Era of Ruin

[System Sound]

Welcome to the Final final SoT book thread!

 

Just started it myself. And right of the bat the introduction states that this will be the last HH book, so signed by Jacob Young's... In 20 bloody 23...

[DarkChaplain]

1 hour ago, System Sound said:

Welcome to the Final final SoT book thread!

 

Don't jinx it....

 

And yeah, Jacob Young is obviously ignoring the short stories that have been released since August 2023, which are all going to be collected at some point. Or the existence of the last HH: Primarchs novel in Horus. Or the HH: Characters novels like Eidolon released since. Or the fabled 3rd McNeill Siege novel. Or, in a sense, Pandaemonium....

 

The first story, Angels of Another Age by John French, is relatively short and pretty much a "Blood Angel falls to Black Rage as Sanguinius dies" story. It's a downer, pitching the artistic pursuits of the Legion against the thing they're forced to become. It's well-handled, and makes me annoyed that it took til this year-delayed anthology to be tackled. This should have been released standalone right alongside TEATD3, if the anthology itself had to sit this long.

 

Speaking of the Anthology itself, though: It's not exactly long. It's a tad longer than Fury of Magnus, twice as long as Garro: Knight of Grey (which really needed to be a 2-CD audio drama...) and about two thirds as long as the shortest novel in the Siege.

 

In other words: They weren't strapped for space with this anthology. Whatever things end up missing or unspoken of that should've been in this "epilogue" tome, they simply didn't care about them, or didn't remember about them in the first place. Like Fulgrim, whose disappearance from Terra goes entirely unremarked in the entire anthology (and Lucius will forever remain missing as of 30 books ago).

Edited Saturday at 06:09 PM by DarkChaplain

[darkhorse0607]

So initial thoughts. I got through Angels of Another Age and Fulgrite during my run

 

Up front, if you're getting this for Audible, even though the forward is listed on the Table of Contents, it's not actually in the recording. So that's really irritating because I was curious about what it said

 

Also up front, I want to give a shout out to Shogo Miyakita. He narrated both of the two I've listened to already, and he's made great strides as a narrator. If you compare his narration here versus Red Tithe and Scars, it's night and day how much better he is

 

Angels of Another Age really hit it for me. I'll echo what DarkChaplain said, it's kind of irritating that we had to wait this long to get this story, but still. I really enjoy French's Blood Angels and his other short story with them (Passing of Angels) is also one of my favorite about the legion because it has a similar tone. I hope he writes more for the Blood Angels in the future, but it really started this off strong for me

 

and then to balance out this glowing review

 

I really did not care for Fulgrite. 

Spoiler

I'm not even a big Narek person like some are. But I really didn't care for the fact that he just randomly runs across Fabius randomly who reminded me more of the Joker the way he was written than any of the versions we've seen before, seriously, he refers to Ferrus Manus as the "iron one" or however it was phrased and then the whole "oh I like their flesh it's so supple" thing. Maybe I just didn't get it but I left the story just feeling like folks who aren't big Narek fans are going to just shoulder shrug at Erebus yet again popping up and killing a character before leaving (without the Fulgrite? Which struck me as odd considering how enhanced Erebus' senses are supposed to be but whatever), and then if you're a Narek person, then I doubt you'll be satisfied by this one either. I dunno. Maybe I just missed something

 

 

Going to try and finish it before popping back in here, but at least for me, Angels gave me a bit of hope for the rest of the anthology

 

[System Sound]

2 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

 

Don't jinx it....

 

And yeah, Jacob Young is obviously ignoring the short stories that have been released since August 2023, which are all going to be collected at some point. Or the existence of the last HH: Primarchs novel in Horus. Or the HH: Characters novels like Eidolon released since. Or the fabled 3rd McNeill Siege novel. Or, in a sense, Pandaemonium....

 

Somewhere the echoes of "To be concluded in TEatD Vol2." still whisper...

 

As for stuff that came out "after" this, I wouldn't be surprised if they try spin the HH character series and the supposed Horus book as part of the Great Crusade, thus technically not being part of HH... As for stories that are yet to be still collected. We had multiple even before the siege was spun up yet to be collected, and I honestly lost hope they they will ever be. But who knows, maybe there will be another anthology with a foreword "Oppps we forgot these... Nick Khyme 2024."

[DarkChaplain]

38 minutes ago, darkhorse0607 said:

I really did not care for Fulgrite. 

