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

[DukeLeto69]

6 minutes ago, Scribe said:

And you can bring all the disagrees you like, while we are hammered with Abnett's 'prose' for another 1200 pages as Dorn walks with Khorne, and Malcador contemplates his navel and clocks continue to running out, I will reflect upon them deeply.

 

Emperor doing what exactly in Book 2? Tune in next time for 'How I walked a starship for 600 pages and accomplished nothing.'

Book 2 isn’t even out yet let alone book 3. Maybe at least wait until you have read the books before deciding how you feel about them!

[Scribe]

Just now, DukeLeto69 said:

Book 2 isn’t even out yet let alone book 3. Maybe at least wait until you have read the books before deciding how you feel about them!

 

Maybe, but considering the inexcusable bloat and retcon's he has to have pushed through here, I am not holding my breath.

 

ADB did his part. The door was closed, Sanguinus held, and the VS had its shields down.

 

Thats the part of the Heresy, the SoT, that HE was responsible for.

 

Abnett couldnt even take the next step without first back tracking, and trampling over the work of others. Cool.

 

Now we have what, left the air lock on the Spirit? Finally? And for what?

 

Sorry, book 1 was just simply not good, as part of the SERIES that was the SoT. As a stand alone trilogy? Sure? Maybe? Its pretty opaque and convoluted in its writing, but whatever the editor felt compelled to step out of the way it seems.

 

Book 2 is what? Sanguinius dies. OK. Are we going to have to endure any setting shaking, foundational shifts in lore just because Abnett thought it was a good idea? Perpetual what? Probably.

 

How else are we getting to the point where we need a bloody 3rd door stopper? It makes no sense.

[System Sound]

37 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

ADB did nothing wrong. They were not his plot lines to carry to conclusion, and in fact none of them could be carried to conclusion in his entry anyway.

While true and I liked EoE a lot (besides too much volkite), retconing Magnus encounter with the emperor was a :cuss: move. That thread was closed and should have been closed... Then again how much of that is ADBs choice is up for debate too I guess.

[Scribe]

5 minutes ago, System Sound said:

While true and I liked EoE a lot (besides too much volkite), retconing Magnus encounter with the emperor was a move. That thread was closed and should have been closed... Then again how much of that is ADBs choice is up for debate too I guess.

That's probably fair.

 

My dog probably needs to be put down, so you got a peek into how I feel about this whole book 3 thing, despite my better judgment. ;)

[Roomsky]

33 minutes ago, System Sound said:

While true and I liked EoE a lot (besides too much volkite), retconing Magnus encounter with the emperor was a move. That thread was closed and should have been closed... Then again how much of that is ADBs choice is up for debate too I guess.

 

I mean he said he wrote it in concert with McNeill, and the subtext about Vulkan's perception of events being altered borders on just being text. I just read it as ADB's usual unreliable narrator schtick. The Emperor does need Vulkan to go in there and murder one of his brothers, after all.

 

I'd once again like to point out that a lot of this worry is born from Abnett spending the back half of part 1 on what is essentially filler. If part 1 was PACKED with plot I'd be stoked for 2 more entries. If this next book is more in the vein of Rann and Zephon, I will be the big sad.

 

Srry to hear about your dog Scribe I hope they get better.

[Corinthus]

I guess it will always be blaming Abnett for the whole HH mess and praising ADB for anything he writes, even though his contribution to the finale was by no means close to what he is capable to do. EoE was just another "we have to go from A to B" book and a rehash of many previous plotlines (Khârn/Sigismund and Amit/Kargos; Sanguinius vs Kabanda and then Angron...) and, to me, surprisingly boring. But at this point, we could say that about the whole Siege series. To be honest, I would only re-read Solar War and Saturnine, even Wraight's book felt like a chore and not very connected to his Scars arc. In this mess of what? 60+ books for the HH and SoT series? the plot was lost a long time ago (for me, it certainly feels like Slave to Darkness was a turning point of what could have been possible for the ending, through Lorgar's involvement).

 

So why keep reading a story we all know how it ends? That was completely explained in a little snippet of lore at the beginning of the hobby? For me, the answer is that I've always loved W40k, and I always liked Abnett's books. This also applies to ADB and, more recently, to Wraight. It was always going to be a mess, the level of success of the first books was never meant to be and it was painful to reach the finishing line. So now we are here and the story, which we always knew how it went, is going to end. Why keep pushing and arguing about a story that was chaotic (no pun intended) from the beginning? I think Abnett and perpetuals plotline was the result of a difficult task given to him, to add a new element to an otherwise inalterable story that had to end the way it has been told for all these decades.

