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

skylerboodie

By skylerboodie
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Scribe Venerable Brother

Scribe

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

Now, of course, if McNeill slams down a giant tome that effectively twists the whole thing into an absolute pretzel with Horus' Primarch book, I will cry actual tears of joy. Just give us two completely different versions of the final confrontation and tell the fanbase to collectively choose their own adventure, as Echoes did to Fury of Magnus. Let's enter a new age of duelling authors immediately retconning the previous novels. I'M HERE FOR IT. DO IT, MCNEILL. MAKE HORUS GREAT AGAIN.

 

I dont think its going to happen. I'd laugh pretty hard if it did but...I'm not holding out hope.

 

The Alpha Legion comment above, the how many threads that are still out there, dangling, cut short, unresolved.

 

Remember when that was the justification for 3 volumes? "Well Abnett has to wrap it all up!" they said....

 

He didnt. Now, SELFISH as I am...I just wanted the Emperor and Horus facedown to go well, and for my dollars, it was good enough. I would have LOVED if he had actually been permitted to go into the Emperor's post Unity past, actually put proof to what Horus was saying from the Emperors perspective...but we didnt get that. We didnt get my greek tragedy.

 

Abnett told a story in the end, and yes, he 100% absolutely did change characters on a whim to suit that story.

 

I'm easy to please though, and I'll take V3 at least. I cannot fathom how anyone think V1 is even worth holding on to as emergency paper though.

Scribe Venerable Brother

Scribe

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, DuskRaider said:

Don’t worry, all those unfinished storylines and unanswered questions will be revealed in the upcoming Scouring series, only 250 books to read and half are limited edition. 

 

lol not by me.

 

If  HH proved anything, and SoT only reinforced, and TEatD finalized, there is no need to keep up on these things, as there is absolutely no coherent plan.

 

This was the End of the series, and the Death of my interest in what BL releases. I'll likely never buy another Abnett, I'll pick up Wraight/French when I can, and the only things I really want to see, are for ADB to add to his work for Black Legion, and Spears.

 

Very few of the Primarchs series were actually good. Maybe half of the SoT was good. A third of TEaTD was good, an absolute FRACTION of HH was good.

 

Scouring? I'll leave it to the major events, and only if its by my personal Holy Trinity.

 

Give me some more Night Lords ADB. Give me Black Legion. SO MANY plotlines left aborted, going nowhere now.

 

The laughter of thirsting Gods indeed.

The Praetorian of Inwit Battle-Brother

The Praetorian of Inwit

Posted
Posted

I read The End abd the Death Volume III it one sitting today. Was it perfect, of course not. Did I find it to be a satisfying book to read and a solid enough conclusion to the series, absolutely. I personally enjoyed it and thought Abnett did a good job. I actually got a bit emotional at the end there you know. 

 

I really hope we get a Scouring series at some point. 

Krelious Battle-Brother

Krelious

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

lol not by me.

 

If  HH proved anything, and SoT only reinforced, and TEatD finalized, there is no need to keep up on these things, as there is absolutely no coherent plan.

 

This was the End of the series, and the Death of my interest in what BL releases. I'll likely never buy another Abnett, I'll pick up Wraight/French when I can, and the only things I really want to see, are for ADB to add to his work for Black Legion, and Spears.

 

Very few of the Primarchs series were actually good. Maybe half of the SoT was good. A third of TEaTD was good, an absolute FRACTION of HH was good.

 

Scouring? I'll leave it to the major events, and only if its by my personal Holy Trinity.

 

Give me some more Night Lords ADB. Give me Black Legion. SO MANY plotlines left aborted, going nowhere now.

 

The laughter of thirsting Gods indeed.

