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

[Scribe]

[Nagashsnee]

Cheer up mate, maybe the ebook is wrong and the art department decided that Sanguinius was simply too pretty to not put on the last book.

[Arkangilos]

9 hours ago, DukeLeto69 said:

I actually agree with a lot of this but you did miss one clear statement...

 

IMHO

 

I’ve never understood this. It’s obvious it’s his opinion. Do we really need people to spell out that they are giving their opinions in a review thread?

[DukeLeto69]

Book 2: The End and the Death - A Perpetual Adventure

 

Book 3: The End and the Death - Foreshadowing Bequin

 

Book 4: The End and the Death - Horus and the Emperor Slapdown

 

Book 5: The End and the Death - Internment and the Golden Throne

 

Book 6: The End and the Death - The Scouring Begins

 

Book 7: The End and the Death - Loose Ends

5 minutes ago, Arkangilos said:

I’ve never understood this. It’s obvious it’s his opinion. Do we really need people to spell out that they are giving their opinions in a review thread?

Of course we don’t. I wasn’t being literal I was joking!

[Splog]

I liked it overall (8/10), but also agree that it didn't need to be quite that long. Once the decision was made for the Emperor to leave the throne, I was filled with curiosity about what would be in the next book. There were hundreds of pages left in part 1, so Horus could have been dead well before the end. But no.

 

It will be wretched if it turns into 3 or more books.

 

Turning the end of the HH into a 'separate' series was an important and needed move to deal with the wandering malaise of the "good but overstaying its welcome" HH series. (And incidentally an excuse to have limited editions). I hope they don't repeat their mistake in miniature by dragging out the siege too much. The release of Garro Knight of Grey is a bad sign in this regard. I'm hoping random audio dramas (as much as I liked some of them) do not start popping up.

 

As has been mentioned/discussed, some core books (beginning, middle, and ending trilogies?) with some explicitly non-core "books in the setting" and "legion arcs" would have been much better.

 

Anyways...

 

Keeler. Am I the only person who has had little interest in this character arc throughout?

 

The Dark King. Could this be the/a future fate of the Emperor? The Emperor's 'death' being the seed/ignition of a new chaos god? In the library "Then crowned in his stead, the Dark King. One that is once born immortal is born again as a king of All Darkness. The black shell breaks, thus he ascends, in the timeless time, and is elevated to the gods, to reign as a dark-crowned king". Malcador says the Emperor is Lux in Tenebris, the Light in the Dark, The Emperor says he is the End and the Death, which is something Samus is fond of saying. In a Horus perspective chapter 4:xvii "You had Him encased in a stiffling. muffling, sense-depriving shell of pure black immaterial force, but He has cracked that open...". Note also (though it could be the author/editor) that Horus, chaos-invested vessel and champion of the gods is capitalising pronouns for the Emperor: He/Him. Is this some kind of acknowledgement of the Emperor's godhood or incipient godhood? 

 

Is the HH ploy by the chaos gods a way of preventing the Emperor from achieving his aims, or a way of turning him into one of them? Of if it is not meant to be the Emperor, a role he could take on? A potential opening potential or 'claim' for key players to grab? Because the opening 'verses' from Samus don't seem like he has some link to the Emperor. 'Verse VI' talks about a beautiful potential that could be accomplished; is this beautiful as in 'good' or beautiful as in something a daemon likes?

 

There is a 'Dark King' chapter where they discuss the Dark King. They think it will be Horus. But (IIRC) over the years Horus has generally been considered/described as a pawn of chaos, rather than a peer-in-waiting to the gods? (Two meanings there.. one that he isn't really the key player, the other being if he makes it across the board he can be upgraded..). Horus has a greatly expanded lifespan ahead of him, but does he count as immortal to match the prophesy in the library? The Emperor does. Other perpetuals do. Perhaps the Dark King is/could be one of the characters present in the Dark King chapter, which included a few immortals.

 

Anyhoo. Will be interesting to see how it turns out. We're all expecting some kind of twist, right?

[System Sound]

21 minutes ago, Splog said:

Anyhoo. Will be interesting to see how it turns out. We're all expecting some kind of twist, right?

Yes. For this to be only 2 books.

