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

[Marshal Rohr]

54 minutes ago, DarkChaplain said:

For those who have read volume 2 already: Does the bloody annoying scene switching to mandatory Rann and Zephon action pieces continue so obnoxiously?

 

In volume 1, whenever got somewhat interesting, be it with Oll, or Sindermann, or Abaddon, I always got whiplash from the mindnumbingly dull action of the two-characters-with-models chapters breaking up the flow and tension. Did that get dialed back? Please tell me it did, because if it didn't, I might have to start skipping those chapters. They might generally be short, but they bore me to tears.

 

I mean, I get it. Things are brutal chaos. Rann is a badarse. Zephon is depressed and becoming a little thirsty. Rann beats another traitor dude. Things are bad. The clocks have run out. Rann has axes. Can we please get back to something that actually moves the relevant plotlines forward, rather than promotes two model kits and fulfills the action quota?

All of the Blood Angels are starting to get visions. 

[Lord_Caerolion]

2 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

For those who have read volume 2 already: Does the bloody annoying scene switching to mandatory Rann and Zephon action pieces continue so obnoxiously?

 

In volume 1, whenever got somewhat interesting, be it with Oll, or Sindermann, or Abaddon, I always got whiplash from the mindnumbingly dull action of the two-characters-with-models chapters breaking up the flow and tension. Did that get dialed back? Please tell me it did, because if it didn't, I might have to start skipping those chapters. They might generally be short, but they bore me to tears.

 

I mean, I get it. Things are brutal chaos. Rann is a badarse. Zephon is depressed and becoming a little thirsty. Rann beats another traitor dude. Things are bad. The clocks have run out. Rann has axes. Can we please get back to something that actually moves the relevant plotlines forward, rather than promotes two model kits and fulfills the action quota?

Kinda yes, but also no. It’s not necessarily just jumping to Rann/Zephon, but on the ebook version on my phone, the vast, vast majority of chapters are just 2 or 3 pages long, so it feels incredibly jumpy. 

[Gongsun Zan]

59 minutes ago, Lord_Caerolion said:

Kinda yes, but also no. It’s not necessarily just jumping to Rann/Zephon, but on the ebook version on my phone, the vast, vast majority of chapters are just 2 or 3 pages long, so it feels incredibly jumpy. 

It's not just Rann and Zephon, the bloat is real - does anyone seriously care about what Maximus Thane is doing during the final days of the siege? 

[Lord_Caerolion]

In an ebook showing as 683 pages total, we have 163 chapters, plus 3 interludes. 

[Nagashsnee]

2 hours ago, Lord_Caerolion said:

In an ebook showing as 683 pages total, we have 163 chapters, plus 3 interludes. 

 

So an average chapter is 4,19 pages.  With the shortest ones being about 1/3 of of a page. 

 

[Lord_Caerolion]

Further reduced by the start of the Interludes being page 26, and having “title pages” for the Interlude and the breaking of the book itself into Parts 5/6/7/8, and the actual novel ending on page 658. 
So really it’s 628 pages divided into 163 chapters and 3 interludes.

[DarkChaplain]

6 hours ago, Gongsun Zan said:

It's not just Rann and Zephon, the bloat is real - does anyone seriously care about what Maximus Thane is doing during the final days of the siege? 

 

I would've cared about Thane if he had actually been an entity between The Solar War and TEatD Vol.II. Like, had an arc beyond standing on walls once and then not even be namedropped for most of the series...

[SkimaskMohawk]

I just finished it and my thoughts are a bit complicated. 

 

I think this book both benefits and suffers from being Part 2 instead of "the middle" of one book.

 

It benefits because a lot of abnetts jarring/controversial/enlightened choices have already had a book and a long period of time to settle in and not be new. The inscrutable words, the new terminology like astertsian, Bright One/Angel/Lord, King-of-Ages, or Hort Palatine/Lupercali, the characters; we've gotten used to them in the last book so they don't feel so out of place.

