[Fan Project] Pixel Marines and a new way of reading the Horus Heresy

[schmauchstein]

I was there…

 

After 63 books and 17 years, the story of the Horus Heresy will finally come to its close with The End and the Death. It's been a long, sometimes bumpy, but more often than not epic road from Horus Rising to here. While reading certain moments of the recently released The End and the Death Volume 1 I was honestly feeling quite moved by the fact that we have now actually reached the finishing line of this journey that started all the way back in 2006.

 

For a series with such an impossibly high page-count as the HH and with such an enormous mountain of stories published under its banner, the question of "What's the best reading order?" has basically become its own genre among fans by now. In response to this, there are plenty of "Just the hits"-rundowns, "Avoid at all costs"-blacklists, trackers for specific Legions and Primarchs, or the awesome achievement of Black Librarium’s series spanning web of connections...They're all out there and all have their worth, in my opinion.

 

And honestly? It's just fun to create these kinds of things. It's fun to think about a series that one has spent so much time with, it's fun to dissect it, to edit it, to try to make sense of it. That's one of the reasons I've always loved playing around with reading orders, or why I'm always delighted to talk about this when a friend asks me where to go next in the series.

 

With regards to a reading order and the question of the perfect way to publish the Horus Heresy I was always fond of omnibuses. Black Library at one point got serious with bundling the HH into sensible story-packages and started releasing the HH in omnibus format: Crusade's End, The Razing of Prospero and The Last Phoenix. Those three books all collected two or three novels of the burgeoning series alongside a chosen handful of the scattered novellas and short-stories into a story package that guided a reader right along a chosen thread of the Heresy-web. I loved them! But alas, it was not meant to last: Black Library stopped producing further omnibuses and eventually even stopped selling the existing ones.

 

Still, the idea of omnibuses for the HH had stuck with me, and I kept throwing together reading orders for my custom "omnibuses" for fun. In 2021, I decided to get serious with this and started a personal, series-spanning project:

 

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The Horus Heresy Omnibus Project: https://www.heresyomnibus.com

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What I present there is a reading order that assembles every Horus Heresy novel, novella and short story into a network of twenty-one (theoretical) omnibuses. The result is a fully-grown website that's supposed to help navigate and hopefully entice people to engage with this humongous, mad, epic literary series that has accompanied me and so many other fans for such a long time and will hopefully entertain new readers for years to come.

 

Along the way I started collaborating with the incredibly talented pixel artist Eric Alloway, who had started painting pixel versions of Horus Heresy characters on his Twitter account . We both liked what the other one was doing and decided to join forces. As a result, the website is now littered with pixel versions of all the major Horus Heresy characters, which should make browsing the page fun for veterans and newcomers alike. A friend of mine with experience in software engineering completes our three-man team and takes care of the IT-side of things, of which I understand next to nothing.

 

The website has been way over a year in the making and I hope that both existing fans that eagerly await the final Volume of The End and the Death to hit the shelves as well as newcomers who are just starting to get interested in The Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 find the site useful or at least fun to browse.

It would mean a lot to us if fans of these books would engage with and enjoy what we’ve built here, so if you like what you see, please spread the word! We’re also happy to receive constructive feedback to further improve the site.

 

The site will also be the place where I will publish reviews, blog posts, interviews and my long-form analysis of Warhammer books through the lens of different schools of psychology, so if you're interested in this it might be worth a visit and return from time to time. Currently available are Stories told by Monsters, an analysis of Josh Reynolds’s Fabius Bile- and Lukas the Trickster- novels through the lens of Narrative Therapy, and The Dark Coil in contact with Gestalt therapy, an analysis of Peter Fehervari's Dark Coil series through the lens of Gestalt Therapy. Down the line I have a project in the works about a certain Angel and his murderous vigilante brother, so if you're interested in that, stay tuned.

 

For orientation, I recommend starting out with the first omnibus or taking a look at the FAQ.

 

We've also opened threads about the project on Twitter and Reddit, so if you are active there, come and say hi!

[System Sound]

This seems like a monumental undertaking! One that arguably BL should have done... But alas, fans as always come in a clutch.

 

Will definitely have this bookmarked and take a a few coffee breaks to sift through.

[schmauchstein]

33 minutes ago, System Sound said:

This seems like a monumental undertaking! One that arguably BL should have done... But alas, fans as always come in a clutch.

 

Will definitely have this bookmarked and take a a few coffee breaks to sift through.

Hope you enjoy browsing!

 

And indeed, BL and GW are quite lackluster with providing guidance to their fans/readers, but hey, it is as it is. More opportunity for fans to get creative and help each other out ;)

[Tolmeus]

What System Sound says. Looks great and skimed through some of the Omnibus. Lovely work!

 

Would be nice to have that kind of work for characters too. For example the journey from Sigismund from his childhood to the ascension to Emperor's Champion takes place throughout several novels, novellas and short stories. Lexicanum and fandom help surely, but a chronological order would be great asset. 

