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

[DukeLeto69]

18 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

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.

Are you honestly saying all the other authors delivered on their brief? Do you actually know what Abnett’s brief was? Seen it? How do you know whether the brief changed as the books got delivered? 8 novels soon became 8 novels and 2 novellas (still think we will get a third). And now it is 10 novels.

 

How do you know what was asked of Abnett when time came round for him to get started? “BTW we need you to cover a few more things ok?”

[Scribe]

2 hours ago, DukeLeto69 said:

Are you honestly saying all the other authors delivered on their brief? Do you actually know what Abnett’s brief was? Seen it? How do you know whether the brief changed as the books got delivered? 8 novels soon became 8 novels and 2 novellas (still think we will get a third). And now it is 10 novels.

 

How do you know what was asked of Abnett when time came round for him to get started? “BTW we need you to cover a few more things ok?”

 

I know 400 odd pages of Book 1 of 3 of 'Book 8' were filler. I assume, that the naked product placement was pushed on him.

 

And yeah, I'm going to assume that every other book that was delivered as a single entity and didnt grotesquely balloon into 3 door stoppers, hit in the general vacinity of what both the author and BL wanted.

 

Otherwise, I mean we do have an Editor here right, it would have gone back to get fixed?

 

Or are you suggesting that BL simply do not do any editorial oversight at all, for anyone?

 

To be very clear, I said a week ago that I blame (play? weird autocorrect) Kyme as well. ;)

Edited August 10, 2023 by Scribe

[Ubiquitous1984]

I think the discussion is missing some perspective now.

 

Dan wrote a book wrapping up the series.  It was delivered to BL as one book.  BL were cool with it going over the established 600ish page maximum.  They could have simply said ‘no, Dan; it has to be 600 pages max. They didn’t, instead they encouraged him to write as much as he wanted.  

 

It was finished a minimum of two years ago.  

 

It was BL who decided to cut it into three volumes and stagger the release over nearly 18 months.  

 

They could have easily released it as an omnibus/trilogy boxset.  BL choose not to.  That’s not on the author, that’s squarely on the publisher.  

 

95% of the discussions in this thread would be redundant if the book that Dan had delivered in full two years ago had been released in one tranche.  Because the filler in book one will probably lead into something in book two or three (Dan has already alluded to this, in his recent interview with warcom).

 

I dunno.  It all seems pretty pointless having the debate taking shots at the author when the books aren’t even out, even though the publisher has had it in its possession for two years.  

[Scribe]

19 minutes ago, Ubiquitous1984 said:

I dunno.  It all seems pretty pointless having the debate taking shots at the author when the books aren’t even out, even though the publisher has had it in its possession for two years.  

 

I have 2 issues, 3 I suppose.

 

1. There is no defending Part 1. I wont even call it 'Book 1' if we want to be generous and say its all 'one book' as per Abnetts view. Part 1 is absolutely PACKED with filler.

2. If he wrote it too long, and he seemingly did, then this is both his fault, and BL's for saying 'no worries, expand it'. Thats on them both.

3. The ultimate issue here is that its somehow the fault of OTHER AUTHORS for not carrying through the extraneous plot lines ABNETT ADDED, and so Abnett HAD to make the ending 3x the size it needed to be, if not longer.

 

This is not taking shots at the author, this is pushing back against it the concepts that it 'had to happen' and that its somehow the OTHER AUTHORS at fault for the length dramatically bloating.

 

Really, I was over it until that. To blame the rest of the authors is just gross.

[Ubiquitous1984]

31 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

I have 2 issues, 3 I suppose.

 

1. There is no defending Part 1. I wont even call it 'Book 1' if we want to be generous and say its all 'one book' as per Abnetts view. Part 1 is absolutely PACKED with filler.

2. If he wrote it too long, and he seemingly did, then this is both his fault, and BL's for saying 'no worries, expand it'. Thats on them both.

3. The ultimate issue here is that its somehow the fault of OTHER AUTHORS for not carrying through the extraneous plot lines ABNETT ADDED, and so Abnett HAD to make the ending 3x the size it needed to be, if not longer.

 

This is not taking shots at the author, this is pushing back against it the concepts that it 'had to happen' and that its somehow the OTHER AUTHORS at fault for the length dramatically bloating.

 

Really, I was over it until that. To blame the rest of the authors is just gross.