I think your post answered your own assessment that the reason why the HH and SoT were such middling quality is that you cant tell a proper story and have 10+ different authors working on it.  SOT itself I would have cut Solar War, First Wall, most of Saturnine,  andMortis as the kind of meat of it, the way this series went on and on is just a bad joke.  I have no comment on TEaTD but really it should have been about the events immediately after EoE last ditch effort to defend the palace while big E and crew board the Vengeful sprit. By general idea is that 2 volumes should have been good enough while 3 is just obscene.  I honestly dont know what the :cuss: they were thinking other than trying to make as much money as possible publishing swill to milk stupid nerds for as much as possible.  For me the recent pre-order fiasco and leaks that ive avoided for the most part have left a bad taste in my mouth as I wanted to read the entirety of the 3 books in one go. 

 

I'd imagine someone like ADB is looking at TEaTD and wondering when he can get out of his contract with BL and move on to making his own book series quite frankly I think hes too good for Warhammer 40k at this point. 

Scribe Venerable Brother

Scribe

Posted
Posted
28 minutes ago, Krelious said:

I'd imagine someone like ADB is looking at TEaTD and wondering when he can get out of his contract with BL and move on to making his own book series quite frankly I think hes too good for Warhammer 40k at this point. 

 

I dont think I would go that far. I love his work, but I was thinking about this as I walked my dog.

 

I'm old. My passions run colder every day. The pull of HH/40K, is something that only has its strength due to my attachment to it. A new IP? A new property? A new setting?

 

I dont have the time, energy, desire (especially desire) to care.

 

I honestly didnt think I would make it with the HH to this point even.

 

We are at the 'head canon to make it make sense' stage with this, and thats just how its going to have to be.

grailkeeper Venerable Brother

grailkeeper

Posted
Posted

I enjoyed the third book. I was pretty vocal about the weaknesses of the first two, which were largely absent from this book. It was still a bit verbose in parts (the Lorgrar section read liked the author had gotten a dictionary on diviniation and wanted to show off all the new words he knew) but not to the point of becoming unreadable like the first text. The constant repetition of part 2 was gone. It was good that there was no repetition. The lack of repetition was an improvement, I liked that it wasn't so repetitive. Repetition in part 2 about time was repetitive and I'm glad that its gone. 

 

However I do think that the three books could have been edited down into two or just one and would be the stronger for it. 

Roomsky Veteran

Roomsky

Posted
Posted (edited)

Can we get an additional thread for Siege and/or series-wide management discussions? I think they're worthing having now that the Heresy's """""done""""" - but reviews of V3 will probably get buried by them.

 

Anyway, I think I'm about a third of the way in. It's pretty good, but it also reads like it's the ending to a series that happened, like, one reality over where Abnett had more control over everything. From the Fidelitas Lex to Pert's reflections to Lorgar having faith in Erebus to pretending Azkaellon was ever actually a character, I feel like I'm reading a very strong finale to some other series.

Edited by Roomsky
EverythingIsGreat Battle-Brother

EverythingIsGreat

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Scribe said:

We are at the 'head canon to make it make sense' stage with this, and thats just how its going to have to be.

 

I'm afraid that you are right.

 

But I am glad none of you guys picked up that athame. Btw, where is it?

DuskRaider Venerable Brother

DuskRaider

Posted
Posted (edited)
8 hours ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

I'm afraid that you are right.

 

But I am glad none of you guys picked up that athame. Btw, where is it?

Spoiler

Isn’t it currently chillin in Loken’s spine?

 

Edited by Brother Lunkhead
spoiler use... under review
SkimaskMohawk Venerable Brother

SkimaskMohawk

Posted
Posted

I finished* the book earlier this afternoon, and with it the end of the heresy series. I've read my share of book series over the years, some big mainstream ones, and some small and out of the way. Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Malazan book of the fallen, memory sorrow and thorn, wheel of time, coldfire, etc...And that's saying nothing about the high quality 40k series like gaunts ghosts, night lords, and fabius bile. Anyways, when I finished all these series, I'd always get a little (or large) feeling of disbelief that it was over and I wouldn't get to experience anything new in those worlds. 

 

I was relieved that I didn't have to read any more siege of terra/horus heresy when I finished. I simply don't care about the setting for new novels, be it Nightfall, the final primarchs book, the scouring, or anything else. I'm done with GW multi-author series.

