Kuja Reviews: Some 40K

[Connor MacLeod]

What's everyone's take on the whole Horus Heresy series so far? I've fallen far behind and want to catch up again. I'm just finishing up Flight of the Eisenstein and I think Fulgrim is the next on in the series but I've been seeing some online reviews that have been unhappy with many of the books - Battle of the Abyss getting the worst of it but others mentioned too as generally bad. I don't want to buy into a series if I only get so-so payback in terms of story. I could just cherry pick the books I read but I'm kinda weird about reading every book in a series. Unfortunately I have not been happy with the depictions so far of the Primarchs - Horus especially. His fall was poorly handled I thought and his character a tad one dimensional. Frankly what I am really looking forward to is a very good depiction of the Siege of Terra which at the rate these books are going won't come for another few years.

The general atmosphere and handling of the overall arc is debatable, but I'd say its mostly better than SW has done things (NJO, LOTF, etc.) They do pretty well in the "bit stories" of the Crusades and in the whole general atmosphere of things - the Remembrancers and the whole "non religious" angle of the Imperium at this point remain at least pretty consistent themes and distinguishing details from more "modern" 40K. I also like some of the subplot themes that deal with the terran born astartes vs non terran born. Not as grimdark (yet) either, which is in some ways a plus, even though you know there's a huge heaping o grimdark just hanging over the entire series.

As far as individual stories go, depends on the writer and your attitude about the writer. Some are very good, some are "meh." I liked Horus Rising for example, but lots of "Legion" left me bland. Or "Thousand Sons" is quite good, but again it will depend on what you look for in 40K and an author (CF the discussion on Descent of Angels.)

Personally I think they shouldn't focus so heavily on following the Heresy Arc rathre than treagint he Pre and "heresy" era as just being a new, different and bigger setting for 40K to tell individual stories in (the stories of different expeditions, of the different legions, or parts of the legions, etc.) There's lots of scope for tension and drama and variety to go on. More on the whole "gray area" between "Traitor" and "loyalist" would be good. What if we had more "loyalist" chapters that turned Traitor, and "traitor" chapters that turn out loyalist?

For me the height of awesomeness in the 40K books I've read has been the Eisenhorn trilogy. Just amazing in every respect but admittedly I haven't really many books in all. I just read the ones that people here have generally raved about.

The first two Eisenhorns are my favorite since they are what I call "core" eisenhorn, including the short stories. The third one isn't bad either, but I think the fact its wrapping up the "Glaw" plot thread tends to put it in a different category. Not bad, just.. different. More Ravenor-esque.

[Kuja]

You're right, I suppose, but I think that was one of the things that bugged me about the book. McNeill seemed to try TOO hard to make them likeable. I still like them and all, but then at the end Magnus' reaction seems to jar with the whole "then they turn to chaos" bit by the end. I mean if Magnus is staying loyal and feels that he and his legion's pride brought this down on them... why are they turning to Chaos? Or even (in a matter of years as I recall) conspiring with Horus to fight the Emperor?

Spoiler

To be fair, although McNeill certainly does make them out to be tragic heroes, the book also makes it very, very clear that the Council of Nikea was right: Magnus and the Sons were in way over their heads and messing with things they shouldn't have been. Magnus' conversation with Tzeentch and the Tutelaries sweeping in to possess the various marines is ample proof of that.

It's kind of a tough call. On one hand I like how the Thousand Sons are portrayed (not just here, but the hints throughout the series) but then their ultimate actions in becoming a Traitor Legion become incomprehensible. As WR said though, McNeill likes to do 40K "his way" so this probably is just another case here, since if we confined it to the "McNeill viewpoint" it probably wouldn't be that inconsistent.

Spoiler

Well, let's remember that the last passage of the book is written, what, a few hours after the events of Prospero? Maybe a few days? Certainly not weeks or months. It could have been Ahriman's last gasp: a final, last-ditch effort to save the Legion from the rampant mutation. We always thought it was done to preserve the Sons for their service to Tzeentch, but this casts it in a new light. When the Rubric fails and turns the Sons into something the Emperor would never look upon favorably, maybe Ahirman just finally gave up and consigned himself to his fate.

