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

[Taliesin]

3 hours ago, Imren said:

Does anybody know when End and the death vol II LE will be released?

 

November. The regular edition is listed up on various Amazon sites. Book 3 will very likely come out at the BL Celebration in February.

 

1 hour ago, Sothalor said:

Leaving content and personal preferences aside, this whole announcement would feel less aggravating to me if:

 

A) Every new release weren't a total mess of insufficient supply

 

B) The pace of these releases didn't seem so glacial. If Volume 2 releases in November, that'll be a 9-month gap between the release of 1 and 2. Should we expect a similar gap between 2 and 3? I mean, if there's any truth that the whole of The End and the Death was written at once as a single novel, and that the entire thing is and has been completed... then surely a more rapid pace of releasing the parts wouldn't be amiss? 

 

Its easy to understand that Abnett says this should all be read as one as thats how its all intended but grew too large, but BL clearly decided that from a marketing and sales POV it was better to space out the releases of the 3 books instead of releasing them fairly simultaneously. I expect with 99% certainty that this 3rd book released in February to headline the BL Celebration 2024. So not quite as long a wait as for book 2.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Taliesin

[byrd9999]

I love Dan Abnett's storytelling, so the more the better as far as I am concerned.

[Imren]

6 hours ago, System Sound said:

We have some leaks saying its gonna be in November.

 

4 hours ago, Taliesin said:

 

November. The regular edition is listed up on various Amazon sites. Book 3 will very likely come out at the BL Celebration in February.

 

 

Its easy to understand that Abnett says this should all be read as one as thats how its all intended but grew too large, but BL clearly decided that from a marketing and sales POV it was better to space out the releases of the 3 books instead of releasing them fairly simultaneously. I expect with 99% certainty that this 3rd book released in February to headline the BL Celebration 2024. So not quite as long a wait as for book 2.

 

Thanks guys! This time I'll be vigilant with alarm clock set (I guess it will release on a saturday morning as usual).

 

(My checkings account's rear needed a month to recuperate from the scalpers that tore it a new one for vol 1)

[Pacific81]

Well.. just how much can you milk a cow before it lets out a giant moo, upends the bucket and tramples the milk maid?

 

I'm afraid with this announcement of TEATD being split into three, that's it.. just no more. They have broken me. One book describing the Sanguinius battle, while the next describes the Horus one? I'm sorry for being crass, but piss off.

 

Disappointed with Abnettt for subverting his art form for what will undoubtedly be an insistence on high that the last vestiges of life in that poor, creaking and emaciated cow be stretched out a little longer for even more $$$ (no doubt Dan could have made the point far more eloquently, and stretched it to its only novel of 500 pages plus)

[Taliesin]

I think a big question will continue to be, did this really need to be 3 volumes? And thats something we can only really answer after at least reading the second book.

Obviously nobody expected a trilogy, so whats interesting to me is why did Abnett and the editors make it 3, will it feel dragged out like some expect or is there actual justified good content that requires 3 books, its possible. 

Edited August 3, 2023 by Taliesin

[Felix Antipodes]

There are people who will think it’s drawn out if it was just one volume.  We know it will be Horus vs Sanguinius in Vol 2 and versus The Emperor in Vol 3.  These actual face-offs will not take 500 odd pages each, so the question is what will Abnett fill out the rest of the book(s) with.  That will determine for me if it is drawn out or not.

 

One thing I hope they don’t do is throw a large epilogue onto the end of book 3 to set up the Scouring or whatever they are planning.  Anything other than it ending with The Emperor ascending the Golden Throne and/or the death of Malcador would just be anti-climatic and sound a sour note imho.

[Pacific81]

I think there is a sliding scale though for this sort of thing. At least for me, one book was absolutely expected, two feels like a stretch (grudgingly accepted) but three.. no.

 

Judging it based on Abnetts other work I'm sure it will be beautifully written and they will find some way to pad the storyline with internal monologues or trips into the past, but that doesn't change the fact that people collecting hardbacked volumes of these books presumably now have a special room in their house for doing so.

[aa.logan]

3 hours ago, Pacific81 said:

people collecting hardbacked volumes of these books presumably now have a special room in their house for doing so.

Genuine concern here as to how I’ll manage to fit all the SoT LE’s onto a single shelf of a Billy bookcase (*IF* I even manage to get them, obv.)

 

Really didn’t think it’d be these books that have turned me against BL’s practices, but there we are. Every announcement, it seems, leaves me increasingly fed up with them.

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

Wait judging by some comments here are there actually people out there that think it was abnett that split the books?! To him it was a single book until he handed it in and GW got their hands on it. 

