Anyone else vexed with the Heresy Series???

[Denzark]

Hey all

Just finished the Age of Darkness compilation. Overall I am up to date with the entire written series, and now am slightly p*ssed off with it all. Rant as follows:

1. A large percentage of the stories seem to be written with some great mysticism or trying to trip suspense out of you. Case point - someone asked about the Age of Darkness Story where Ultramarines seemed to be attacking Salamanders. Was it a dream sequence, an elaborate battle drill of Guilliman? Was it a frakking Holodeck episode like when they run out of ideas in STTNG? By all means give us suspense and/or a cliff hanger. But when the story finally finishes make it understandable.

2. Why so many audio CDs? People have said some aren't that bad. but for the love of the Gods, I want to feel paper, smell the ink, hold something visceral. I want to relax in my mahoosif chesterfield with a Bushmills in one hand, a book in the other, and a slightly flatulent Staffy by my feet.

3. Taking its time. Some aspects of the story seem to warp out of proportion. 3 books for the Istvaan = would rather have had one bigger book. 2 books of Dark Angels? Bollocks cut to treacherous Luther holed up in the rock by the watchers. 1 book max! How long until the climax - they have written off the 7 years between Istavaan and Earth in Age of Darkness - throwaway or what?

4. Choice of focus on various chapters. the 2 DA books are a let down and seeing as all Legions to some extent have knightly fluff, why not focus on the (insert non offensive term for Native American Indian here) background from DeathWing?

5. Primarchs. All of them are seemingly Godly, light flashes, the music from the Omen sounds as they appear. Hang on - if Marines ATSKNF, why can't they look at their Dads? And why oh why does every writer covering a Traitor primarch try and justify what they did - show them as fallible, try and make us empathise with their filthy heretical thoughts? They turned because they were weak and venal, not because they were flawed and wanted the best for humanity.

My last thought is please oh please. I don't think you can find better than the original Horus vs Emperor showdown from The Lost and Damned Nurgle and Tzeentch Rogue Trader book. Think it was Will King - should be either kept in full or let him write the finale.

[Denzark]

PS I know its not all bad.

Likes:

Prospero burns etc - showing it from both sides good. especially Abnett.

Mad different Assassin Clades. Good Assassin War.

Mechanicum. Knights are hardcore.

The Iron Warrior short story in age of Darkness. Of course not all of an entire legion would have gone traitor. This is awesome!

[Count Fenring]

1. Well here it was made clear at the end that they were just wargaming as they were creating the codex.

2. cheap, quick monies for gw

3. yeah, agree they are milking it, but its gw.

4. I quite liked the DA books, but my own chapter is based off this. I like knightly and not teepee's.

5. A more recent book clarified how each primarch was an aspect of the Emperor. It just might be the curse each one has to deal with. Extremes of "His" greatness without "His" balance.

All in all, besides a couple low points, I enjoy the series.

One thing bugged me recently, since we are on the subject of heretical thoughts

In Nemesis, I enjoyed it, except the assassin who could not follow orders and felt it was her duty to protect imperial rubbish citizens instead of doing her job. In my mind, Imperial Assassins would be incredibly ruthless without even a fraction of thought concerning innocents that were caught on their path to mission completion. My favorite of course was Mr. Eversor!

[Gotthammer]

4. Choice of focus on various chapters. the 2 DA books are a let down and seeing as all Legions to some extent have knightly fluff, why not focus on the (insert non offensive term for Native American Indian here) background from DeathWing?

The Native American aspect only comes to the chapter after [spoiler]Caliban goes a'splode[/spoiler] after the Heresy ends, since the Dark Angels find themselves without a world to recruit from they start using the Plains World people, and later expand to many worlds after the events of Deathwing really hit home that having only one world to recruit from was a bad idea.

I definately agree on #5 though - it's the same with everyone weeping when they see the Emperor because he is so awesome... yet there are political problems and resistance on Terra? Why doesn't the Emp just rock up to wherever there're problems, everyone falls to their knees and is bowed before his glory... problem solved.