  Hide contents

I'm not even a big Narek person like some are. But I really didn't care for the fact that he just randomly runs across Fabius randomly who reminded me more of the Joker the way he was written than any of the versions we've seen before, seriously, he refers to Ferrus Manus as the "iron one" or however it was phrased and then the whole "oh I like their flesh it's so supple" thing. Maybe I just didn't get it but I left the story just feeling like folks who aren't big Narek fans are going to just shoulder shrug at Erebus yet again popping up and killing a character before leaving (without the Fulgrite? Which struck me as odd considering how enhanced Erebus' senses are supposed to be but whatever), and then if you're a Narek person, then I doubt you'll be satisfied by this one either. I dunno. Maybe I just missed something

 

 

 

I'm only about a third through Fulgurite, myself, but so far I'm enjoying it. It's doing far more for me when it comes to the character than the throwaway Fragment in TEATD, that's for sure. It's also funny to have him go "Oh, God-Emperor" when commenting about how it's all gone to hell.

 

But hey, at the very least

This is the first time we've actually had Fabius appear on-stage during the Siege, innit? Scratch that, he hasn't even been named in any of the 10 books of the 8 novel series.

[darkhorse0607]

14 minutes ago, DarkChaplain said:

 

I'm only about a third through Fulgurite, myself, but so far I'm enjoying it. It's doing far more for me when it comes to the character than the throwaway Fragment in TEATD, that's for sure. It's also funny to have him go "Oh, God-Emperor" when commenting about how it's all gone to hell.

 

But hey, at the very least

 

  Hide contents

 

 

This is the first time we've actually had Fabius appear on-stage during the Siege, innit? Scratch that, he hasn't even been named in any of the 10 books of the 8 novel series.
 

 

 

 

Fair enough, like I have never been that into his storyline (its interesting don't get me wrong but I felt like he needed another short story or something in there) but if it works for others then that's good 

[grailkeeper]

Fulgurite was ok. You can see how influenced he is by Abnett in his writing. Lot of words Abnett invented. A couple ten dollar words like heliotrope (very end and the death). A couple of call backs to Dans books- particularly the ending, probably more I missed. I thought there was going to be a twist that

Spoiler

the creature fabius bile was working on was a prototype of a cloned primarch.

But it didnt come to pass.

 

I didnt like Angels of Another age. The story didnt go anywhere. I'm not a fan of "is it real, is it not" dreamy flashback near death experience type stuff.

[grailkeeper]

The intro piece didn't add much over all, but it's dated August 2023. Normally you might expect 6 months or less between the date of something like that and date of publication. I wonder why they sat on this for so long? It got leaked ages ago.

[Blood Angel Scout]

Finished my first read through and initial reactions, immediate stand outs for me were "After the Dawn, the Darkness" and "Homebound" arguably being the best of the book, while "The Carron Lord of the Imperium" seems like it could've been an alternative epilogue for "Master of Mankind" or "Fragments(All we have left)" being something that was cut from "End and the Death". The others were decent in their own right with some interesting author choices being made within them. Nothing that puts me off reading them again, might not be in a rush to re-read them but not an outright skip this one situation. 

 

Do share a similar sentiment to others regarding how short it is, always want more, as soon as it's final edit is done but know well enough that GW does it's own thing when it wants to. My own disappointment is more down to what I personally wanted to see opposed to being disappointed with what we did get. 

[Marshal Rohr]

As I said on Reddit, Aaron continues his Crusade to make sure we all know the Custodes hate the Primarchs and he hates you for liking Space Marines so much they made a Horus Heresy series. 
 

 

edit, to be clear [redacted] rad story though. It’s a shame he’s not writing any more. 

Edited Saturday at 11:49 PM by Marshal Rohr

[Osteoclast]

3/5, potentially could’ve been higher if I’d been invested in certain storylines but HH was too long and branching and uneven for me to ever want to do that by the time I got into it. Various mildly spoiler thoughts: 

Spoiler

I’ll admit that I’m an unabashed John French fan despite never reading the Ahriman books. Quite enjoyed the narrative of the danger of failing at ascension and the description of the Warp implosion at Horus’ death. Recontextualizes why the Chaos gods withdrew from Horus at the end (didn’t bother with last two TEATD so Abnett might have his own view there) and provides for a narrative reason why the Emperor might have engineered a rebellion among the Primarchs should you hold to that theory. 
 