 

Just two more books and we will finally be free.

[Fedor]

That Cloak of Infinite Darkness is getting bigger by the cover, verging on ridiculous. It almost looks like an unintentionally comedic scenario, where the feathers at his feet make it seem like the Emperor has tripped over the Angel's obscured body, entirely missing his attack because of it.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Fedor

[DukeLeto69]

I really have liked all of ADBs novels for BL. I really have liked most of Abnett’s novels, hated one (TUE), and absolutely loved (and havecre-read) several of his novels.

 

This really isn’t a “my fav author is better than your fav author” point of discussion.

 

I just find it odd that ADB gets praised for the things Abnett gets accused of. ADB writes his entry to a multi-author series that doesn’t carry on various plot-lines and charts it’s own course yay! But by the God Emperor if Abnett drops a book that is it’s own thing then he is not a team player and only focuses on what he wants to write boo!

 

i’ll reserve judgement until they are all out and gird my loins for that marathon 3 book trek.

 

As I said earlier, there are probably a few reasons we are getting a final trilogy:

 

1. Abnett needed a big word count to tie up a tonne of unresolved plots from the entire HH series (they won’t all be tied up).

 

2. Abnett kept writing (though I still maintain that I do not believe he initially wrote 3 SoT length novels, more like 2 and a bit and then Kyme/BL said, give us some more, enough to fill out to 3 books, so we inevitably get some “filler”.

 

3. The GW bean counters got very excited about milking this dried up old cow just one more time.

 

 

[Scribe]

33 minutes ago, DukeLeto69 said:

I just find it odd that ADB gets praised for the things Abnett gets accused of.

 

Did ADB complete his brief within the single book alotted?

 

Did ADB saddle the entire series with additions that others are seemingly expected to pick up and add to their own books?

 

Did ADB add TWO full novels, totally another year to the 'planned and tightly coordinated' series capstone?

 

What plots and arcs did Abnett concluded in his first 600 pages of his book?

[darkhorse0607]

I wonder how much of this animosity (myself included) is due to the fact that Warhammer fans aren't used to this structure of something like this.

 

Honestly, when was the last time that we got a book that almost had to be part of a series to feel complete?

 

Horus Rising/False Gods/Galaxy in Flames, clearly a trilogy with an overarching set of characters, but each had their own individual story and could honestly be read on their own

 

Scars/Path of Heaven/Warhawk. Same thing

 

First Heretic/Betrayer/Slaves to Darkness (last one is a stretch but it still kind of works), again, all follow the same legions for at least part of the novels but can stand alone.

 

Shoot, even leaving the Heresy, things like the Night Lords Trilogy, Blood Angels trilogy (Haleys, not Swallows), Dark Imperium etc, all benefit from being read together but can stand on their own so the wait between the books isn't as bad.

 

End and the Death is different. By itself, part 1 doesn't really have its own story with a concluding segment. In fact it only opens more doors (library segment pun intentional). If you read it by its own, which BL is forcing folks to do with extended waits in between, it doesn't really work as something to build hype towards the next entry.

 

 

I dunno. Black Library shower thoughts really

[Scribe]

Just now, darkhorse0607 said:

I wonder how much of this animosity (myself included) is due to the fact that Warhammer fans aren't used to this structure of something like this.

 

 

I'm 100% tilted over the extra, unnecessary and blatantly padded out filler books.

 

The annoyance however is 100% over mistaken whataboutism.

 

2 minutes ago, darkhorse0607 said:

End and the Death is different. By itself, part 1 doesn't really have its own story with a concluding segment. In fact it only opens more doors (library segment pun intentional). If you read it by its own, which BL is forcing folks to do with extended waits in between, it doesn't really work as something to build hype towards the next entry.

 

And this is why any comparison to other authors utterly fails and is so maddening.

 

Name another author who had multiple SoT books and couldnt finish his brief.

 

I'll wait.

[Osteoclast]

1 hour ago, darkhorse0607 said:

I wonder how much of this animosity (myself included) is due to the fact that Warhammer fans aren't used to this structure of something like this.

 

Honestly, when was the last time that we got a book that almost had to be part of a series to feel complete?

