Black Library fiction The End and the Death - Volume III

[Aarik]

I'm surprised by what seems to be a majority negative opinion about this online.  I would have thought people would be excited for more Warhammer.  I had a feeling that it would end up being three books, so I'm not too shocked on that account.  But I really didn't think book one dragged that much at all.  (Reasonable minds can certainly differ on that though.)  The way I look at it, this is we're ever going to get -- at least for a long, long time.  So, I'd much rather Black Library errs on the side of giving us more than less.  I like seeing all the different perspectives from various side characters about what's happening, it gives a lot of cool background details that we otherwise wouldn't get.  The whole Perpetual plotline isn't my favorite, but it exists now regardless of what we think, so it is what it is at this point.

 

I feel much the same as I do when watching a flagship show on HBO or a movie by a great director: I trust the creators to put together a quality, enjoyable product, and I'm happy to go along for whatever ride they take me on.  It will be interesting to see how Abnett fills everything out, but I trust that I'll enjoy whatever he does.  Could BL/Abnett have fit everything into two books?  Probably.  But I'm happy to get the "extended cut" of the ending of a series (and sub-series) that I've immensely enjoyed overall.

[skylerboodie]

I just remember how much everyone loved Game of Thrones and then complained that the final season was rushed, so I'm happy Dan is including every character and the kitchen sink to give the series a proper epic finale, rather than be left with "could've been" feelings about the climax being over quickly and a bit of a meh ending.

[Lord Marshal]

On one hand it wouldn't really be a surprise that BL want to milk the grand finale as much as possible.

 

On the other hand I feel like if it were two books, we'd be seeing a thread full of people saying two books wasn't enough and the aftermath of the Siege needed more pages. 

 

Considering how infamous Abnett is for rushing his endings, I can't really say I'm upset if he's gotten a third book to properly wrap up as many plot threads as possible. 

[Redcomet]

12 minutes ago, Aarik said:

I'm surprised by what seems to be a majority negative opinion about this online.  I would have thought people would be excited for more Warhammer.  I had a feeling that it would end up being three books, so I'm not too shocked on that account.  But I really didn't think book one dragged that much at all.  (Reasonable minds can certainly differ on that though.)  The way I look at it, this is we're ever going to get -- at least for a long, long time.  So, I'd much rather Black Library errs on the side of giving us more than less.  I like seeing all the different perspectives from various side characters about what's happening, it gives a lot of cool background details that we otherwise wouldn't get.  The whole Perpetual plotline isn't my favorite, but it exists now regardless of what we think, so it is what it is at this point.

 

I feel much the same as I do when watching a flagship show on HBO or a movie by a great director: I trust the creators to put together a quality, enjoyable product, and I'm happy to go along for whatever ride they take me on.  It will be interesting to see how Abnett fills everything out, but I trust that I'll enjoy whatever he does.  Could BL/Abnett have fit everything into two books?  Probably.  But I'm happy to get the "extended cut" of the ending of a series (and sub-series) that I've immensely enjoyed overall.

Sometimes less is more. Some mysteries are better left unsolved, to fuel the imagination of its fans. 
Take the Force for example. Absolutely amazing when it is vague, full of old stories, weird beings and mysticism. Absolute :cuss: when it is explained by science (ie midiclorians)

 

 

[Rain]

15 minutes ago, Aarik said:

I'm surprised by what seems to be a majority negative opinion about this online.  I would have thought people would be excited for more Warhammer.  I had a feeling that it would end up being three books, so I'm not too shocked on that account.  But I really didn't think book one dragged that much at all.  (Reasonable minds can certainly differ on that though.)  The way I look at it, this is we're ever going to get -- at least for a long, long time.  So, I'd much rather Black Library errs on the side of giving us more than less.  I like seeing all the different perspectives from various side characters about what's happening, it gives a lot of cool background details that we otherwise wouldn't get.  The whole Perpetual plotline isn't my favorite, but it exists now regardless of what we think, so it is what it is at this point.

 

I feel much the same as I do when watching a flagship show on HBO or a movie by a great director: I trust the creators to put together a quality, enjoyable product, and I'm happy to go along for whatever ride they take me on.  It will be interesting to see how Abnett fills everything out, but I trust that I'll enjoy whatever he does.  Could BL/Abnett have fit everything into two books?  Probably.  But I'm happy to get the "extended cut" of the ending of a series (and sub-series) that I've immensely enjoyed overall.

 

Most of the people complaining are still going to read it. Personally, I don't have much interest in the Siege of Terra books, as the primary drama of the Heresy for me was always the corruption and turning of the traitor primarchs and legionaries. My favorite HH books are The First Heretic and the original trilogy for this reason. I even kind-of like Fulgrim, despite its many faults. Especially the ending of Fulgrim, though they soft-retconned it later, robbing it of its pathos. Ironically the entire fall of Horus is essentially covered in just False Gods, and could have really benefitted from more fleshing out.

 

Instead, the good part was rushed, and we have instead received thousands of pages of bolter porn about each successive wall of the Palace falling, and "oh that one attack was a trap" and "oh now the traitors are at such and such gate" and oh my Khorne, who cares. It's like if the Star Wars prequels kept going after Episode 3, and covered 10 years of rote campaigns of Star Destroyers and TIE Fighters bombarding planets.

