch player in the BL team you want playing the last minutes of the finals. The others had their minutes but didn’t play better than him, so be it.

[Scribe]

Yeah no. Hopefully we can cross the finish line without anything egregiously Abnett. Thats all I feel I can even ask for now.

[Noserenda]

Honestly i suspect the refugees...

are going to end up being deliberately herded/concentrated for some horrific mass sacrifice in book 2 as the pay off

[SkimaskMohawk]

5 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

Honestly i suspect the refugees...

  Reveal hidden contents

are going to end up being deliberately herded/concentrated for some horrific mass sacrifice in book 2 as the pay off
 

 

 

Spoiler

It seems like a pretty plausible outcome for them. I honestly assumed the time-stop things main benefit was to just increase the amount of bloodshed in Horus'/Big Es name to fuel the Dark Kind ascension. Like neithers armies can "win", but will keep on killing each other until someone ascends.

 

It's just...that wasn't the siege lol. Everything from both sides was done was in consideration of imperial reinforcements. You need to plant the seeds if you're going to bait and switch the conclusion of the siege from monarchs death to monarch's apotheosis.

 

[tgcleric]

2 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

Respectfully, 'Abnettverse' isn't that Abnett exists in some intrudersphere, that's he's some literary mercenary who comes in with his choppa. It is possible to respect Abnett's role in the foundation myths of 40k, and especially the Horus Heresy narrative, and also acknowledge that his view of how things should be overrides the works, themes and goals of others. When you talk about 'actual Warhammer', you speak of it as though Abnett is the immutable authority, that everything he writes is necessarily good because it's his work. That Abnett is a genius and it's not his fault that everyone else can't keep up. Again, respectfully, I think that's an absolutely terrible take. 

 

Abnett is supposed to be writing as part of a stable, working on a series built with and by others. To come in at the end (and the death) and start piling in his own 'signature elements' without care or consideration of what came before is not, I think, what anybody truly wants. That's what the 'Abnettverse' complaint is. It's Abnett's elements bleeding out from his books, his corner of the setting, into the wider narrative and not functioning as well - if at all.

Its people who use "abnettverse" as a derogative that talk about "actual Warhammer". I'm not. There is no single Warhammer. Any IP, series or franchise that moves beyond one creator has no single identity. However, there are many... 2 or 3 people in the world who have a better claim of crafting what current Warhammer is. 

I guess it just comes down to what you are reading for, and what you want out of these books. His "signature elements" are simply his style as a writer. And frankly, since his volume of writing surpasses most, its also signature to warhammer literature. Also no where do I see him as an immutable authority. I am simply responding to the generic and constant, and unconstructive criticism of posts that continue to say "hope its not abnett" "this is abnett universe" "oh, as long as he doesn't abnett it". 

Its always implies that Abnett is dropping strings and threads... as opposed to, frankly the more likely alternative other people are dropping his threads. its not like Abnett threw out his characterizations in False Gods and Galaxy in Flames. Its not like the abnettverse is responsible for Imperial secondus doing nothing after he actually got it together in Unremembered Empire. I'm just always thinking... what author and creator is making all these supposed narrativr threads that Abnett is dropping?

Anyways. 

 

Quote

So yes, I think it’s great that Abnett took full control of the final episode. He is the clutch player in the BL team you want playing the last minutes of the finals. The others had their minutes but didn’t play better than him, so be it.

 

Agreed. And halfway through right now, and its just lovely. I mean, finally getting to Saturnine was a breath of fresh air after a slog of dozens of mediocre to bad books (Master of Mankind the exception). And there has been some strong entries here and there, I actually liked Tallarn quite a bit, finding French to be best in novella/short story as his weakness in plotting is less an issue.

But post Saturnine, Siege has been strong. I didnt hate Mortis, and then loved Warhawk and EoE. And halfway through this, its the first time the series has felt truly cohesive (the most one can with multiple authors) since the first few books of HH. And as a narrative, I'm loving this build. And just putting out a general statement of appreciation that I got to fall in love with ADB, Wraight and Abnett in the past few years as I've devoured BL books. And that those are the three that are sending this massive bloated series off, and so far all three have done it wonderfully, is better than I could have expected. 

