GentlemanBystander

Let Me Go Back; An Embarrassment of Riches

Revisado: 02-14-24

Let me go back...

This line, that could otherwise be a throw-away but happens so perfectly in the narrative, best describes the Siege of Terra experience now that we have reached the end with the aptly named End and the Death (Volume III). This is a story that does not let up for any of its 1008 minutes. Every character is singular, unique, reading/listening like actual people with their varied interpretations and reactions to events and the events themselves are monumental.

There are almost too many quotable lines in this story to not seem like a blockbuster script but at no point do any of them feel forced, formulaic, or kitschy. Abnett may have been at his finest in this, the depth of character he weaves is startling, he captures the heaviness of a million tragedies in microcosm without it once becoming dour or morose and makes the moments of glory shine with the weightiness that has your mind adding a swelling orchestral to the moments.

The moments of implied internal monologue from the Primarchs are fantastic, we never get into their minds, but by their deeds and words, we know what they are thinking. The nuance in the conversation is so perfect it almost reads like a transcript of real people having real conversations, and not characters trying to simply drive narrative.

Keeble is in peak form with his performance (with the possible exception of Fulgrim) throughout, taking us back to the characterizations we have loved the most in previous works. The Saturnine Gambit passages are endlessly relistenable as is the opening prologue with a bereft Kyril Sindermann.

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Flawless at every level

Revisado: 02-13-24

This is a very fast twelve hours, Brooks' pacing is excellent, nothing feels drawn out, given to over elaboration, or tedious internal monologue or soliloquy. He gives enough detail to bring the worlds to life without needing to ramble on about minutia. The characters are excellent, nuanced and complex, even in the occasional drift into the archetype they are granted complexity or, at the very least, believable characterization, not so rife with virtues or foibles to break the reader/listener's belief that the character slides into the setting.

Watson gives a wonderful, complex, and lively narration, his characterizations are complex, varied, and capture the nuance in the characters perfectly. The range and consistency of his characterizations will make you forget there isn't a cast of narrators performing this piece.

From the personal perspective, I have never been a fan of the First Legion, Dark Angels Chapter, or Lion El'Johnson, but the prose and performance in this entry will make you crave the next book in the series of the returned Primarch.

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The End and the Death Feels Real Now

Revisado: 02-04-24

Abnett managed to humanize every character and every interaction save, perhaps, for the Emperor who still seems more aloof and unknowable than even the physical manifestations of Chaos. Nothing is wrong with the story, the pacing is fine, the dialogue and prose is solid, it also admirably resists the urge to put a spin on the well-treaded story of the culmination of the Horus Heresy without any major departures or reinterpretations of the mythos. And if that were all there was to it, this would be a five-star-across-the-board story. However that is not all there is to it.

One may, perhaps, have to be more generous with ranking the story if it were not for the fact of how emotionally draining it is. It was well written, well paced, and of course brilliantly acted by Jonathan Keeble. It was not near so grim and dark as many other entries in this property and genre, but the story extracts a hefty emotional toll from the listener regardless.

This story is the archetypal example of "don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened" and with enough time and possibly subsequent listens, one may reach that point. But for the first time, just prepare to feel numb and unsure how to process the feelings.

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Bimbo Sanguinius Almost Ruins Everything

Revisado: 11-29-23

Annandale seems to have some innate dislike of the Angel as this story is mostly Roboute and Lion suffering through Hawk-Boi's boneheaded gambit to save the future of his legion...and fails utterly almost wiping out three legions in turn. That's it, that's the synopsis.

Given that this writer has done two Primarch books and two character novels about descendants of the Blood Angels legion, it really does posit the question what he seems to have against Sanguinius since his decisions here are just dumb.

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Hinks is slightly hampered by his Fantasy pedigree

Revisado: 05-21-23

Let me be clear, none of this is bad. Hinks' Mephiston is a genuinely interesting character though he feels at time like he would be more at home in a high fantasy wizard's tower or 221B Baker Street. The setting feels mostly appropriate, the harsh nobility of the sons of Sanguinius seems to be adequately captured, but at the end of the day, this doesn't feel so much like Warhammer 40k as Warhammer Fantasy with a 40k body-kit on top.

Mephiston doesn't come off with the space vampire conceit in this as much as the mighty wizard and Reed's characterization of soft, almost whispered speech adds dimension in that you have to work to listen to everything Mephiston says which is actually a very engaging affectation.

Most of the other characters are utterly forgettable which strains the narrative slightly as they, as the lens through which we view Mephiston, seem dull and generic which hampers an otherwise serviceably well put-together plot. At the end of the day, it doesn't feel so much like 40k as something that has been 40k flavored.