Well, either way, BL had the option to release the books as one big release and they chose not to.  Stretching them out over approx 18 months (coupled with the stress of actually buying them) has really taken the fun out of the story IMO.  

 

I wish I had the self discipline to hold off until book three was out, and then read them all at once as intended by the author.  We’ve never had an epic length BL novel before, so it would have been a neat experience.  

[Scribe]

8 minutes ago, Ubiquitous1984 said:

Well, either way, BL had the option to release the books as one big release and they chose not to.  Stretching them out over approx 18 months (coupled with the stress of actually buying them) has really taken the fun out of the story IMO.  

 

No disagreement there.

[Osteoclast]

1 hour ago, Ubiquitous1984 said:

I think the discussion is missing some perspective now.

 

Dan wrote a book wrapping up the series.  It was delivered to BL as one book.  BL were cool with it going over the established 600ish page maximum.  They could have simply said ‘no, Dan; it has to be 600 pages max. They didn’t, instead they encouraged him to write as much as he wanted.  

 

It was finished a minimum of two years ago.  

 

It was BL who decided to cut it into three volumes and stagger the release over nearly 18 months.  

 

They could have easily released it as an omnibus/trilogy boxset.  BL choose not to.  That’s not on the author, that’s squarely on the publisher.  

 

95% of the discussions in this thread would be redundant if the book that Dan had delivered in full two years ago had been released in one tranche.  Because the filler in book one will probably lead into something in book two or three (Dan has already alluded to this, in his recent interview with warcom).

 

I dunno.  It all seems pretty pointless having the debate taking shots at the author when the books aren’t even out, even though the publisher has had it in its possession for two years.  

Seems fair to me to take shots at an author who has one job (depict the fight on the Vengeful Spirit), has plenty of room for it, has had everything set up, and doesn’t manage to move the plot any further than where the previous book ended. Six hundred pages to play with gives you a hundred pages in front and back each for Malcador and getting there and “throw him in the throne!” and still gives you a longer than book one of the Siege length to write that confrontation. It is straight up inexcusable for Abnett to not be able to write a book within that limit. 
 

Yes, BL and their “editors” screwed up and should’ve told Abnett to pound sand. But that doesn’t excuse Abnett at all. 

[DukeLeto69]

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

 

I have 2 issues, 3 I suppose.

 

1. There is no defending Part 1. I wont even call it 'Book 1' if we want to be generous and say its all 'one book' as per Abnetts view. Part 1 is absolutely PACKED with filler.

2. If he wrote it too long, and he seemingly did, then this is both his fault, and BL's for saying 'no worries, expand it'. Thats on them both.

3. The ultimate issue here is that its somehow the fault of OTHER AUTHORS for not carrying through the extraneous plot lines ABNETT ADDED, and so Abnett HAD to make the ending 3x the size it needed to be, if not longer.

 

This is not taking shots at the author, this is pushing back against it the concepts that it 'had to happen' and that its somehow the OTHER AUTHORS at fault for the length dramatically bloating.

 

Really, I was over it until that. To blame the rest of the authors is just gross.

Nobody is blaming the other authors. It is different to say they have collective responsibility and few are blameless.

 

Take Thorpe’s book. How many words were dedicated to the train journey? Did that page count manage to close off any other outstanding plotlines from throughout the HH series (this isn’t only about perpetuals, there are plenty of dangling threads). It was all entertaining enough, but it introduced all new characters and did little to really progress the SoT plot(s).

 

Would have to go back through the relevant book threads but I am pretty sure Haley and French also copped some flack. Also pretty sure ADB copped some flack (as did Abnett for Saturnine).

 

I think saying “To blame the rest of the authors is just gross.” is somewhat over the top!

[Scribe]

2 minutes ago, DukeLeto69 said:

I think saying “To blame the rest of the authors is just gross.” is somewhat over the top!

 

You are free to think so.

[DukeLeto69]

5 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

You are free to think so.

As are you to disagree. A discussion about sci-fantasy novels based on plastic soldiers doesn’t need to get do heated up. Certainly doesn’t need so much shade being thrown over individual authors (and on such a regular basis and on books not even released yet).

 

Just took a quick look at the last two pages of the EoE thread and immediately saw this...

