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

[tgcleric]

2 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

I don't think there's anything wrong with saying 'I enjoy THE END AND THE DEATH'. You can like something, that's cool, but let's not pretend this is the culmination of extensive build-up and excellent plotting and stringent editing. This is the Abnett show now, whether you like it or not.

 

There's nothing wrong with not liking EotD. But let's not pretend it's not a culmination of perhaps the most consistent, longest working author who probably has the most "ownership" over the series. 

 

This what the series is gonna be whether you like it or not. 

 

This isn't some random author coming in and changing your precious lore from rulebooks for a toy game. 

 

This is the primary author trying to tie up one of the most bloated series ever made, containing around 40 books that no normal reader who isn't a major fan of this series would ever suffer through. 

 

It's totally fine to criticize. And I don't think almost anyone is gonna be completely satisfied with this ending. Cause again, I don't think God himself could craft a perfect literary capper to this behemoth. But it's not criticism the above poster is responding to. It's this obvious vitriolic anger towards abnett. Which while that would always be a bit odd, it's just really mostly bizarre to watch cause it is 100% illogical. As if Abnett is some outside author doing whatever he wants to someone else's series. As opposed to like... the main guy. And like the only guy who wrote more than 3 books in this 60+ book series that does suck as bad as the average fanfiction.

 

But hey. I guess in someways you are right. It is the abnett show. He seems to actually want to try to make a series of good stories, not just extend Wikipedia articles to 300 pages by adding pages of faceless one dimensional big robot boys saying "honor" before punching another big robot boy. 

 

Anyways. Regarding book 2. Nearing the end and yeah, it gets into some of the best stuff Abnett has written. And probably some of the best stuff ever published by black library.

 

But I also agree that the 2/3rds are bloated beyond what it should have been. If it was published as one volume, all of book one and 2/3rds of book 2 could have been trimmed by about 100 pages and it would have been stronger for it without losing any of the effect he is going for. 

 

However it's refreshing to even have a literary critique about a HH book instead of just having to say "this book is unreadable to anyone outside of Warhammer weirdos like myself".

[Scribe]

3 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

But we can and should expect better from the Siege. They put a stopper on the HH. They specifically said 'okay enough of that, here's where we get serious'. Do you remember all those wonderful photos of all the boys together, all the fluff about the great communication and collaboration? How this time, for real, they're gonna deliver on all of it? To then realise that so much of the Siege and authors being constrained was so Abnett could tell it HIS way is... unfortunate, is the nicest word I have. And that's been one of the chief problems through the HH: Abnett wanting to do it his way, his ideas, his characters, regardless of whether they were successful or not. He has returned to them, fought for them, over and over, and so here we are at the end, quite specifically not reading about 'an event we've been waiting for 25 years'. We're reading about the Dark King, or Oll Perrson, or the Inevitable City, or Random Guardsman 4122 (who disappears halfway through the story, never to be seen again).

 

[SkimaskMohawk]

9 minutes ago, tgcleric said:

who probably has the most "ownership" over the series. 

 

Err, because he wrote the first book in what was then planned to be a 10 book series, and then a couple more after?

 

Horus rising does two things really well: it establishes the setting and tone of the crusade via the human characters, and it establishes the character of Horus. Its actually not a very good book otherwise. If you're not Horus or part of the remembrancer gang, then you're a cardboard cutout and bad at your job. And those two things it does well? Barely ever touched on again. 

 

McNeil has the most novels in the series; French and Haley tend to play the best with everyone else's work; Wright and ADB to better with the legions they're presented. They all have a better claim of ownership of the series.

 

[caladancid]

1 hour ago, tgcleric said:

 

There's nothing wrong with not liking EotD. But let's not pretend it's not a culmination of perhaps the most consistent, longest working author who probably has the most "ownership" over the series. 

 

This what the series is gonna be whether you like it or not. 

 

This isn't some random author coming in and changing your precious lore from rulebooks for a toy game. 

