Horus Heresy Books 16-18
I can't believe it's been a whole year since I started reading this series. I'm now on book 19 out of (at the time of writing this) 20. Getting there...
Age of Darkness: This was another anthology of short stories, and I liked that it was more thematically coherent than the previous one. It focuses on events that take place shortly after the Heresy and shows how the Imperium of Man is indeed facing the titular Age of Darkness. Things I learned from this book: The Ultramarines have incredibly wasteful training methods. James Swallow really has a thing for teaching us about the lives of ordinary Imperial citizens: this time he paints an interesting picture of how all the political power plays affect a neglected agricultural world in the middle of nowhere. "Useless" space marines being forced into diplomatic service are sad. Iacton Qruze lives, hurrah! Being a Thousand Son and returning to a destroyed Prospero sucks. The Alpha Legion still plays its own games within the traitor forces. Little Horus... does stuff. The Iron Warriors are extremely badass (even when asthmatic). And finally, two very different primarchs getting into a fist fight is entertaining.
The Outcast Dead: This book introduces the reader to another important part of the 40k world that doesn't revolve around marines: the astropathic communications network. I thought it was fascinating to read about its internal workings and about just how badly people's minds on Terra got messed up by Magnus's message to the Emperor. The Outcast Dead get introduced as a group of rogue space marines that end up kidnapping the main character, who is a psyker. They reminded me a little of a party of adventurers in an RPG, but I'm not sure why the book was named after them, considering that they never felt like the main characters to me. While I enjoyed the novel as a whole, the ending left me feeling slightly disappointed as I found the conclusions to some of the character story arcs to be unsatisfying.
Deliverance Lost: This book made me decide that Corax is now my favourite primarch. The poor guy is so emo, you just want to give him a hug. It's also refreshing to see a primarch who is (relatively) "normal", humble, trying to be a good person even if he doesn't always succeed, and someone who just wants the best for his people. The story itself mainly drew me in because I thought that it was quite clear from the title and the blurb that things weren't going to end well for the Raven Guard, and I was eager to find out just how bad it was going to get. It was also interesting to learn more about the Alpha Legion once again and to observe just how ruthlessly they operate. The ending suffered from some inconsistencies in my opinion, but overall I still consider this one of the more engaging books.
Age of Darkness: This was another anthology of short stories, and I liked that it was more thematically coherent than the previous one. It focuses on events that take place shortly after the Heresy and shows how the Imperium of Man is indeed facing the titular Age of Darkness. Things I learned from this book: The Ultramarines have incredibly wasteful training methods. James Swallow really has a thing for teaching us about the lives of ordinary Imperial citizens: this time he paints an interesting picture of how all the political power plays affect a neglected agricultural world in the middle of nowhere. "Useless" space marines being forced into diplomatic service are sad. Iacton Qruze lives, hurrah! Being a Thousand Son and returning to a destroyed Prospero sucks. The Alpha Legion still plays its own games within the traitor forces. Little Horus... does stuff. The Iron Warriors are extremely badass (even when asthmatic). And finally, two very different primarchs getting into a fist fight is entertaining.
The Outcast Dead: This book introduces the reader to another important part of the 40k world that doesn't revolve around marines: the astropathic communications network. I thought it was fascinating to read about its internal workings and about just how badly people's minds on Terra got messed up by Magnus's message to the Emperor. The Outcast Dead get introduced as a group of rogue space marines that end up kidnapping the main character, who is a psyker. They reminded me a little of a party of adventurers in an RPG, but I'm not sure why the book was named after them, considering that they never felt like the main characters to me. While I enjoyed the novel as a whole, the ending left me feeling slightly disappointed as I found the conclusions to some of the character story arcs to be unsatisfying.
Deliverance Lost: This book made me decide that Corax is now my favourite primarch. The poor guy is so emo, you just want to give him a hug. It's also refreshing to see a primarch who is (relatively) "normal", humble, trying to be a good person even if he doesn't always succeed, and someone who just wants the best for his people. The story itself mainly drew me in because I thought that it was quite clear from the title and the blurb that things weren't going to end well for the Raven Guard, and I was eager to find out just how bad it was going to get. It was also interesting to learn more about the Alpha Legion once again and to observe just how ruthlessly they operate. The ending suffered from some inconsistencies in my opinion, but overall I still consider this one of the more engaging books.