[Scribe]

2 minutes ago, tgcleric said:

Its not like the abnettverse is responsible for Imperial secondus doing nothing after he actually got it together in Unremembered Empire.

 

Right here is where your path goes off the rails. Unremembered Empire didnt need to happen, shouldnt have happened, as is one of the worst books in the 'series'.

 

It is 'abnettverse' that is responsible, because its the lack of control over Abnett that leads to these kinds of things being injected when they didnt need to exist at all. Then other authors have to pick up the pieces or just ignore it, because its not like Abnett is going to write 30 books on his own, and thats what it would take for him to get through the series.

[tgcleric]

7 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

Right here is where your path goes off the rails. Unremembered Empire didnt need to happen, shouldnt have happened, as is one of the worst books in the 'series'.

 

It is 'abnettverse' that is responsible, because its the lack of control over Abnett that leads to these kinds of things being injected when they didnt need to exist at all. Then other authors have to pick up the pieces or just ignore it, because its not like Abnett is going to write 30 books on his own, and thats what it would take for him to get through the series.

Unremembered Empire is my least favorite of the Abnett books, but still in the top 10 of HH for me. (probably #10...).  But we'll agree to disagree there. I mean, there are about 25 books in HH that are barely readable to anyone who isn't a huge Warhammer fan. UE has too much wonderful character moments and actual conflict between well written and realized primarchs to be anywhere near the bottom of HH. 

But again. Its this bizarre idea that there is this lack of control over Abnett and that he went off on his own and wrote the idea of Imperial Secondus and not what actually happened which is the BL Narrative team figured this out, and then hired, and paid Abnett to write that part of the story. And however ill advised or dumb the IS story is (which I think is fine in theory), its not Abnettverse.

To put this back on track. Before finishing the book, just want to also say, adoring the POV sequences with Horus. Truly felt one of the biggest problems with the whole series is how little Horus is shown, and outside of Horus Rising... even when he is its rarely anything interesting or insightful or poignant. Which is odd for what should be a story of his tragedy. 

Worth quoting abnett's response about these scenes from that Track of Words interview

"This is a mythic tragedy. Horus can’t be ‘just’ a harrowing monster, or it becomes too simple. He was a great man, and the qualities that made him great are still present, even if they have been twisted by Chaos. In fact, it is those very qualities that make him so powerfully dreadful by the end. He is Horus magnified by Chaos. I found myself harking back to earlier books very often, and feel that, in many ways, TEATD is almost a direct sequel to Horus Rising. Horus is terrifying, and we may demonise him (literally and metaphorically) but if you don’t also see his fall as tragic, then you haven’t really understood the Horus Heresy. It’s not just an immense war – it’s an existential collapse for Mankind and everything it understands about itself."

Edited March 4, 2023 by tgcleric

[Scribe]

Its a super hero buddy novel with Curze as a Joker parody. Its terrible. lol

 

It would have been GREAT for Abnett (or any of the few good authors) to actually expand upon Horus over the 50 (60??) odd books before you know...the last 2.

[Matcap86]

2 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

I think there's something fundamentally missing in our discussion.

 

I'm not trying to say that literally everyone is dead outside the Battlement and that it's fully ringed by an army that literally occupies the Palatine zone.

 

What I am trying to say, is that the whole theme of Echoes is a final medieval siege come-again (like it's echoing something). It gives us a lot of build up for this theme; all other points of refuge falling or needing to be abandoned, an extremely risky flight to the last source of safety, being surrounded by overwhelming odds, an ultimatum to all survivors and an inspiring speech to rally them, and finally the heroic stand and inevitable breach. 

 

That all gets undermined, both in actual text and theme by the concessions End needs to use those locations.

 

To accept that there's a lot more refugees and loyalist formations still behind those that made it to the sanctum, then apparently the traitor horde wasn't so elemental as it was made out to be. The frantic retreat wasn't really so frantic, because it was isolated to just those characters. Their numbers are more limited and spread out; the threat posed is diffused. It's like if at Helms Deep, the urukhai army showed up and there was a bunch of humans outside the walls, and they spent the entire battle still dealing with them, past the point they were battering the final keep door down. When theoden and aragorn rode out you could still just see people battling out in the field and even on the lead up to the causeway (because the urukhai inexplicably moved away from there).

