Fall of Cadia by Robert Rath

[Gongsun Zan]

Starting this thread as I finished this yesterday and there seemed to be very little information online about this book. (I assume the broad strokes of Gathering Storm don't count as spoilers given that it's been two editions since, but mods are free to edit my post if they think otherwise).

 

It's been awhile since I read Gathering Storm, but from what I remember Fall of Cadia seems to be a pretty faithful adaptation that covers all the main plot beats. I think that's also its main weakness, as the need to cram in all the other Gathering Storm shenanigans (Greyfax, Cawl, etc.) results in the final act that feels rushed (the battle of Kasr Kraf leading to Celestine's arrival is the crescendo of the book, with everything after moving at a breakneck pace). 

 

The main focus is on Creed and various Cadians, with a secondary focus on Abaddon and the Sisters of Battle. I'm sure some people on reddit will be upset at how little this book glamorizes Creed, but IMO the book does a great job portraying him as an exhausted field commander promoted way beyond his level of expertise (a main focus of the book is the burden of command, and the tension between a commander's public and private personas).

 

Overall I'd give it an 8/10. I enjoyed the ride, but at the same time (and probably due to the subject matter) it comes across as just an excellent piece of tie-in fiction, but doesn't push the setting in a way that may it feel deeper or richer.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Gongsun Zan

[Urauloth]

Is this the first time Cawl has been written by anyone except Haley?
Also, how much of Abaddon do we get to see?

[Nagashsnee]

44 minutes ago, Gongsun Zan said:

Starting this thread as I finished this yesterday and there seemed to be very little information online about this book.

It cause atm only the pricey hyper limited version is out.

 

That being said...spoiler me, spoiler me hard. 

[Bobss]

I personally loved the 'older' version of the 13th Black Crusade, drawn heavily from the Eye of Terror codex supplement, which put more emphasis on the scale of the conflict and its meatgrinder of unheard of proportions, over what eventually became an, imo, Endgame-style duel between a dozen-or-so named heroes - and to BL's credit this has been touched on here and there recently by guys like Wraight(PBUH) in a few of his books

 

Where does this book fall in regards to this distinction?

[grailkeeper]

Is this out? Based on his last two novels Robert Rath could write the phonebook and I'd still buy it. 

[System Sound]

1 hour ago, grailkeeper said:

Is this out? Based on his last two novels Robert Rath could write the phonebook and I'd still buy it. 

The limited edition is out, Normal edition comes out this month.

[Gongsun Zan]

On 9/1/2023 at 1:00 PM, Urauloth said:

Is this the first time Cawl has been written by anyone except Haley?
Also, how much of Abaddon do we get to see?

 

It's hard to give a hard percentage as there are a ton of POVs in this book - he appears more than say, the Black Templars, but most of his appearances are told through other POVs (primarily the psyker in charge of the Will of Eternity). I get the sense that Rath was trying to draw a juxtaposition between Abaddon and Creed trying to wrangle their respective armies into fulfilling their goals, but Abaddon gets nowhere near attention that Creed does. It's more of a book involving Abaddon, rather than a book about Abaddon, if that makes sense. 

 

 

19 hours ago, Bobss said:

I personally loved the 'older' version of the 13th Black Crusade, drawn heavily from the Eye of Terror codex supplement, which put more emphasis on the scale of the conflict and its meatgrinder of unheard of proportions, over what eventually became an, imo, Endgame-style duel between a dozen-or-so named heroes - and to BL's credit this has been touched on here and there recently by guys like Wraight(PBUH) in a few of his books

 

Where does this book fall in regards to this distinction?

 

I have never read the Eye of Terror supplement so I may not be right person to answer this, but it's definitely not on the level of SoT where everything seems to revolve around famous Space Marines (mainly because there are hardly any Space Marines in this book) - much of the focus is on ordinary Cadians fighting ordinary cultists in tactically insignificant battles, and there are no instances of individual heroes singlehandedly turning the tide of the war (subject to what I mentioned about Gathering Storm above - so there's no escaping things like Celestines arrival, Trazyn and Cawl messing with the pylons etc., although their scenes are fairly minor). 