 

This is the primary author trying to tie up one of the most bloated series ever made, containing around 40 books that no normal reader who isn't a major fan of this series would ever suffer through. 

 

It's totally fine to criticize. And I don't think almost anyone is gonna be completely satisfied with this ending. Cause again, I don't think God himself could craft a perfect literary capper to this behemoth. But it's not criticism the above poster is responding to. It's this obvious vitriolic anger towards abnett. Which while that would always be a bit odd, it's just really mostly bizarre to watch cause it is 100% illogical. As if Abnett is some outside author doing whatever he wants to someone else's series. As opposed to like... the main guy. And like the only guy who wrote more than 3 books in this 60+ book series that does suck as bad as the average fanfiction.

 

But hey. I guess in someways you are right. It is the abnett show. He seems to actually want to try to make a series of good stories, not just extend Wikipedia articles to 300 pages by adding pages of faceless one dimensional big robot boys saying "honor" before punching another big robot boy. 

 

Anyways. Regarding book 2. Nearing the end and yeah, it gets into some of the best stuff Abnett has written. And probably some of the best stuff ever published by black library.

 

But I also agree that the 2/3rds are bloated beyond what it should have been. If it was published as one volume, all of book one and 2/3rds of book 2 could have been trimmed by about 100 pages and it would have been stronger for it without losing any of the effect he is going for. 

 

However it's refreshing to even have a literary critique about a HH book instead of just having to say "this book is unreadable to anyone outside of Warhammer weirdos like myself".

It’s the same people shouting the same things they’ve been shouting for a very long time about Abnett, which in some ways can be summed up as “he’s not ADB!” You can see in thread, constant excuses made for other authors. Thank goodness it appears in real life that sort of tribalism didn’t stop Abnett from being called up to finish the series (bc ADB never would have…that’s a fact). 
 

It’s remarkable the shortness of memory. ADB got on this subforum and did not have nice things to say about Haley’s Pharos Tyranid plot line. 

 

Everyone will have their own take on Abnett and this very very way too long series of books (HH and SoT). The part that gets me is exactly what you say. Weird tangible dislike, sometimes very obviously based on summaries or straight misinformation and not the actual words in the books. 

[Just123456]

11 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

Hey it was really cold when he was writing those chapters ok? This book is putting him under allot of stress. Plus its not the size of the chapter its how you use it...in the story.

So he doesn't write bad endings by accident, he writes them on purpose so you have to buy more books? How is that not worse? 

Because seeing a caveman describe the death of the beast he is hunting as 'this is its end....and its death' will REALLY hammer it home, much more then any of the 100 other times. 

That is what I heard. 

[Scribe]

14 minutes ago, caladancid said:

You can see in thread, constant excuses made for other authors.

 

Who, where?

[Just123456]

12 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Why?

That would be a welcome change to his memories of mythology, recorded historical events, people and places. And hopefully there would be a defining point in his life during his youth in the Upper Paleolithic, like his tribal clan banishing him upon realizing he doesn't age and can't die. 

Edited November 7, 2023 by Just123456

[Scribe]

1 minute ago, Just123456 said:

That would be a welcome change to his memories of mythology, recorded historical events, people and places,and. And hopefully there would be a defining point in his life during his youth in the Upper Paleolithic, like his tribal clan banishing him upon realizing he doesn't age and can't die. 

 

How is that relevant to the central foundational story of 40K?

[Just123456]

42 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

How is that relevant to the central foundational story of 40K?

There are plenty of things that aren't central to 40k which people enjoy. 

 

It would be a defining point in Oll Persson's life. It could motivate him to be who he is. And could possibly motivate him to do what he did against Horus. 

 

I'd want to see Oll Persson in prehistory, not recorded history. 

Edited November 7, 2023 by Just123456

[Just123456]

43 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

How is that relevant to the central foundational story of 40K?

As I said before, I'd want to see Oll Persson in prehistory, not recorded history. 