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But they're the "Good Guys", right?

Revisado: 05-21-23

Forrester manages to make the Flesh Tearers less likeable, sympathetic, or just understandable than the average Khornate warband. He leans a bit to heavily into Primarus can have the Black Rage too, the squishy space-marine, Chaos is just better, and Noble Space Vampire tropes for what could have been a rather well written plot of the long-term crusaders returning home or new sons learning the old ways. As it is, we get psychopaths who manage to get along as well as a a shark shiver around a whale corpse with tweaking wolverines taped to their heads. Chapter after chapter of primaris marines fantasizing about killing their battle brothers and exsanguinating their crew menials when not killing them in fits of pique make this more tedious to get through than the average Night Lords novelization.

Reed manages an okay narration, but his lack of range in characterization hampers this as all the characters start to sound identical.

Gabriel Seth's two chapters in Devastation of Baal give a weightier impression of the Flesh Tearers.

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Papa Nurgle's Loveable Scamps

Revisado: 05-07-23

Wraight produces flawless characterization and genuine depth to the Plague Guard, they almost manage to be genuinely likeable in a peculiar way given how well they are written and the genuinely nuanced interactions they engage in.

Banks turns in a serviceable and engaging narration and the calm presentation fits well with the theme of malaise and entropy.

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Bitter-Sweet and Somber Handled Expertly

Revisado: 05-06-23

Make no mistake, this is a love story only rivaled in this genre by the story of Garviel Loken and Mersadie Oliton. It's not THAT kind of love story, it is about the complex, abiding, and deep love between a man and a woman without the complications of sexual or physical dimensions. They are a man and a woman who are bound by duty, a sense of belief, and obligation above all but still are willing to, at least momentarily, shirk all for the deeper pull for the interpersonal that defines human interaction.

Longworth is, as always, the definitive voice for anything involving Nathaniel Garro and Swallow writes the characters with such depth and sublime complexity that we could just as easily place them in an office setting and they would lose nothing of their resonance. It would all be perfect if not for one thing...the ending.

The ending is what reminds of what setting we're in; it is merciless, it is disheartening, it is hurtful in a way, but it is also the only just ending for the story of Nathaniel Garro and Euphrati Keeler and the only rational ending that can be afforded by the specifics of the setting. It is the end that cinches everything together and provides the greatest impact and relevance to the characters and all their past and future choices.

John 15:13

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Solid but not Ground Breaking

Revisado: 05-06-23

Haley is competent throughout, the stories are interesting enough on their own and actually do a decent enough job of rehabilitation of the Black Templars as meme-fodder for the last decade. In most ways the characters come off as more humanized than many other Space Marine characters. Haley does an adequate job capturing the nuance of the intense piety and nascent humanity of the penultimate warrior monks in a setting built around characters that were tongue-in-cheek warrior monks.

Keeble changes voices again from pre-established characters he performed in earlier works, most notably the seminal Helsreach but still manages his usual nuanced and engaging performance.

Hardly a definitive revelation, but given the setting one can not expect it to be. As a sort of prelude or postscript to Collins' Helbrecht and Dembski-Bowden's Helsreach it works well and would make excellent context interludes for a future Black Templars Compendium.

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Angron, from the Latin meaning McGuffin

Revisado: 04-23-23

You don't know who to root for in this, both the Antagonist and Protagonist (which are interchangeable by point of view) display such foaming-at-the-mouth psychopathy that it is hard to find any side to pull for. If you can take anything away from this, it's the horrible and destructive path of obsession from which nobody gets out unscathed. The cardinal sin here is that the titular character is devoid of any internal monologue, compare this to his sections in Echoes of Eternity or Horus' internal dialogue in The End and the Death and we are presented with a question of whether Guymer is actually competent enough to have been given a novel about a major titular character in a piece linked to his debut as a playable piece in the source game.

All other characters come off as almost too stereotypical to be worth remembering, it once again reads more like an overly meta fanfiction that is geared towards generating multiple TVtropes pages than telling an actual story with all the worst qualities of the Ward-Era Grey Knights in 20 ft. tall neon letters without the first hint of anything remotely sympathetic about the loyalist lead character. The traitor characters don't fare much better as a smattering of renegade/chaos archetypes that are mostly devoid of substance. Not even the insertion of a fan-favorite of the XIIth legion (it's not Khârn, I'll tell you that much) manages to salvage the characterizations because not even that one is handled properly.

This isn't a good entry into the volumes about Primarchs or the World Eaters traitors either and would only find itself comfortably shoved into a Ward-era Grey Knights compendium or anthology if the writer wanted to come off as particularly edgy. Barely worth the listen and only marginally effective as background noise.

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