 

Spoiler

Horus dies, the emperor effectively dies, loken finally dies, and so does my ability to care.

 

The book is better than vol 1 or 2. It makes me interested in the main premise of horus vs. the emperor. Their huge ol fight is a marvel in not getting boring, and I've come off of re/reads of other books where the protagonist combat is a huge drag for the page count it takes up (son of the forest, Khârn eater of worlds resurrection scene); I really liked how weird and arcane it got. I really liked horus' perspective, even though @wecanhaveallthree reminded me that horus should not actually be thinking like this post StD. I was still very interested in actae/moriana, even though the last name being the same as one of the chosen by chance is...eh. I really liked the blood angels rage moments as I described earlier, and honestly would have liked more of those horror-esque sequences (and I know abnett can do horror well after Anarach). I also really liked the moment where Vulkan thought malcador was still alive against all logic, that was a really touching scene. I liked the book, much in the same way that I liked vol 2. But that was premised on ignoring everything I didn't like about that book, and the same holds true here.

 

Abnett gets basic :cuss: wrong for the third book in a row. I don't like that, and I think excusing a professional if his caliber with "people make mistakes" is a non starter; they're facts that are easy to double check. Abnett re-does character arcs needlessly. I don't like that, it's needless and again, comes off as not doing his homework, or not being professional enough to tie it into the previous arc. Abnett does bad versions of characters. I don't like that, but I'm going to go easier on this one; abnett's weakest characters have always been marines, always, always, always. His marines being bad and his custodes being worse should have been expected going into his siege books. Abnett making valdors signature line "damn you!". I don't like that, it's super corny and makes me reconsider going easy on the last point. Abnett creating pointless side plots. I don't like stuff that wasted my time and isn't even that interesting in it's dangling thread; fos weapon absolutely didn't matter and we got wayyyyy too much siege time devoted to it, olly piers didn't matter, the interrogators didn't really matter, and I'm going to come clean and say I don't think the astronomicon subplot mattered when it could have been wrapped in one book.

 

Actually, let me ramble about that and abnett's claim in the afterword that the B plots had to be as important as the main event. I appreciate him explaining his thought process and rational, truly. I respectfully and fundamentally, disagree. I really didn't feel like a bunch of the subplots payed off; the astronomicon could have been fixed by the DA at the last minute just due to sheer esotericness and warp interference. It didn't need all the DA battles, it didn't need keeler's pilgrimage, and it didn't need sigismund. We didn't need keelers refugees to add to the desperateness in vol 1. We didn't need fafnir and zephon eating up screen time for the payoff just to be the chase sequence (which has to info-dump how much he liked askaellon because we were never shown it in the previous volumes). We certainly didn't need screen time for xanthus and fo. That asterisk about having finished the book way at the top? I super-skimmed the last dark angels sections because I didn't care; I knew the astronomicon would be reignited, because I know the traitors lose and get chased off.  I also find it funny how he talks about making sure the transitions between echos and vol 1 were smooth...when they weren't at all.

 

So ya, I liked the good stuff, and will try to block all the dumb :cuss: out and pretend it was done better; characters acted like they were written by their premiere authors and I'm going to pretend I didn't waste my time reading anything about fo, keeler, or xanthous throughout the last half of the siege.

 

As for the deliberate change? I kinda like the original Big E holding out version more. It kinda feels better to me in the sense that Horus was super-duped the entire time, and also fits in with the chaos marine narrative of Horus being weak and for all his compromises to chaos he still ultimately got clowned on. I don't hate the new version by any means at the moment, it just feels a little off, like horus losing to a ruse while being stronger the entire time doesn't really make as good of a point about the heresy or chaos, idk. 

 

I'll finish off by saying I really felt nothing when the emperor "died". The problem with having a character kinda absent the entire series, having very few interactions, them all being subjectively tooled experiences, and never being in his head is that you have no attachment or relationship with him. I cared more about horus honestly, just on the strength of his viewpoint.