[Scribe]

6 minutes ago, Just123456 said:

As I said before, I'd want to see Oll Persson in prehistory, not recorded history. 

 

And as I said before.

 

Why?

 

Its completely irrelevant to what is THE foundational event in the entire setting. If there is ONE THING, ONE DAY, ONE EVENT, where 40K is formed, it SHOULD have been the Emperor falling after slaying Horus, and being put in the Throne.

 

Ol? Who :cuss:ing cares.

[SkimaskMohawk]

2 minutes ago, Just123456 said:

There are plenty of things that aren't central to 40k which people enjoy. 

 

It would be a defining point in Oll Persson's life. It could motivate him to be who he is. And could possibly motivate him to do what he did against Horus. 

 

Maybe in the last book of the siege of terra, we might want to cleave closer to the central things that people enjoyed, rather than a character that appeared in book 19 and then never again until the siege?

 

Like make a seperate character book about him or something, valdor/Luther/Sigismund style. Dont waste more of our time in the climax of the climax of the Horus heresy. This was one of the major gripes with Echoes; the flashbacks were excellent and compelling, but were super not necessary at the (then) second last book. 

 

 

[Ayatollah_of_Rock_n_Rolla]

4 hours ago, lightinfa said:

 

A version of that idea survives in the book:

 

  Hide contents

"For my King-of-Ages has done more than divest himself of godhood. In that shockwave of warp light, I saw something else, something perhaps only I was in a position to see. He has cast aside a fragment of himself.

 

My lord and friend has broken off a part of his soul. He has amputated that portion of himself that contains almost all of his hope, loyalty and compassion, for such things will become a hindrance when he faces the Lupercal. Those qualities might stay his hand, or make him hesitate if he is ultimately obliged to kill.

 

And if he is obliged to kill his son, then those qualities would afterwards, and inevitably, drive him to self-hatred and regret, and condemn him to the same, embittered path as Horus. He has excised those precious human aspects to further steel himself against the pain of what will come after, and the mandatory atrocities he will have to countenance in order to rebuild the Imperium. He has set those frail and cardinal virtues adrift on the tides of the empyrean so that they will not immobilise him.

 

And in the hope that one day, he will be able to reclaim them, and be whole again.

 

I watch that jettisoned fragment as it drifts into the void, just one more spark from this world-bonfire. All his hope, his mercy, his grace, his love, cast into the lightless tracts of space and time. That fragile asterism will, as cosmic ages turn, slowly grow by a coalescence of emotion and belief, just as the powers of Chaos grow."

 

 

Spoiler

I don't get it. So the Great Crusade and HH were so far all about building schools and digging wells for the needy and now Emp's compassion is endangered?

 

[Scribe]

Remember what Adam Warlock did after Infinity Gauntlet?

[darkhorse0607]

14 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

Maybe in the last book of the siege of terra, we might want to cleave closer to the central things that people enjoyed, rather than a character that appeared in book 19 and then never again until the siege?

 

Like make a seperate character book about him or something, valdor/Luther/Sigismund style. Dont waste more of our time in the climax of the climax of the Horus heresy. This was one of the major gripes with Echoes; the flashbacks were excellent and compelling, but were super not necessary at the (then) second last book. 

 

 

 

At least with Echoes the sided tracked stuff was more substantial than End and the Death. Yes, the flashback scenes were a deviation from what's going on at the Siege, but it filled in gaps (i.e. anything about the Blood Angels legion before Sangiunius and after because Fear to Tread didn't do a great job there) that we didn't have before. Plus it still gave the hits, like the Angron/Kabandha/Sangiunius fights that we had been waiting for in a satisfying way.

 

End and the Death is mostly about the side-tracked stuff, we still aren't getting a lot of closure for characters, and the big ticket moments are being almost subverted by these new plot points Abnett came up with, and I honestly don't think book 3 is going to be any different.

