The Horus Heresy - A Retrospective?

[Nagashsnee]

4 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

What is weird is to have high ranking people materialize without context. No one complained about baraxa or the rest of the replacement soh captains appearing because they were nobodies that only got promotions because the entire upper echelon got wiped off in saturnine. But Ashuraddon? Was around and a company captain throughout the Luna Wolf days and created the Reaver attack squads, which earned him the title of the First Reaver? The guy who has a cult of personality around staying true to the OG Legion and cthonic traditions, the whole thing abaddon is obsessed with? He literally appears out of nowhere in the same style as a fan fiction self-insert, and for some reason, survives to not ever be talked about by future traitor/chaos space marines. 

 

 

I 100% get what you are saying but i LIKE that we have never heard of him before. Legions are meant (especially in the early HH) to be crusading on a galactic scale. Traveling and communication are serious issues in this universe and we are in the star trek phase of boldly going here. 

 

I can totally see big important names like 'Ashuraddon' who were all the hot at one point just dropping off the radar for decades at the time. Because they are hot they WILL be given the forces and resources to go off on their own and do their own thing. Years pass, then decades, the people at the center around the Primarch all remember him fondly and he is still regarded but he is NOT there. Others are there, others are basking in glory next to their liege lords, while people like Ashuraddon who are arguably doing more to forward the crusade then the 10 captains following their dad around are.  But just like in real life it doesnt matter, who cares if Captain Nagashsnee the first back scratcher, killer of space whales conqurer of 'what was that systems name again?' is doing in expeditionary fleet X387438? The focus is not there, the drama is not there, the Primarchs and Emperor and poets and painters (well not the best ones) are not there.  Sure he is doing a great job, sure he is bringing in huge areas of space and with a caultie ration 5.7% under the crusade norm, and sure 117 years ago he set up the reavers, BUT did you hear about how Loken showed up the first Captain in front of Horus?  I mean DAMN girl! 

 

It makes the universe feel big, it makes the crusade feel GREAT!. Theres too many heroes, too many epics, too much going on. You have all these big names from the OG legions, then you have the primarchs come in and all those extras. You have so many firsts things, first times, first captain, etc etc.  New tech is coming out creating even more, first dude to master a Xiphon, first Captain of XYZ battleship, etc etc.  For the 200 years of the crusade there is simply too much glory going around, and if everyone is glorious, then no one really is. You need the extra extra glory or constant BIG scene glory. Otherwise within no time at all you are just another glory covered marine who at one time did xyz thing. 

Edited February 14 by Nagashsnee

[DukeLeto69]

3 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

I 100% get what you are saying but i LIKE that we have never heard of him before. Legions are meant (especially in the early HH) to be crusading on a galactic scale. Traveling and communication are serious issues in this universe and we are in the star trek phase of boldly going here. 

 

I can totally see big important names like 'Ashuraddon' who were all the hot at one point just dropping off the radar for decades at the time. Because they are hot they WILL be given the forces and resources to go off on their own and do their own thing. Years pass, then decades, the people at the center around the Primarch all remember him fondly and he is still regarded but he is NOT there. Others are there, others are basking in glory next to their liege lords, while people like Ashuraddon who are arguably doing more to forward the crusade then the 10 captains following their dad around are.  But just like in real life it doesnt matter, who cares if Captain Nagashsnee the first back scratcher, killer of space whales conqurer of 'what was that systems name again?' is doing in expeditionary fleet X387438? The focus is not there, the drama is not there, the Primarchs and Emperor and poets and painters (well not the best ones) are not there.  Sure he is doing a great job, sure he is bringing in huge areas of space and with a caultie ration 5.7% under the crusade norm, and sure 117 years ago he set up the reavers, BUT did you hear about how Loken showed up the first Captain in front of Horus?  I mean DAMN girl! 

 

It makes the universe feel big, it makes the crusade feel GREAT!. Theres too many heroes, too many epics, too much going on. You have all these big names from the OG legions, then you have the primarchs come in and all those extras. You have so many firsts things, first times, first captain, etc etc.  New tech is coming out creating even more, first dude to master a Xiphon, first Captain of XYZ battleship, etc etc.  For the 200 years of the crusade there is simply too much glory going around, and if everyone is glorious, then no one really is. You need the extra extra glory or constant BIG scene glory. Otherwise within no time at all you are just another glory covered marine who at one time did xyz thing. 

I agree. The HH focused too much IMO on the names we already knew and characters still around in 40k. It is the weakness in any prequel in that it removes peril and some drama in relation to the fate of characters.