 

You actually think he has the pull to stop GW corporate from doing what they want with his work? Or that they even ask his input? "Hey Dan we're thinking of splitting your book into 3 parts but if you dont wanna we'll  disregard that plan" 

[Scribe]

2 minutes ago, Mechanicus Tech-Support said:

Wait judging by some comments here are there actually people out there that think it was abnett that split the books?! To him it was a single book until he handed it in and GW got their hands on it. 

 

You actually think he has the pull to stop GW corporate from doing what they want with his work? Or that they even ask his input? "Hey Dan we're thinking of splitting your book into 3 parts but if you dont wanna we'll  disregard that plan" 

 

 

I am trying to reserve judgment after this 2nd book but I absolutely put the blame at Abnetts feet. He wrote these things.

 

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

I'd rather he write us a tome than hear the usual "ah but his endings are so rushed"

[Sothalor]

I absolutely lay a large chunk of the blame at Abnett's feet. I also lay a large chunk of blame on the editor.

 

As an author, you need to know to exclude, arguably more so than what to include. It's easy to go overboard with "Oh, I want to have this in," and "I want to explore that idea," and "That character should get some development along these lines," and "I should show [Viewpoint Y]" and and and...

 

You need to know when to stop and be disciplined about revising and trimming and paring down. And let's be honest, that's hard, especially when it comes to works you've slaved away at and have a personal investment in.

 

So that's what an editor is for; the editor is supposed to be the outside third party who can look at your work with a critical eye and tell you when to stop, when you've lost the plot, when to leave it.

 

Having something like this manic bloat happen is indicative of an author mission creeping their own work with "Oh, but there's more story to tell" AND an editor letting it happen.

[Fedor]

BL's marketing and sales are making fools of us. They've bent us over and finally driven the cold thorned gauntlet of capitalism as far it would go.

[theSpirea]

1 hour ago, Mechanicus Tech-Support said:

Wait judging by some comments here are there actually people out there that think it was abnett that split the books?! To him it was a single book until he handed it in and GW got their hands on it. 

 

You actually think he has the pull to stop GW corporate from doing what they want with his work? Or that they even ask his input? "Hey Dan we're thinking of splitting your book into 3 parts but if you dont wanna we'll  disregard that plan" 

There's a big difference between your regular BL novel (90-100K words) and Abnett's SoT entry sitting at 150K. We can safely assume all three volumes are going to be around 400K words. That's fully on the writer and not the editor. This is not a case of Ferrer/Crowley writing extra 50-70KK words and the necessity to split the book into two.

[System Sound]

Taken from an interview with Track of Words and Dan Abnett about TEatD:

 

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.

 

https://www.trackofwords.com/2023/03/04/rapid-fire-dan-abnett-talks-the-end-and-the-death-volume-1/

 

So it was a very much mutual agreement to do this.

Edited August 3, 2023 by System Sound

[Scribe]

10 minutes ago, System Sound said:

So it was a very much mutual agreement to do this.

 

Of course.

 

Abnett lost the plot.

Kyme failed to control Abnett.

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

2 hours ago, System Sound said:

Taken from an interview with Track of Words and Dan Abnett about TEatD:

 

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.

 

https://www.trackofwords.com/2023/03/04/rapid-fire-dan-abnett-talks-the-end-and-the-death-volume-1/

 

So it was a very much mutual agreement to do this.

 

Well damn I stand corrected

At the same time despite hating the rollout of the whole thing, I like Abnett and his work so him writing a massive tome is fine by me, yes I know others disagree haha

[Felix Antipodes]

14 hours ago, Pacific81 said:

I think there is a sliding scale though for this sort of thing. At least for me, one book was absolutely expected, two feels like a stretch (grudgingly accepted) but three.. no.

 

Judging it based on Abnetts other work I'm sure it will be beautifully written and they will find some way to pad the storyline with internal monologues or trips into the past, but that doesn't change the fact that people collecting hardbacked volumes of these books presumably now have a special room in their house for doing so.

Having been raised on SF & fantasy, where trilogies are almost mandatory nowadays, this didn’t surprise or annoy me as much as others.  It was the fact we would have to run the scalper gauntlet a third time to complete the series that is what annoys me the most.  Like a few others I wont be chasing the LE/SE rainbow after this one wraps up.

 

Oh, and I do have a special room for these things, thanks to an understanding (and long suffering) spouse.  I call it the Black Library , she calls it the money pit 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Felix Antipodes
Double post

[Taliesin]

20 hours ago, Felix Antipodes said:

There are people who will think it’s drawn out if it was just one volume.  We know it will be Horus vs Sanguinius in Vol 2 and versus The Emperor in Vol 3.  These actual face-offs will not take 500 odd pages each, so the question is what will Abnett fill out the rest of the book(s) with.  That will determine for me if it is drawn out or not.

