The End and the Death Part I, II, III, ...

[wecanhaveallthree]

Retcons without end!

 

Spoiler

I thought the end of Old Earth was excellent in its ambiguity and how it leaves Eldrad, spent, having done all he can. I'm not sure I like this commentary from the gallery, or the excision of Eldrad having already seen the end of the Heresy and what comes to pass later on (or the fact that he didn't tell anybody what he did in Old Earth, but here he's just casually expositing). No mention of Narek either! Boooo!

 

[DarkChaplain]

Oh I just love re-introducing a finished plotline and "new" characters, one third into the final novel that's three times as long as it ought to have been.

[System Sound]

12 hours ago, Ubiquitous1984 said:

Thank you!  I wonder if this means the ebook is now out in the wild?  Usually doesn't take long…

No it's not. Who ever used to leak it a week early, seems to be dealt with.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Another instance of Heresy-era Eldar being far too similar to 40k Eldar. Barely into it, and we’ve got a Kabalite Dracon, despite Vect forming the first Kabal in M36. 

[theSpirea]

Dramatis Personae

Spoiler

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by theSpirea
adding spoiler tag

[DarkChaplain]

Oh, Lucoryphus was remembered. Been a while since he got onto the walls.

 

Hopefully we at least get a surprise Lorgar to show up towards the end of Part 2. That bloke should be there, trying to usurp the title of Dark King.

[Nagashsnee]

9 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

 

Hopefully we at least get a surprise Lorgar to show up towards the end of Part 2. That bloke should be there, trying to usurp the title of Dark King.

 

Eldar? Eldar? Truly the word count was needed i had forgotten the long established and crucial role eldar played in the siege.  Forget Lorgar mate the way this is going ANYONE is on the table. I mean its 100% possible the Silent Kings meeting with Sanguinius happened on the vengeful spirit.  Probably found him chilling in a sidechamber with an Avatar of the Hive Mind and a time traveling Eishenhorn holding a yellow painted crown. 

[Lord_Caerolion]

The trend of stupid Iron Hands barely-names continues, I see. Now joining the ranks of Meduson, the Medusan Captain, we have Medusi, the Sergeant from Medusa. 
 

BRB, going to go name a Blood Angel “Beel”, or an Ultramarine “Altrumer”.

[m_r_parker]

12 hours ago, theSpirea said:

Dramatis Personae

  Hide contents

 

 

 

 

 

I get nervous when I see a list of characters this long in a single novel, no matter that this will be (once again) the longest novel of the series so far, because so many of these characters will get such little page time that there's very little they can do. Perhaps 10%-15% of the above will make up ~80% of the novel (I'm hoping ten characters make up at least half of the book), leaving the rest of the characters trying to fight over scraps. Given that a lot of 'tertiary' characters in Vol 1 slotted into the "... was also there" of a larger scene (such as a lot of the Custodes, where they get name-dropped but no real activity) or run in a parallel of "this was also happening..." away from the main plot, I struggle to see why they're there.

I can already feel the criticism of "Tighter editing was required" coming for this novel. Maybe it's misplaced, perhaps once it was known that they needed more than one novel there was a call from the Editors to add extra content to pad out the page count, and to do it in such a way as to not rewrite the main arc of the novel.

There are some characters that I'm excited about seeing again, I just hope that they're not there as a throwaway name-drop and actually contribute to the story.

[Ubiquitous1984]

Has the ebook leaked???

[63-19]

All warhammer books have have that many characters in them its just that Abnett takes the approach of listing everyone ever mentioned in the book no matter the role in the dramatis personae whereas other authors only list the crucial characters.

[darkhorse0607]

16 hours ago, theSpirea said:

Dramatis Personae

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

Spoiler

At least someone finally remembered Azkaellon is at the Siege. Better late than never I guess

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by darkhorse0607
forgot the spoiler tag

[Ubiquitous1984]

49 minutes ago, 63-19 said:

All warhammer books have have that many characters in them its just that Abnett takes the approach of listing everyone ever mentioned in the book no matter the role in the dramatis personae whereas other authors only list the crucial characters.

Agreed.  He has been doing the same for years now.  I appreciate his thoroughness.  Although personally I never read the DP until I have finished the book, to avoid plot-twists.