 

I think a good half the known names should have only been mentioned in passing.

 

It is also why Loken started out as a good character (and should have stayed dead). We needed more Loken types to care about and not think “they’ll be fine and still here in 10k years time”.

[MegaVolt87]

7 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

It’s sad and doesn’t make sense but if you read the series by author instead of order (read ADBs first to last books in a row) then switch to another author, it flows much better. I did a reread from First Heretic and only read ADB books and stories and it felt much tighter than reading them in order even though there’s huge gaps in the timeline 

 

That's a good idea, I'll have to try it.

[SkimaskMohawk]

9 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

I 100% get what you are saying but i LIKE that we have never heard of him before. Legions are meant (especially in the early HH) to be crusading on a galactic scale. Traveling and communication are serious issues in this universe and we are in the star trek phase of boldly going here. 

 

I can totally see big important names like 'Ashuraddon' who were all the hot at one point just dropping off the radar for decades at the time. Because they are hot they WILL be given the forces and resources to go off on their own and do their own thing. Years pass, then decades, the people at the center around the Primarch all remember him fondly and he is still regarded but he is NOT there. Others are there, others are basking in glory next to their liege lords, while people like Ashuraddon who are arguably doing more to forward the crusade then the 10 captains following their dad around are.  But just like in real life it doesnt matter, who cares if Captain Nagashsnee the first back scratcher, killer of space whales conqurer of 'what was that systems name again?' is doing in expeditionary fleet X387438? The focus is not there, the drama is not there, the Primarchs and Emperor and poets and painters (well not the best ones) are not there.  Sure he is doing a great job, sure he is bringing in huge areas of space and with a caultie ration 5.7% under the crusade norm, and sure 117 years ago he set up the reavers, BUT did you hear about how Loken showed up the first Captain in front of Horus?  I mean DAMN girl! 

 

It makes the universe feel big, it makes the crusade feel GREAT!. Theres too many heroes, too many epics, too much going on. You have all these big names from the OG legions, then you have the primarchs come in and all those extras. You have so many firsts things, first times, first captain, etc etc.  New tech is coming out creating even more, first dude to master a Xiphon, first Captain of XYZ battleship, etc etc.  For the 200 years of the crusade there is simply too much glory going around, and if everyone is glorious, then no one really is. You need the extra extra glory or constant BIG scene glory. Otherwise within no time at all you are just another glory covered marine who at one time did xyz thing. 

 

Great post and I don't disagree with it.

 

If he'd been name dropped throughout the black books or series there wouldn't be a problem. He never actually had to show up on a page hanging out with aximand or whatever; he could be off doing his own thing, not necessarily getting along with high command but still being loyal. Just some appear in a couple of lists of names of captains, maybe have abaddon and malogurst mention his factionalism, or the SoH reflect on him dipping out of the siege. 

 

It's not the concept, but the total failure of execution. And in the conversation about whether FW or BL has better writing? This is an example of bad writing (with other things like the ruinstorm still being active, but not. The imperials suffering a crushing defeat at tallarn. Diverting a large fleet with a gloriana and tens of thousands of marines during the siege?!?) from the the FW team. It's not always good, much like the novels aren't always good.

 

Quote

Or are expanding on the characters of the Sons of Horus beyond the extremely small number of BL characters and trying to illustrate these were huge legions with personalities. Extremely disingenuous is complaining about world building that makes things bigger.

 

But I don't have an issue with expanded world building? Like, obviously, that's not what my complaints were about; it was about badly introducing new characters, and that doing it badly undermines the world building, not that new characters can't exist. Theres either some really bad reading comprehension, or ya, an extremely disingenuous response. 

 

Quote

 Complaining BL characters doing their own things with their own concerns without mentioning some other commander in an organization with over a hundred thousand members is like complaining the Punisher doesn’t look into the camera and say “I am not a role model for cops”.

 

Uh, what? Its called continuity. Stories tend to need it in some way or they're not very good stories. You literally asked if EATD is meant to be standalone because the books revised stuff and retreaded other things. Its the same.

 

I don't read punisher or comics in general, so I'm just guessing here, but he's not supposed to be one, right? So that'd be complaining about something that's never explicitly said, because its communicated through subtext? Like a totally different thing? Also I googled "punisher not a role model for cops and found this image at the very top:

 

Spoiler

 

So, they do infact spell it out? I'm kinda even more confused by your point now. 

 

Quote

Find a real problem to care about. 

 

.....