 

This all kind of harkens back to that interview or blog post that ADB at the beginning, where he said that he and some others wanted to just wrap things up and give people what they wanted, but others didn't, or they wanted to do twists. Well, at least now we know which direction they decided to go with

[Scribe]

2 minutes ago, darkhorse0607 said:

Well, at least now we know which direction they decided to go with

 

[darkhorse0607]

1 minute ago, Scribe said:

 

 

What, was my they not ominous enough?

[Scribe]

Just now, darkhorse0607 said:

What, was my they not ominous enough?

 

No, when even those who support the direction 'they' took us, are calling out how bloated it is, I think ominous is a fair enough statement.

[Nagashsnee]

3 hours ago, caladancid said:

It’s the same people shouting the same things they’ve been shouting for a very long time about Abnett, which in some ways can be summed up as “he’s not ADB!” You can see in thread, constant excuses made for other authors. Thank goodness it appears in real life that sort of tribalism didn’t stop Abnett from being called up to finish the series (bc ADB never would have…that’s a fact). 
 

It’s remarkable the shortness of memory. ADB got on this subforum and did not have nice things to say about Haley’s Pharos Tyranid plot line. 

 

Show us on the doll where ADB hurt you. Cause i have not seen whataboutism this strong in a while.

 

For the sake of argument lets say you are 100% right. And? How does that change the issues THIS book has?  How does that affect how THIS book was written? What does it explain about THIS books editing choices?  If ABD spent every sec since EoE throwing puppies into a giant blender WHAT does it have to do with this book?

 

You do realise Abnett wrote this book and as a result any critisism of the author must be leveled at him right? If you thinks its personal about him you need to go back and see how many posters bring up the editing which was NOT done by Abnett.

 

I just dont get it.

 

 

 

Edited November 7, 2023 by Nagashsnee

[EverythingIsGreat]

3 hours ago, DukeLeto69 said:

Not 100% sure I understand your point but my point was that regardless of whether Big E set out to achieve apotheosis or not, I liked the idea that it happened anyway because so many people believe him to be a God by 40k that the energy/emotion of that belief manifests in the warp and turns Big E into a warp God anyway!

 

That then lends itself to two trains of thought:

 

1) It was always secretly the Big E’s intention to achieve apotheosis but he needed the human race to endure utter suffering (ruin?) in order for them to start believing in him as their saviour and God. Which could mean the HH was planned and deliberate (I always liked that concept because it is very Dune and Golden Path like).

 

2) The Big E was genuine in his rejection and suppression of religion and wanted humanity to escape those shackles but ultimately he becomes the very thing he was railing against. Which is kind of funny, to me!

 

Your comments are valid but tie too much into the Emperor creation stories and the foundations of WH40K to pursue in this rather narrow thread, even if it seems from the spoilers/comments that Abnett is trying to bring together vast swaths of lore that is not necessarily Heresy-related. Why should he do that? Some people say this is part of the final takeover before AbnettHammer is established as WH40K's successor. I am not so sure the blame (?) lies with Abnett exclusively. It seems to me the most obvious way to bring the universe's entire timeline (lore) together is to establish that Time is malleable/in flux, which means that any WH40K epoch may be simultaneously in play (pun very definitely intended).

Well, Time-in-Flux is not an Abnett exclusive. Other authors have been recently using the time-fluid angle. One wonders if IP decisions are starting to reflect themselves in the stories that will describe how the universe is reset in its new course.

 

Narrowly, to explain my previous comment:

 

The Dark King-as-God is presented (in character POV) as a tangible, objective Power, independent of others' beliefs. The WH40K God-Emperor is presented (in GW descriptions) as a god imposed on the Imperium commoners by the Ecclesiarchy. They must believe. The continuity of the God-Emperor cult depends in large part on (subjective) faith.