This question only seems to make sense with the assumption that we’re not reading any series outside of Warhammer and that’s a really weird assumption. 

[Roomsky]

1 hour ago, Osteoclast said:

This question only seems to make sense with the assumption that we’re not reading any series outside of Warhammer and that’s a really weird assumption. 

 

I think it's a combination of what darkhorse is suggesting and the fact that we already know how it ends. With an unfinished series that doesn't have 3 acts in each book (I dunno, the Witcher or something,) on your first time reading even the slow bits are interesting because you don't know how they all might develop and resolve.

 

While there's a measure of that here, it's mostly us going "okay so now Horus fights Sanguinius, then the Emperor. Ollanius will make it to the Spirit and do something. How do you fill 2 full novels with that?" We know a bunch of the running plot threads aren't going to terminate on the Spirit, and while I do like wide stories, there's a point where you start to wonder why this stuff is even in here.

[Noserenda]

Its not even written as a trilogy, book one just... ends and from Abnetts own words it sounds like Book 2 will do the same thing. As mentioned up thread, if the book was tight and rammed with content it would be awesome but so far it just isnt.

[EverythingIsGreat]

Bloat may be all kinds of things.
I enjoyed Saturnine, even when it may have deviated from previous/expected lore. But in the context of the Horus Heresy/Siege of Terra it was unnecessary. This was an action based on biting the bait of the oldest tactical subterfuge in the military playbook, inevitably doomed to fail. Its impact on the overall strategic situation (if one can call the pea soup of the Siege that) was in effect, zero, and tactically an inconsequential hiccup. In real-world war history it would be relegated, at most, to a footnote. In a proper dramatization of fictional (future) history of a galaxywide campaign it could be told, very nicely and adequately, in a chapter.

But an entire book? No matter how well written and enjoyable (imo it was), one can still see this as bloat that weakens the focus of the telling and distracts from events that really mattered.

Sure, the endless End is excessive. But in the context of all the previous unnecessarily highlighted detours I think it is hardly worth getting upset over.
 

[DukeLeto69]

4 hours ago, Noserenda said:

Its not even written as a trilogy, book one just... ends and from Abnetts own words it sounds like Book 2 will do the same thing. As mentioned up thread, if the book was tight and rammed with content it would be awesome but so far it just isnt.

 

I will have to reserve judgement until we have all three, but I do strongly believe when Abnett stopped writing there was a word count for over two books but not three. Two things could have happened then:

 

1. Editor/publisher says “we need to cut this down to two books, what can go?”

 

2. Editor/publisher says “we can milk this baby with a third book but we need another XX,000 words from you!”

 

They went with the second option.

 

Even as an Abnett fan, I would have preferred option 1. It IS bloat and it DOES smack of fleecing my wallet!

 

It was Matthew Farrer (I think) that set the precedent for writing a long book that gets split into two with Urdesh. Marketing/Sales love it as we are all invested so guaranteed sales.

 

I just don’t see how so much blame can be levelled at the author (while giving other authors a pass).

 

You can be damn sure if BL had said to Abnett “the brief is for 100k words and that is all we are paying for, them Abnett would have delivered 100k words (he remains an author for hire working in existing IP). But that would have probably had an unsatisfying truncated ending and everyone would be moaning about the sheer volume of unresolved plots or being upset we never saw a scene with character xyz.

 

Maybe once the HH is finished Readers Digest can release a trilogy covering the whole lot?

[DukeLeto69]

4 hours ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

Bloat may be all kinds of things.
I enjoyed Saturnine, even when it may have deviated from previous/expected lore. But in the context of the Horus Heresy/Siege of Terra it was unnecessary. This was an action based on biting the bait of the oldest tactical subterfuge in the military playbook, inevitably doomed to fail. Its impact on the overall strategic situation (if one can call the pea soup of the Siege that) was in effect, zero, and tactically an inconsequential hiccup. In real-world war history it would be relegated, at most, to a footnote. In a proper dramatization of fictional (future) history of a galaxywide campaign it could be told, very nicely and adequately, in a chapter.

But an entire book? No matter how well written and enjoyable (imo it was), one can still see this as bloat that weakens the focus of the telling and distracts from events that really mattered.

Sure, the endless End is excessive. But in the context of all the previous unnecessarily highlighted detours I think it is hardly worth getting upset over.
 