 

It's a 40k forum, in the novel subforum, on a topic about the retrospective of the heresy series as a whole, where people (including you) started to talk about the comparisons between the two different publication groups. This is the most correct place to discuss about the conflicts in heresy story telling between the two parties. 

 

Really went off the deep end didn't you rhor? Can't have any criticism of the works from FW/specialist games. Talk about finding a real problem to care about; talking about flaws in things you like isn't a personal attack against you buddy.

 

 

 

Edited February 14 by SkimaskMohawk

[Nagashsnee]

On 2/14/2024 at 2:56 PM, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

Great post and I don't disagree with it.

 

If he'd been name dropped throughout the black books or series there wouldn't be a problem. He never actually had to show up on a page hanging out with aximand or whatever; he could be off doing his own thing, not necessarily getting along with high command but still being loyal. Just some appear in a couple of lists of names of captains, maybe have abaddon and malogurst mention his factionalism, or the SoH reflect on him dipping out of the siege. 

 

 

Oh for sure,  but future proofing was probably pretty low on the priority list for them. That and retro inserting lore into any setting is always going to be ugly. I laughed long and hard when the Warmaster titan came out and the lore was like 'oh that? that's always been there bro'.  And the more books they make the more awkward it becomes in the future. 

 

GW doesnt help itself either most of the time in these cases. They could of easily slipped the siege team a note that said 'mention this captains name and how one of the Sons of Horus wishes he was here too'. They could have had him having fallen out of favor or been sent away for whatever reason, something to better explain why no one talks about him anymore. But still i will take any new characters i can get, I am so so so sick of unkillable named mini characters dominating the Books and lore i will take ANYTHING new. 

[Roomsky]

Now that a bunch of us have aired our grievances, here's a fun sub-topic:

 

What books in the series do you think people are too hard on? What are you unpopular favourites? Which overlooked or dismissed entries carry elements you wish more of the series had? Here's my own list of maligned entries I enjoy:

• Nemesis
• Outcast Dead
• Damnation of Pythos
• Ruinstorm
• Old Earth

Will expand on these later.

[DukeLeto69]

3 minutes ago, Roomsky said:

Now that a bunch of us have aired our grievances, here's a fun sub-topic:

 

What books in the series do you think people are too hard on? What are you unpopular favourites? Which overlooked or dismissed entries carry elements you wish more of the series had? Here's my own list of maligned entries I enjoy:

• Nemesis
• Outcast Dead
• Damnation of Pythos
• Ruinstorm
• Old Earth

Will expand on these later.

Outcast Dead for sure if you can get past the mistake it is a pretty good yarn.

 

I enjoyed Nemesis a lot but it felt like neither 30k or 40k. It felt like Anime.
 

Ruinstorm was also pretty good IMO. Not top tier good but waaaay better than a lot.

[Jareddm]

1 hour ago, Roomsky said:

Now that a bunch of us have aired our grievances, here's a fun sub-topic:

 

What books in the series do you think people are too hard on? What are you unpopular favourites? Which overlooked or dismissed entries carry elements you wish more of the series had? Here's my own list of maligned entries I enjoy:

I know a lot of folks have grouped all of the anthologies into "bad" by default and new readers are skipping them. But if there was one that I wish more people read, it'd be Shattered Legions (Technically Meduson, as I hated The Seventh Serpent but otherwise it's the same).

 

I'll also second Old Earth (the worst part about the book is you have to read Deathfire to get to it) and add Pharos. A lot of folks had a problem with the Night Lords portrayal, but I feel it worked fine because they were at a double disadvantage. It was an open warfare set piece environment, which is not their strong suit, and that their force was made up of Gendor Skraivok's recruits, the batch that everyone in the VIIIth legion looked at and said, "these are trash." The batch that made Curze call Nostramo a lost cause.

[Roomsky]

Expanded Thoughts:

 

Nemesis - Swallow's only good contribution to the series, IMO, I think it's crazy so many people have the inverted view. It's messy, aye, but it does a lot of work to show Imperial life during this era, and how much Horus' rebellion has upended what stability the Great Crusade did manage to create. Horus' shadow looms large in everyone's thoughts, an important element I think was forgotten in later entries. I also appreciate that, for all their issues, the main cast is generally pretty solid when it comes to different motivations and personalities. The debates about how best to proceed, both on Terra and within the execution force, keeps things interesting, and there's basically no action scene padding.