[Kuja]

What's everyone's take on the whole Horus Heresy series so far? I've fallen far behind and want to catch up again. I'm just finishing up Flight of the Eisenstein and I think Fulgrim is the next on in the series but I've been seeing some online reviews that have been unhappy with many of the books - Battle of the Abyss getting the worst of it but others mentioned too as generally bad. I don't want to buy into a series if I only get so-so payback in terms of story. I could just cherry pick the books I read but I'm kinda weird about reading every book in a series. Unfortunately I have not been happy with the depictions so far of the Primarchs - Horus especially. His fall was poorly handled I thought and his character a tad one dimensional. Frankly what I am really looking forward to is a very good depiction of the Siege of Terra which at the rate these books are going won't come for another few years.

I think the reason Battle for the Abyss gets a lot of hate is twofold: first, it wasn't the story people were expecting (people were expecting to see the Ultramarines and Word Bearers duking it out on Calth, and it's not that story at all) and second, it's a much, much smaller scale story than the rest of the series. However, I think if you go in understanding that, it's not a terribly bad book, it's average and fun and someone actually tells a Word Bearer to shut the fuck up, point blank. After wading through the first two books of the WB trilogy and having to listen to Erebus' douchenozzelry for two and a half books more, that was like a breath of fresh air.

Er, anyway, I got a little bogged down. Here's my take on the books you've yet to go through:

Fulgrim - it's entirely predictable, but the amount of detail McNeill crammed into it is just astonishing. I've been rereading some of my HH books lately and in retrospect I think Fulgrim comes across as a bit more lofty and superior than Horus did at times. It's still a book with problems, but the ending is a bit like The Dark Knight's: everything gets turned up to 11 and pretty much stays there for the last few chapters.

Descent of Angels - I thought this book was great, a slower-paced, calmer story that acted as a counterbalance after the HOLY FUCKBALLS insanity of Flight of the Eisenstein and Fulgrim. It delves very deeply into the characters of Luther and Lion El'Jonson, but it's actually a book that's smart enough to do it through the lens of another character's perception and the events of the book itself, instead of outright telling us.

Legion - skip it. Oh fine, I'll say more. The book is engrossing and detailed, but I think the detail is largely pointed in the wrong direction. We get buckets and buckets of info on these people or that in the Imperial forces or the alien cabal, but Alpharius and the Alpha Legion are almost strangers in their own book. We don't get very much insight into Alpharius' mind, and what we do get is distorted from the character he's been depicted as in the past. The ending sucks. Hard.

Battle for the Abyss - I pretty much gave you the review up there, but I'll elaborate a little bit. Abyss is largely a standalone book with standalone characters, but it's fun and engaging even though it's a far cry from the story Ben Counter could and really should have written. The characters of a World Eater and a Thousand Son really stand out as the book goes on.

Mechanicum - FUCK YEAH. I had a lot of fun with this book. There's only one primarch that makes a guest appearance, but the amount of insight we gain into the workings of the Mechanicus both in the 'present' and why it is the way it is in 40K is just awesome. The ending is a little uneven, but the story is great, with fun characters both good and evil.

Tales of Heresy - *sigh* it hurts a little to say this, but I think this book fell far from the heights of the series up til now. The stories are largely flat and boring, the characters are uninteresting and the whole thing is slathered in gratuitous GRIMDARK - not just the kind of grm darkness that's been hanging over the whole series, but the kind of self-destructive pathos that made my reaction to almost every story, "so what the fuck was the point of reading that?" You gain very little insight, the endings are gratuitously dark, and when you close the book, you don't really feel like you've gained anything.

Fallen Angels - this is the sequel to Descent of Angels. Personally, I didn't think that book really needed a sequel, but okay. Frankly, I was underwhelmed. It's okay. Very okay. But so much of it is just okay to the point that I found it much more forgettable than the first book. It expounds on the attitudes of various Dark Angels and what they were doing when the Heresy took off, but aside from that it doesn't really have much life to it. One thing I will say for it though, the last two pages are fucking awesome.