 

That said, I think it's hard to capture scale in a more character driven novel like this, as opposed to a codex or Black Book supplement which can afford to zoom out much further and take a more history-book approach. This is a book about Creed as a commander  - he's getting desk reports on the state of the war, but it's the backdrop and not the centrepiece.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Gongsun Zan

[Roomsky]

Now that we're getting a high-level version of the Fall of Cadia, I'm hoping Cadia Stands will get some more love. It's that "very little people on the ground in a world-shattering battle" kind of book that's great at communicating scale and intimacy at the same time - probably much closer to what Bobss is describing as appealing about the event. Hill has a lot of talent for "humans at war" books, his sparse prose and quick pacing make it feel very organic and realistically frantic. And, while I really like that book, I also hope THIS one is a great big runaway success so GW will put out proper adaptions of big event books instead of just obliquely referring to them. 

 

I'd like a novel for the rest of Gathering Storm, at least. Can you imagine someone who's primary source of info is the novels, and one day Guilliman just appears like it's nothing? Ridiculous.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Roomsky

[Ubiquitous1984]

8 hours ago, Roomsky said:

I'd like a novel for the rest of Gathering Storm, at least. Can you imagine someone who's primary source of info is the novels, and one day Guilliman just appears like it's nothing? Ridiculous.

 

Here here!  And the magnitude of the events in GS books two and three would make for blockbuster novels.  Perhaps Rath will write a novel trilogy?

[lansalt]

21 hours ago, Roomsky said:

Can you imagine someone who's primary source of info is the novels, and one day Guilliman just appears like it's nothing?

For the record, the plot of the Watchers of the Throne series involves the fall of Cadia, the opening of the Great Rift, and the return of Guilliman from the point of view of Terra and its ruling class.  While it doesn't explain the events of Gathering Storm, it serves as an intro point and prequel for the Indomitus Crusade and Dark Imperium books.

It's also an excellent story and a must read, in my opinion.

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by lansalt

[Roomsky]

49 minutes ago, lansalt said:

For the record, the plot of the Watchers of the Throne series involves the fall of Cadia, the opening of the Great Rift, and the return of Guilliman from the point of view of Terra and its ruling class.  While it doesn't explain the events of Gathering Storm, it serves as an intro point and prequel for the Indomitus Crusade and Dark Imperium books.

It's also an excellent story and a must read, in my opinion.

 

 

Oh, it's absolutely a great story, but IMO it completely fails as an entry point into Guilliman's resurrection if you don't already know what happened. Tieron hears Guilliman's on the moon and is shocked, sure, but that's like if halfway through a Black Templars novel, Grimaldus runs in saying "yo Helbrecht, Dorn's in the foyer," and then Dorn is just a running character in multiple separate series from then on without any explanation as to where he came from. Even Guilliman's POV in Dark Imperium relegates it to "boy, sure am glad I got fixed in that crazy series of events," and that's that.

[Noserenda]

No i kinda like Watchers as an intro to Guilimans return, it does need to be a bit of a surprise i think, and it comes at the end of the novel more or less, ideally there would be a direct follow up but theres no shortage of Bobby G centric stuff to move on to.

[Dzirhan]

To be honest I'm wondering why they tracked back to Fall of Cadia given Cadia Stands did cover the fall of Cadia though it could be Cadia Stands has one or two things contradicting the game lore (Forge World Agrippina for one)

[Sothalor]

The two are covering different perspectives. Fall of Cadia, from the sounds of it, is a novelization of the Gathering Storm events; it's a depiction of the "big" events and big-name participants like Creed, Cawl, Abaddon, etc.

 

Cadia Stands was more of a "elsewhere on Cadia" companion piece of the situation and experiences of a bunch of "little people" as the whole thing is going down.

 

To analogize, if we take the first Marvel Avengers movie, and compare the whole catastrophe on Cadia to the climactic battle against the alien invasion in New York, Fall of Cadia would be the version following the superheroes as they fly around and do cool flashy stuff. Cadia Stands would be a ground-level drama following the cops and national guard as they find themselves responding to a hole in the sky pouring forth invaders.