 

Outcast Dead - If you can overlook the continuity issues, this book is very solid, and far from McNeill's worst Heresy entry. I think it shows the ground-level distress at the Heresy even better than Nemesis, and has the benefit of really fleshing out civilian life on Terra. It's a really intriguing part of the setting and produces some fantastic characters, Taranis being a standout I'm eager for more time with. It also has one of the series' best depictions of the Emperor, and set him up for an interesting trajectory that was unfortunately never really delivered on. Also, even though I think the Custodian-Punch scene was ridiculous, it makes Custodian fanboys seethe so it gets my thumbs up.

 

Damnation of Pythos - This book is genuinely good. By any metric you'd judge a 40k novel - It's grimdark, it develops a faction culture, there's some creative horror, it's not overloaded with fighting, and it has an interesting set of main characters - it's checking all the boxes. The Heresy had moved well past the pretence of being an actual series by this point, so "not progressing the story" is, IMO, a silly complaint. It also filled the void of a HH Iron Hands novel, which they desperately needed after being plot accessories in Fulgrim and unlikeable, boring dullards in Feat of Iron. It might be my favourite Heresy novel not written by my usual top authors.

 

Ruinstorm - Somehow, Annandale wrote the best Imperium Secundus novel. This was the first time Sanguinius got to be an actual character. This was the first real attempt to make all of the Lion's Heresy portrayals mesh together, and it does so without making him a giant manbaby to boot. For what he lacks in Abnett's charm, Annandale's Guilliman's commitment to pragmatism and rationality gets meaningfully challenged here in a way Abnett's never does. Madail is a more compelling daemonic nemesis to Sanguinius than Ka'Bandha ever was. The setpieces are fun, bizarre, and trippy, and while there's a bit too much fighting for my taste, it's all in service to showing how the characters develop throughout. This book knew what it wanted to be and succeeded in all areas, IMO.

 

Old Earth - Shattered Legions counts too, but I didn't want to get too deep into anthologies. Old Earth isn't my favourite entry, and the characterization and prose are nothing too special - but it's an extremely consistent product. It closes out several Heresy plot threads concisely, but in compelling ways. It moves at a great pace. It feels energized and recognizes what parts of a scene are actually worth telling, and skipping over the busywork of what's not. It's one of the few late-Heresy books I think recaptures some of that early-series energy. Also, I just love Meduson's plotline and I think it ends perfectly.

[Fedor]

Thinking on the Forgeworld books...

 

I tend to agree that the Isstvan ones were the best, and I liked the majority of the campaign/strategic overview stuff until Inferno. The Legion sections were more inconsistent, with quite a few baffling creative choices in there. The decision to have some of the legions already be very similar to what they became when their primarchs had been found and shaped them was just odd. It never really amounts to anything interesting regarding the nature vs. nurture debate. The Night Lords entry jumps out immediately.

 

Inferno and Malevolence tipped over into an overindulgence on providing new revelations that didn't always line up with the novel series well, but they were both still very enjoyable. Crusade really changed the vibe into something more akin to a bad codex, seeming primarily concerned with coming up with dozens of ways to sell the Dark Angels as the best at everything. It was a ham-fisted way to end the legion profiles and also dropped the ball badly with its expansion of the Rangdan, who went from having an ominous, genuinely alien body-horror vibe in a lot of their brief mentions...into big foxmen with suits of armour, crystal swords, hordes of neural-collar controlled slaves, and knockoff Ork attack moons.

[Fedor]

I don't think Swallow managed a consistently strong entry, but there are chunks of most of his books that i enjoyed. Well, maybe not Buried Dagger; it only really nailed the ending. Spear was a really fun character that Kyme bizarrely all but recreates in a later short, even though he was supposed to be unique. That Garro siege novella was a real low to go out on.

 

Some of his shorter-form work was quite good when it wasn't too focused on wacky Knights-Errant teleporting around the galaxy shenanigans: Gunsight, Lantern's Light, Exocytosis, and Chamber at the End of Memory.

[Rolltonotdie]

Battle for the Abyss is not a good book but its big and its dumb and I am absolutely here for it,  I also appreciate it follows a bunch of characters we've never heard of previously.

 

Most of the anthology books are pretty hit and miss but I think those shorter, unrelated stories are where the Heresy shines, showing these little vignettes about what's happening around the galaxy but leaving big swathes of what's going on to peoples imaginations.

[Nagashsnee]

On 2/16/2024 at 5:24 PM, Roomsky said:

Now that a bunch of us have aired our grievances, here's a fun sub-topic:

 

What books in the series do you think people are too hard on? What are you unpopular favourites? Which overlooked or dismissed entries carry elements you wish more of the series had? Here's my own list of maligned entries I enjoy:

 

• Old Earth

Will expand on these later.