A Thousand Sons - this is the book that really gets it. The one that finally gets everything right. The primarchs are properly depicted and shown to be powerful, intelligent, insightful man-gods, yet nonetheless possessed of their own hubris and faults. The Thousand Sons are shown to be the tragic heroes they so deserved to be, the Remembrancers are depicted as humans with their own flaws and strengths integral to the story, and we even get to look around at the world of Prospero and why it was the way it was. The corruption of Magnus and the Sons, I thought, was the best depiction of such events to date, well over the shoulders of both Horus and Fulgrim. If you get only one more HH book, get this one.

[Stravo]

Kuja,

Thanks for the awesome rundown. I really appreciate it, which leads me to an aside observation. Of all the fandoms I've dealt with the 40kers are always the most welcoming to new comers and questions. I have never encountered a "go check it yourself noob!" I ask a simple question and I get reams of info, extra stuff and reading suggestions. kudos to the WH40K fanbase here on SDNET. Now with that said I think an unintended effect of the novels I've read so far is give me a burning interest in the Great Crusade era. I have always wanted to read accounts of Space Marines on their first battles - for example what must the Eldar thought when the first Space Marine drop pods fell on one of their worlds or an Ork Waagh that first encounters the Emperor's Angels of Death. Holy shit that is an awesome image and story idea. This series very briefly touches on it and leaves me wanting more.

A fine example of this is in one of the early novels when the Space Marines take on the Warsingers (for want of a better term for aliens whose names I can't remember) They took on this xeno species they never met and we got to see some great battle scenes and the Space Marine wankage in full effect. Another example is when Horus is named Warmaster by the Emperor just after winning a war against an Ork Waagh. How massive must have that Waagh been that required several Primarchs, their respective legions and the Emperor of Man himself to defeat?? Talk about potential epic awesomeness. I am not getting that same sense of awesomness so far in the Horus Heresy novels - mind you I'm early in.

[Imperial Overlord]

The Horus Heresy novels suffer, in my opinion, from some of the scale problems you see in "big universe" sci-fi, that is the author doesn't grasp how big a scale things are operating on (3 million clones anyone?). The Primarchs are also insufficiently super human. Having said that, Thousand Sons is a big exception. Leman Russ and Magnus come across as total power houses with legions of warrior demigods at their command. It also, as has been mentioned, lacks the horribly unconvincing fall (such as Horuses or the god awful atrocity that is the end of Legion). Magnus is powerful, intelligent, learned, and wise but the holes in his own knowledge, the machinations of others, his hubris, and the matchless manipulations of Tzeentch lay the ground for the damnation of his legion.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Stravo, there is a scene in Fulgrim that you will enjoy a lot: The first(ish) meeting between the Eldar and a Primarch. It doesn't last very long, but it's definitely an "oh shit" moment. As for the scale of action you're looking for, the two most epic Heresy books are Mechanicus and A Thousand Sons.

[Imperial Overlord]

Mechanicus was awesome. I love the "grimdark fakeout" that occurs several times in that book.

[Falkenhayn]

Stravo, there is a scene in Fulgrim that you will enjoy a lot: The first(ish) meeting between the Eldar and a Primarch. It doesn't last very long, but it's definitely an "oh shit" moment. As for the scale of action you're looking for, the two most epic Heresy books are Mechanicus and A Thousand Sons.

What page abouts?

BL in its recent works has been laying out quite rich characterizations for its Chaos villains, not just in the HH, but Blood Pact as well. They are quite human in most instances, and well done, which will make any move towards Abbadon/Kharn style villainy very disappointing. Ezekyle Abbaddon is really the one of the most boring bad guys in the whole HH, while Kharn is simple Monty Python's Black Knight without the sucking.
Spoiler

Blood Pact itself I have no trouble recommending. Gaunt is stuck between keeping the Tanith/Verghasite/Belladon Culture-Regiment alive, relieving his trooper's growing PTSD (which was refreshingly shoved into our faces in Only in Death), and keeping his own skin (vs. a Blood Pact hit squad commanded by veteran Gaur and his warp-witch sister). He is also brought face-to-face with his own legend, the Imperium's corruption and utilization of his heroic service record, and just how the "everyman" of the IoM deals with death. More specifically, the families of those common soldiers killed in the Sabbat Worlds; mourning and remembrance, we find out, are lucrative growth industries in the IoM. And people would much rather manufacture memories than recover truth.