That accusation could levelled at most of the books (or substantial sections of them) in the SoT mini series, heck the whole HH series. The number of detours from the “main plot” was huge.

 

BUT

 

What is the main plot? If you were writing a comprehensive series of novels about WWII, what would be the main plot? Who would be the focus? By focusing on them, how much of the rest of the story if WWII will you need to miss out?

 

IMO the biggest mistake BL made was considering HH a series when clearly (with hindsight) it should have been a setting.

 

As a setting we could have had different books, trilogies, mini series focused on different characters, factions, and theatres of war. Abnett could have written his Perpetual series and @Scribe could have ignored it :-) 

[theSpirea]

1 hour ago, DukeLeto69 said:

It was Matthew Farrer (I think) that set the precedent for writing a long book that gets split into two with Urdesh. Marketing/Sales love it as we are all invested so guaranteed sales.

I don't think it's a fair comparison. Urdesh wasn't announced years ahead as a single-book story. The same situation, IIRC, was with Twice-Dead King. 

 

Let's be happy BL still sticks to 100-130K novel lengths. This is very uncommon in the current sci-fi/fantasy publishing. If you want to talk about bloat, Gwynne, Sanderson, Cameron, Ryan, etc. are adding so much filter to their books and putting out 200K novels. And, of course, everything has to be a trilogy now. So we get a 600K words story that could easily be 300K. I do like these writers but it's ridiculous overkill.

[Noserenda]

I've not read the Urdesh books but Twice dead king was a good example of nothing to cut making two books a worthwhile thing. 

 

Like I said, if the content is there it's a great time to have more things, though I'm sure the physical reality of time, money and limited ed stress also hurt.

[DukeLeto69]

2 hours ago, theSpirea said:

I don't think it's a fair comparison. Urdesh wasn't announced years ahead as a single-book story. The same situation, IIRC, was with Twice-Dead King. 

 

Let's be happy BL still sticks to 100-130K novel lengths. This is very uncommon in the current sci-fi/fantasy publishing. If you want to talk about bloat, Gwynne, Sanderson, Cameron, Ryan, etc. are adding so much filter to their books and putting out 200K novels. And, of course, everything has to be a trilogy now. So we get a 600K words story that could easily be 300K. I do like these writers but it's ridiculous overkill.

Urdesh was announced years before its release. Originally with Nik Vincent attached to write. It was a single novel companion piece that was supposed to be released in tandem with Warmaster and Anarch. When it moved to Farrer it took a long time to write (for personal reasons) and grew over time. The decision to split the book came late in the process and involved Farrer moving some elements around to make the split work/be in the right place.

[theSpirea]

17 minutes ago, DukeLeto69 said:

Urdesh was announced years before its release. Originally with Nik Vincent attached to write. It was a single novel companion piece that was supposed to be released in tandem with Warmaster and Anarch. When it moved to Farrer it took a long time to write (for personal reasons) and grew over time. The decision to split the book came late in the process and involved Farrer moving some elements around to make the split work/be in the right place.

Thanks for the info, didn't know Nik was supposed to write it originally. I've read the interview with Farrer and must have missed that.

Maybe the reason why people also feel differently about SoT is because it was many times confirmed to be 8 books, and we know the story. With Urdesh and Twice-Dead King, we didn't know what they will exactly cover.

 

It makes me think if the same is going to happen with the Dawn of Fire series. Originally announced (nothing official, only info from retailers but that comes from GW, so semi-official) as 9 books series. Hope they are not going to drag that one too because Kyme and Collins completely killed it for me.

[EverythingIsGreat]

5 hours ago, DukeLeto69 said:

That accusation could levelled at most of the books (or substantial sections of them) in the SoT mini series, heck the whole HH series. The number of detours from the “main plot” was huge.

 

BUT

 

What is the main plot? If you were writing a comprehensive series of novels about WWII, what would be the main plot? Who would be the focus? By focusing on them, how much of the rest of the story if WWII will you need to miss out?

 

IMO the biggest mistake BL made was considering HH a series when clearly (with hindsight) it should have been a setting.

 

As a setting we could have had different books, trilogies, mini series focused on different characters, factions, and theatres of war. Abnett could have written his Perpetual series and @Scribe could have ignored it :-) 

 

IIRC, Kyme was calling the Horus Heresy a "setting" back when the Series first went into double-digit volume numbers. There were complaints (similar to this thread's) back then that the series was going all over the place. Calling a 10-year slice of a 40000+ year fictional universe a "setting" is a bit of a stretch imo, even if this was the most important action. "30K" would be a setting, a formative state of flux that includes the Unification Wars, the GC, the HH, the Scouring, etc. running a few thousand years at a minimum, leading to the establishment of the "40K" setting proper, which is basically static until M42.