 

”I agree with Roomsky (and others) re: this working really well as a novel, though less as an entry in the ongoing Siege series as completely ignores a lot of threads”

[Scribe]

4 minutes ago, DukeLeto69 said:

As are you to disagree. A discussion about sci-fantasy novels based on plastic soldiers doesn’t need to get do heated up. Certainly doesn’t need so much shade being thrown over individual authors (and on such a regular basis and on books not even released yet).

 

Just took a quick look at the last two pages of the EoE thread and immediately saw this...

 

”I agree with Roomsky (and others) re: this working really well as a novel, though less as an entry in the ongoing Siege series as completely ignores a lot of threads”

And?

 

Name the author who didn't cover the check post items within their book.

 

It's that simple.

 

You decided to bring other authors into it with a false equivalency not me.

 

If ADB needed to write 3 books, and BL allowed him to do it, then maybe you would have a point.

 

He didn't though, and your comparison remains flawed.

[Scribe]

Disagree all you like. Page 28 of the Echos thread you call it out yourself and I agreed. The series fell off the rails lol 

 

Comically I just realized Abnett is actually going to have 4 SoT books. And you still want to pin any of the bloat on ADB???

 

After French did the lifting in Mortis?!?

Edited August 10, 2023 by Scribe

[cheywood]

I wish I had more passion about this topic. Yeah, The End and The Death V1 is more bloated than a Great Unclean One. Yeah, Abnett’s prose in it is excessive even by BL standards. Yeah, I have no idea how Abnett’s got two more massive novels worth of story to tell. Yeah, the Siege has been dreadfully mismanaged by Kyme et al organizationally speaking. But I just don’t especially care about any of that. I love Volume 1 (still a little ways from the end of The End admittedly). 40k is supposed to be a maximalist mess and I love that Abnett decided to embrace that as only he can. 
 

More philosophically I love the contrast between Echoes and The End. 40k, to me, is about two things: the insane, nigh endless scale of the Imperium and the various foes it faces, and the human (or occasionally xenos) experience of being a cog in a system so large. To me Echoes just about perfectly captures the human experience in 40k. I cried reading that book more times than I can remember. It’s filled with pathos and rage, it’s a perfect encapsulation both of what it’s like to rage against the dying of the light and to descend into madness, howling the names of mad gods into the wind. The End on the other hand captures the absurdity and immensity of 40k brilliantly. It’s throwing everything at the wall, then picking up the wall and throwing that too. It’s a million little moments all stitched together into this mosaic tapestry of savagery, delusion, desperation and hope. Only Abnett would attempt such a thing, and only he could make it less than a monstrous disappointment, though I’m sure @Scribe and others will disagree (and I don’t think they’re necessarily wrong from a literary criticism standpoint). 

Edited August 11, 2023 by cheywood

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

1 hour ago, Osteoclast said:

Seems fair to me to take shots at an author who has one job (depict the fight on the Vengeful Spirit), has plenty of room for it, has had everything set up, and doesn’t manage to move the plot any further than where the previous book ended. Six hundred pages to play with gives you a hundred pages in front and back each for Malcador and getting there and “throw him in the throne!” and still gives you a longer than book one of the Siege length to write that confrontation. It is straight up inexcusable for Abnett to not be able to write a book within that limit. 
 

Yes, BL and their “editors” screwed up and should’ve told Abnett to pound sand. But that doesn’t excuse Abnett at all. 

 

46 minutes ago, DukeLeto69 said:

Nobody is blaming the other authors. It is different to say they have collective responsibility and few are blameless.

 

[Corinthus]

4 hours ago, Ubiquitous1984 said:

I think the discussion is missing some perspective now.

 

Dan wrote a book wrapping up the series.  It was delivered to BL as one book.  BL were cool with it going over the established 600ish page maximum.  They could have simply said ‘no, Dan; it has to be 600 pages max. They didn’t, instead they encouraged him to write as much as he wanted.  

 

It was finished a minimum of two years ago.  

 

It was BL who decided to cut it into three volumes and stagger the release over nearly 18 months.  

 

They could have easily released it as an omnibus/trilogy boxset.  BL choose not to.  That’s not on the author, that’s squarely on the publisher.  

 

95% of the discussions in this thread would be redundant if the book that Dan had delivered in full two years ago had been released in one tranche.  Because the filler in book one will probably lead into something in book two or three (Dan has already alluded to this, in his recent interview with warcom).

