Horus Heresy II?

[jurble]

Ran bumped an archived thread for some reason.  But it did remind me about the Horus Heresy series.  I haven't read any since 2015, I think.

 

Have they finally reached Terra yet, or is it still all the uninteresting parts?

[GAROVORKIN]

9 hours ago, Ajûrbkli said:

Ran bumped an archived thread for some reason.  But it did remind me about the Horus Heresy series.  I haven't read any since 2015, I think.

 

Have they finally reached Terra yet, or is it still all the uninteresting parts?

Isn't this seres supposed to go 50 books? 

 

[Calibandar]

Yeah I asked for it to me removed from archive status but there's a bug in the system at the moment. 

There's been a number of big releases in the series last year. This year has been quieter but will pick up later with book 47, Ruinstorm in October, and Book 48, Old Earth, in December. Some pretty exciting stuff expected in 2018 as well with as much as 4 new novels, some of which have been long awaited but are finally due as the Traitor forces approach the astonishingly defended homeworld. Last year''s mega release was of course Aaron Dembski Bowden's long awaited "Master of Mankind" on the Emperor himself, as well as those protecting him, the Custodes and Sisters of Silence. Other impactful releases were Praetorian of Dorn, the first book to show us Horus sending in a legion to murder and infiltrate as much as possible on Terra itself, as well as Path of Heaven, and Angels of Caliban.

The series is finally at the Road to Terra stage and thus very much in the final phase. I expect there will be around 55 to a max of 60 titles in total. Be aware that this is not all novels, there are a number of short story collections included the last few years and they are part of the numbered Horus Heresy series, thus has pushed the number up quite a bit.

 

[Calibandar]

Most recent publications:

Ruinstorm-Annandale- Oct

Old Earth-Kyme- Dec

Burden of Loyalty anthology- This Feb

Wolfsbane by Guy Haley-May

To be followed by Slaves to Darkness by John French, a novel that will have all the Chaos Primarchs together just before they hit Terra. Release in August I hope.

After that we will get a novel on the Fall of the Death Guard, a novel by Guy Haley on Titans at Beta Garmon, and we will start with the first Siege of Terra novel within 12 months it looks like. Siege of Terra may be branded as a sort of mini-series within the overall Horus Heresy series.

This series kicks some serious ass

Meanwhile Black Library also has another series going on called "The Primarchs" which is also set in the early stages of the Warhammer 40k universe, set mostly during the Great Crusade, decades before the Horus Heresy begins. 7 short novels out now in that series, and very much worthwhile.

[Rhom]

I've not read a lot of 40K, but I have liked what I did.  Would like to read Horus Heresy... but 55 books is a daunting task.

[Spring Bass]

15 hours ago, Rhom said:

I've not read a lot of 40K, but I have liked what I did.  Would like to read Horus Heresy... but 55 books is a daunting task.

They're not in chronological order. A couple of them form mini-series, but they're more like different slices of the events going on. 

You can pretty much pick up any of them and start in any order. Horus Rising is a good start, and it forms a trilogy with the next two books in the series. But I've picked up and read Master of Mankind and The First Heretic, and you don't need to really read anything else in the 55 book set to understand those - just a basic jist of what the Horus Heresy was from wikipedia. 

[Werthead]

Paul Kearney has 2 books in the WH40K setting (well, three, but one was cancelled due to a copyright fuck-up that apparently can never be solved), been meaning to get to those.

[Calibandar]

20 hours ago, Rhom said:

I've not read a lot of 40K, but I have liked what I did.  Would like to read Horus Heresy... but 55 books is a daunting task.

There is a lot of variety in quality in 40K, and in the Horus Heresy series as well.

You do not need to read all the books though, I certainly haven't.

You could pick and choose what strikes your fancy. Chronologically you'd either start with First Heretic or Horus Rising. Some confrontations and legions are more interesting than others. Aside from the ones Fall Bass mentioned, you could also say start with Thousand Sons, or Legion, or even Mechanicum, as they are all early books in a somewhat separate location. Master of Mankind and Praetorian of Dorn are a sort of loose duology you could say, highly regarded, as are Scars and Path of Heaven by Chris Wraight.