[Michael_maggs]

for five ; i dont think we are at the stage where the space marines are psychoindoctrinated yet so i dont think atsknf can apply to them

most of the marines seem to have more free will at this point (compared to the blood ravens which is the only series about marines i have read in 4oK apart from the soul drinkers who break their psychindoctrination; and act quite simmilar IMHO to the heresy era marines) and can remember aspects of their past lives with more clarity than their contemporaries

but this is just my opinion

[Nabterayl]

I haven't read any of the Horus Heresy series, so do you mind if I pop in with some questions and/or speculation that might not address the text at all?

Hang on - if Marines ATSKNF, why can't they look at their Dads?

I'm not sure how literally you mean the whole flash of light etc. thing, but one of the things I always liked about ATSKNF is that it's a discipline you have to turn on by giving yourself the proper conditioning trigger(s). Maybe they just don't want to shut themselves down in the presence of their primarchs?

And why oh why does every writer covering a Traitor primarch try and justify what they did - show them as fallible, try and make us empathise with their filthy heretical thoughts? They turned because they were weak and venal, not because they were flawed and wanted the best for humanity.

I'm not sure how you mean this, but without having read the series it seems like the right way to go for me. Ever since Index Astartes at least the traitor primarchs have generally seemed to me to be the ones who landed on the lousy planets, so I think there's precedent for them being sympathetic figures. And at least as I understand the Chaos gods, their relationship to the Emperor and his plans has always seemed to me like the relationship between the Sith and Jedi philosophies: the "bad guy" philosophy is seductive because it's better than the "good guy" philosophy, except for the inexplicable fact that following it turns you into a monster for no apparently good reason.

[BrokenWing]

There's plenty of good reason it turns you into a monster, the Chaos Gods find it amusing =).

[Grailkeeper]

I was at a talk by Graham Macneill last summer. He mentioned he was sick of the whole justified all to horus. His next book is a murder mystery set amoungst the telepaths, but the one after that is about a legion who fell because they like doing bad things- he mentioned the Iron Warriors here. I should mention some of the stuff he said has since turned out not to be true- he said he couldn't see anything comiing up for the Iron Hands and they got a novella.

I'm just bored at the pace of the novels at this state. Its second only to the movement of the continents in its stateliness- please move a bit closer to earth.

One last thing about the DA books. They added nothing to the over all heresy. Particularly the second, which if you stripped out the Primarch characters could have been a normal substandard 40k novel- nothing particularly made it relate to the heresy.

[Grailkeeper]

What ever happened to Bill King actually? He wrote a large part of what we know of the heresy. Also Gotrek and Felix and the Space wolf novels are now written by other people, whats up with that?

[Denzark]

I haven't read any of the Horus Heresy series, so do you mind if I pop in with some questions and/or speculation that might not address the text at all?

I'm not sure how literally you mean the whole flash of light etc. thing, but one of the things I always liked about ATSKNF is that it's a discipline you have to turn on by giving yourself the proper conditioning trigger(s). Maybe they just don't want to shut themselves down in the presence of their primarchs?


I'm not sure how you mean this, but without having read the series it seems like the right way to go for me. Ever since Index Astartes at least the traitor primarchs have generally seemed to me to be the ones who landed on the lousy planets, so I think there's precedent for them being sympathetic figures. And at least as I understand the Chaos gods, their relationship to the Emperor and his plans has always seemed to me like the relationship between the Sith and Jedi philosophies: the "bad guy" philosophy is seductive because it's better than the "good guy" philosophy, except for the inexplicable fact that following it turns you into a monster for no apparently good reason.

Nabby some good points - the perspective of not having read them may allow you a distance in which to apply logic. I like the turning on and off of fear concept. As opposed to not wanting to turn on ATSKNF, maybe the physiological trigger is they can't NOT but fear them - sort of Robocop directive not to shoot OCP?

I can't agree too much with the sympathy vote on Traitor Primarchs. Whoops you ended up on a crap planet. OK, that excuses the genocide? Magnus is the one who really vexes me. He is described as perfection, and its like 'turn' 'no' 'turn' 'no' 'turn' 'no' and then by minor daemonic trickery at the end its 'turn' 'oh OK then'. Hang on - you disobey your father's strictest decree to warn him, you will allow Russ to burn your world, but THEN you'll turn?

Grail yes the stately pace is frustrating. Then again I will spend £7.99 x 30 or even 50 books so maybe they know whats what! Yes I rant a little but still love it.