Old Earth is not only a bad book, its a bad book born out of bad books. Old earth is the finale of the HH Salamander trilogy. It had 2 books set up and started with no real plot, no real characters (i read all 3 and still cant name anyone but Vulkan or shattered legioners) who are not just 'fire anvil empathy man  #34' and no real reason to exist.  

 

But money is money and schedules need to be filled, and who is going to tell Kyme no? It has the HH logo it WILL sell no matter how good or bad it is like every other HH book did.  So what do we do? Well we take the book that no one really wants and beat it until its something else, and to his credit Kyme does a admirable job collected a assortment  of HH plot loose ends. But here is the thing, here is why its a bad book and here why its had nowhere NEAR enough doo doo throw at it. If the core concept of your book is so bad that you need to frankstein it with other more popular concepts you SCRAP THE CORE CONCEPT and focus on the other stuff. 

 

Vulkan did not need a whole book to get to Terra, Kyme had 2 books to make some interesting salamanders already and while watching him fail to write anything other then 'fire, anvil empathy man # 35' was amusing it was unnecessary. In the end you have another completely forgettable salamander story and a very rushed shattered legions finale. This book leached onto Shadrak Meduson and drained any promise of a proper end to his tale while vampirically leeching his potential to draw readers.  This book SHOULD have been the conclusion of the shatttered legions and vulkan could have gotten a novella or something if he simply MUST get to earth (tho now that the heresy is over i say with 100% certainty he had no real reason to). 

 

Almost anything good people have to say about old earth is around the shattered legions and their war with the sons of horus, which is a very very weird type of praise for the finale of the Salamander HH trilogy.  And people will come in and say 'but the Volpone book is good, his X work was allright, he got better since Y, you are being too hard on Kyme', no i am not. He finally got enough paid practice after only what a decade or two and about 30 of my own personal Euros (before i swore never again) to not be bad. Failing upwards is not praise worthy. 

 

If i sound bitter its cause i am. The salamanders are such a forgotten chapter/legion, so often ignore or set aside. They NEEDED a banger, they needed their white scar HH trilogy. They needed the Word bearer or night lord or World Eater treatment.  A Soul Hunter, a First Heretics, A Scars. Something to get people excited, conversions started and armies sold!  But i see plenty of Talos minis/night lord armies, plenty of Emperors Spears, Argel Tal gets throw at me across the table semi often, I never hear anyone talk about the Salamander books, or how their army was inspired/based on 'anvil fire empathy man #37'. And having read all 3, all i truly remember of the Salamanders is that Nocturne apparently had GIANT PLANETARY FLAMERS ready and waiting to be used as a defense to burn a virus out of the air, and that level of lazy, boring, unaspiring writing is what leads to old earth deserving every kick it will ever get, both for the sins of the novel and the author.    #Justice for Meduson#.

 

[Roomsky]

I think those are fair points, Nagashnee, I don't have much to refute them.

 

That said, I've always been a proponent of "it's not working, throw it in the bin." Certainly, it's admirable and preferable when someone can rehabilitate a poor concept into something quality, but by book 3 I no longer cared about salvaging the Sallies, that ship had sailed for me. So when I read innofensive Sallies, decent Cabal wrap-up, and pretty good Iron Hands stuff, I shrugged and went "well, this is a pleasant surprise."

 

Plus, I still enjoyed what happened to Meduson, even if I also think he should've gotten a full novel. One thing I will respond to is that the opacity of the Heresy's behind the scenes makes me think it just as likely that if the editor needed to give that thread a conclusion in a book about something else, then it may have been abandoned by the better talent.

Edited April 11 by Roomsky

[Fedor]

I really don't mind those books, though I see them more as a Salamanders duology, with Old Earth being a Vulkan/Shattered Legions book despite the marketing. They were all over the place in quality, but they were also entertaining and had a bunch of good scenes spread throughout. They also had their own psychedelic, mythic vibe that stood out to me (this seemed to be something ADB also mentioned appreciating about them), though it probably wasn't actually tonally appropriate much of the time. Numeon and Narek were good characters, and the attempt to explore grief and ptsd in Astartes wasn't executed badly (though the Scorched Earth novella was gimmicky).

 

The battle of Nocturne probably tops the most ridiculous scenes in the series, alongside the torture-maze fork stabbing, Sevatar surfing on a void-fighter, Fulgrim being :cuss: with the pear of anguish, and the Khan's looneytunes "get up rock, ya bum" durability against Mortarion.