 

I dunno.  It all seems pretty pointless having the debate taking shots at the author when the books aren’t even out, even though the publisher has had it in its possession for two years.  

It’s a pretty pointless argument used as an excuse to blame Abnett for everything wrong in the HH series.

 

It also disables any possible discussion of the novels because everything ends up boiling down to “Abnett pushed the perpetuals and didn’t follow up on random marine plotline from B tier author”.

 

it also silly to keep pushing the idea that Abnett can do whatever he wants with the IP, knowing how strict GW is with any media related to their brand.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Corinthus

[Scribe]

17 minutes ago, Corinthus said:

It also disables any possible discussion of the novels because everything ends up boiling down to “Abnett pushed the perpetuals and didn’t follow up on random marine plotline from B tier author”.

 

Great point. Why didn't Abnett just write as many books as we got for Raven Guard and Salamanders?

 

If the perpetual plot is so important that it needs to derail the whole series, why wasn't it the focus of Saturnine? Why was Mortis needed to actually move that plot forward?

 

Seems odd that NOW we are out of time. NOW we need everyone on deck and contributing to Abnetts plotline when he had 17 years to get it where it needed to be. The clocks have run out indeed!

 

But no, it's everyone's fault.

 

Right.

[MarineRaiderII]

I knew there was going to be a 3rd book and said so when the art for book 2 was released. I know all of you did too. 

 

I liked Part 1 and don't mind 3 or even 4 parts if they were released in consecutive months. I buy E-books so don't kill me ;) A 4th part launching the Scouring and giving a state of the Imperium report would be great.

 

I like most of the HH novels and I have read everything, but this is supposed to be a fun diversion not life or death. I hope part 3 comes out soon after 2. That is all I care about.

 

Be well everyone.

[Nashnir]

This is it.

The end of an age.

I can understand all authors trying to squeeze in everything they can and BL squeezing everything out of it.

 

The only thing I am disappointed by and the reason I have stopped buying is due to limited editions. Like we wouldn't buy the limited editions without the Author's signature. 

 

I have the patience to wait for the end of one of the greatest cataclysms in one of the greatest Science Fantasy universe.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Nashnir
Emotions.

[Nagashsnee]

7 hours ago, DukeLeto69 said:

 

Take Thorpe’s book. How many words were dedicated to the train journey? Did that page count manage to close off any other outstanding plotlines from throughout the HH series (this isn’t only about perpetuals, there are plenty of dangling threads). It was all entertaining enough, but it introduced all new characters and did little to really progress the SoT plot(s).

I thought we all swore to never speak of the train to nowhere ever ever again.  Like 80s end of summer children over a fire in the forest level oath here, never ever again. 

4 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Seems odd that NOW we are out of time. NOW we need everyone on deck and contributing to Abnetts plotline when he had 17 years to get it where it needed to be. The clocks have run out indeed!

 

 

This is for me the crux of the matter, the siege should have been about the siege, everything should have already been set up and our characters not only introduced but where they needed to be.   They had the time, sweet baby velociraptor Jesus they had the time, and the books. Instead allot of the page count in the siege is set up and character introduction, and i am not saying we should have 0 new characters, but big central to the core plot ones ( looking at you here Erda) should have been introduced when they had the time and page count to do the job properly. 

 

And Abnett hold the crown for most new things introduced and then left in the wild in the heresy.  One more book or 3 more books after buried dagger would have been fine. 2 More books at the end of the siege AFTER they have officially told us how many book it is...is not fine. 

 

[DukeLeto69]

6 hours ago, Scribe said:

Disagree all you like. Page 28 of the Echos thread you call it out yourself and I agreed. The series fell off the rails lol 

 

Comically I just realized Abnett is actually going to have 4 SoT books. And you still want to pin any of the bloat on ADB???

 

After French did the lifting in Mortis?!?

I an not pinning anything on anyone. Just saying that it is no purely down to Abnett as other authors clearly didn’t “hit their mark” too. It is a team effort. Also saying let’s wait and see. And I have also said I didn’t want 3 novels from Abnett and that it is excessive (while Abnett is my fav BL author he doesn’t walk on water). 

 

Personally I always thought an 8 book mini series was too much. A closing trilogy in the same format as the rest of the HH series would have been fine!