 

It suffers because it kills the pacing and the structure of the overall story. A lot of people spend their time trapped in the vengeful spirit, struggling to persist; they're effectively on ice, but we have to read about it and feel like valuable page space is being taken up. One mega-tome would let us see be able to see that there's another 600 pages left and not have us thinking "well they could have not have 3 volumes if these nothing happening scenes werent so liberal". 

 

Next, the micro short chapters. They're unsatisfying because right as interesting stuff starts to happen, we're taken away, sometimes to really uninteresting things. But on the other hand, i put this book down so many times that it was helpful i didn't need to really remember what was going on when i last left off, so there's that. I do think matching the narrative jumble of time/places is interesting, but I'm not sure that it works well enough in practice. Maybe if there were more traditional chapters in Volume 1 and then they degenerated to match the plot or something.

 

General gripe time.

Spoiler

Locations; abnett has confirmed he didn't look at the map. The delphic battlements are now the inner, last-most wall, behind the eternity gate. The tower of the hegemon is apparently part of the sanctum, even though it was basically on the edge of the palatine zone. The Blackstone is said to be next to the Hegemon in the Sanctum, but it's also actually in the palantine zone and next to Bhab. Maybe I'm wrong on the zone name too, but it's the area that was falling and getting invaded throughout Echoes. This leads to some iffy conversations, like how if the Blackstone's been razed then it's implied the sanctum must have fallen to the guardsmen (because it's in what should have been a safe zone); in reality, its in a zone that got completely scoured already and should make sense that it's blown out. 

 

General disregard; a lot of plot points got shelved, only to be retreaded. Or changed.

 

The daemon incursion gets mentioned once:

 

Quote

‘It means the Sanctum has been penetrated. Properly, fully. Not the brief incursions suffered before the Gate was locked. A full breakthrough. The traitors and the Neverborn are now loose inside the final fortress. The last stand has begun

 

But it wasn't brief; it was serious enough that they needed to divert forces inside, rather than trust the reserves in the Sanctum; serious enough that it compromised the defence of the eternity gate and required it to be closed. Apparently not; it wasn't that bad, but this time is the real serious deal (also people react as if unannounced breaches of the sanctum from unexpected angles are an impossibility, right after the events of echoes). 

 

Everyone having desperate holding actions in random places. This is more of a complaint of book 1, but i was reminded by it every time these characters appeared; just have them be part of the delphic defense and break out into random places like azkaellon. The defenders should have been either in the sanctum, or last standing in the delphic area when locations broke. 

 

The dark king/Horus ascended. Turning into warp gods just due to warp juice. No emotional symbolism, no cultural energy; just the power of the warp being harnessed. I'll note that the Dark King is not the expression of Ruin, which is used as a synonym for Chaos in the book (and you might recall that an alternative name for the chaos gods are the Ruinous Powers). 

 

Boring characters. I hate to break it to abnett, but i don't care about the randos with Ol'. Ol is interesting, John is interesting, Actae is interesting; the rest, not so much. There was no impact at all when Erebus killed them off. Same with thane and almost every marine character. 

 

But guess what, there's actual a lot of things I enjoyed as well.

 

After abnett dumps his ongoing siege stuff, with various marine characters i couldn't care less about (thane, honfler, rann, zephon, abnett-zephon, dark Angels), the book gets way more interesting. Call it burn out on the last 7 books of siege, or the concept of the climax trying to wrap stuff up, but it felt great to not just re-tread and enjoy something new. 

 

A lot of characters are really good too. I really enjoyed the Horus ascended POVs; he really oozes that book 1 charisma again. Abaddon was done really well and was enjoyable, as was Ahriman. I enjoyed the bit with Sang and Ferrus. I liked this version of Sigismund more than Wright's, and it felt more in line with French's (sorry, abnett writing a line or two in book 1 doesn't grant ownership). I even liked Dorn's conversation in the dessert, and how his emergence shows the hints of bitter-dorn post emperors death. 