 

[Scribe]

23 hours ago, Fedor said:

The decision to have some of the legions already be very similar to what they became when their primarchs had been found and shaped them was just odd. It never really amounts to anything interesting regarding the nature vs. nurture debate. The Night Lords entry jumps out immediately.

 

I've commented on this one in particular several times over the years.

 

Bizarre choice for FW to go that path with NL.

[The Scorpion]

11 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

Old Earth is not only a bad book, its a bad book born out of bad books. Old earth is the finale of the HH Salamander trilogy. It had 2 books set up and started with no real plot, no real characters (i read all 3 and still cant name anyone but Vulkan or shattered legioners) who are not just 'fire anvil empathy man  #34' and no real reason to exist.  

 

But money is money and schedules need to be filled, and who is going to tell Kyme no? It has the HH logo it WILL sell no matter how good or bad it is like every other HH book did.  So what do we do? Well we take the book that no one really wants and beat it until its something else, and to his credit Kyme does a admirable job collected a assortment  of HH plot loose ends. But here is the thing, here is why its a bad book and here why its had nowhere NEAR enough doo doo throw at it. If the core concept of your book is so bad that you need to frankstein it with other more popular concepts you SCRAP THE CORE CONCEPT and focus on the other stuff. 

 

Vulkan did not need a whole book to get to Terra, Kyme had 2 books to make some interesting salamanders already and while watching him fail to write anything other then 'fire, anvil empathy man # 35' was amusing it was unnecessary. In the end you have another completely forgettable salamander story and a very rushed shattered legions finale. This book leached onto Shadrak Meduson and drained any promise of a proper end to his tale while vampirically leeching his potential to draw readers.  This book SHOULD have been the conclusion of the shatttered legions and vulkan could have gotten a novella or something if he simply MUST get to earth (tho now that the heresy is over i say with 100% certainty he had no real reason to). 

 

Almost anything good people have to say about old earth is around the shattered legions and their war with the sons of horus, which is a very very weird type of praise for the finale of the Salamander HH trilogy.  And people will come in and say 'but the Volpone book is good, his X work was allright, he got better since Y, you are being too hard on Kyme', no i am not. He finally got enough paid practice after only what a decade or two and about 30 of my own personal Euros (before i swore never again) to not be bad. Failing upwards is not praise worthy. 

 

If i sound bitter its cause i am. The salamanders are such a forgotten chapter/legion, so often ignore or set aside. They NEEDED a banger, they needed their white scar HH trilogy. They needed the Word bearer or night lord or World Eater treatment.  A Soul Hunter, a First Heretics, A Scars. Something to get people excited, conversions started and armies sold!  But i see plenty of Talos minis/night lord armies, plenty of Emperors Spears, Argel Tal gets throw at me across the table semi often, I never hear anyone talk about the Salamander books, or how their army was inspired/based on 'anvil fire empathy man #37'. And having read all 3, all i truly remember of the Salamanders is that Nocturne apparently had GIANT PLANETARY FLAMERS ready and waiting to be used as a defense to burn a virus out of the air, and that level of lazy, boring, unaspiring writing is what leads to old earth deserving every kick it will ever get, both for the sins of the novel and the author.    #Justice for Meduson#.

 

Now this is a truly Epic rant. One day, someone other than Kyme will be allowed to touch the Sallies, and then they will soar.

[Jareddm]

To this day the best Salamander stories in the Heresy are Haley's "Unforged" and "Unspoken" and "Upon the Anvil of War" in Retribution.

[Nagashsnee]

15 hours ago, Roomsky said:

I think those are fair points, Nagashnee, I don't have much to refute them.

 

That said, I've always been a proponent of "it's not working, throw it in the bin." Certainly, it's admirable and preferable when someone can rehabilitate a poor concept into something quality, but by book 3 I no longer cared about salvaging the Sallies, that ship had sailed for me. So when I read innofensive Sallies, decent Cabal wrap-up, and pretty good Iron Hands stuff, I shrugged and went "well, this is a pleasant surprise."

 

Plus, I still enjoyed what happened to Meduson, even if I also think he should've gotten a full novel. One thing I will respond to is that the opacity of the Heresy's behind the scenes makes me think it just as likely that if the editor needed to give that thread a conclusion in a book about something else, then it may have been abandoned by the better talent.

 

Saying it was better then the previous 2 books lead me to expect is a very very very low bar to set tho (:cuss: he perfect level of passive aggressive fake praise i can get behind). One that i agree it did clear however, cleared it by using the shattered legions story as a means of climbing over the razor wire of its own ineptitude, but cleared it. I guess we should be happy it did not need to draw even more things in.