[DarkChaplain]

I honestly think as an "oh hells, Guilliman is back, what is going on?", The Emperor's Legion worked very well. He arrives right into the confusion and chaos incursion on Terra, and as a reader, we know nothing more than the PoV characters in the book.

 

The Regent's Shadow and Dawn of Fire then flesh out the course from there, together with the Dark Imperium novels / short stories.

 

The big problem I see is that we're only ever told in passing about all the milestones between the Fall of Cadia and Guilliman's arrival at Terra. We don't see his resurrection, we don't see the Ynnari at all, we don't see the Terran Crusade, we don't see Magnus on Luna, we don't see the struggle of the Ultramarines and others to reach Terra, how this whole hope of salvation came about, Cawl's involvement and so forth.

 

The problem isn't that Guilliman is reintroduced to the setting in the way he was in The Emperor's Legion and Dawn of Fire. The problem is that the "how" was never covered by Black Library in a proper way. The reader is being asked to simply accept it as a thing with only mild references to events, but never actually gets to see those pivotal moments, which don't exist outside the out of print lorebooks from half a decade ago.

 

Reintroducing Guilliman in the confused, chaotic way he was I think was brilliant if we only talk BL works. Not following it up with satisfying explanations soon after, making the decision not to cover that stuff for at least the next 6-7 years, however, was bloody madness. There's at least one massive Terran Crusade novel missing - and with how much went on in that section of the fluff, one might not even be enough for the sake of proper story pacing.

 

I guess part of it is down to how GW decided to silence all talk of the Ynnari for the past 5 years. They can't touch that story without remembering they exist and play a vital role, but GW proper seems more in the mood to squat them at this point.

[Felix Antipodes]

While I understand why GW doesn’t have BL put out companion novels to their sourcebooks - in their eyes they would be vying for the same dollars and therefore could cut into their sales/profits (not that I agree mind you) - they should (imho) have novelisations of them out the moment they are OOP or approx 6 months from release of the sourcebook.  This would allow latecomers/new readers to have a starting/catch up point.

 

Of course, that would then run into their policy of not keeping their books in print past their initial print run, but that’s a whinge for another time 

[Gongsun Zan]

On 9/6/2023 at 3:15 AM, DarkChaplain said:

The big problem I see is that we're only ever told in passing about all the milestones between the Fall of Cadia and Guilliman's arrival at Terra. We don't see his resurrection, we don't see the Ynnari at all, we don't see the Terran Crusade, we don't see Magnus on Luna, we don't see the struggle of the Ultramarines and others to reach Terra, how this whole hope of salvation came about, Cawl's involvement and so forth.

 

 

Yeah, one of the oddities of this book (especially the third act) is how much it assumes the reader knows about events that have never been explicitly covered by Black Library. Even if GW doesn't want to commission another BL series, they could at least put together a lore-focused book (perhaps in the style of Sabbat World Crusade) that covers all the major events leading to the great rift.  

[Jareddm]

Even today, there seems to be this belief at GW that BL readers are exclusively a subset of the tabletop players. That everyone's first exposure will be a core rulebook and a codex.  They expect the novels to augment the big picture story that every reader's familiar with already because they read it in the newest editions rules.

 

On 9/6/2023 at 12:55 AM, Felix Antipodes said:

While I understand why GW doesn’t have BL put out companion novels to their sourcebooks - in their eyes they would be vying for the same dollars and therefore could cut into their sales/profits (not that I agree mind you) - they should (imho) have novelisations of them out the moment they are OOP or approx 6 months from release of the sourcebook.  This would allow latecomers/new readers to have a starting/catch up point.

This just gives me flashbacks to when BL existed under Publishing. Short version is BL authors can't write at the speed needed to release alongside sourcebooks, not even close. And those that were released tended to be under intense deadlines and suffered for it. There was exceptions (still love the Sanctus Reach stuff) but it was not a great environment for the authors.

