Upcoming BL Stuff 2025

[cheywood]

Anyone else think Carnage Unending could be an anthology? It doesn’t sound like a title Abnett would use for one of his own books, more so something BL came up with. 

[DarkChaplain]

The Green Tide Omnibus is funny. It includes the Catachan Devil Astra Militarum-branded novel because it's got Orks in it. You'd think an AM novel would be in one of the AM Omnibuses instead, particularly as part of a series....

[Felix Antipodes]

12 hours ago, Taliesin said:

No, Shattered and Soulless releases 2 months later than December, its already up on Amazon.com and not embargoed ( as indeed there would be no reason for it).

 

https://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Soulless-Horus-Heresy-Siege/dp/1836090196/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TQU6825HCNRZ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.JB2eSBrWo_AZ-RanAzdEIg.RAWyI0K2JWM_0Wa5-txZ1sEnKxtsXm0E0qEyVo9xsdE&dib_tag=se&keywords=The+Shattered+and+the+Soulless&qid=1752760147&s=books&sprefix=the+shattered+and+the+soulless%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C165&sr=1-1

 

Guess this puts paid to the 3rd McNeill HH book being released, otherwise it would be included in this.

[theSpirea]

Or maybe finally Horus novel and Wraight is getting it because McNeill completely butchered that character in False Gods? And it's just not labeled correctly as hardback

[skylerboodie]

I would take any non-McNeill author for the Horus novella, just because I really didn't like his Horus transformation in "Lupus Daemonis" (and False Gods was a disappointment, as theSpirea mentions above). Some of his other Heresy novels are amongst my favourites though - Fulgrim, A Thousand Sons - but not this.

 

I still think these two books are The Scouring, though that is 60% Valrak confirming it is going to happen and 40% hope.

[wecanhaveallthree]

I say it all the time, but if False Gods was called Horus Falling, perhaps people might have gotten the memo.

 

Rising is Horus at his absolute best. Horus as astute statesman, Horus as charismatic leader, Horus as kind father, Horus as gifted general, Horus as diplomat and scholar and knowledge-seeker who is striving to find the 'better way', who has dark words for the oppression of the Imperium, who promises he'll scruff the Council of Terra and their tithe-collectors as soon as he's got a free moment. Horus wanting to find common cause with the Interex, to chart a new path and policy, who comes this close to pulling it off...

 

...and False Gods is Horus at his lowest, his deepest nadir, the false god as it were. Horus' bruised ego. Horus' mania. Horus' blame. His desperation, his drive, his sanction to do what will benefit Horus. We see the rot in the Sons as we saw it in the Children in Fulgrim. We see how the cult of personality and the warrior lodges have ensured dissent is quelled, how the 'correction' of mortals is swiftly and brutally done, how quickly the Legion flinches inwards. How brittle it all is, how none of it can function without the man himself. Horus in False Gods is weak. Horus is a fool. Because all the illusions are stripped away, the pressure is put on, and we see him crushed by it.

 

When Horus takes the hand of Chaos, when he walks from the Serpent Lodge, he doesn't do it for the Imperium or mankind. He does it for Horus. He always knew where the path would lead. He confesses it entirely in Wolfsbane: it doesn't matter a damn how bad the Emperor might have been, Chaos was always infinitely worse. Horus had a choice: die, refuse, stand firm. Sacrifice himself, slip from the pages of history, but save the future. He rejects this: he chooses to live, and all others be damned for it.

 

It's damn notable that Horus, as soon as he gains any kind of lucidity, tries to self-terminate (consciously or not). Wolfsbane, Slaves to Darkness, then - ultimately - the final confrontation with the Emperor. But the choice was already made on Davin.

 

tl;dr False Gods is awesome.

 

Lupus Daemonis is... OKAY, LET ME GET THE CORKBOARD.

 

McNeill and French continually reference the Kindly Ones in relation to Horus. Lupus Daemonis just has too much weird guff going on with it to be read completely straight. It completely, entirely butchers every other timeline and datapoint regarding the Imperium and Cthonia. Nothing about it coheres with anything we've been previously told about Horus or Cthonia or the Emperor's contact with the Primarchs. Add that to all the absolutely wacky stuff going on in Siege of Cthonia and Reckoning - particularly the lab, the gateway and what feels like a prototype of the Primarch Project - and with so much timey-wimey nonsense going on, I refuse to abandon the idea that there isn't some twist around the corner. 

[skylerboodie]

Nah, I just didn't like the way the fall of Horus was written in False Gods, i felt McNeill fumbled it.

[darkhorse0607]

1 hour ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

I refuse to abandon the idea that there isn't some twist around the corner. 

 

Problem is that they missed the turn for the corner. They're now at the gas station in the next town over. Heresy series is over, the time for shock twists was during the End and the Death, not in a Primarch novel that might or might not be in development at some point, maybe, or even worse in a non-related novel they drop in a few years to reveal the "truth" about Horus that the 60+ books didn't cover. 

[grailkeeper]

Described as a multi book, multi author megaseries. Its going to last years.

 

3 themes= what happens to marines, what happens to chaos marines (gods with draw some of their power), what happens to humanity. 