 

It's not rocket science, and the opening trilogy sort of established a blueprint for the HH that probably was set aside for other considerations.

 

1. Describe the environment and sttus quo ante in which the HH takes place.

2. Give a concise account of the causes and reasons

3. Introduce the main actors and their motivations

4. Move on to the money shot of the campaign itself narrating at length the important actions without neglecting peripheral situations that may have future impact

5. Describe the climax of the campaign and the respective strategy and tactics of the opposing sides

6. Provide a critical assessment of the 2 sides' strategy and tactics, their errors and accomplishments

7. Give a concise account of the aftermath, and of the new environment post-campaign, with a description of the status quo post-facto.

 

There's a bunch of competent authors there to tackle all that and bring it to life with the proper literary treatment. That would be a series. Then move to the next campaign in the 30K setting.

 

One can write an engaging history of WWII and then devote an entire book or 5 to the Battle of Britain. Or write a history of the Vietnam War and a hefty volume about Hue, a single action. Both have happened, in some cases with fact-based dramatizations that bring History closer to Literature.

 

The fact that BL is a subsidiary tie-in shop cannot be overemphasized.

[Scribe]

The Heresy as tight plot died over a decade ago, no problem. The retcons, incorrect Legion focus, whatever, it is what it is.

 

The SoT claimed to be better than that or seemed like they wanted it to be.

 

1 Retake the Space Port.

2 Hold the Eternity Gate, Shields are down.

3 Take to the Spirit, Sanguinius dies, Emperor kills Horus, Emperor installed to throne.

 

That's all the last 3 books needed to be. It's not as if Abnett couldn't have put together a great story about this. It could have been an action packed, barn burner from start to finish.

 

Instead "wait what if we don't know the story and I can make it different"

[DukeLeto69]

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

The Heresy as tight plot died over a decade ago, no problem. The retcons, incorrect Legion focus, whatever, it is what it is.

 

The SoT claimed to be better than that or seemed like they wanted it to be.

 

1 Retake the Space Port.

2 Hold the Eternity Gate, Shields are down.

3 Take to the Spirit, Sanguinius dies, Emperor kills Horus, Emperor installed to throne.

 

That's all the last 3 books needed to be. It's not as if Abnett couldn't have put together a great story about this. It could have been an action packed, barn burner from start to finish.

 

Instead "wait what if we don't know the story and I can make it different"

Again though, you appear to pointing all the blame (though whether that is deserved is subjective) on Abnett. He is writing within an IP not original fiction. He would need permission to change things (indeed for the Bequin books he was explicit on needing permission).

 

Even then, if during the writing process Abnett got all “creative” and “ran loose with the lore” there is an editorial process to review and say “nope!”

 

The constant whining about the Perpetuals is an example. Author group meetings to plan the HH and pitch ideas took place. Editors and ID guardians present. Abnett didn’t just think “damn it I’m gonna insert my own idea and see if anyone notices!”

 

There is collective responsibility here. And we can surely see that BL and GW are happy/accept the results or they would have stopped it.

 

It’s the same as people moaning about lore changes. They have always happened. The lore has never really been sacrosanct. It has certainly been mutable. Like it or not, the current HH books from BL and HH game related books are now THE lore, not something William King wrote over 20 years ago.

[Scribe]

1 minute ago, DukeLeto69 said:

There is collective responsibility here. And we can surely see that BL and GW are happy/accept the results or they would have stopped it.

 

There is.

 

The rest of the authors got their books done in 1. They took it upon themselves to responsibly meet the constraints of the brief for the events of the the final days/weeks/months of the Heresy, and they got it done while hitting on the core events of the Heresy's conclusion.

 

Did Abnett?

 

I'm not concerned with if BL or GW are happy about it, or if Kyme could have corrected it. We cannot know these things, but we can assume ($$$$$ for the 2 additional books) they were fine with it.

 

So, fair play to GW, enjoy the extra money coming in.

 

Did Abnett meet the expectation of providing the conclusion in 1 book?

 

The answer is no. There was a collective responsibility, you are right, and he didnt come through.