[DukeLeto69]

6 minutes ago, Nagashsnee said:

I thought we all swore to never speak of the train to nowhere ever ever again.  Like 80s end of summer children over a fire in the forest level oath here, never ever again. 

 

This is for me the crux of the matter, the siege should have been about the siege, everything should have already been set up and our characters not only introduced but where they needed to be.   They had the time, sweet baby velociraptor Jesus they had the time, and the books. Instead allot of the page count in the siege is set up and character introduction, and i am not saying we should have 0 new characters, but big central to the core plot ones ( looking at you here Erda) should have been introduced when they had the time and page count to do the job properly. 

 

And Abnett hold the crown for most new things introduced and then left in the wild in the heresy.  One more book or 3 more books after buried dagger would have been fine. 2 More books at the end of the siege AFTER they have officially told us how many book it is...is not fine. 

 

Yep agree with this. As per my last post, the SoT didn’t *need* to be it’s own thing and didn’t *need* 8 novels let alone 10 novels, 3 novellas and counting!

 

I actually think a couple more standard HH books to move the pieces into place (French’s Solar War fits that have to say) and then a closing trilogy (and inevitable anthology to wrap up loose ends).

 

But we got what we got and our wallets and attention span paid for it. The SoT books have felt like a slog to me rather than something to look forward to.

 

Saying that, I just find this incessant Abnett (or any author) bashing all rather tedious and distasteful. 

[Scribe]

36 minutes ago, DukeLeto69 said:

I an not pinning anything on anyone.

 

You certainly did, a few pages ago. We clearly wont see eye to eye, and we probably are talking past eachother at this point as I clearly am unable to communicate that 4 > 1, so be it.

[DukeLeto69]

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

 

You certainly did, a few pages ago. We clearly wont see eye to eye, and we probably are talking past eachother at this point as I clearly am unable to communicate that 4 > 1, so be it.

Semantics. I said things like team effort and the authors aren’t blameless. I used ADB simply doing his own thing as an example. I pointed out the Perpetuals are not the only dangling plot thread.

 

And I said...

 

”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 just see a lot of double standards and hypocrisy. 

 

TBH it’s all rather tedious and increasingly comes across as “I am not getting what I want and imagined for years so I am going to blame someone”. 

 

Is there bloat? Goddamit yes! Tonnes! Is Abnett responsible for the bloat:

 

1. Partly but it is not only down to him, yet you seem to only point the finger at him.

2. But bloat is subjective. Some people may actually like and enjoy the perpetuals storyline (for the record I don’t - see I can criticise and be objective about my fav author).

 

At the end (and the death vol 17) of the day, it is actually irrelevant what either of us think. Once published, that WILL BE the HH lore. The perpetuals WILL BE part of that lore. It will be whatever BL and GW have decided it will be. 

 

P.S. Totally get anyone’s annoyance at an announced 8 novel series morphing into a 10 novel 3 novella series. Our wallets are crying. My attention span was lost long ago. Only my completist book shelf is really demanding any more HH books.

[System Sound]

Condolences to those that will have to endure another two Saturdays of broken website, failed pre orders and scalpers.

 

95% of all my books are digital, so I'll just sit on the side and grab the popcorn, when the salt mines opens again.

[Corinthus]

9 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Great point. Why didn't Abnett just write as many books as we got for Raven Guard and Salamanders?

 

If the perpetual plot is so important that it needs to derail the whole series, why wasn't it the focus of Saturnine? Why was Mortis needed to actually move that plot forward?

 

Seems odd that NOW we are out of time. NOW we need everyone on deck and contributing to Abnetts plotline when he had 17 years to get it where it needed to be. The clocks have run out indeed!

 

But no, it's everyone's fault.

 

Right.

Scribe, I don’t want to argue anymore about your grievances with Abnett. You don’t like him, it’s alright. Let’s move on and try to talk about something in a way it doesn’t end in this is an absolute abomination and it shouldn’t exist. We are past that and it makes the conversation rather bitter and unpleasant for everyone.

 

I enjoyed reading vol.1. I liked the “filler” as vignettes of the situation on Terra, much like the old Rule Books had very short lore stories to give you quick notions of the setting. It’s a different book, surely the extension to three volumes altered the flow and many plotlines but I LIKED IT, it wasn’t dreadful, it wasn’t a pain to read. I enjoyed it for what the novel and the plot is now, after so many years of stumbling to the finishing line. It could have been different but it is not.