 

What else? I liked the inevitable city bit. I liked the build up to the dark king reveal (even despite my gripes earlier on) and how it broke the sanity of people in the City. Ill say it again, I really liked Horus and his hopes/disappointments. 

 

So, did I enjoy the book? Ya, i think i did; I certainly liked it more than Volume 1. But I also think I just got desensitized to abnett-isms that irked me that I glazed over a lot of them. Ultimately, I think I liked the book because it was less focussed on the siege stuff and had less room to trample characters or arcs.

Edited November 10, 2023 by SkimaskMohawk

[Roomsky]

The End and the Death: Part 2: Part 1

 

Dear God; Abnett, what have you done?

This book, like Echoes, is one I'll have to make two posts about; one to cover what I liked, and one to cover its flaws. Unlike Echoes, which I found close to perfect but knew others may reasonably take issue with it's choices, this book is an abomination I happened to enjoy. My critical mind and my easily-pleased fan brain are currently locked in Mortal Kombat. I've always been one for whom good moments = enjoyment. Now you see the hideous truth, Fraters. I enjoyed Batman V Superman! I enjoyed TEATD Part 2!

 

Some of these topics will be listed (a), to be followed by a (b) in the negatives post, as they are often intertwined.

So, without further ado:

 

The Tiny Chapters (a)
This might just be my hyper-stimulated Zillenial brain, but I appreciated that the generally 1-and-a-half-page chapters kept the book from getting tedious, not in the typical manner at least. Not crazy on one thread? Worry not dear reader, you'll be back on to something better soon. Unlike the first volume, the variance of these is far better spaced as well. No more Rann and Zephon bookending every interesting event with their banality; now, you never know what POV you're heading to next. Because of that, I found reading this quite addictive despite its flaws. Again, sort of a generational ADHD addiction, completely unfitting music was running through my head while I read (Horus Vs Sanguinius was accompanied by I'm Just Ken and Klown B!tch,) but I was certainly engaged.

 

The Style
It's been stated in a few places this reads like Abnett's attempt to imitate and outdo Fehervari. Having finished, I don't actually think that's the case; I think he's trying to imitate Watson. The scale, the schizophrenic focus, the complete breakdown of conventional narrative structure - in places, it reads like The Inquisition War come again. A complaint of mine regarding most of the Siege up until Mortis is that the Chaos invasion of Terra didn't feel very grand compared to any other Chaos invasion. I certainly can't lobby that complaint here, it genuinely does feel like the End and the Death of humanity. Also like with Watson's writings, I occasionally felt like I was going-half crazy reading this (not helped by the time I first thought "hey, where's Argonis," and then turned the page to find Argonis. The book's reading me!) but all, somehow, in a good way. I also appreciate that the prose isn't quite so up its own ass this time.

 

Ollanius and Co.
Finally, we get to the point with these characters. Finally, something engaging happens with the Long Companions. Nothing was worth watching them shuffle around aimlessly for so long, but I absolutely enjoyed where we ended up. I love the scene where they call out Oll for putting faith before reason and pretending he had a plan. I love the scene where Erebus kills them all, not because I disliked them but because it was a suitably grim and eventful moment (Grammaticus looking like he's going to enuncia-ex-machina them out of another situation before shoving a pair of scissors in Erebus' ear is both hilarious and satisfying.) I love (most) of the scene where Ollanius confronts the Emperor. Abnett has fantastic dialogue but he's not Black Library Tarantino, merely having believable conversations does not an interesting scene make, as we have discovered over too many passages in this series. But here, knowing things are getting real? I actually got back some of the affection for Oll's party that had been slowly drained away since Know no Fear. And I was very pleased to have Ollanius himself dwarfed so totally by surrounding events that he reclaimed some of that "random dude who happens to be immortal" charm that :cuss: like "he's older than the Emperor!" and "Greek myths were real, Ollanius was there!" kind of deflated.