[Noserenda]

It does rather render the Dramatis Personae essentially worthless though, like, in most books seeing a bunch of named Anathema would be super keen inducing but here it means nothing more than he might have bothered to name some background characters :/ 

[Cactus]

I don't know if it's an Abnett thing or editorial (I suspect the latter) but DP bloat has been annoying me for a long time now. Somebody who is introduced and killed in one page is not a dramatis persona. We used to get excited by the narrative implications of, say, an extensive list of White Scar characters or whatever but it's mostly meaningless now.

 

/Grumpy old man.

[Sothalor]

The bloated Dramatis Personae lists are hardly exclusive to a singular author or the Siege of Terra.

 

The Dawn of Fire series is also an egregious offender in this regard. Multiple pages of name after name, position after position, and many of them get referenced, what? Once or twice as "and that person was over there and then oh they died" and never mentioned again. Oh yes, much personality! Such drama!

 

It makes me think there's an editorial factor at play.

[cheywood]

23 minutes ago, Sothalor said:

The bloated Dramatis Personae lists are hardly exclusive to a singular author or the Siege of Terra.

 

The Dawn of Fire series is also an egregious offender in this regard. Multiple pages of name after name, position after position, and many of them get referenced, what? Once or twice as "and that person was over there and then oh they died" and never mentioned again. Oh yes, much personality! Such drama!

 

It makes me think there's an editorial factor at play.

It’s an effort to make the books seem larger than they are in my mind. Big casts = big stories in the minds of many. 40k is known in pop culture for spectacle and scale. I think BL wants its flagship books (SoT, DoF) to embody that reputation and an exhaustive dramatis personae lends to that appearance. 

Edited October 23, 2023 by cheywood

[Noserenda]

Ha, didnt even realise the Dawn of fire series had DP as i listen to them all on Audible! :D 

Which is a good point actually, BL stripping out DP makes sense as i bet its a bit tedious in the books that do include it on audio, but them stripping out the author afterwards is a some unnecessary bullshirt, plenty of other series include them on audio.

[grailkeeper]

On 10/22/2023 at 8:23 PM, DarkChaplain said:

Oh, Lucoryphus was remembered. Been a while since he got onto the walls.

 

Hopefully we at least get a surprise Lorgar to show up towards the end of Part 2. That bloke should be there, trying to usurp the title of Dark King.

That was a nice call back.

 

ADB is generally against that kind of thing but I'd have liked to have seen Raguel the Sufferer in his Siege of Terra novel. Even if it was just a throw away line about him going off to face some Night Lords. That or have a Malchariom cameo.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Ya, but remember how sor talgron, rann, amit, and zephon all suffered in the last book? 

 

Lucoryphus or any other author's characters don't exactly excite me when abnett has control. He doesn't play nice with others.

[Corinthus]

I see the extensive Dramatis Personae more as a reference for later on than anything meaningful for the first read. Sometimes I have looked at the list to check for the name of some captain or officer or whatever, but I don't really pay much attention to it at the start of the reading (I may look at the listed primarchs or legions to get the vibe but nothing else)

[DarkChaplain]

Have I overlooked something or are the characters from the extract not even listed on the DP?

 

That being said, I'm hugely in favor of Dramatis Personae. I'd like them to be in every BL novel with a cast greater than five characters. They just nice to have for referencing, particularly when it comes to crossover material or a novel following on from a few short stories by the same author. The added effort is laughable at the end of the day, and it adds what, 2 pages to a book, unless you're Dan Abnett? It should simply be there, even just as a courtesy, to keep things straight more easily.

 

The lack of a Dramatis Personae has detrimental in more books, even beyond BL, than I can count. Meanwhile, I have never been bothered by its inclusion. If you don't want to check it beforehand, just skip it, or they can just put the thing at the back of the book.

[Shadowshand]

Any details on when spoilers, excerpts, etc may show on the interwebs? I am highly interested in learning the details in this novel.

[Sothalor]

Have you considered reading it when it releases?

[Ubiquitous1984]

2 hours ago, Shadowshand said:

Any details on when spoilers, excerpts, etc may show on the interwebs? I am highly interested in learning the details in this novel.

There is a guy on the BL Nutters facebook group who has received his shipping confirmation for his LE, saying it will arrive in his WH store tomorrow.  So I expect spoilers will start to appear then (apparently his WH store manger is cool and doesn't hold deliveries back until release day).