One thing a lot of people do not know is that Forgeworld ( part of Games Workshop, but a separate entity) create stunning Black Books of the Horus Heresy. 7 volumes so far, they are campaign books with superb fluff and illustrations that are as good as anything in science fiction. Downside? They are expensive, 75 pounds a book. But it is lovely stuff if you do get one. For an example:

 

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-FR/The-Horus-Heresy-Book-Seven-Inferno

 

 

[jurble]

Not exactly Horus Heresy, but I'm reading now that apparently GW has begun advancing the current day story again?!  And Guilliman has returned?! whaaaat.  Are they going to rename the setting Warhammer 41k? O-o.

 

And why are the Black Library ebooks so absurdly expensive jesus.  Literally going to have to buy paperback books from Amazon to catch back up.

[Calibandar]

The new timeline is called the Dark Imperium timeline.

Maybe new timeline is not the right word, it is after all the same setting, it's just that where before the setting was static, they are now advancing the 40k setting, albeit at a leisurely pace. Still, since it started last year, two Daemon Primarchs and one Loyalist Primarch have indeed returned into the setting and there are more novels coming out this year to expand and advance the storyline.

Novel wise, the book you want to be reading as the start is appropriately titled "Dark Imperium" by Guy Haley. This sets up what happened, the opening of the Great Rift and the advance of Chaos towards Holy Terra.

[jurble]

Guilliman though is like the most hopeful Primarch they could've gotten to lead the empire.  If they want it to be Dark Imperium, they ought to have brought back Curze, let him claim the throne and make the Empire even grimmer and darker.   Let him kill the emperor, take his power and generate a Black Astronomicon - so black it's visible against the blackness of space :O.  Refugees flee into the Eye of Terror to escape.

I saw on the GW site that they're hiring an editor for the black library.  Maybe I ought to apply what with my brilliant ideas.  0 experience editing tho might be a problem.

[Spring Bass]

They got to keep things One Step Forward, One Step Back - it's the WH40K way. Massive chaos rift across the galaxy? Balance it with Guilliman and the new space marines. I also suspect that the books might eventually have the remaining primarchs who aren't confirmed dead or chaos show up again (it'd be pretty damned cool to have a book scene where the surviving loyalist primarchs are all in the same room together and it has the vibe of a tired reunion). 

[jurble]

I just read Vengeful Spirit and got a conspiracy theory

Spoiler

Horus is on the Golden Throne.  He has the power of the Emperor to change his shape.  The Emperor engineered the Heresy to give Horus the same God-like power he has, but without the (broken) oaths the Emperor made.   Horus figures this out too at some point before Terra.

Chaos think the Emperor annihilated Horus' soul hence why he didn't return to the Warp.  He didn't, Horus just didn't die.

See, Chaos winning eventually is inevitable, if the Eye reaches Terra, the Gods can manifest in the Throne Room and kill the Emperor, he's actually helpless against them because of the oaths he made to receive his power.   The entire Heresy was contrived so that someday when the Eye reaches Terra and the Gods manifest, Horus will have the power to destroy their bodies, setting them back to their pre-awakened states.

The continued fight against Chaos is just a pretense so the Chaos Gods don't suspect anything.

 

edit: nvm, apparently the Emperor teleported onto Horus' capital ship, which definitely wasn't hidden from the warp.

 

[Calibandar]

On 19-2-2018 at 7:49 PM, Ajûrbkli said:

Guilliman though is like the most hopeful Primarch they could've gotten to lead the empire.  If they want it to be Dark Imperium, they ought to have brought back Curze, let him claim the throne and make the Empire even grimmer and darker.   Let him kill the emperor, take his power and generate a Black Astronomicon - so black it's visible against the blackness of space :O.  Refugees flee into the Eye of Terror to escape.

I saw on the GW site that they're hiring an editor for the black library.  Maybe I ought to apply what with my brilliant ideas.  0 experience editing tho might be a problem.