 

The Dark King (a)
This is the real core of this book, despite what's on the cover (something something two nickles.) I was surprised this wrapped up here instead of during the final battle, but it was still pretty neat, gave this middle chapter a strong core. The whole win-win situation Chaos thinks it's concocted is, IMO, a brilliant way to properly inject stakes back into proceedings that had sort of been lost after the series revealed the Webway War was such a definitive, ultimate Chaos Victory. The amount of threads that deliver us to this moment is pretty cool too, the series is still messy as :cuss:, but tying so many ongoing elements back into an homage to each version of the Ollanius Pius myth (It was a Custodian! It was Ollanius! It was an unknown astartes! Wait, it's all 3!) The Emperor using a desiccated Custodian to communicate after turning into the giant evil marble is also very striking imagery. This book is too much fluff, but if there's one part I can almost justify, it's the build-up to this choice. Again, this feels absolutely cataclysmic. Thoroughly enjoyed all of it (at least, conceptually.)

 

Sanguinius and Horus (a)
As with the preceding point, Abnett basically gives us both versions of things. We get Sanguinius zipping around, putting up a legendary show of strength and skill, even dead on his feet, even against the avatar of Chaos. We also get Horus murdering him effortlessly and giving the ol' neck-snap. While "this isn't even my final form" is always a bit trite, but with Horus still hoping Sanguinius would see the futility and join him, I accept it well enough. Both primarchs also get a strong showing here; I was quite worried Sanguinius' journey through the Spirit would be a rehash of Ruinstorm, but it's really not. I unironically liked the conversation with Ferrus, and I found the imagery of the flayed souls of ascended primarchs wallowing in the dark absolutely chilling. Horus gets a handful more POVs here, and while second-person present-tense still makes me scratch my head, I think it's good character work for a guy who's been neglected far too long. I also find Horus' plans to corrupt Sangy, Emps, Valdor, and Dorn fascinating; they actually seem like angles that could work, angles that appeal to a character dark heart rather than the more obvious "Dorn is Nurgle cuz he's tough hur hur."

 

Where fan-theories go to die
No Black Rage Sanguinius killing Horus. No psyker Loken (it was Malcador.) Not going to lie, I enjoy the twists on things Abnett's giving us, the core some of us hoped for remains pleasingly intact. Come to think of it, Abnett also killed the Aximand lowering the shields theory back in Saturnine. For all the balls dropped, I am relieved the hits are still being played.

 

So yeah, somehow, I genuinely enjoyed this...

 

...

 

However...

[Just123456]

On 11/7/2023 at 11:41 AM, 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. 

 

 

That is not true. Oll Persson later appeared in Mark of Calth and the Perpetual audio book. And his short stories were reprinted in the Dan Abnett short story collection Lord of the Dark Millennium. 

 

Alright. I understand. 

[Just123456]

On 11/7/2023 at 9:16 PM, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

I agree none of those authors would agree with my statement, because it's meant to be ridiculous; none of them can claim "ownership" of the series. 

 

The rest of what you wrote is equally as ridiculous, unfortunately enough.

 

The entirety of black library wanted imperium secondus? That's why it was never touched by that same team?

 

French and Haley seemingly try to incorporate other authors' characterization into their own if they're covering the same areas. Saying PoD butchered abnett's dorn and alpha legion is hilarious, since it's so off the mark.

 

ABD does his own thing too, no doubt. Never said he didn't, and have said he got flak for deciding to put a flashback for legion building in the second last siege book. And it was kinda deserved; it wasn't the place for it.

 

I'm really curious as to what other authors dropped the ball on post-Horus Rising. It was meant to be 10ish book series, so events were always going to unfold quickly; did Mcneil bungle the dream sequence a bit? Ya. Was Horus always going to go evil fast? Also ya; Abnett has them going to Davin at the end of Horus Rising. The pace of events was where they were meant to be at the time, which means our enjoyment of the Crusade setting was going to get thrown out. So what other balls were dropped? Not maintaining his characters? Most of them barely even existed since they were so shallow; they were a name with a line or two.

 

What got dropped?

The authors frequently go to lore meetings with each other to talk about the lore and set it in stone. 

 

There are other stories which are popular but were never touched by more than one author. 