[skylerboodie]

I agree, just looked through the omnibii and this site is better than I was expecting, an excellent resource even for long time Heresy readers. Great work!

[Petitioner's City]

Beautiful editorial work @schmauchstein - it's a real shame the volumes you have created do not exist in the real, as these are wonderfully sensitive volumes. 

 

My main request would be adding in the black book and AT texts, too. They can form framing tools, working with particular volumes for sure.

[BadgersinHills]

Really great work on this. The pixel art is really nice too.

Edited March 13, 2023 by BadgersinHills

[DarkChaplain]

I see a Dark Coil article on the frontpage, that's all I need to know to give a thumbs up.

 

One point I want to make is that in the extended Calth omnibus, the two short novels published for Betrayal at Calth - The Honoured & The Unburdened - are refered to as "eShorts". They're novels, and were originally printed as hardbacks, too. They're longer than the series' novellas, so calling them eShorts is at least misleading in terms of time investment.

 

Also, have you considered including the Primarch novels in the overview? I feel like some of them are almost mandatory - like Warhawk of Chogoris, as it directly leads into the White Scars arc, which is already an omnibus on its own. It's pretty much the prelude to Brotherhood of the Storm and Scars. I'd also slot in Angron's novel with the Shadow Crusade III omnibus, since it covers the World Eaters arc, and even Guilliman's novel ties into the debacle regarding Monarchia and the Word Bearers' revenge for it. And Curze's, for instance, is both prologue, companion piece and epilogue to his Heresy story.

 

That is to say: Many of the Primarchs novels directly build on, sandwich or lead into their Legions' Heresy arcs in a way that might make their inclusion rather beneficial. Something to be considered, when we're already talking about thematic & faction grouping

Edited March 13, 2023 by DarkChaplain

[Nagashsnee]

Fantastic stuff, just having a quick look reminded me of short stories i liked and having them placed in the greater context is a treat. Plus cool pixel skitarii!

[theSpirea]

Looks fantastic! Will go through it over the weekend and might get back to the HH series.

[schmauchstein]

First of all, thanks for responses and the kind words. It really means a lot to us that the work and heartsblood that we put into the project is met with such a positive resonance.

 

About a few of the points that have been raised by commenters:

 

Re: Character Reading Orders @Tolmeus

 

That would definitely be a worthwhile addition to the website, but would almost be a project of its own. I could see us adding that in the future for chosen characters, although it would take a backseat to other additions, features and patches that we have on our to-do list.

 

Re: Black Books and AT inclusion @Petitioner's City

 

That’s an interesting suggestion. I’d refrain from including the Black Books in the regular reading order, to avoid (even more) bloat of an already intimidatingly vast catalogue to browse through, especially for new readers. They’re also 1. a very different medium to interact through with the Heresy compared to the narrative novels and 2. not very accessible, as they’re quite expensive to obtain. Both points make them a bit niche and not that pertinent for casual readers or newcomers. As they’re definitely an interesting part of the HH literature all around, though, I could see myself mentioning them in an FAQ question, or maybe as an addition to the “Spin-Off sections” of the Omnibus subsites. I have to think it through, though. Thanks for the idea.

 

Re: Calth novellas/novels/”eShorts” @DarkChaplain

 

Good call. “eShort” is just our term for the stories that exclusively available as electronic publications and not included in any of the numbered anthologies. The Calth novels are a fringe case for which the term not really fits, as you’ve laid out. I’ll add a note that specifies as much.

 

Re: Primarch novels @DarkChaplain

 

Again, valid point. We had some back and forth over this question. In the end, I decided to exclude the Primarch novels and short stories from the regular reading order, because it is already so vast and stuffed with stories, and I want to intimidate upcoming readers as less as possible – they already (theoretically) have to chew through 38 novels, 25 novellas and around 140 short stories. Your point still stands though and was actually raised by Laurie J Goulding himself at some point, so my solution was to include the Primarch and Horus Heresy Character novels in their own category at the bottom of every Omnibus page. There I contextualize the Primarch novels and tell readers how they fit into the reading order, while still keeping the reading order itself to the stories available as part of the 54 numbered HH books. I guess it’s a point of priorization of user needs (or what I anticipate as such).

 

PS:

@DarkChaplain Hey, a fellow Coil enthusiast! It's totally it's own thing with regards to all the Heresy stuff, but I'm definitely eager to read the responses of readers to my article series on Fehervari's work.

[b1soul]

This is really impressive work and just emanates an incredible passion for the series and setting.

 

Can the mods sticky this thread for posterity?

[Petitioner's City]

On 3/24/2023 at 11:52 AM, b1soul said:

This is really impressive work and just emanates an incredible passion for the series and setting.

 

Can the mods sticky this thread for posterity?

 

Hi @Brother Lunkhead and @Kelborn, is it possible to stick this thread as @b1soul suggested? Honestly such a fabulous project by Messers Lipzig and Alloway. 

[Brother Tyler]

The link to this project, both this discussion and the actual project, has been added to the (new) BL Resources topic that is pinned at the top of the forum.