 

The scouring can be treated as a series in its own right, so you dont have to read the heresy books. 

 

Edited Friday at 08:10 PM by grailkeeper

[Arkhas Fell]

It's there, let's goooooooooo! 

The leaks were real, bless the dark gods!

[LemartesTheLost]

Not gonna lie, I'm pretty deflated about this. 40k fiction continually left behind for more Primarch :cuss:.

[Roomsky]

Some of you may be burnt out, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Iron Cage let's go!
Caliban exploding let's go!
Eskrador let's go!
Other things, I imagine, Let's go!

[Urauloth]

I want more Caipha Morarg, and if this is how I get more Caipha Morarg then I'm buying it on day one.

[grailkeeper]

They refuse to be drawn on how many books there'll be. 

I'm old enough to remember when there were meant to be a single digit number of heresy books...

[Nagashsnee]

Wonder if Mech will get even 1 bespoke novel this time.

 

After the smashing and ringing success of dawn of fire BL barrels onwards. 

 

Still Chris Wraith book 1, BL you know what it will take a d you deliver.

[darkhorse0607]

Good job sleuthers. We live to sleuth another day

 

Don't care for how it falls under the Heresy label, but it's inconsequential I guess. 

[grailkeeper]

Couple of preliminary thoughts. 

I'm glad that its a new series you dont need a priori knowledge of the heresy to enjoy. There are some interesting unfinished stories out there, but there's a lot more uninteresting bloat. If you dont beleive me check out the era of ruin anthology where some of the stories seem to be "Here's how my OC finishes his story" in a way that doesnt affect the main story in any significant way. I think a clean slate is probably better than requiring you to know what happened in 60+ other books and novellas. That said, if its all new characters its going to have to involve a lot of flash backs if  its going to show a relationship between a traitor and a loyalist character. A betrayal is a pretty interesting story after all. 

The heresy always had a fixed end point. The scouring doesnt. This could result in it going on forever. I'd rather a nice tight series with a plotted out beginning middle and end. It could turn into a soap opera with space marines, the way the heresy did. 

[grailkeeper]

Interesting that Gulliman is not wearing the gauntlets of Ultramar. One of the few things we knew about the heresy before it started was he recovered them from a chaos champion at the Gamalia Reclusiam Massacre. during the heresy We never found out what that was in the heresy books. Its an event that could still happen during the scouring.  I did find a post here from 2008 which says it happened after the heresy, which means its pretty fitting he not have them yet.  It'd be cool if theres a chaos character who has a pair of power fists with bolters attached. Knowing what is going to ultimately happen to someone when we first meet them is sometimes great fun. 

 

It'd be an interesting twist if it turns out Gamalia is actually a Word Bearers world. The assumption has always been that chaos were the ones carrying out the massacre. What if they weren't? 

Edited Friday at 08:18 PM by grailkeeper

[Krelious]

I'd guess we can have ADB doing the novel where Curze dies. 

[Arkhas Fell]

4 minutes ago, grailkeeper said:

Interesting that Gulliman is not wearing the gauntlets of Ultramar. One of the few things we knew about the heresy before it started was he recovered them from a chaos champion at the Gamalia Reclusiam Massacre. during the heresy We never found out what that was in the heresy books. Its an event that could still happen during the scouring.  I did find a post here from 2008 which says it happened after the heresy, which means its pretty fitting he not have them yet.  It'd be cool if theres a chaos character who has a pair of power fists with bolters attached. Knowing what is going to ultimately happen to someone when we first meet them is sometimes great fun. 

Was this event ever referenced in the black books? it does ring a bell but I'm not sure 
 

  

Just now, Krelious said:

I'd guess we can have ADB doing the novel where Curze dies. 

Didn't Haley's Curze primarch novel already covered this?

Edited Friday at 08:18 PM by Arkhas Fell

[darkhorse0607]

4 minutes ago, Arkhas Fell said:

Didn't Haley's Curze primarch novel already covered this?

 

It just is mentioned that he's dead already when Curze comes back to the legion

[grailkeeper]

6 minutes ago, Krelious said:

I'd guess we can have ADB doing the novel where Curze dies. 

 

 

I'm pretty sure this was done a long time ago in Lord of Night by Si Spurrier, with ADB following up on scenes from that book in the Night Lords Trilogy. 

7 minutes ago, Arkhas Fell said:

Was this event ever referenced in the black books? it does ring a bell but I'm not sure 
 

 

 

It is mentioned in old Space Marine Codexs. I havent read the black books so cant say for sure,  but the lack of material on it in the various wikis makes me think not. 

[Felix Antipodes]

I fear “no prior knowledge of the heresy required” is code for don’t expect to see too many of the minor characters to cross over into this series.  Not necessarily a bad thing, but I can already hear the moaning of where’s my favourite obscure character?

The only ones happier than BL readers to hear this announcement will be the scalpers 

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

 

Architect vs. Administator!

 

The battle you didn't know you didn't want.

 

(j/k Wraight would make even that premise readable).

[Felix Antipodes]

Let’s start the guessing game of who these bad boys on the left are…