 

 

While most people enjoy the Perpetuals to varying degrees, many people dislike them being famous historical figures and would rather they be on the sidelines, which I understand. 

Edited November 10, 2023 by Just123456

[Just123456]

And does anyone know when the third volume will come out?  I loved most of the content of the first two volumes, but there were some things which had excessive padding. 

Edited November 10, 2023 by Just123456

[Dornfist]

36 minutes ago, Just123456 said:

And does anyone know when the third volume will come out?  I loved most of the content of the first two volumes, but there were some things which had excessive padding. 

Amazon has it listed for January 30. But be warned dear frater, for there is no mention if that is the final "End and the Death" for us readers who have suffered this long. https://www.amazon.com/End-Death-Horus-Heresy-Siege/dp/1804074888/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3DZ4TQ51MP5VR&keywords=end+and+the+death+volume+3&qid=1699657323&sprefix=end+and+the+death+volume+3%2Caps%2C74&sr=8-1

Edited November 10, 2023 by Dornfist

[Dornfist]

1 hour into the audiobook and I have some stuff to share. First, this was my reaction upon listening to the

Spoiler

end of the prelude chapter featuring Eldar folks:

Edited November 10, 2023 by Dornfist

[Dornfist]

And upon learning

Spoiler

that the first chapter of Part Five is titled that word I did not want to come across..."Fragments". Well:

 

 

Edited November 10, 2023 by Dornfist

[Roomsky]

2 hours ago, Roomsky said:

However...

 

The End and The Death: Part 2: Part 2

 

The Tiny Chapters (b)
"That thing was too big to be called a book. Too big, too thick, too heavy, and too rough, it was more like a large hunk of iron…"


This thing is legitimately unpleasant to hold while reading, the rigid, square backing is both not at all ergonomic and made me worry it was going to tear under its own weight. Would probably make a good bludgeon, though. And do you know, dear reader, what wouldn't have made this book 740 pages long?

 

Not wasting page space on the gaps between tiny, tiny chapters. This book isn't just narrative fluff, it is literary fluff; it is largely hot air. How many trees did you cut down for all this wasted space? I get it, time has stopped, things are fractured, and you have decided to include 5000 different POVs in these books, but when it compromises the very format it's being presented in, you have gone too far. And do you know what's funny? I bet it could have been even longer because, far more noticeably than in Volume 1, the Fragments chapters are populated by story threads from the microchapters. They no longer exist just to remind you of the devastating scale of it all, now they just compact the microchapters into something more space-efficient. Can you imagine if this combining hadn't been done? If this was 800 pages long? I'd have arthritis in my wrist after a single reading.

 

And even with my Zillenial brain, it starts to get a little grating when an allegedly important plotline's chapters are "characters exchange to sentences, one says something mildly foreboding, nothing of substance occurs" over and over and :cuss:ing over again. Speaking of which…

 

Basilio Fo
Would you like to know my real issue with the editorial oversight in this series? It's not character inconsistencies or duplicated plot points or even Abnett somehow being allowed to write 3 books when he was contracted for 1. It's that multiple character just :cuss:ing stand around waiting for the part where they get to do something. It happened with Ollanius, and it's happened again for 4 books with Fo. He's working on his weapon. His progress or lack thereof is not something the reader can measure. He escapes. He is wrangled. Alleged progress. Escape with Amon. Alleged progress. He doesn't need to do something every book, and he certainly doesn’t need to appear in every book, so why am I still reading about him? He goes to Malcador's old lab and does :cuss: all for who knows how many chapters. Why are we spending time on this. Why have other plot threads been truncated, or ignored entirely, for this? This big nothing? DO SOMETHING OR GET OFF THE PAGE OLD MAN.