LoL

Dark Imperium of course refers to Great Rift and the rise of chaos.Outside of Guilleman I think we will also see 40k returns of Leman Russ, The Lion, maybe the Khan, not necessarily in that order. I'd love to see 40K Leman Russ, all wulfed up. And then a big face off with Magnus please ( he looks terrific btw in his new incarnation).

Daemon Primarchs wise, I think we'll see Fulgrim next.

[jurble]

Okay, I read all the books that seemed interesting enough to catch up on HH.

Spoiler

The doomsday device Vulkan puts in the Golden Throne makes me think of Grey Knights' mysterious Terminus Decree marked with the symbol of the Golden Throne.

I also decided to read the Beast Arises series and it's got a few exciting moments and the books are short.. but overall - what in tarnation.  Nothing about its setting makes sense based on the broader history of the Imperium.

 

 

Spoiler

The imperium struggles to put together a million IG and 10k space marines to invade ullanor.  They all die and the losses cripple the imperium to the point where they say the imperium is months from collapse.

And the characters say occasionally that there's fighting everywhere and they can't pullback the space marine chapters because they're protecting their own worlds and so on for the other IG regiments or whatever... but what.

The Imperium in 40k shrugs off a million dead IG every minute.   The 1st Black Crusade was barely a few hundred years before the setting of the books, did the entire imperium demilitarize?  What does this do to the Imperium decline narrative, if anything the Imperium in 40k is god damn resurgent compared to 31k..

And the Mechanics developed the tech to teleport planets... and never used it again.

 

[Spring Bass]

37 minutes ago, Ajûrbkli said:

Okay, I read all the books that seemed interesting enough to catch up on HH.

I also decided to read the Beast Arises series and it's got a few exciting moments and the books are short.. but overall - what in tarnation.  Nothing about its setting makes sense based on the broader history of the Imperium.

 

I've admittedly only read a couple of the Horus Era books, but 

Spoiler

I got a strong impression from at least the "Horus Rising" trilogy books that the Imperium 30K is kind of thin on the ground and tightly stretched, something that the Emperor and Malcador are trying to change (and which Guilliman successfully changes after the Heresy is over). It's a big deal just when they start taxing their conquests, since apparently Terra alone was paying the majority of taxation funding the expeditions. 

That said, if they're drawing from thousands of worlds, getting 1 million IG still shouldn't be that hard. They might mostly be fresh recruits with inexperienced officers, but it's just not that much of a manpower burden (whereas getting 10,000 space marines could be much harder). 

 

[GAROVORKIN]

Ive read the first 9 books of the Horus Heresy  and liked them.

 

[jurble]

3 hours ago, Fall Bass said:

 

I've admittedly only read a couple of the Horus Era books, but 

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I got a strong impression from at least the "Horus Rising" trilogy books that the Imperium 30K is kind of thin on the ground and tightly stretched, something that the Emperor and Malcador are trying to change (and which Guilliman successfully changes after the Heresy is over). It's a big deal just when they start taxing their conquests, since apparently Terra alone was paying the majority of taxation funding the expeditions. 

That said, if they're drawing from thousands of worlds, getting 1 million IG still shouldn't be that hard. They might mostly be fresh recruits with inexperienced officers, but it's just not that much of a manpower burden (whereas getting 10,000 space marines could be much harder). 

 

Beat Arises takes place 1.5k years after the HH.

[Spring Bass]

20 hours ago, Ajûrbkli said:

Beat Arises takes place 1.5k years after the HH.

Sorry, confused that with the Ullanor one. 

Then yeah, it doesn't make any sense. The Imperial Guard at this point should be in the billions (possibly tens of billions) strong - pulling a million soldiers for a mission shouldn't be that hard, especially if it's urgent. 

[Ser Gosford]

On 3/16/2018 at 6:02 PM, Fall Bass said:

Sorry, confused that with the Ullanor one. 

Then yeah, it doesn't make any sense. The Imperial Guard at this point should be in the billions (possibly tens of billions) strong - pulling a million soldiers for a mission shouldn't be that hard, especially if it's urgent. 

Technically the Beast Arises is still Ullanor, just not the battle from the great crusade. The Beast was the second large Waaagh! to invade the Ullanor sector. Ullanor has seen better times... probably...