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

I mean the legends books for SW essentially did just that 

[Dornfist]

On 8/2/2023 at 9:46 PM, m_r_parker said:

I thought it at the time when I saw the Dramatic Personae of vol 1 of The Death and The End - "This needs a stronger editor. There's no way all these characters can get any development, a lot of these must be chaff.". Having read vol 1 I wasn't wrong, on either account.

 

Does this announcement surprise me? No. It annoys me greatly that this has become a thing. A tighter editorial stance on the entirety of this series would have improved things greatly, and not left us in a position where the last "book" in the series has become three, and part one was already longer than any other book in the series (I'm realising I don't actually have the numbers in terms of page count, but visually it looked the biggest - if someone can prove me wrong I'd appreciate it).

I don't understand why a lot of the plot lines and characters are part of the overarching SoT numbered series and not instead individual novellas. I've always thought that a final book set after the duel between Horus and the Emperor would make sense, comprising of around 4 to 6 short stories set around some of the ancillary characters showing how they end up rather than having it spread across the main series. If you're interested in these characters, great - have some closure. If you 're not interested, well it won't be affecting the main page count and you don't have to buy it.

 

But most annoying of all - I have TWO Saturday morning fights the GW webstore against scalper bots to get my hands on the Limited Editions when I though I only had one of those hells to deal with. Because I'll be damned if I have all of the LE's up to this point and not finish them off...

Agreed! You nailed a big issue I have with these last books: why on earth are some plotlines not regulated to short stories? Like Howl of the Hearthworld's last stand, Rann and Zephon adventures, random human soldiers fighting and dying, Basilio Fo shenanigans etc. To me, they distract so much from the main plot. I care a lot more about Dorn, Sanguinuis, and Valdor's struggles than random human soldier or Astartes fighting. I just hope we don't have more of this kind of the filler plaguing us for the next 1000 pages or so.

Edited August 6, 2023 by Dornfist

[Marshal Rohr]

I think they didn’t plan to do a series originally and Abnett had this trilogy mapped out to close out the whole series and then the project became all the authors writing one, then expanded to all the authors writing theirs and Dans Trilogy 

[Sky Potato]

3 hours ago, Mechanicus Tech-Support said:

My fear considering they haven't announced the release date for the second novel is that its going to be the same pre-order weekend as LI and the website will cry and slow to crawl. 

Absolutely going to happen now

[Misterduch]

So big E vs Horus is going to happen in the 3rd volume....

 

While the emperor is already on the vengeful spirit....I am sorry, but what in gods name is going to fill the 400 or so pages that are anything else but Sangy getting shanked?

 

 

[Emperor Ming]

54 minutes ago, Misterduch said:

So big E vs Horus is going to happen in the 3rd volume....

 

While the emperor is already on the vengeful spirit....I am sorry, but what in gods name is going to fill the 400 or so pages that are anything else but Sangy getting shanked?

 

 

Its a massive ship, and 40k gives the word massive a new meaning, it has many bridges

 

Maybe there is a tour on the way, vending machines, depending on where you arrive it prob takes weeks to transverse around that ship

 

Page 201, the Emperor makes his choice, slaaneshi cola or Nurgle hot pot 

 

Page 202, the Emperor doesn't have the right change for the vending machine

 

and so on

Edited August 2, 2023 by Emperor Ming

[sonsoftaurus]

My main question…

 

…will the last line be “I was there, the day the Emperor slew Horus.”? 

Edited August 3, 2023 by sonsoftaurus
quote fix

[Fire Golem]

10 hours ago, Aarik said:

I'm surprised by what seems to be a majority negative opinion about this online.  I would have thought people would be excited for more Warhammer.  I had a feeling that it would end up being three books, so I'm not too shocked on that account.  But I really didn't think book one dragged that much at all.  (Reasonable minds can certainly differ on that though.)  The way I look at it, this is we're ever going to get -- at least for a long, long time.  So, I'd much rather Black Library errs on the side of giving us more than less.  I like seeing all the different perspectives from various side characters about what's happening, it gives a lot of cool background details that we otherwise wouldn't get.  The whole Perpetual plotline isn't my favorite, but it exists now regardless of what we think, so it is what it is at this point.

 

I feel much the same as I do when watching a flagship show on HBO or a movie by a great director: I trust the creators to put together a quality, enjoyable product, and I'm happy to go along for whatever ride they take me on.  It will be interesting to see how Abnett fills everything out, but I trust that I'll enjoy whatever he does.  Could BL/Abnett have fit everything into two books?  Probably.  But I'm happy to get the "extended cut" of the ending of a series (and sub-series) that I've immensely enjoyed overall.

I don’t mind the idea of it being three books in theory, but how they’ve handled it is incredibly annoying. For a start the limited editions have been a massive pain every time, and now you have to do that twice more than you expected to get the whole set. Plus an extra £100. And then the fact that in his article he says about how much he can’t wait for us to read all three parts together! There’s what, 9 months between part 1 and when part 2 is expected (which hasn’t actually been announced officially, that’s from finding it on Amazon I think), maybe the same between part 2 and 3, at least a year between them all (it’ll probably be at the Feb BL event so best of luck to anyone still after the LE then). And then them being really cagey about how many parts it was gonna be until now. It’s just soured the whole thing. 
 