 

The Dark King (b)
So, uh, what changed the Emperor's mind, exactly? He and Ollanius bandy words in a conversation they've probably had a thousand times about arrogance, then Loken says "He's right my lord, a daemon told me this would be a bad idea." And then he's just like "thank you Ollanius, you were right." WHAT? IS MY COPY MISSING A PAGE? Even if it is, statements made by SAMUS SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT WHEN DECIDING WHETHER TO GAIN MORE POWER AND DESTROY DAEMONS. I thought this was going to be a Dr. Manhattan style epiphany where the absurdity and unlikelihood of events forced him to consider a fresh POV, but no, someone tells him "hey man Chaos might be duping you" and he's like "oh hey, good point" and that's it. I'm sure I'll get some subtext next time I inevitably read this and huff some copium and it'll be fine. But now...? No thank you, sir, this is silly.

 

Loken
Who is Loken? We have one more book, Abnett, and I'm still not sure why I should care about Garviel Loken. You know that scene I praised in Echoes, because I could predict how Sanguinius would act in a novel situation because of how well-drawn he was? Well, Loken is the opposite, he's impossible to predict because the writers do whatever they want with him. This time, he goes on about the triumph of the human spirit and standing against the darkness, which I guess he did in Vengeful Spirit, except it felt unearned then and still does now because I thought we were doing a jaded PTSD thing and we keep not having the scene that makes him regain faith in humanity. He is the Baki of Horus Heresy characters, no logic will stop him from doing what the author wants him to do. Oh, also, why is his big ideological moment against Samus? Ignoring the fact that Samus already had a great send-off in The Solar War, Abnett spends time on Loken having an ideological debate with a warpspawn. It was a bit cathartic, I'll grant, but it would have been so much better if it was Aximand or Tormageddon. But nope, the twisted versions of his brothers get a one-liner and a swift ass-kicking. Samus gets the big showdown.

 

Sanguinius and Horus (b)
Did the fight feel kinda lame to anyone else? I don't mean the part where Horus beats Sangy to a pulp, that was fine. I mean, when Sangy is landing blows it's just him zipping out of Horus' reach and scoring his armor again and again and again. They barely even speak to each other. Compared to the Dark King plot, which admittedly does stumble at the end, Sangy vs Horus feels almost obligatory. The weight isn't there, it's nothing. And this was the cover of the book! This is the entire premise of the book! 700 pages of blue-balling for Sanguinius to take no hits and then lose immediately, all while saying nothing. Bravo?

 

All the time spent on other characters
I have seen it said, repeatedly, on Reddit that the books have to be this long; Abnett has so much to wrap up!

 

That is the biggest load of horse :cuss: I have heard in my life.

 

Thane was a nonsense wink and a nudge in Haley's entry to (effectively) Haley's character, he didn't need closure. The Dark Angels get closure post-heresy. Typhus isn't even getting focus despite his attack. That one Space Wolf and the Imperial Fist are new characters. Agathe is new (maybe? If not, she's inconsequential) and disappears halfway through. Lucoryphus doesn't need closure. Keeler continues to walk nowhere in particular and meets Sigismund. Fo still does "something." Allegedly. Vulkan stands around and looks sad. All of this gets significant page time in this book and for what? If they were all like Narek's scene in the first, one-off "in case you were wondering about this guy who hasn't appeared yet" scenes, sure, I'd buy it. Wouldn't be needed, but it would be an indulgence you could forgive for the "final book." But most of this either doesn't need wrapping up, goes nowhere, or was established in part 1. The Dark King plot may be the most important thread in the entire series (does the Emperor ascend to become the 5th Chaos God?) and to compensate, it seems everything else in the book needed to be fluff, filler, and talking in circles. Most of this content is less than nothing, and only serves to line GW's wallets. There is zero excuse for this.

 

Guhh. I used up my vitriol. It's just sad, man.

 

The abomination I enjoyed reading remains an abomination. Bravo Abnett, unironically. Also unironically, what have you done?! What the :cuss: is this??

[Scribe]

Considering

 

Spoiler

That bit about Loken being confirmed to not be a psyker.

 

I guess that side plot is put to bed?

[SkimaskMohawk]

45 minutes ago, Roomsky said:

The abomination I enjoyed reading remains an abomination. Bravo Abnett, unironically. Also unironically, what have you done?! What the is this??

