Submitted by PregnancyRoulette t3_11czu6q in books
TL:DR- Warhammer is really good. It has an epic and heroic vocabulary, and powerful imagery. It's a story of familial civil war where people that thought strife was impossible come to terms that they were betrayed. We see people double-crossed, who double-cross their condemned brethren to stay alive. We see a team that bands together to fight the rebels with absolute trust and confidence and another team that would inhume each of the rebels we're the primary objective. There are stories of love and sacrifice, deception and decent into madness. Brotherly bonds and devotion to duty that inspire hope. Everything below the line is me fanboying
EDIT: Where is this getting shared? I don't think I've ever seen that happen.
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I've seen memes for years. Facebook, or when /r/Grimdark hits r/all; my son downloaded a free game where he's running around with a sword with chainsaw teeth on it. Without being entirely precise I know that in the year 40,000 the Emperor of Mankind is some ghoul on a Golden Throne receiving the human sacrifice of 1,000 psychic humans, called Psykers, there are Legions of Trans/Post Humans called Astartes/Space Marines that have been augmented war, and a princeling named Horus rebelled against the emperor; half the Emperor's sons joined him. Then I learned the 60+book series of multiple Authors that was ending very soon. I was disappointed by GRRM abandoning his abandoning GOT for prequels and Robert Jordan dying, so I've been loathe to start series that aren't finished. I prefer to read classics. But hearing that it was ending I decided to start to see if its worth racing to finish all books by the time the final book is out. The penultimate book comes out in a few days, the final is TBA.
I'm 8 books in. Its good. Its really good. I told someone that I was reading Warhammer and they scoffed because they thought it was just space marines being awesome- all the time. But its more than that. Its a story of Civil War and brothers-in-arms that thought the idea of space marine on space marine strife was incomprehensible. In this Story, the Emperor of Mankind is nigh immortal and incredibly powerful. He clones himself into 20 children called 'Primarchs', each one is a aspect of his personality, comically magnified and named. Mortarion is scythe bearing deathlord; Corax is a Raven lord that Flies into Battle, Ferrus Manus has iron hands. Sanguinus, I'm told becomes vampiric. Angron is angry. There is a scene in The Two Towers where Aragon pulls himself up when meeting the Rohirrim and is so majestic and kingly that his will holds sway. The Astartes and Primarch are like that all the time.
Part of the reason I think Warhammer is so good is that they put a lot of historical facts, phrases into the books. One of the book titles is War Without End, which so reminds me of the bible verse that was the inspiration of the Ken Follet novel "Without End"; You have a 'Father, why have you forsaken me" moment as a Primarch falls into rebellion against the Emperor. The first Novel Horus Rising has a senior military leadership council that advises Horus is called the Mournival. The four members are not only the Face Cards from a poker deck, but also represent the Four Humors: sanguine, choleric. melancholy, and phlegmatic.
The Narrative Structure is important. The first three books, Horus Rising, False Gods and Galaxy in Flames are linear. They introduce Horus and his legion, his fall to rebellion, his recruitment of other Primarchs, sudden betrayals. The Flight of the Eisenstein overlaps with previous books, covers the same characters but at different times. Fulgrim and Legion start before Horus Rising and track two primarch decision to be loyal or rebel. Decent of Angels could be skipped, or serve as a stand alone at this point of my reading. Still good. Great Charactization. It shows what happens when the Emperor shows up to your planet to and you should have a Tolkien-ish horror at the industrialization.
That being said, I do have problems. I think that Horus' fall to rebellion was poorly done. They held out a piece of information from him that should have stopped him from rebelling. They danced around it. This reminded me of one of the Twilight Movies where Edward and Mary Sue had a falling out and an collect call and honest chat could have fixed it. IMO the other Primarch's fall to rebellion that we've seen was more convincing.
Michaelbirks t1_ja61sb3 wrote
Be aware that there is a lot of content outside of the direct Horus Heresy series.
It covers an amazing breath of the Galaxy of the 41th Millennium beyond just the Legions. Orks, Space Elves, dark space elves, blueberry communists, Military and its Commisars
Ad the Heresy series goes on, the continuity control amongst some of the authors can slip, and we see the same events told repeatedly (A thousand sons and Propero burns, for instance).
Also, in attempting to take itself seriously, it can take itself too seriously at times.