 

To accept that main loyalist forces are able to get into the sanctum through other means than the Archway we have to ask how those locations are less vulnerable than the Arch. And why didn't Zephon go through that method instead of going all the way to the processional from razavi. 

 

They basically don't mesh for me.

 

Unfortunately, the more I've looked back at echoes while trying to explain myself, the more frustrated I've become with End, because nothing actually happens in it. When echoes ended there was the sense of the final chapter approaching; guilliman was in system, the shields were down, the sanctum was vulnerable with only the abandoned forces on the Battlement left to slow things down before the inevitable room-to-room. But End comes and the end doesn't come at all. People just talk in the palace while other people are still dying all across the Palatine zone. It somehow lessens the urgency, when it should be boiling over. 

 

Idk, I think I gotta change my score.

 

 

Well that I can't argue with. I didn't get those themes from echoes, so don't have as much issue with those themes not continuing as you. But I can understand the disconnect you feel if that's the case. 

 

For me Echoes was written very explicitly from the perspective of characters involved. So to them the assault on their part of the battlements felt like the whole world overflowing with enemies, which is understandable when the fortress you stand on spans beyond your viewrange and so does the enemy horde. 

 

The retreat was frantic because it was the last real hope for any "safety", which is echoed (geh) in the fact most marines beyond the wall now regarding themselves as dead men walking, only interested in making their death count for as much as possible and interfere with any further assaults on the sanctum. While refugees left outside are mostly lost and milling about with keeler and co. directing them while admitting to themselves they don't know where they're directing them towards; mostly just away from any fighting they encounter. 

 

I feel like the battle of helms deep is not the analogy I'd use here. That seems too narrow. I see it more as the siege of Minas Tirith, with fighting happening on several fronts (including at the main gate) and key elements taking place in disperate places on the battlefield.

 

I don't remember any loyalists getting into the sanctum except through the archway? But maybe I'm misremembering. 

Edited March 4, 2023 by matcap86

[DarkChaplain]

1 hour ago, tgcleric said:

Unremembered Empire is my least favorite of the Abnett books, but still in the top 10 of HH for me.

 

As somebody who could write another five thousand words about why TUE sucked and how Imperium Secundus was completely wasted due to both the way it was set up and corporate interference and authors/editors reacting to audience feedback and aborting the whole damn thing...

 

Holy mother Erda, what the hell? How is that clusterfrak of a novel even anywhere close to the top ten of the Heresy's 54 numbered entires, even before the Siege, or heck, Primarchs & Characters, come into play?! It's got Vulkan going insane and then full hulk for no good reason outside of needing to be shelved for an indeterminate amount of time, just to then get fridged again. It had Curze outplaying everyone even when it came to pretty straight duels. It's had the worst of the Perpetuals going Primarch hunting. It had the Lion do a 180 on why he even came to Macragge - he was going to put a fist in Guilliman's face, last we saw him! It had Curze being spirited away with warp bs, just to still be basically around the corner. The freakin' premise of the entire novel almost didn't happen at all, being relegated to the final pages of the book. Sanguinius never received any development at all, despite being the poster boy both of the novel and Imperium Secundus. We're told "yeah, new Emp has got to be him!" but in no way, shape or form does the book justify this.

 

It literally did the typical Abnett thing and shoved the stuff the novel was supposedly about into the deepest, darkest corner and instead tell a way different story. Heck, he even managed to throw in his Alpha Legion almost assassinating Guilliman by way of a false Aeonid Thiel - a character that was last seen entering orbit and being told that Imperium Secundus was being prepped.

 

Imperium Secundus was prepped as far back as Age of Darkness, book 16! And Abnett, 11? books later went and had a marvel heroes brawl out of the novel that was supposed to define the whole thing and establish this entire arc.

 

Just how does a book that messy make the top 10?

[Roomsky]

Well you see DarkChaplain, it's top 10 because Abnett's name is on the cover.

 

Y`all can disagree with me, but this is another subject where I think editorial is to blame. Abnett, ADB, pick your poison, but part of a good creative process is encouraging them to create something with their unique stamp - and it is the editor's job to be an impartial second opinion on what should be expanded and what should be cut down. I don't blame Abnett for going full Abnett while praising ADB for writing ADB Heresy book 4 instead of Siege book 7 - they are why I want them writing these books. But it's for Kyme to say "hey Aaron, I need you to incorporate the Cyrene reveal," and "hey Dan, I need this finale to not be 1200 pages long." Just look at JReynolds' list of rejected pitches on his Twitter; it's not as if ADB and Abnett roll in and write what they want with no oversight or collaboration.

