#First And Only by Dan Abnett

[thegodemperorsmycopilot]

ArtStation - Gaunt's Ghosts

[sonofdorn-vii]

Major Elim Rawne, Tanith First and Only

[viking-raider]

Ive passed a wee bit further into the Warhammer 40k nerd-dom. I started reading the book, First and Only of the Gaunt's Ghost series.

It's not 100% attributed to Henry Cavill.

Will's played both Warhammer: Vermintide games and he's playing Dark tide. I also have friends that play Total War: Warhammer. All of whom I've either watched play or listened to go on literal hours long rants about the universe. (If they're like that I can only imagine what Henry is like! xD One of my friends had me watching a three and half hour video on how Space Marines were created! It was pretty freaking cool!)

But I figured it was time to take my own initiative and learn about the glorious multi-verse that is Warhammer 40k. All the better to understand what the heck is going when Hen's show hopefully comes out!

[incorrect-primarchs-quotes]

𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐜𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫.

Key points:

Blue text means it's a short story or a novel

The bat 🦇 means Konrad is present

The knife 🔪 means Sevatar is present

Many of these cover a vast timeline: I've put them in this order based on the narrator (example: Vulkan speaking about Nostramo just before Istvaan) or the first chapter (Child of Night starts immediately after Nikaea but ends during the HH)

I ignored books where they appear for 1 line only and do nothing important. I also ignored "Lion: son of the Forest" because that thing is actually a warp-thing and not the real Konny.

𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐝𝐞

Sigismund: the eternal crusader , by John French (🔪)

Konrad Curze: A lesson in darkness, by Ian St. Martin (🦇) [AUDIODRAMA]

The Abyssal Edge, by ADB (🦇) (🔪)

The Dark King, by Graham McNeill (🦇)

Child of Night, by John French (🔪)

𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐮𝐬 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞��𝐲

Artefact, by Nick Kyme (🦇 mentioned)

The first heretic, by ADB (🦇 short appearance) (🔪 has like 2 lines tho)

Massacre, by ADB

Vulkan lives, by Nick Kyme (🦇)

Savage weapons, by ADB (🦇) (🔪)

Prince of crows, by ADB (🦇) (🔪)

The Long night, by ADB (🔪)

Unremembered Empire, by Dan Abnett (🦇 short appearance)

The lightning tower, by Dan Abnett (🦇 mentioned)

A safe and Shadowed place, by Guy Haley

Pharos, by Guy Haley (🦇)

Painted count, by Guy Haley

Angels of Caliban, by Gav Thorpe (🦇)

Ruinstorm, by David Annandale (🦇)

The lost and the Damned, by Guy Haley

The End and the Dead Vol. II, by Dan Abnett

Konrad Curze: The night Haunter, by Guy Haley.(🦇) (🔪)

𝟒𝟎𝐤

Lord of the Night, by Simon Spurrier

Red Tithe, by Robbie Macniven

Soul Hunter, by ADB

Throne of lies, by ADB

Blood Reaver, by ADB

Void Stalker, by ADB

Masters, the bidding, by Matthew Farrer

Nightfall, by Peter Fehervari

Morvenn Vahl: Spear of faith, by Jude Reid

𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥

Horus Heresy book 2: Massacre (🦇) (🔪)

Horus Heresy book 9: Crusade (🦇) (🔪)

[bloody-red-gem]

I registered on Tumblr three long years ago and never posted anything. So, what will my first post be about? Something of current interest. Let it be a female Custodian, why not?

BY SLAANESH, THE OFFENDED GUYS' ARSES ARE BURNING SO BRIGHT THAT THERE'S NO NEED FOR THE ASTRONOMICAN IN THE IMPERIUM NIHILUS ANYMORE! *ba-dum tss*

And the vast majority of them - who would've guess! - are straight men. Mind you, I don't want to talk shit about all cishet men - there're lots of good open-minded guys (like my close friends), but their "kin" certainly don't do them justice. Imagine: one single woman in a previously all-male faction can ruin the whole hobby for you! Really? Have you really liked it that much in the first place?