[Imperial Overlord]

My favorite part in Blood Pact was how the less savory elements of the Ghosts got bored and into trouble after a prolonged stretch of cadre duty. It's exactly what I would expect from them.

[Falkenhayn]

Have any of the Ghosts suicided? I can't remember it happening. But they've been on the line for 12 years (which I was surprised to learn was a real oddity in the IG), and Abnett's normally unafraid to work through the implications of the violence he creates.
Spoiler

Would it be reading too far into the text to call Dorden's terminal cancer the blackjack of metaphors? The poor guy never got over Mikal's death (not that he should be expected to), and Dan's been playing up how his job was taking a heavier and heavier toll. However, the game Abnett played with us with the confusion of Dorden and Zweil's diagnosis was cruel, but Zweil is far too crusty an Imam of the Imperial Creed to die. I more hated it for the announcement of "Well, I'm going to flip a coin, and kill off one of the emotional pillars of the Regiment. Guess which one?".

[Teleros]

Given the setting I wouldn't say the result is set in stone Falkenhayn. Will be interesting to see what happens though.

[Connor MacLeod]

The Horus Heresy novels suffer, in my opinion, from some of the scale problems you see in "big universe" sci-fi, that is the author doesn't grasp how big a scale things are operating on (3 million clones anyone?).

In what ways?

The Primarchs are also insufficiently super human. Having said that, Thousand Sons is a big exception. Leman Russ and Magnus come across as total power houses with legions of warrior demigods at their command.

Variation in superhuman capabilities has always varied from novel to novel, and this includes the power levels of the Primarchs. Or the source or manifestation of those powers. I think the least convincing I've read so far was Mortrarion in Flight of the Eisenstein.

[Connor MacLeod]

Spoiler

To be fair, although McNeill certainly does make them out to be tragic heroes, the book also makes it very, very clear that the Council of Nikea was right: Magnus and the Sons were in way over their heads and messing with things they shouldn't have been. Magnus' conversation with Tzeentch and the Tutelaries sweeping in to possess the various marines is ample proof of that.

Spoiler

Well McNeill was pretty much hinging his story on the Thousand Sons being prideful WRT Warp, but that said I think the whole "declare Librarians illegal" bit rather silly, since we know that hardly lasted. And the Space Wolves had their whole Rune Priests and everything.

Spoiler

Well, let's remember that the last passage of the book is written, what, a few hours after the events of Prospero? Maybe a few days? Certainly not weeks or months. It could have been Ahriman's last gasp: a final, last-ditch effort to save the Legion from the rampant mutation. We always thought it was done to preserve the Sons for their service to Tzeentch, but this casts it in a new light. When the Rubric fails and turns the Sons into something the Emperor would never look upon favorably, maybe Ahirman just finally gave up and consigned himself to his fate.

I suppose, but to me it still reeks of "McNeill changing things to suit his view" - does this mean Magnus still gets pissed at Ahriman and throws him out? And why did they literally go INTO the EoT to begin with if they're trying to avoid mutation?

[Lonestar]

Heh, I did like that we had some interesting technical Fluff about the Unification War on Terra, such as certain nation states(The "Achaemenid Empire" being one) joined the Emperor right out and were spared the results of virus and atomic weapons during the war. Or how the Proto-Astartes went insane and were considered not very useful for the oncoming crusade.

I also like how we have a lower end estimate of the Imperial Fleet at the time of the Great Crusade, as there were "hundreds of thousands of ships" at the very start of the Great Crusade(before the force even left Earth).