Fulgurite: I freaking hate the trope of just waiting for the enemy to do their thing and letting them do whatever when you could’ve easily murked them and there was absolutely no reason not to. Even worse with a a psychoconditioned soldier who has been killing abominations and daemons all the day long prior to that, but oh no, Fabulous Bill somehow weirds him out? Really? More than the literal eldritch abomination Neverborn? Also Erebus out of nowhere is annoying. 
 

Closure for Kitsohara (I’m spelling that wrong probably) is nice. I think the gal was the Alpha Legion traitor from First Wall but it’s been so long since I read it that I can’t remember

 

New headcanon: Khan disappears as a result of post-mortem related dementia. Still think keeping him aliveish was a bad idea. Have the balls to kill people for real. 
 

Sister of Silence should’ve had a happy ending with guardsman; I don’t care that it’s 30K/40K, I’m a romance sap and unashamed. 
 

Diocletian remains an arrogant dick. I feel like the uncertainty of the funeral rites and not knowing what to do without the Emperor telling them what to do makes them come across as essentially biological battle automata and answer the question of why the Emperor made the primarchs and didn’t use Custodes as the strategic leaders. Also unintentional irony imo in complaining that it should’ve been the Custodes leading humans into battle rather than primarchs leading legions of transhumans into battle.

 

[cheywood]

9 hours ago, Osteoclast said:

3/5, potentially could’ve been higher if I’d been invested in certain storylines but HH was too long and branching and uneven for me to ever want to do that by the time I got into it. Various mildly spoiler thoughts: 

  Hide contents

I’ll admit that I’m an unabashed John French fan despite never reading the Ahriman books. Quite enjoyed the narrative of the danger of failing at ascension and the description of the Warp implosion at Horus’ death. Recontextualizes why the Chaos gods withdrew from Horus at the end (didn’t bother with last two TEATD so Abnett might have his own view there) and provides for a narrative reason why the Emperor might have engineered a rebellion among the Primarchs should you hold to that theory. 
 

Fulgurite: I freaking hate the trope of just waiting for the enemy to do their thing and letting them do whatever when you could’ve easily murked them and there was absolutely no reason not to. Even worse with a a psychoconditioned soldier who has been killing abominations and daemons all the day long prior to that, but oh no, Fabulous Bill somehow weirds him out? Really? More than the literal eldritch abomination Neverborn? Also Erebus out of nowhere is annoying. 
 

Closure for Kitsohara (I’m spelling that wrong probably) is nice. I think the gal was the Alpha Legion traitor from First Wall but it’s been so long since I read it that I can’t remember

 

New headcanon: Khan disappears as a result of post-mortem related dementia. Still think keeping him aliveish was a bad idea. Have the balls to kill people for real. 
 

Sister of Silence should’ve had a happy ending with guardsman; I don’t care that it’s 30K/40K, I’m a romance sap and unashamed. 
 

Diocletian remains an arrogant dick. I feel like the uncertainty of the funeral rites and not knowing what to do without the Emperor telling them what to do makes them come across as essentially biological battle automata and answer the question of why the Emperor made the primarchs and didn’t use Custodes as the strategic leaders. Also unintentional irony imo in complaining that it should’ve been the Custodes leading humans into battle rather than primarchs leading legions of transhumans into battle.

 

Didn’t the Khan have to survive? His fate was established in the background lore well before the Heresy kicked off I thought. 

[wecanhaveallthree]

I am genuinely shocked at ADB's further assassination of the Custodes and Emperor both, and Guilliman into the bargain. Holy . It's just one thing after another. When I saw the first excerpt from Carrion Lord on Reddit, I tossed an off-hand quip about ADB's general themings of boyish angst, bad dads and slave girls. I hadn't read the story myself. Now I have. It is the worst, the absolute worst of his bad habits on full, naked display. It reeks of venomous metacommentary thinly cloaked in the tiniest gauze of Diocletian's anger. But never, not once, did I feel it was the character, not the author, talking and it is some of the dumbest tripe imaginable. 