 

I can also fully sympathise with the people who would have preferred Abnett write the whole series, I'm one of them! (note: I also would have preferred Aaron write the whole series, or French, or Wraight, perhaps even McNeill.) Cohesion has value, characters not being husks of themselves under a different pen have value. It goes both ways even for the best authors in the Heresy, like Abnett. Handing Keeler out to multiple authors was a terrible idea, because she sucks before Abnett picks her up again in Saturnine. At the same time, as stated, Abnett's Rann and Zephon are shockingly flaccid.

 

I'm not quite sure where I'm going with all this beyond that we all make a lot of assumptions and are victims of confirmation bias. The cluster:cuss: we're reading now comes with the territory, and while I'm 100% for author freedom, if it's a collaborative series then the management carries significantly more responsibility, which for the Heresy I feel wasn't used well.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Roomsky

[RedFurioso]

2 hours ago, Scribe said:

It would have been GREAT for Abnett (or any of the few good authors) to actually expand upon Horus over the 50 (60??) odd books before you know...the last 2.

Isn't this an exact reason of Vengeful Spirit existence? Like we barely saw Horus in his own book series. From what I understand, when BL team realised that the main antagonist of the Heresy is completely absent, they told McNeill to write VS. Book 29 

[Scribe]

1 minute ago, RedFurioso said:

Isn't this an exact reason of Vengeful Spirit existence? Like we barely saw Horus in his own book series. From what I understand, when BL team realised that the main antagonist of the Heresy is completely absent, they told McNeill to write VS. Book 29 

 

I couldnt say. I posted that and took my dog for a long walk and just ruminated on the absolutely missed opportunity of what the series could have been. I cared too much, and BL frittered away all the potential.

 

Oh well, 1 book to go.

[lansalt]

33 minutes ago, RedFurioso said:

Isn't this an exact reason of Vengeful Spirit existence? Like we barely saw Horus in his own book series. From what I understand, when BL team realised that the main antagonist of the Heresy is completely absent, they told McNeill to write VS. Book 29 

It's sad that there's apparently another instance of Horus taking the field during the Heresy: His reconquest of Cthonia after it was taken over by the Imperial Fists, but that's only featured in the HH trailer and BL didn't bother to put it or explain what happened in the Cthonia's Reckoning anthology

[SkimaskMohawk]

1 hour ago, matcap86 said:

 

Well that I can't argue with. I didn't get those themes from echoes, so don't have as much issue with those themes not continuing as you. But I can understand the disconnect you feel if that's the case. 

 

For me Echoes was written very explicitly from the perspective of characters involved. So to them the assault on their part of the battlements felt like the whole world overflowing with enemies, which is understandable when the fortress you stand on spans beyond your viewrange and so does the enemy horde. 

 

The retreat was frantic because it was the last real hope for any "safety", which is echoed (geh) in the fact most marines beyond the wall now regarding themselves as dead men walking, only interested in making their death count for as much as possible and interfere with any further assaults on the sanctum. While refugees left outside are mostly lost and milling about with keeler and co. directing them while admitting to themselves they don't know where they're directing them towards; mostly just away from any fighting they encounter. 

 

I feel like the battle of helms deep is not the analogy I'd use here. That seems too narrow. I see it more as the siege of Minas Tirith, with fighting happening on several fronts (including at the main gate) and key elements taking place in disperate places on the battlefield.

 

I don't remember any loyalists getting into the sanctum except through the archway? But maybe I'm misremembering. 

 

Yea I can definitely see how the POV restricted interpretation of Echoes gives a different impression entirely leading into End. 

 

The loyalists getting into the sanctum comment is because i can't quite figure out where zephon is fighting. If it's within the Battlement then how did the fists get in? If not, how did zephon and his guys get out?

 

I'm standing by my helms reference lol. At least in the movie; there's the warg attack on the fleeing column, the one notable weakness, the inner keep thats the last place of refuge.