 

10 hours ago, Fedor said:

The battle of Nocturne probably tops the most ridiculous scenes in the series, alongside the torture-maze fork stabbing, Sevatar surfing on a void-fighter, Fulgrim being with the pear of anguish, and the Khan's looneytunes "get up rock, ya bum" durability against Mortarion.

 

What's the pear of anguish one? Its the only reference i dont understand? 

4 hours ago, The Scorpion said:

Now this is a truly Epic rant. One day, someone other than Kyme will be allowed to touch the Sallies, and then they will soar.

To my shame I had to delete the original rant version before posting and re write it, as it was a bit too strongly worded, and I have long admitted a certain hostile bias towards Kyme  and thus try to rein in my worse impulses.  

Edited April 12 by Nagashsnee

[TheArtilleryman]

2 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

What's the pear of anguish one?

It’s a torture device. Fulgrim is ritually tortured by his legion. I have to say the story of the EC is my least favourite arc of all. 

[Nagashsnee]

38 minutes ago, TheArtilleryman said:

It’s a torture device. Fulgrim is ritually tortured by his legion. I have to say the story of the EC is my least favourite arc of all. 

Is that the one where they think he is still possesed and try to torture it out of him? 

[TheArtilleryman]

20 minutes ago, Nagashsnee said:

Is that the one where they think he is still possesed and try to torture it out of him? 

Yes, The Reflection Crack'd apparently. I’ve not read the book but I’ve seen the extract in question. I know the whole pain/pleasure thing is Slaanesh’s schtick but it just doesn’t do it for me (pun intended?).

Edited April 12 by TheArtilleryman

[EverythingIsGreat]

Regarding the Night Lords, and maybe I am reading the wrong passages, it seems to me that the Legion’s character did change following Kurze’s and Nostramo’s discovery. According to the lore, there was tension between Terran and Nostraman NL, especially after Nostraman recruits were increasingly proven to be sadistic psychopaths who in the view of Terrans did not belong to the Legion. The two Fel Zharost short stories (Eater of Dreams by Marc Collins and Child of Night by John French) bring out the change in the Legion, imo. Zharost, a Terran NL LIbrarian, has abandoned the Legion for reasons other than the Horus Heresy. He seems to see himself as an efficient killer and agent of Terror, but not a wanton sadist.

 

Although FW’s Massacre doesn’t have the detail of the BL short stories, I thought it did a good job in describing how the Legion changed post-Kurze’s discovery.

[Marshal Rohr]

The Sigismund novel had a brief appearance of a pre-Kurze 8th Legion character and the vibe was very different than what we are used to. He was more like a secret policeman from famous naughty regimes or a man-in-black than a torturer. That kind of portrayal could’ve done wonders for them. 

[Petitioner's City]

On 4/11/2024 at 3:00 PM, Nagashsnee said:

 who is going to tell Kyme no? 

 

 

It was Goulding who edited and I think commissioned it!

 

Quote

AFTERWORD

Every journey has its end… This phrase rings oh-so-true when considering where we are in the narrative of the Horus Heresy. Within sight now are the walls of the Emperor’s Palace, as the grandest possible stage in the entire saga makes ready for its dramatic opening and thrilling final bow.
For me, the ending that most concerns my contribution to the Horus Heresy is happening now. In fact, it has happened. This is it. This book you hold in your hand is the very end.
Through his many trials: physical, mental, moral and spiritual (Konrad ensured he faced them all), Vulkan has reached the end of his story in what is considered the ‘open period’ of the Horus Heresy, prior to the colossal finale of the Siege.
I’ve lived with Vulkan as a character in my head – as a story I had the honour and privilege of telling – for over six years. I feel a profound attachment to him, to his fate, to his story, and so it feels only right that I use this afterword to talk about that and the journey it has taken me on.
I hope you’ll forgive the indulgence.
It’s hope, I’ve always felt, that Vulkan represents. It’s fair to say that he’s not considered to be one of the ‘main’ primarchs. He’s not the poster child for either the Imperium or Chaos. He doesn’t have wings, nor is he possessed of a serpent’s tail or an undeniable charisma that could bring the galaxy to its knees; he isn’t a feral wolf king or an unstable rage-gladiator. Vulkan was already regarded as one of the ‘others’, only worthy of remark because he was one of three primarchs who got royally brutalised, along with their Legions, at Isstvan V.
The massacre was more famous than the massacred.
Then.
Not so much now. 
Vulkan had a story. His supposed ‘death’ was a mystery, his subsequent reappearance at the Second Founding even more so. I wanted to know what had happened to him. I cared about his journey. I wanted other people to care too.
Vulkan is the epitome of hope. He’s also – with the exception of Guilliman who has arch-statecraft to fall back on – probably the one primarch who could easily adapt to a universe without endless war. He’s arguably the most human and yet one of the least human-looking, (aside from the one with the angel wings… oh, and pre-Chaos, of course).
He believes in humanity. He cares about humankind. He is a true hero, and in part that’s what Old Earth represents. Showing Vulkan as the hero.
In Vulkan Lives, he played the victim, the dupe. Yes, he was defiant. Yes, he triumphed against the odds and escaped the trap set for him, learning in the process that he could never die, but he was always on the back foot. 
Deathfire was about Vulkan’s Legion, his sons, and what they would do when faced with the loss of their father and the complex belief that he could, somehow, return from the dead. Vulkan is in the novel and his presence is felt throughout, but as a character he’s restricted to the odd weird dream sequence and a ‘fist pumping the air in triumph’ cameo right at the end.