 

Era is such a... I don't know. I've been keen on 40K again since Elemental Council and The Red Angel after TEATD knocked my interest in the setting pretty much dead. Somehow, this anthology sucked the enthusiasm right back out. It is a tome of misery and unpleasantness. Everything sucks. Everybody's dying. The dream is over. And it's all so sudden. There's this constant current through of BEWARE THE IMPERIAL FAITH and BEWARE GUILLIMAN - setup for the Scouring, no doubt, and I think the positioning of Guilliman as usurper and tyrant through Era is definitely A Choice - so much scorn for the poor people of Terra. Only the warriors are to be lauded, only fighting is worth noting, even Wraight gets in on the fun by writing us a story all about how Ilya's life only means something once she 

Spoiler

gets a kill assist

 

This anthology feels so... off. It's honestly unpleasant to read. French's two offerings are good, and Kyme's exploration of faith and belief through Narek is positive, but ye gods. I'm left almost entirely deflated. This series of stories has effectively nothing interesting to say. Everything sucks, everything's bad, there is no hope, everything's over, yadda yadda. It's kind of funny that I felt that the Heresy, even TEATD, actually ends with hope. It's a far-off hope, it's a long-shot hope, but Abnett says 'yes, everything is now, this is a really bad path, but there was a plan - there were safeguards - the people who can change things and who want to change things for the better, all this suffering might one day be worth it'. Era of Ruin isn't that. It's misery porn. It's not a wet fart to end the series, it's a vindictive piss.

 

3/10 because Narek is a good boy and John French's literary references make certain parts of my brain light up. 

 

E: Having had some choccy milk and a good sit down, I think my very negative feelings here are informed by how these stories are written as though there isn't a gulf between the Horus Heresy and 40K. They entirely ignore the power of faith that's been buoying so many of the characters throughout the Heresy and the Siege - they ignore Keeler, they ignore good works, they ignore the whole other side of the argument that even Malcador was starting to come around to: maybe giving people something to believe in isn't such a terrible idea, after all?

 

Era of Ruin makes it sound like the Imperium immediately became a theocratic hellscape, full of evil priests and ignorant wailing masses. There's a part in here where

 

Spoiler

some people dig up Sisters of Silence, put the bones on trial and burn them

 

and it's just so hilariously, ignorantly evil.

 

Part of the Imperium becoming 'the cruelest and bloodiest regime imaginable' is those ten thousand years of backsliding, of struggle and corruption and strife, of calcified thought and action to the point where those terrible crimes, that unthinking belief, is rote. Nobody even imagines a better way. That's why it's so deliciously awful by the Dark Millenium. Everything has been lost along the way, sacrificed - meaningfully or not, necessarily or not - for survival. The Imperium is so raw and bloody because it's hacked away so much of itself over time.

 

We lose so much meaning, so much struggle if we say: no, actually, it all died on that, it was all over then and there. Humanity could only ever have been saved by the immortal god-king, it never had a chance by itself. For me, at least, that withering away post-HH - the Primarchs leaving, or dying, or simply fading away - is so important, where all the transhumans were gone, when the Emperor was silent and things... were okay, actually. Humanity was scarred but survived. It had borders, it stopped being a genocidal expansionist murderhobo, the Space Marines were literally dying out from lack of use/need. Every time the Imperium tried to do better, be better - and it tried! - it kept falling back, kept being dragged back, by the nature of the setting. Very well: but it was good men and women who did keep trying, over and over, and it was those good intentions that led us, once again, 'cruellest and bloodiest regime'. 

 

Everything feels so much smaller, so much worse when it's just... gone, right away, when we go from Malcador letting go because he believes in the future at the end of the day, that other hands can be trusted to see the work done, to Ruin where there is no hope to be had at all.

Edited Sunday at 03:12 PM by wecanhaveallthree
THE EDIT OF FEANOR RUNS LONG

[SvenIronhand]

1 hour ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

I am genuinely shocked at ADB's further assassination of the Custodes and Emperor both, and Guilliman into the bargain. Holy . It's just one thing after another. When I saw the first excerpt from Carrion Lord on Reddit, I tossed an off-hand quip about ADB's general themings of boyish angst, bad dads and slave girls. I hadn't read the story myself. Now I have. It is the worst, the absolute worst of his bad habits on full, naked display. It reeks of venomous metacommentary thinly cloaked in the tiniest gauze of Diocletian's anger. But never, not once, did I feel it was the character, not the author, talking and it is some of the dumbest tripe imaginable. 

 

Real talk: I don't see any of the stuff you've repeatedly try to meme into discourse about the works in ADB's works. 