[DukeLeto69]

13 minutes ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

Your comments are valid but tie too much into the Emperor creation stories and the foundations of WH40K to pursue in this rather narrow thread, even if it seems from the spoilers/comments that Abnett is trying to bring together vast swaths of lore that is not necessarily Heresy-related. Why should he do that? Some people say this is part of the final takeover before AbnettHammer is established as WH40K's successor. I am not so sure the blame (?) lies with Abnett exclusively. It seems to me the most obvious way to bring the universe's entire timeline (lore) together is to establish that Time is malleable/in flux, which means that any WH40K epoch may be simultaneously in play (pun very definitely intended).

Well, Time-in-Flux is not an Abnett exclusive. Other authors have been recently using the time-fluid angle. One wonders if IP decisions are starting to reflect themselves in the stories that will describe how the universe is reset in its new course.

 

Narrowly, to explain my previous comment:

 

The Dark King-as-God is presented (in character POV) as a tangible, objective Power, independent of others' beliefs. The WH40K God-Emperor is presented (in GW descriptions) as a god imposed on the Imperium commoners by the Ecclesiarchy. They must believe. The continuity of the God-Emperor cult depends in large part on (subjective) faith.

I’m sure you didn’t mean to but describing my points as “valid” comes across as highly patronising.

 

But yeah, more of a lore thread discussion than single (triple) book discussion.

[EverythingIsGreat]

41 minutes ago, DukeLeto69 said:

I’m sure you didn’t mean to but describing my points as “valid” comes across as highly patronising.

 

 

I did not address your Emperor-as-god commentary directly, but that was not because I didn't think it was valid.

[EverythingIsGreat]

Breaking news on unannounced book

 

THE HORUS HERESY

 

THE SIEGE OF TERRA

 

THE END AND THE DEATH

 

PART 4: “Rebirth: Time Waits For No-one: Here Today, Here Tomorrow”

 

In this truly massive meta-tome, Dan Dembski Wraight-French brings together every novel that has been written as part of the Warhammer 40K mythos, and more!

 

* Find out how Oll Persson discovered fire in the Paleolithic!

 

* See Shamans run around crying like little b*tches because Strong Warp (by stoppering their reincarnation) is interfering with ability to run around crying!

 

* Warp strong because of Eldar hissy-fits, will devour everything unless Beguin grabs Star Child by the ear, tells him to grow up and stop being Yellow! Pandemonium ensues!

 

* C’tan slapped by Old Ones slapped by Necrontyr slapped by C’tan!

 

* Truth revealed: Emperor created by Genestealers, tossed into Milky Way as a lil one no more than 10 million years ago (which also happens to be now), adopted by Erda, given to shamans for tutorship because he’a “a difficult child”!

 

* Emperor driven insane by endless Shaman chanting and terrible food, invents Dark Age of Technology, including the Time [REDACTED] that makes this telling possible!

 

* Because of the  Time [REDACTED] that makes this telling possible, Oll Persson is shown to be both Roboute’s and Abbadon’s father, while it is almost certain Eldrad nursed Horus as a wee toddler!

 

* Because of the  Time [REDACTED] that makes this telling possible, the meta-tome’s sentence-long chapters (every single one of the 24367) change their content every time they are read!

 

To be secretly released in super Time-Limited Deluxe Edition of a few zillion unsigned copies. Online sales available only to readers who are bonded/branded GW thralls.

[Marshal Rohr]

Also when discussing filler or not, Black Library has been struggling and only the Siege books are keeping it afloat. End and the Death with ADBs Black Legion 3 Next year might keeping it going, but unless they find a new cash cow I don’t think there’s much life left in BL after the Siege ends. 

[DarkChaplain]

They might want to consider actually printing books again. I hear it helps having a product to sell when it comes to selling products.

 

Whatever struggles BL is going through these days, they'd be entirely self-inflicted and born out of hubris and bad management. Axing products, product types and going all in on artificial scarcity has a negative effect on sales, who knew.

 

That being said, I don't buy into BL actually "struggling" to keep afloat.