Had it been announced from the start it was 3 parts now, and they’d come out much closer together, I’d have probably felt better reading what I thought was an overlong book 1. I don’t think it dragged at all, I read it in 1 day, but the whole time I couldn’t shake the feeling of ‘this is probably going to be 3 books, why could this not have been edited better’. 
 

Also, spoilers for book 1: 

Spoiler

The Emperor is literally on the Vengeful Spirit. From the article we know Emps vs Horus is book 3, and they all look as long as the first. He’s literally there and is gonna be for 600 pages.

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by fire golem

[Alby the Slayer]

I will wait for the third book to come out and I will read 2 and 3 together trying to avoid spoilers.

 

For me, that's the worst part of dividing a book in 3 books. In the meantime I must wait and read something else and that's a bummer. 

 

No matter what, there will be people who don't like the ending but the decision to do a 3 parts book is silly and probably pure for economic means.

[ZeroWolf]

11 hours ago, Sky Potato said:

Absolutely going to happen now

Doubtful, I think the amazon preorders were for November (for teatd 2) LI is within the month. The Old World box that's rumoured however...

[lansalt]

6 hours ago, fire golem said:

Also, spoilers for book 1: 

  Hide contents

The Emperor is literally on the Vengeful Spirit. From the article we know Emps vs Horus is book 3, and they all look as long as the first. He’s literally there and is gonna be for 600 pages.

 

Don't forget...

Spoiler

Dorn trapped in the warp, wandering in a desert and slowly falling to Khorne since the last 1/3 of book 1. Is he going to be stuck there for almost two books more only to get out at the very end? 

 

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

18 hours ago, Sky Potato said:

Absolutely going to happen now

 

7 hours ago, ZeroWolf said:

Doubtful, I think the amazon preorders were for November (for teatd 2) LI is within the month. The Old World box that's rumoured however...

 

Aaand now delayed until sometime later this year for reasonsTM. Sometime in the fall perhaps..coincidentally when a HH book may be released 

[Scribe]

21 hours ago, Aarik said:

I'm surprised by what seems to be a majority negative opinion about this online.

 

Book 1 of 3 wasnt good. Its really that simple. Its bloated, full of filler, long sections are basically unreadable drivel, 100% product placement, overwrote past work, mischaracterization, and the worst sin of all, he basically does nothing with 2/3rds of the book. The first 200 pages are useless, and nothing happens in the last 200 pages.

 

He was set up to just get onto the Spirit and get stuff done, and he chose to back track and just do it his own way anyway.

 

Now we are set up for 2 books that are more of the same? Are we going to get 300 pages of Sanguinius vs Horus?

 

Its a joke.

[DemonGSides]

I liked the first one.  Was hoping to finish it in 2 but whatever, GW gonna GW.

[OttoVonAwesome]

21 hours ago, skylerboodie said:

I just remember how much everyone loved Game of Thrones and then complained that the final season was rushed, so I'm happy Dan is including every character and the kitchen sink to give the series a proper epic finale, rather than be left with "could've been" feelings about the climax being over quickly and a bit of a meh ending.

Same I wanna know what everyone is doing and not have to read about it in some anthology down the road I also want a super long epilogue cuase "and then the emperor was put on the golden throne the end" would be a bloody travesty.

[ZeroWolf]

The comments on Valraks video looked positive on first glance and I'm betting plenty liked it.

 

46 minutes ago, Mechanicus Tech-Support said:

 

 

Aaand now delayed until sometime later this year for reasonsTM. Sometime in the fall perhaps..coincidentally when a HH book may be released 

I know you're joking but seriously, LI will be out in a couple of weeks. If anything, the HH book may just coincide with a new plastic HH army set, but yeah, LI is completely safe.

 

Edit: Scratch that, I just saw the LI article, disregard everything under the quote!

Edited August 3, 2023 by ZeroWolf
Saw Delay News

[Cactus]

1 minute ago, ZeroWolf said:

The comments on Valraks video looked positive on first glance and I'm betting plenty liked it.

 

I know you're joking but seriously, LI will be out in a couple of weeks. If anything, the HH book may just coincide with a new plastic HH army set, but yeah, LI is completely safe.

You've not seen today's news? LI is delayed until later this year.

[ZeroWolf]

1 hour ago, Cactus said:

You've not seen today's news? LI is delayed until later this year.

I edited 

[63-19]

Hardback and le have released together since warhawk. it will probably remain that way for the next two books. nothing got delayed.

[Noserenda]

Gaaah i knew it was going to be at least 3 when they were so cagey about it. Book one had glaring problems but because they were all written together is super unlikely they will be fixed in the next two books, especially given how Book 1 ended, w more door stoppers means even more bloat :/ 

Really though, the main issue is the dragging out, id be a lot less annoyed if it was released all at once in a slipcase or something but no, still year out from the ending at this rate and thats the most frustrating thing.