[wecanhaveallthree]

Really? I don't think 'bad dads' or 'boyish angst' are subtle or intellectual points in ADB's most popular books e.g. Betrayer, First Heretic or Master of Mankind. 'Boyish angst' is perhaps Talos' and Khayon's essential character, and the Black Legion books are founded on and around the idea of Abaddon being very, very disappointed by his 'bad dad'. The characters in his books cry out for better parental figures, mourn their lost innocence and childhood, and suffer tremendous abuse and trauma at the hands of authority figures. This is not necessarily a negative, naturally - I think Argel Tal's conversation with Lorgar on his return from the Warp is actually, physically painful to read for the sheer 'boy trying to make his dad happy even if, or perhaps especially when, it hurts him to do so' energy it has. It's compelling stuff when it's done well.

 

ADB's cast nearly always includes a female mortal character bound or subservient to the main male protagonist. Whether that Nefertari in Black Legion, or Octavia in Night Lords, or Anuradha in Spears... Diocletian even gets his own slave girl in Carrion Throne who exists solely for Diocletian to be able to say 'I had a hot babe bound to my will' (she does nothing and serves no purpose, literally, other than to die and give Diocletian a moment to mourn the passing of his slave girl). 

 

Now, you don't have to agree with that interpretation, but it's not an uncommon opinion (if not, perhaps, a widespread one). I absolutely will not go as far as some and extrapolate anything to why he writes the way he does, only that he does. 

[Karhedron]

4 hours ago, cheywood said:

Didn’t the Khan have to survive? His fate was established in the background lore well before the Heresy kicked off I thought. 

 

Yes, the Khan had always been established as having survived the Heresy. He disappeared some time later chasing Drukhari Raiders into either the Maelstrom or the Webway.

[Waaagh?]

I've been listening to the audiobook and so far so good. I did struggle a little with the Sister of Silence story due the the narrators strong Geordie accent.

 

Totally not something she was doing wrong, just I'm from the same place and it's weird hearing someone who sounds like my mother reading HH. 

[Osteoclast]

4 hours ago, cheywood said:

Didn’t the Khan have to survive? His fate was established in the background lore well before the Heresy kicked off I thought. 

His fate as far as was known, if memory serves ADB mentioned him in particular where it was sufficiently legendary that you could actually mix it up. That said: it cheapens a character’s death and sacrifice if they can just come back. If you’re going to kill them, kill them for real. 

[cheywood]

1 hour ago, Osteoclast said:

His fate as far as was known, if memory serves ADB mentioned him in particular where it was sufficiently legendary that you could actually mix it up. That said: it cheapens a character’s death and sacrifice if they can just come back. If you’re going to kill them, kill them for real. 

They’ve been pretty good about sticking to the Primarchs previously established fates. Much as I agree that resurrection is a boring narrative device I think it would be weird for them to turn around and kill a primarch who was established as having disappeared into the webway post heresy. The mistake was arguably temporarily killing him in the first place, although it did help ratchet up the pathos of that fight and the aftermath.

Edited Sunday at 04:58 PM by cheywood

[caladancid]

4 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

I am genuinely shocked at ADB's further assassination of the Custodes and Emperor both, and Guilliman into the bargain. Holy . It's just one thing after another. When I saw the first excerpt from Carrion Lord on Reddit, I tossed an off-hand quip about ADB's general themings of boyish angst, bad dads and slave girls. I hadn't read the story myself. Now I have. It is the worst, the absolute worst of his bad habits on full, naked display. It reeks of venomous metacommentary thinly cloaked in the tiniest gauze of Diocletian's anger. But never, not once, did I feel it was the character, not the author, talking and it is some of the dumbest tripe imaginable. 

 

Era is such a... I don't know. I've been keen on 40K again since Elemental Council and The Red Angel after TEATD knocked my interest in the setting pretty much dead. Somehow, this anthology sucked the enthusiasm right back out. It is a tome of misery and unpleasantness. Everything sucks. Everybody's dying. The dream is over. And it's all so sudden. There's this constant current through of BEWARE THE IMPERIAL FAITH and BEWARE GUILLIMAN - setup for the Scouring, no doubt, and I think the positioning of Guilliman as usurper and tyrant through Era is definitely A Choice - so much scorn for the poor people of Terra. Only the warriors are to be lauded, only fighting is worth noting, even Wraight gets in on the fun by writing us a story all about how Ilya's life only means something once she 

  Reveal hidden contents

gets a kill assist

 

This anthology feels so... off. It's honestly unpleasant to read. French's two offerings are good, and Kyme's exploration of faith and belief through Narek is positive, but ye gods. I'm left almost entirely deflated. This series of stories has effectively nothing interesting to say. Everything sucks, everything's bad, there is no hope, everything's over, yadda yadda. It's kind of funny that I felt that the Heresy, even TEATD, actually ends with hope. It's a far-off hope, it's a long-shot hope, but Abnett says 'yes, everything is now, this is a really bad path, but there was a plan - there were safeguards - the people who can change things and who want to change things for the better, all this suffering might one day be worth it'. Era of Ruin isn't that. It's misery porn. It's not a wet fart to end the series, it's a vindictive piss.