[Imperial Overlord]

The Horus Heresy novels suffer, in my opinion, from some of the scale problems you see in "big universe" sci-fi, that is the author doesn't grasp how big a scale things are operating on (3 million clones anyone?).

In what ways?

The Crusade fleets and armies and the scale of their campaigns have been rather small for a campaign of galactic conquest.

[Lonestar]

The Crusade fleets and armies and the scale of their campaigns have been rather small for a campaign of galactic conquest.

As I mentioned, the (initial) Crusade fleet was in the "Hundreds of thousands" divided into "thousands of fleets". Seems epic enough.

So far the Horus Heresy novels have been largely Astartes-centric, and as a result they seem smaller, if only because of fact that Astartes are so immensely more powerful than your Bog-standard guardsman IA soldier. The invasion of Prospero involves "Hundreds" of ships, divided between Space Wolves, Sisters of Silence, and Custodes vessels.

I repeat, seems epic enough.

[Imperial Overlord]

The Crusade fleets and armies and the scale of their campaigns have been rather small for a campaign of galactic conquest.

As I mentioned, the (initial) Crusade fleet was in the "Hundreds of thousands" divided into "thousands of fleets". Seems epic enough.

So far the Horus Heresy novels have been largely Astartes-centric, and as a result they seem smaller, if only because of fact that Astartes are so immensely more powerful than your Bog-standard guardsman IA soldier. The invasion of Prospero involves "Hundreds" of ships, divided between Space Wolves, Sisters of Silence, and Custodes vessels.

I repeat, seems epic enough.

I didn't have a problem with Thousand Sons. I thought I was clear about that. Do you need more fanboyism?

No, I'm talking about the earlier ones. Horus, Warmaster of the IoM, seems to have a comparatively tiny army and only a handful of Titans. His fleet deals with planets one at a time and so forth.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Since you bring up issues of scale, did anyone notice that the "mass-conveyer" cargo vessel on page 469 (or thereabouts) in A Thousand Sons is over 60 kilometers long? Although it is mentioned several times, usually as one of many such vessels, there is no indication that it's size was unusual or rare for the Imperium, but rather the opposite. It seems like the Imperium is getting a serious boost to its fleet strength in the latest HH books.

Psst, Connor, I hope you write up A Thousand Sons soon. It's going to be awesome.

[Serafina]

Wait, 60km?
That's about five times larger than the largest ship so far, with the exception of the Planet Killer and Worldships.

[Srelex]

Did they describe its shape? It could simply be stretched out--long but narrow.

[Lonestar]

Did they describe its shape? It could simply be stretched out--long but narrow.

I kinda envision it as a ginormous container ship.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Did they describe its shape? It could simply be stretched out--long but narrow.

The prow is a blunt wedge. The ship is long and possibly tubular? It has an observation deck roughly sixty kilometers behind the prow and some massive engines behind that. It's in the book, just before the Battle of Prospero. This ship witnesses the emergence of the Space Wolves' fleet into realspace.

Since I found my book, there is a quote:

Set high on the rear quarter of the Cypria Selene, the dome provided a commanding view over the vast super-structure of the mass-conveyer. Its hull stretched away from them for sixty kilometers, ending in a blunt wedge of a snout. For a vessel intended to carry vast quantities of war materiel, troops and bulk items of warfare and compliance, it was handsomely appointed.

[Connor MacLeod]

The Crusade fleets and armies and the scale of their campaigns have been rather small for a campaign of galactic conquest.