 

This is a much better, much shorter way of putting it than me lol.

[TrevorLoLz]

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

Considering

 

  Hide contents

That bit about Loken being confirmed to not be a psyker.

 

I guess that side plot is put to bed?

 

Thank God.

 

Not every character needs to be a super special Cecil. Glad it's gone (for nowwwwwww *spooky music*)

[MarineRaiderII]

I finished it a week ago. Many of you have already captured my thoughts.

 

Do you think the deliberate choice since Master of Mankind of never providing the narrative from the Emperors perspective really weakens his final choice in not becoming the DK?

 

For a being that ADB said would be like talking and understanding a star he sure seemed simple in that last chapter. I found it annoying in the last book when speaking to Sangy through the Custodians. I mean no one will know that he spoke but us as everyone in this setting is basically gone in 40k.

 

I don't accept he let go of that power, I also believe if he had the power alluded too it would have ended then and there as he could have righted everything being corrupted by Chaos.

 

I just want to finish this series.

[Scribe]

7 minutes ago, MarineRaiderII said:

Do you think the deliberate choice since Master of Mankind of never providing the narrative from the Emperors perspective really weakens his final choice in not becoming the DK?

 

I think this begins to pick at one of the (very many) problems in the series. HH and SoT.

 

When all is said and done here after the last book, I think you all will be able to hear me through space and time, wailing in absolute disbelief.

 

The Dark King plot is not a terrible one. The execution? The payoff? I mean...unless Book 3 somehow saves us....I just am not seeing anything redeeming this so far.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Scribe

[Marshal Rohr]

Do we really want narrative from the Emperor’s perspective?

[Scribe]

7 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Do we really want narrative from the Emperor’s perspective?

 

Personally? In the end here? Yeah.

 

If I have to bear repeated to death 'the clocks, they have stopped' and assorted other self indulgent bloat, at the very least I would hope to get some actually well done insight on the Emperor himself, at this final stage of things.

[Nagashsnee]

1 hour ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Do we really want narrative from the Emperor’s perspective?

This is probably the only book that would justify it. It would also HUGELY help explain the rapid shifts in direction he does in the book.

Having a chapter  or three (human sized so lets say 15 in this book) from his POV that show the reasons he thinks going full DARK GOD mode is needed with him having doubts and fears, would have gone a long way to explain his heel turn on the matter. Likewise showing his resolve and logic with casting said dark god power away would shift the focus of the decision from a single chat with Oll to the talk merely being the catalyst of the Emperors decision making. 

 

Replacing some of the filler with Emperor mind talks like he did in Master of making where he confides and takes advice on the situation with those closest to him (as we know these chats happen in a way that time is not affected for those he has them with) could have been the build up needed to lead to the Dark King stuff naturally and seeded the reasons he is ultimately for the only time in the setting talked out of his decision/chosen path.  Cause atm i have no real idea why he went down the DARK GOD route if he was ready to drop it so fast and so little prodding. 

 

 

[TrevorLoLz]

I have finished Vol II.

 

I enjoyed the book, but it was a struggle at times:

 

Spoiler

Pros:

- Fight between Sanguinius and Horus was well done, in my opinion. There was some cheesiness ('the speed of darkness') but ultimately was what I thought it should be - obviously hopeless, brutal and quick.  No long diatribe between them, no unnecessary evil monologues, just Sanguinius doing his best to do something, anything, before Horus clobbers him.

 

- Discussion between Ferrus Manus and Sanguinius. It was unexpected to see Ferrus here, but it was enjoyable. Effectively a "you won't find Horus until you're ready to die" conversation. Sanguinius was scared, at the end of the day, but still did what he thought was right.

 

- The book does a good job of conveying how utterly horrifying and terrifying the situation on Terra has become. It's very grim at times, which is what it should be. This is the End of Times, literal Armageddon and hope is gone. The only thing left for the defenders of Terra now is to kill a few more traitors before they go.