In Old Earth, Vulkan finally gets to shine. He also begins to understand his purpose, and as observers to his fate, we get to see his destiny satisfyingly fulfilled.

No longer just one of the others. I wanted to make Vulkan’s story pertinent, for it to matter. That ending, that reveal of what his true purpose is could only happen on Terra and thus that is where his story concludes. The chapters set on the Throneworld were perhaps the toughest I had to write across all three novels and all three novellas. 

It would be remiss of me, though, to say that Old Earth was just Vulkan’s story. There is a very significant chunk of the book devoted to the Iron Hands, in particular a certain Shadrak Meduson and the fate of the so-called ‘Shattered Legions’. 

At one point, I remember, during one of the Horus Heresy planning meetings, there was a mind to have an entire novel solely devoted to the Iron Hands. It was going to be called The Iron Tenth (I admit, that’s somewhat on the nose, but, hey, it’s the Iron Hands).

I’m sure we could have easily filled a novel with a wall-to-wall Iron Hands saga, but as time marched on and the Horus Heresy series began to grow longer in the tooth, a sense of urgency that wasn’t there at the start began to manifest. Momentum became important, and the question that was so often posed in these meetings of far greater minds than my own changed from ‘what can we do next?’ to ‘what must we now do before the end?’ So it was then that plans for The Iron Tenth were jettisoned. It was only a little while later, as Imperium Secundus began to take shape in the series following The Unremembered Empire, and Vulkan had been returned to Nocturne, that Laurie suggested I could tackle the really meaty part of The Iron Tenth (i.e. Meduson’s fate and that of the Shattered Legions) in Old Earth. His suggestion was for a two-pronged storyline, one that both served as a finale in terms of Vulkan’s journey as well as giving the Iron Hands some closure. 

I had to ditch some things. There are parts of Vulkan’s journey that I’d planned that you’ll probably never get to read. I had an entire subplot that would have incorporated the ageing Thunder Warriors on Terra, and the sections in the webway would have lasted longer. 

I have no doubt at all in my mind that the approach we went for in the end was the better option and makes for the better story. Meduson’s tale is a tragic one, as is the story of his Legion, but in many ways it led to Vulkan’s triumph and says something about the cruel dichotomy of the universe which they inhabit. I like the symmetry of that. I like how they both get to be heroes in the end, but with completely different outcomes.

I’ve never written a more challenging book than Old Earth. It incorporates many many different settings, and balances two hefty storylines and then weaves them together. It has an absolute beast of a subplot that embraces a lot of big ideas about the universe and ultimately sets up some pretty significant story beats that will get realised on that big stage I mentioned earlier.

It also ties in to each of the three novellas: Promethean Sun, Scorched Earth and Sons of the Forge. Maybe one day the whole damn saga will be bound up together, in the appropriate order, and you can read it as I envisaged it.

I won’t claim to have known every detail, or how it would end up, but that scene with Vulkan right at the end, the hero, the guardian, both saviour and destroyer? I’ve had that pegged since my 40K novel Salamander. 

Six years is a long time, and there’s a sense of the bittersweet about finally reaching the end. I’ll miss Vulkan, though I’d never say never to seeing him again. 

Perhaps during the future? A far future. Now wouldn’t that be something?

 

Nick Kyme

Nottingham

June 2017

 

Edited April 18 by Petitioner's City