 

3/10 because Narek is a good boy and John French's literary references make certain parts of my brain light up. 

 

E: Having had some choccy milk and a good sit down, I think my very negative feelings here are informed by how these stories are written as though there isn't a gulf between the Horus Heresy and 40K. They entirely ignore the power of faith that's been buoying so many of the characters throughout the Heresy and the Siege - they ignore Keeler, they ignore good works, they ignore the whole other side of the argument that even Malcador was starting to come around to: maybe giving people something to believe in isn't such a terrible idea, after all?

 

Era of Ruin makes it sound like the Imperium immediately became a theocratic hellscape, full of evil priests and ignorant wailing masses. There's a part in here where

 

  Reveal hidden contents

some people dig up Sisters of Silence, put the bones on trial and burn them

 

and it's just so hilariously, ignorantly evil.

 

Part of the Imperium becoming 'the cruelest and bloodiest regime imaginable' is those ten thousand years of backsliding, of struggle and corruption and strife, of calcified thought and action to the point where those terrible crimes, that unthinking belief, is rote. Nobody even imagines a better way. That's why it's so deliciously awful by the Dark Millenium. Everything has been lost along the way, sacrificed - meaningfully or not, necessarily or not - for survival. The Imperium is so raw and bloody because it's hacked away so much of itself over time.

 

We lose so much meaning, so much struggle if we say: no, actually, it all died on that, it was all over then and there. Humanity could only ever have been saved by the immortal god-king, it never had a chance by itself. For me, at least, that withering away post-HH - the Primarchs leaving, or dying, or simply fading away - is so important, where all the transhumans were gone, when the Emperor was silent and things... were okay, actually. Humanity was scarred but survived. It had borders, it stopped being a genocidal expansionist murderhobo, the Space Marines were literally dying out from lack of use/need. Every time the Imperium tried to do better, be better - and it tried! - it kept falling back, kept being dragged back, by the nature of the setting. Very well: but it was good men and women who did keep trying, over and over, and it was those good intentions that led us, once again, 'cruellest and bloodiest regime'. 

 

Everything feels so much smaller, so much worse when it's just... gone, right away, when we go from Malcador letting go because he believes in the future at the end of the day, that other hands can be trusted to see the work done, to Ruin where there is no hope to be had at all.

 

I don't agree with everything you wrote, but the ADB stuff is true. It feels like he has continued down the Laurie Goulding path of really disliking that space marines are heroes in the current lore, and doing his best to very much let you know that is the wrong way to like the setting. It did not feel like the character was talking at all.

[DarkChaplain]

Finished Fulgurite. Wanted to post since around noon, but internet problems happened and then B&C bugged out on me as a result. Oh well.

 

I generally liked it, but....

 

There's no way in hell this is all that was supposed to happen in Narek's arc. It's far too dumb of an ending if they don't follow this up with him in service of the Emperor. If Titan wasn't already done and dusted, I'd have expected him to go on to become a Grey Knight founder, but that ship has long sailed.

 

I had no issues with Fabius here. He's at his worst during the Siege-timeframe. He's left to do as he pleases; Fulgrim is gone. His brothers are gone, too, albeit in a different way. He can indulge his experiments wholeheartedly, and Josh's books already comment on him having been a tad excessive back then - Fabius is one of those characters who genuinely stepped back from the brink of insanity and "got better", more rational, after the Siege and Canticle City. But even then, I didn't think that his depiction was really over the top, but in line with what we've seen before during the Heresy.

 

Narek, meanwhile, really grew on me even more here. He's disillusioned with his Legion and it makes him interesting in a very different way from most of the Loyalists, because he's still embedded with them, and only acts now at the very end in any real way. If anything, I wish Lorgar had been at the Siege - where he originally ascended to Daemonhood; remember that, BL editors? - and they could've had a big meeting... instead of that wet fart that Garro and Mortarion got.