[Noserenda]

End and the death part 7 : We did say time had no meaning

[Bobss]

I don't mind 3 books by the same author to conclude the series but 4 is ridiculous, and in reality there probably should've been 2 maximum. I was anticipating book 1 to begin with the Emperor's strike-team forming and culminating with Horus vs Sanguinius as the finale, setting up the other throneroom battles and leaving plenty of space in book 9 for the Emperor's entombment and all of the rituals that entails. 11 doesn't feel as whole as 10 (or 8) did, and 9 could've been easily played off as 8.1 and 8.2. 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 and 8.4 are going to feel a bit odd. If you hopped into a time-machine and told someone in 2018 that the Siege would be 11 books long they would laugh at you. I remember telling people in 2010 that I thought the Siege would be a trilogy with McNeill doing book 1, ADB doing book 2 and Abnett doing book 3. Good lord do I miss those days, and for more than just Warhammer reasons. Also, I feel like one book per author would've been better as each author brought their A-game for their entry. Well, except Mortis, which certainly doesn't feel like John French's A-game but neither is it his Z-game. As Fedor Emelianko rightly says, the Horus Heresy has always been a multi-author project, and in my opinion having one bloke write the final FOUR books is going to feel too much like: The Horus Heresy: The Siege of Terra, by Dan Abnett and friends, when said friends have put in some absolute bangers. I don't collect the special editions as I'm firmly #massmarketpaperback with an initial Dark Mechanicum copy and then an eBook copy a few weeks later, but those who're collecting them are going to have to shed out even MORE money and undergo even MORE buyer's anxiety. I've recently reread the Siege and there's some good consistency in pace and focus across each entry. Yes, there are detail inconsistencies and some out-of-characterness but that is what it is. Mortis and now TEATD are where things get funky. And what do you know? Both these books could've been trimmed. Also strongly agree with the dude who said that other authors probably had to trim fat, and yet TEATD doesn't, and the people lamenting how Abnett seems to roll back a lot of the qualities Echoes brought because it really, really does. Echoes goes into heavy detail about how Terra is slipping into the warp and all of the craziness that's going on, yet TEATD feels like a continuation of Saturnine sometimes. Abnett saves himself with some truly wonderful metaphysical stuff which we haven't seen since John's entries but ehhhhh

 

So yeah, please stick to 3. After all, only the Horus Heresy would be 54 books long before having an ''8'' book finale and the finale's finale is a trilogy. With a Scouring setting (or much more likely, extended Horus Heresy sandbox) to come. Lol

[Ubiquitous1984]

What a sec … where has this talk of FOUR volumes come from?  I’ve seen a few people mention this now.  

 

I think we’re all expecting three volumes, due to the cover art and ‘continued in the next volume’ description in the ebook.  But I’ve seen no evidence that a fourth book will follow.  Two volumes is surely more likely than four?

[Scribe]

I think the interview with Abnett. I was too annoyed to get through it.

[Ayatollah_of_Rock_n_Rolla]

In the interview he refuses to confirm that the second volume will be the last one.

 

ToW: At what point did you realise you were going to need to break this story into multiple parts? And are you allowed to say whether there will be one more volume, or two?

DA: It hasn’t yet been announced exactly how many parts this will be  I realised fairly quickly that it was going to be epic and long (the Siege of Terra books have always been on the long side anyway). When I began to appreciate that it was going to be really long if I was going to do all the things I’d set out to do, I checked with my editor. He said there was an upper limit to what could be published as one volume (a simple production limit about book size), but advised me to ‘just write… make it as long as it needs to be to do it justice, and we’ll worry about it later”. So… I did.

[Corinthus]

1 hour ago, Ubiquitous1984 said:

What a sec … where has this talk of FOUR volumes come from?  I’ve seen a few people mention this now.  

 

I think we’re all expecting three volumes, due to the cover art and ‘continued in the next volume’ description in the ebook.  But I’ve seen no evidence that a fourth book will follow.  Two volumes is surely more likely than four?

My bet is:

 

Vol.2 ends with Sanguinius getting floored. Possible plot-twist to make a cliffhanger for:

Vol.3 Focused on the showdown between Big E and Horus.

Vol.4 I actually don't believe they will call it vol.4. It probably will be and epilogue-aftermath of the events, and the set-up for the Scouring.

 

So Vol.2 is pretty much straight forward: we have the three good guys reaching for Horus. Dorn is in Dubai and has to come back from Khôrne's resort. The Emperor will probably face some metaphysical manifestations of the Gods walking to the bridge. Sanguinius arrives first and will have a long chat with Horus. I expect a duel like Vulkan vs Magnus, with a lot of talking and exposition. Then, the plot-twist. We also have Abaddon returning to the Spirit, possibly facing Loken along the way. The perpetual lads also have to reach the Spirit and face Erebus. We have the Lorgar question. At Terra, the Dark Angels lighting up the Astronomicon, possibly opening screen time for Guilliman and his fleet fighting the Traitors.