 

Pretty solid/10, I'll freak out when i see claims of.perfection, 10s, or "no other way to wrap it up"

Fedor Battle-Brother

Fedor

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

lol not by me.

 

If  HH proved anything, and SoT only reinforced, and TEatD finalized, there is no need to keep up on these things, as there is absolutely no coherent plan.

 

This was the End of the series, and the Death of my interest in what BL releases. I'll likely never buy another Abnett, I'll pick up Wraight/French when I can, and the only things I really want to see, are for ADB to add to his work for Black Legion, and Spears.

 

Very few of the Primarchs series were actually good. Maybe half of the SoT was good. A third of TEaTD was good, an absolute FRACTION of HH was good.

 

Scouring? I'll leave it to the major events, and only if its by my personal Holy Trinity.

 

Give me some more Night Lords ADB. Give me Black Legion. SO MANY plotlines left aborted, going nowhere now.

 

The laughter of thirsting Gods indeed.

 

And so we see the final destination of the "only two or three authors can write 40k, but those that can...they are masters who do no wrong" mindset that has been an anchor around a contingent of the fanbase for a long time now.

 

You could just read newer authors you're not too familiar with if the synopsis takes your fancy. Convincing yourself that only a tiny number of exalted old-guard (by now at least) writers have the voice or chops to do 40k justice is an excercise in dialling down critical-reading in favour of a comfort zone that borders on fanboy delusion at times.

Scribe Venerable Brother

Scribe

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, Fedor said:

 

And so we see the final destination of the "only two or three authors can write 40k, but those that can...they are masters who do no wrong" mindset that has been an anchor around a contingent of the fanbase for a long time now.

 

You could just read newer authors you're not too familiar with if the synopsis takes your fancy. Convincing yourself that only a tiny number of exalted old-guard (by now at least) writers have the voice or chops to do 40k justice is an excercise in dialling down critical-reading in favour of a comfort zone that borders on fanboy delusion at times.

 

Nah, I'm tired of wasting my time, effort to even get the books, and money.

 

It's OK to like what you like, and pass on the rest.

 

I'm quite sure that others can write for 40K, I'm positive actually. Hell I am not even sure I care to read 40K anymore. 

 

But if I want a Steak, why would I go to an Italian restaurant that specializes in its Pasta?

 

Abnett is an amazing writer, for people who are not me, and the same goes for a ton of other authors.

 

I'm over it.

Marshal Rohr Venerable Brother

Marshal Rohr

Posted
Posted

I’m through a good bit so far, did they intend for the final three books to be stand alone? They’re covering a lot of ground that has already been covered and in some cases just changing stuff. 

MarineRaiderII Novitiate

MarineRaiderII

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

Nah, I'm tired of wasting my time, effort to even get the books, and money.

 

It's OK to like what you like, and pass on the rest.

 

I'm quite sure that others can write for 40K, I'm positive actually. Hell I am not even sure I care to read 40K anymore. 

 

But if I want a Steak, why would I go to an Italian restaurant that specializes in its Pasta?

 

Abnett is an amazing writer, for people who are not me, and the same goes for a ton of other authors.

 

I'm over it.

I get that.

 

I have started a second reading although paused for the NFL right now. I am trying to wrap my head around how can you have this many pages and not mention what happened to Land or the Fabricator Generals thoughts as this comes to ...end and death. I really liked Land and his metal owl, one of the best stories I read was Master of Mankind and really liked him and the Blood Angel. Call me crazy but MoM and Wolfsbane were my two favorite books in the HH. Sure the first couple were great but those two were just books I re-read. 

 

You had the ability to write 100 more pages, no one cared about the page count anymore so give us closure. Not sure how this book does not end with the Emperor being placed on the throne so I suppose there are some other books coming. Many of us wanted to see those UM's landing on Terra and laying waste to the traitors. Of course I was impressed with the UM fleet having 3200 capital ships until they mentioned how big Horus's fleet was....;)

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