 

One thing I hope they don’t do is throw a large epilogue onto the end of book 3 to set up the Scouring or whatever they are planning.  Anything other than it ending with The Emperor ascending the Golden Throne and/or the death of Malcador would just be anti-climatic and sound a sour note imho.

 

I do actually hope that the third book will end up with either a substantial epilogue or at least any kind of look forward to the Scouring, I think thats entirely fitting to close off the mainline HH series as a whole. Obviously we hope we will get further HH setting novels and Scouring novels. But personally I would definitely like the last book to really give a "state of affairs" overview of where legions are at and what is going to happen soon.

[Bobss]

Regardless of whether you love or hate Abnett's style, he is nevertheless penning the final 3 books of the Horus Heresy, and has written almost half the Siege at this point

 

Whether you like Abnett or not, it feels incredibly confined. No matter how good these books are, they're all going to be written in the same style. They're all going to have the same brilliance that Abnett wields, but also the same pitfalls he stumbles into. They're all going to be... THE SAME

 

And for every John-French-vs-Guy-Haley debate we've had over the years, I actually enjoy the variation of the Siege. And now it's gone

 

Maybe I wouldn't mind so much if we didn't have atmosphere-killing blunders like how the ending of Echoes. and the beginning of E&TD1 don't feel like the same battle

 

Not a fan

Edited August 4, 2023 by Bobss

[byrd9999]

Oh dear, what a load of grumpy sods we have on this board! 

 

The variation of the Siege is gone? Of course it is, we're on the final book. But it doesn't change any of the previous words people have written.

 

 

[Nagashsnee]

47 minutes ago, byrd9999 said:

 

Of course it is, we're on the final book. 

 

 

One of us must really suck at math as I count 2 books still to be released. 

 

Books 9 and 10 of the 8 book finale to be specific. Heck i messed my maths up again!

Edited August 4, 2023 by Nagashsnee

[Ubiquitous1984]

14 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Of course.

 

Abnett lost the plot.

Kyme failed to control Abnett.

I think it’s unfair to pin it on Abnett being out of control.  I would squarely put the ‘blame’ with the editorial process.  There were so many plot threads left unresolved by the end of book seven that Abnett had to resolve.  I think we had a thread discussing this and there were at least a dozen unresolved plot lines that needed tackling.  
 

I think Abnett was dealt a bad hand, and has done the best he can to resolve so many plot threads in the best way possible.  Look at how disappointed people are with ST’s plot line being ended with a pretty pointless death: imagine if he had dealt with all plot lines in the same manner?  There would be understandable uproar.  

3 minutes ago, Nagashsnee said:

 

One of us must really suck at math as I count 2 books still to be released. 

 

Books 9 and 10 of the 8 book finale to be specific. Heck i messed my maths up again!

I still reckon they’ll sneak in a novella before the end … Anthology ahoy!

[Roomsky]

1 hour ago, Ubiquitous1984 said:

There were so many plot threads left unresolved by the end of book seven that Abnett had to resolve.  I think we had a thread discussing this and there were at least a dozen unresolved plot lines that needed tackling.  

 

Nah.

 

Part 1 resolved nothing, and meaningfully developed close to nothing, the back half reads like padding. Abnett invents Dorn in the desert, he spends far too much time on Rann and Zephon, who were perfectly fine to be left alone at this point, and he wastes several chapters on the Argonauts wandering around the palace. He creates a subplot about Malcador trying to send a message as he dies, and Loken, Sindermann, and Mauer all faff about in a library for far too long. 300 pages that could have been used to tie up threads were used to create new ones instead. And now, the synopsis for book 2 sounds like we're getting "the last temptation of Sanguinius" again, which we already did before the Siege even started. 

 

There things to resolve, yes. Everyone else set Abnett up for an easy slam dunk and he's instead dribbled the ball back to the far end of the court. 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Roomsky

[Scribe]

1 hour ago, Roomsky said:

 

Nah.

 

Part 1 resolved nothing, and meaningfully developed close to nothing, the back half reads like padding. Abnett invents Dorn in the desert, he spends far too much time on Rann and Zephon, who were perfectly fine to be left alone at this point, and he wastes several chapters on the Argonauts wandering around the palace. He creates a subplot about Malcador trying to send a message as he dies, and Loken, Sindermann, and Mauer all faff about in a library for far too long. 300 pages that could have been used to tie up threads were used to create new ones instead. And now, the synopsis for book 2 sounds like we're getting "the last temptation of Sanguinius" again, which we already did before the Siege even started. 

 

There things to resolve, yes. Everyone else set Abnett up for an easy slam dunk and he's instead dribbled the ball back to the far end of the court. 

 

I find it amusing that there are those among us who can articulate what was wrong with Part 1, but I dont think I've seen anyone actually break down what was great about part 1.

 

"Its Abnett, its great." is about it.