 

- Horus' second person monologues were great. I am really enjoying them.

 

- Abaddon's determination to find Horus only to be stopped (from what I understood) by Horus or Chaos from finding him. His frustration is obvious on the page. Cliffhanger of him seeing Valdor is interesting.

 

- The book is epic in scope and feels like it throughout much of the book. This ties into my comments above, where the hopelessness of the situation faced with battling the literal legions of hell at times engrosses you. When it's focused.

 

- The Ahriman and Sindermann meet up was great. Creepy imagery and interesting dialogue. I finally know what Ahriman looks like under the armour, and good to see he's mutating just like his fellow Legionnaires. A fellow meeting of the minds, even if one is a very conflicted old man and the other one a hideous sorcerer lord.

 

Cons:

 

- As many have noted, the length of this book is plainly unnecessary. I found myself glazing over the parts concerning Honfler, and the various bolter porn sections. Characters introduced for the first time and given significant screen time randomly in Vol II tell me that there was never any intention of this being just one novel. The fan service of Lucoryphus was cool, and then it just continued. Why?

 

Some of the unnecessary sections were meant to convey that time has stopped, the Palace is becoming part of the Vengeful Spirit and that Terra is part of the Warp, but much of it felt just repetitive or self-indulgent. We are already aware of this, and this perspective just needs to be tightened as the book progresses.

 

This novel would have benefitted from a sharp editor and it's clear that editorial direction on this novel was lacking. I'm pretty cynical about Games Workshop at this point, and I'm quite convinced that Abnett was just told "write as much as you want, we'll bundle it into as many volumes as we can get away with" and away he went. 

 

- The Dark King plotline sucks, bro.  It had a bit of potential, and parts of it were well written (such as the vignettes in Vol I and II which kept repeating "The Dark King") but the payoff was just... underwhelming. So, the Emperor decides he cannot beat Horus, draws on as much Warp energy as he can, effectively beginning an apotheosis. We know from pretty much every other book in the Horus Heresy series that The Emperor is colossally arrogant and it's either "his way or the highway". His arrogance offsets his otherwise formidable intelligence, psychic powers and foresight, causing his grand plans to regularly have unseen consequences. Will this be another horrible mistake made with the best of intetntions? This was interesting.

 

Then he meets what's left of the Argonauts and Loken. After a by the numbers conversation about how the end doesn't always justify the means, The Emperor decides to give up this new power, despite knowing he cannot beat Horus without it. This means in Vol III there will either be The Emperor grabbing that power again to beat Horus, or some other deus ex machina occurs, because it's said pretty definitively that he cannot beat Horus at this point without it. Anyway, after this catch up with Ollannius, He runs off to find Horus again, with Malcador saying quite comically that "He's discarded the compassion and love part of his soul." like it's a Disney movie. Ollannius has to run off with Actae and John Grammaticus in some time travel shenanigans to make sure that future Ollannius can find his way to The Emperor again. Unsure why we needed to take this path to get here.

 

Until EatD Vol I, we had no idea about the Dark King, 5th Chaos God, etc. Abnett brings this whole new plot line, in a series bloated with unresolved plot lines, at the very last moment and then, seemingly, ditches it very quickly. Maybe the 3rd volume will round this out (in fact, it almost certainly will) but for much of it, I was left wondering when we're going to get to the main event.

 

- I have never been a fan of the Argonauts and this didn't change my mind. The best scene was when they ran into Erebus, a fan favourite, and half of them died. Why? Because there was actual consequence and raised stakes for these guys who have otherwise been bumbling from location to location. I am hoping that this is the last time we see them, but I know it is not. Their fates are still unresolved, so we will doubtless see them again in Vol III.

 

- Fo storyline. I'm not sure what is meant to be happening here. This plot angle has been meandering like a snail since Fo was brought into the picture. The idea itself of an Astartes plague is interesting, if not another Abnett self-indulgence. I would not be surprised if this is just a set up for Pandaemonium (which I am looking forward to), but eh.

 

Thanks for reading my stream of consciousness.