 

.....but then Erebus happens again, doing the most predictable :cuss: at this point, and leaves this entire character and plotline in absolute limbo. Because Erebus. Erebus Ex Machina is the absolute worst thing to come out of the Siege of Terra, and I'm including all the other dumb :cuss: things it introduced in there.

[Waaagh?]

What's the count for "Then Erebus magically appears and stabs them to death" now for the Heresy?

 

 

[darkhorse0607]

3 minutes ago, Waaagh? said:

What's the count for "Then Erebus magically appears and stabs them to death" now for the Heresy?

 

 

 

Around the same as the Samus shows up and gets throttled by the protagonist count

[DarkChaplain]

  

3 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

Really? I don't think 'bad dads' or 'boyish angst' are subtle or intellectual points in ADB's most popular books e.g. Betrayer, First Heretic or Master of Mankind. 'Boyish angst' is perhaps Talos' and Khayon's essential character, and the Black Legion books are founded on and around the idea of Abaddon being very, very disappointed by his 'bad dad'. The characters in his books cry out for better parental figures, mourn their lost innocence and childhood, and suffer tremendous abuse and trauma at the hands of authority figures. This is not necessarily a negative, naturally - I think Argel Tal's conversation with Lorgar on his return from the Warp is actually, physically painful to read for the sheer 'boy trying to make his dad happy even if, or perhaps especially when, it hurts him to do so' energy it has. It's compelling stuff when it's done well.

 

ADB's cast nearly always includes a female mortal character bound or subservient to the main male protagonist. Whether that Nefertari in Black Legion, or Octavia in Night Lords, or Anuradha in Spears... Diocletian even gets his own slave girl in Carrion Throne who exists solely for Diocletian to be able to say 'I had a hot babe bound to my will' (she does nothing and serves no purpose, literally, other than to die and give Diocletian a moment to mourn the passing of his slave girl). 

 

Now, you don't have to agree with that interpretation, but it's not an uncommon opinion (if not, perhaps, a widespread one). I absolutely will not go as far as some and extrapolate anything to why he writes the way he does, only that he does. 

 

While reading this, my mind immediately jumped to Sevatar in Prince of Crows. Real bad daddy issues, trying to be good, going against his own nature, having had a dreadful childhood, suffering abuse time and again.... and then in the audio drama The Long Night he even gets to bond with a young girl, if you want to do the bingo.

 

As you say, it need not be a bad thing at all. I enjoyed Sevatar, Khârn and Lotara or Argel Tal and Cyrene (though the Siege even managed to mess HER up majorly, too! Thankfully it looped back around somewhat by the very end, albeit clumsily), a great deal. Not so much the bloke from Emperor's Spear, though....

But it's pretty much a pattern ADB falls into, one way or another. And they always seem to regret being what they are. Most of them are big on melancholy in general. And frankly, the sheer amount of times this has been a thing makes me inwardly groan with every book of his it happens in that actually sees the light of day. Not that there've been many of those lately, I'm afraid.

[Marshal Rohr]

27 minutes ago, DarkChaplain said:

  

 

While reading this, my mind immediately jumped to Sevatar in Prince of Crows. Real bad daddy issues, trying to be good, going against his own nature, having had a dreadful childhood, suffering abuse time and again.... and then in the audio drama The Long Night he even gets to bond with a young girl, if you want to do the bingo.

 

As you say, it need not be a bad thing at all. I enjoyed Sevatar, Khârn and Lotara or Argel Tal and Cyrene (though the Siege even managed to mess HER up majorly, too! Thankfully it looped back around somewhat by the very end, albeit clumsily), a great deal. Not so much the bloke from Emperor's Spear, though....

But it's pretty much a pattern ADB falls into, one way or another. And they always seem to regret being what they are. Most of them are big on melancholy in general. And frankly, the sheer amount of times this has been a thing makes me inwardly groan with every book of his it happens in that actually sees the light of day. Not that there've been many of those lately, I'm afraid.

ADB didn’t return to write that way again, this was written years and years ago during that “phase” of his writing, before disgusting redditors and meme brained slop posters ran him out of the fandom because they didn’t like his BTS commentary because it didn’t jive with whatever version of the lore they had built in their own head. 

Edited Sunday at 06:49 PM by Marshal Rohr