[Felix Antipodes]

BL used to put out great background books (Eye of Terror, Codex Armageddon, Xenology, Sabbath Crusade, etc) but these seem to have passed to GW proper nowadays, which is a shame imho.  As for keeping up with 40K ‘current events’, I think BL should just push out a series of e-shorts (similar to the current Tyranid Invasion stories timed for any new developments from the design team before following up with a proper novel.

[Jareddm]

They used to do that.  Back during the Psychic Awakening releases, there was always a Warhammer Community e-short or two released alongside each one: https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/esn59l/psychic_awakening_short_stories_compilation/

The problem with a proper novel follow-up is a common complaint among some fans. People move on. By the time the novel comes out the studio is two or three campaigns ahead. Fall of Cadia is still hyped because of its massive in-universe impact. But do you think people would be flocking to buy novelizations of Warzone Charadon or Vigilus at this point? I mean, I'd be interested in them, but would your average BL fan, who's always looking for "the most current events"? I don't think GW sees enough of a profit in it to be worth the author commission.

[Nagashsnee]

2 hours ago, Jareddm said:

But do you think people would be flocking to buy novelizations of or Vigilus at this point? I mean, I'd be interested in them, but would your average BL fan, who's always looking for "the most current events"? I don't think GW sees enough of a profit in it to be worth the author commission.

 

Honestly? If its a straight up tie in? No. But i dont agree that most BL fans are hooked on 'recent events'.  Some of BL biggests ( and i aint even counting the HH here as that is cheating) series are 'historical', Cain, Gaunt, Eisherhorn, Night Lords the list goes on. 

 

But Setting a novel with its own storyline with those events as backdrop? Yeah man.   One of the great things about big settings like 40k is that you can set hundreds of books into something like Charadon and still never have to cover the major campaign events. Or have the campaign events be the springboard for the story.

 

Metalica got infected with something right? Boom story of the attempted cure, weave the warzone into the book naturally and still have a book that people who have read the warzone can enjoy.  Ultimately the people buying BL books buy them for the setting/faction/specific sub faction.  As an ad mech player i just want good ad mech books that enhances the faction lore and are fun to read.  Likewise as a BA collected (don't play many marine games these days) i have no issues with them or a successor taking part in Vigilus. What I am much less likely to buy is book that straight up is just a novelization of the campaign book.  Here you are 100% correct. 

 

Chris wraiths is the master of this, his Terra books all have big campaign book set events happening, in the background, it affects our characters as part of THEIR stories naturally,  and never feels like it was inevitable or had to happen. On the chaos side you have Lords of Silence, a much beloved book that uses the 13th black crusade/Plague Wars as a spring board to tell its own story. 

[Felix Antipodes]

@Nagashsnee explained what I meant far more eloquently than me about what I'd like from BL.  Wraight is indeed the master of this and a guiding light they should follow.  Make the background of the stories relevant to the era they are set in.

 

@Jareddm - I was talking about e-shorts via BL but those were also good.  I think GW stopped them after the blowback they got after a Custodian wiped out the reinforcements for the Obsidian Jaguars(?) Chapter in one of them.

[aa.logan]

No consolation to those who didn’t get the mega edition, but I’ve just read the diary and actually cried, repeatedly. It really deserves a wider audience at some point.
 

The previous bonus books that I’ve read in mega editions have been nice gimmicky curios, but this one is proper good writing. The way Rath gradually increases the scope of the conflict is really impressive. The illustrations are a touch incongruous, but there is one page where they manage to make it feel like a ‘real’ artefact in a heart-breaking and horrific way. 
 

I’m a little wary to start the novel proper now, to be honest. Can it be as good? (Probably)

[DarkChaplain]

.....none of the still remaining reactions are appropriate for describing my disappointment and dismay at the wider audience missing out on that

[Ubiquitous1984]

11 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

.....none of the still remaining reactions are appropriate for describing my disappointment and dismay at the wider audience missing out on that

Have BL ever released the mega edition ‘bonus book’ content as a separate release?  I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head, but perhaps someone else does?