 

Vol.3 starts with the aftermath of Sanguinius fate, lots of Black Rage Blood Angels going berserk. Rann putting down a crazed Zephon? Keller, Synderman and Fo (don't really care about them but they will fill pages). The Emperor reaches Horus and Sanguinius, the moment everyone has been waiting for. The conclusion of the Heresy and the beginning of Warhammer 40.000. Abnett will pour everything in this segment and he will take his time. Possible plot-twist moment. Possible "I was there when Horus slew the Emperor" moment. Loken, Oll, Grammaticus, Cyrene, Erebus, Valdor... etc will have their moments. Most of them will end up dead or out of play. Dorn arrives from his vacation and he will be old, tanned and pissed after so many centuries in the dunes. He takes whatever is left from the plot-twist back to Terra. Someone will sweep Malcador the Hero from the Throne and the payload will be placed in the seat. Some open endings related to the plot-twist some epic lines as closure of an Era, foreshadowing a future where there's only war and that would be it.

 

"Not Vol.4" will probably deal with Gorilla, Lion and Wolf talking about their failures and planning the future, with the Scouring as first objective and the reconstruction of the Imperium next. Dorn will be sad and mad, ready to go on the offensive. Jaghatai probably still dead. I don't really think they will push this to 4 books, but we will see.

[Noserenda]

They wont confirm how many volumes because they know any answer more than 2 is going to enrage a big chunk of the audience for various reasons. Fatigue, special edition nonsense, gw breaking promises, probably more that dont spring to mind and thats going to hurt their sales. If people are already invested in one or two books they are more likely to keep buying.

Personally if they stretch it out for another bloody year to fit in as much bloat as that would entail i just wont buy the e/a books after reading the leaks. :cuss: em.

[tgcleric]

4 hours ago, Ubiquitous1984 said:

What a sec … where has this talk of FOUR volumes come from?  I’ve seen a few people mention this now.  

 

I think we’re all expecting three volumes, due to the cover art and ‘continued in the next volume’ description in the ebook.  But I’ve seen no evidence that a fourth book will follow.  Two volumes is surely more likely than four?

No where. Just catastrophizing before anything happens. 

 

My read of the interview was that the book was "pushing" the limits of one volume. That sure doesn't sound like blasting past 3 volumes. It feels like it was getting too big for one. My guess is still its 2 novels. 

 

Now, I wouldn't be surprised if the pull some novella type epilogue :cuss:. Which would be annoying. But Abnett continues to clarify he wrote it as one novel. 

 

I don't imagine he wrote a novel that is 2000 pages. 

 

But who knows. The only thing I know is that it's not worth worrying about cause we know nothing about it. 

Edited March 7, 2023 by tgcleric

[crovaxpso]

For those that received the limited edition, can you share which characters get the bust-style portraits?  Missed out on this one and have been curious as they're some of my favorite parts.

[Sothalor]

6 minutes ago, crovaxpso said:

For those that received the limited edition, can you share which characters get the bust-style portraits?  Missed out on this one and have been curious as they're some of my favorite parts.

 

Fafnir Rann, Actae, Basilio Fo, and Malcador.

 

Two Primarch artpieces in the back: Curze and the Lion.

[UltraMarine_Sgt]

12 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

I decided to do a reread and to ignore my points of contention, to see how much I enjoy the book as a standalone book.

 

But I ran into an issue right away lol, and it was with Amit again. He's on the delphic battlement. After the gate has been closed. The gate is within the protection of the Battlement, its what he wanted to stay and die on.

 

I think abnett just didn't quite understand the layers of the defence. I mean, I didn't either until I pulled up the maps to try and understand some of the locations referenced. But that seems to be the biggest issue in his whole disconnected locations.

The lack of anything approaching good and well laid out maps and ways to actually track what was going on in the plot drove me CRAZY… I can’t stand when it’s impossible to appreciate the scale of something because you can’t actually follow what the writer is trying to convey. It would also have helped the writers out too—helped them focus on key battles instead of jumping all over the place all the time. 

[Dornfist]

Greetings everyone! I am a recently registered user to this amazing forum.

 

Having recently finished my hardcover copy of TEATD vol 1, I wanted to share my thoughts on the book.

I give the book a 7.5/10. The reason for this is that I was very invested in the first part with the lead-up to "Malcador the Hero" and the teleportation onto the Vengeful Spirit. And then for the second part, everything felt very, very repetitive. I have read Abnett's Eisenhorn books and some of his Gaunt's Ghosts stuff, so I am familiar with how he approaches setting and characters.

Spoiler

But good lord, why did we have so many pages dedicated to Sindermann at the library? That could have been cut down so we have Loken find the hidden door in half that page count. I also felt that the "fragments" chapters were unnecessary: they go on and on about how things are so bad on Terra for the loyalists...like sure we already know that lol. And those Rann chapters kind of hit the point too hard that he is a superb fighter and crushes traitors well with Zephon (I did admittedly like how he destroyed Sor Talgron).