No, I'm talking about the earlier ones. Horus, Warmaster of the IoM, seems to have a comparatively tiny army and only a handful of Titans. His fleet deals with planets one at a time and so forth.

just going to lump these two together. Alot of the Heresy novels haven't given us a great deal of information regarding fleet sizes or absolute troop sizes, so there's tons of wiggle room there, not even factoring in other considerations (I'll get to that in a moment.) The only explicit example yet I've run across was Horus Rising and the 4700 some main fleets and 60,000 some secondary fleets, but fleet numbers seem to vary. 7 ships seems to be a rather small fleet (From Descent of Angels IIRC) for example and largely a secondary one at that. Primary fleets seem to be much larger, but even that conjecture suggests hundreds of thousands of ships (upwards of half a million in the secondary fleets alone) and these are devoted purely to the duties of conquest, they don't factor in defensive forces or civilian/merchant fleets (most of the non-warship types in the crusade fleets seem to be carrying their operating supplies and troops, and in many cases make up less than half the total numbers)

Troop numbers well.. I guess that depends on which troops you mean. The Emphasis is largely on the "badass motherfucker" Astartes, with the army largely taking a supporting role, so I doubt you need as many troops. But even there I imagine troop sizes are not going to be absolute or consistent. They seem to skim off Army officers to install as planetary governors and leave them forces behind (IIRC they did that in Horus Rising with 63-19) But even there there's not alot really explicit for absolute troop numbers.

That siad, even if we allow for these numbers to be "smaller" than we might expect, there's another factor to be accounted for. Logistics and resources expended in operating the Crusade. One of the sub-plots running through the series even from early on was the whole adminstration and taxation angle of the Imperium, and it was not so subtly hinted that the Imperium needed to start taking and tithing its newly acquired member worlds in order to sustain the Crusade (Its also implied Terra alone was bearing much of the burden of the war, especially when you factor in the numbers from Thousand Sons and think they are "Pre crusade" by nad large..) But yet quite a few of these worlds evidently have at least some measure of devastation as a result of the Astartes inflicting "compliance" on them. Not only does that detract from their productivity as a rule, it also requires that resources be expended to "rebuild" such worlds (something we know some Primarchs like Guilliman were big on) .. and even the Imperium's resources are finite.

We also simply don't know much about the logistics side of things. For all we know they may have to devote much of their resources and shipbuilding to the creation of nonmilitary vessels simply to support the military endeavours for whatever reason.

And if THAT isn't a bottleneck on ship production I can throw yet another one into the mix. Navigators. We dont know how many navigators there are at this point in time, or anything about their quality. Regardless that alone is a potentially huge bottleneck since it can apply to both the military and nonmilitary side of things. Yes, they could in theory use ships without navigators, but that's got tradeoffs as well as we know (being vastly slower, which is going to be a drawback in the logistics side.)

All that siad, I would in fact say that the HH novels have done a GREAT deal to expand on and improve the "scale" of things in the 40K Galaxy. Example: Prior to Thousand Sons, the largest known vessel the Imperium had were the 16-20 km starships from the first three Ghosts novels. The novel Battle for the Abyss indicates that the Furious Abyss was the largest vessel ever constructed, meaning that pre TS it was over 20 km long. Now its bound to be over 60 km long. And they built it in mere decades (whereas the REtribution class battleship that is a mere 6 km long took a thousand years to build as per Dark Disciplie, and multi km cruisers take centuries to build in the Rogue Trader RPG thanks to Andy Hoare...) And there's the aforementioned fleet sizes (which are lower limits on the Modern Imperium). Frankly, the technical aspects of the HH novels have generally been an improvement for the Imperium all around, not a detriment.

PS (sorry for the long ass reply. lol)

[Connor MacLeod]

Psst, Connor, I hope you write up A Thousand Sons soon. It's going to be awesome.

Yes. Eventually. Its' probably wedged somewhere in between Soul Hunter and "Rynn's World" or all those other novels, and the various fluff stuff like DH and Imperial Armour I haven't even gotten around to touching yet. Or 5th edition.

I'd also probably want to cover the neat technical tidbits from Legion first, like the widebeam lasguns and 900m weapons range for carbines.

[Imperial Overlord]

The garrison/control issues just make the HH fleets seem even more inadequate. I agree that logistics and support are going to be issues and that some of the books have some impressive large scale organizations and achievements. Space fortresses deacelerating from 3/4 lightspeed is damn impressive. The single planet extended campaigns for a Primarch's war fleets with only a handful of Titans and limited Army support isn't. The good does outnumber the bad, but the bad is there.