 

The Malcador, Horus, Abaddon, Sanguinuis, and Dorn chapters were all very nice. I also like the concept of the Dark King and how the Emperor is very mad at Horus (rightfully so after the stunt he pulled with the Custodes). Valdor was also a pleasure to read. I didn't like the Keeler chapters, but I am still somewhat invested in our band of perpetuals: I for sure predict Erebus catching up to them soon. The Dark Angels under Corswain holding the Hollow Mountain was neat. The warp messing even more with Terra is interesting.

And Vulkan Lives! Stomp Stomp!

 

As for how many more volumes are in store for us, I hope not too many. My hardcover said "To Be Concluded in Volume II", so I took that at face value. Unless there is some dragged epilogue or lead up to the Great Scouring awaiting us lol. I do hope Loken dies at the end of this story because anything else would ruin his arc for me.

 

When all is said and done though, I am glad Abnett is handling the finale.

 

Anyhow, those are my two cents.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Dornfist

[grailkeeper]

Came across an obscure word that sums up certain parts well

 

"Lexiphane.

Someone who uses obscure words pretentiously."

[Old-Four-Arms]

Finished part 1 and definitely echoing some of the earlier comments (have a dictionary at hand..).

 

Not a bad book per se, but it's all becoming VERY drawn out. The fact that there are so many storylines still going adds to that.

 

Probably not going to bother to get the other parts.

 

Glad I still have WD131, which has William King's "The Emperor and Horus" story (2 pages).

 

Sometimes, less is more..

[Dornfist]

12 hours ago, Old-Four-Arms said:

Finished part 1 and definitely echoing some of the earlier comments (have a dictionary at hand..).

 

Not a bad book per se, but it's all becoming VERY drawn out. The fact that there are so many storylines still going adds to that.

 

Probably not going to bother to get the other parts.

 

Glad I still have WD131, which has William King's "The Emperor and Horus" story (2 pages).

 

Sometimes, less is more..

Agreed. What did you make of Dan Abnett suddenly introducing us the word "Astartesian"? I laughed out loud when I read that and when the book's title was dropped/mentioned multiple times in the book.

[Roomsky]

I'll admit that I am guilty of the greatest Heresy: I think every version of Horus vs The Emperor written in detail before now sucks. Yes, even King's. Horus and the Emperor just sort of hitting each other, Horus tearing off the Emperor's arm, it's all so lacklustre.

 

My big hope for the final book is Abnett can write something genuinely awe-inspiring or epic for their confrontation. I'll take something excessively poetic over what we have currently.

[System Sound]

17 minutes ago, Roomsky said:

I'll admit that I am guilty of the greatest Heresy: I think every version of Horus vs The Emperor written in detail before now sucks. Yes, even King's. Horus and the Emperor just sort of hitting each other, Horus tearing off the Emperor's arm, it's all so lacklustre.

 

My big hope for the final book is Abnett can write something genuinely awe-inspiring or epic for their confrontation. I'll take something excessively poetic over what we have currently.

This. And some people need to realise that there's quite a lot of people that read the Heresy and never knew anything about the old stuff (me included) and they most definitely don't care that "the old fluff" is being rewritten. Oh the sacrilege...

[Dornfist]

30 minutes ago, Roomsky said:

I'll admit that I am guilty of the greatest Heresy: I think every version of Horus vs The Emperor written in detail before now sucks. Yes, even King's. Horus and the Emperor just sort of hitting each other, Horus tearing off the Emperor's arm, it's all so lacklustre.

 

My big hope for the final book is Abnett can write something genuinely awe-inspiring or epic for their confrontation. I'll take something excessively poetic over what we have currently.

That's a fair take. I grew up with William King's duel so I am biased haha. However, this first volume tells me that Abnett is going to treat these big story beats with respect which is what I want. I am going to be so sad when Sanguinuis dies and when Dorn comes across the carnage on the bridge. And I think I will be sad for Lupercal in his final moments.

[Mazer Rackham]

50 minutes ago, Roomsky said:

I'll take something excessively poetic over what we have currently.

 

Challenge accepted.

 

This is terrible, but no refunds.

 

Spoiler

"Get off my ship," Old Horus cried,

"And cease thy absquatulation!

For the Loyalists aboard my ship indeed,

Are causing consternation."

 

"It's Volume 3," waxed He on Earth

The Master of Mankind,

"I'm here for a punch-up son,

And here to win, you'll find!"

 

"Forsooth?" Horus gave retort,

"Oh to choke out your last breath!

For now it comes to pass I say,

It is The End and Death!"

 

"I trusted you, thy reeking knave!"

The Emperor said, unbent,

"Yet thou art just a rebel slave,

Forth into dark be sent!"

 

With great power and mighty fast,

Did the Emperor shriek and Horus blast,

Was traitor slain and then downcast.

Please buy the LE Book Fast.

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Mazer Rackham