One dude basically typed the whole-ass lecture in reply to my jesting (!) comment (in which I didn't even write that I wanted Girlstodes! I just wrote that ppl, who wanted them, are laughing now!). He acted like some overzealous Dark Apostle. Why? I dunno.

"The Custodes contain the Holy Emperor's gene-seed and are breeded to be loyal only to him! That's why they can't be women!" said this dude... Sorry, WHAT? MFer, your logic is deader than Horus and his soul is fckn obliterated!

Then he wrote that a petition with several thousand signatures needs to be created so that the Custodians remain an exclusively male faction, that GW tries to please the "screaming minority" and that Dan Abnett needs to take his pills. Yes, he was dead-serious.

These guys try to justify themselves this way: "I hate this idea because GW made a retcon and this is against their lore - not because I'm misogynistic and hate women (a-ha, I totally believe you)." Well, I bet that we, girls, wouldn't have started the whole barbaric shit-storm if GW had made the Brother of Battle! Let's be real: you don't care about the lore (or I would've 100% respected your opinion) - you use it as a shield. You only care about your ego - so fragile that it can be broken by one single blow, like a crystal glass.

I can understand why some ppl don't like the female Astartes: the Primarch's gene-seed is required for their creation and it's only male-compatible canonically. But the Custodians are created in a completely different way! Their genetics is altered on the molecular level with some unreal and long-forgotten science-sorcery. The Emperor basically made the pinnacle of human creation. Only the men can be the "pinnacle", eh? The duality of life as it is, lmao.

[dateless-bar]

You NEVER learn the true colour of Iron Hands and Ferrus Manus! - Imperial Colour History Ep.3

Watch it here:

Youtube

-

Imperial Colour History Research Project based on Warhammer

Episode 3: Haima Iron

This video has both ENG and CN subtitles, please make sure to watch it with the subtitles turned on.

-

First Part: Origin of Iron Oxide Pigments and Artistic Symbolism At the beginning of the novel The End and the Death, Malcador narrates a past scene of the Emperor drawing with his hands from his perspective. Even if it's not clearly stated, we actually know that this is the earliest art form in human history: cave paintings. These paintings appeared in the Lascaux, Altamira, Pyrenees and other mountain ranges, and even more regions. Their rediscovery is of incomparable significance to the art and image history of human civilization. Dan Abnett correctly used the term "valuable pigment", because the original concept of "pigment" had already emerged at that time. It's just that the way of using it was very primitive and did not involve chemical transformation yet. But we have found that the people who painted the murals had already learned to use materials such as ochre, green earth, charcoal black, brown or black formed by manganese oxide and barium oxide, chalk and bone white. At that time, it was still a long time before the end of the ice age, 30,000 years before our current time point. On the surface of these murals, the most unignorable colour is ochre. This colour comes from clay earth pigment and can be regarded as one of the representatives of natural pigments. There has been a history of using it 100,000 years ago. From the perspective of pigment classification, ochre is an earth-based colour. After long-term weathering, iron-containing materials are distributed on the earth's surface. When we carefully observe the colour named after Ferrus, the Primarch of the Iron Hands, we will find that it is closer to red ochre than the yellow-ochre hue named after Perturabo, especially resembling hematite.

Part Two: Discussion of Relevant Colours from Alchemical Perspective In the 17th - 18th centuries, perhaps because iron oxide would appear after the failure of alchemy preparation, this iron oxide colour was named "Caput Mortuum". Having said that, I believe you all understand my real purpose - yes, the iron oxide hematite pigment strongly related to Ferrus also has the name "Caput Mortuum". Just from its literal meaning, we can find similarities in the plot of this term. It was because Ferrus was beheaded by Fulgrim during the Battle of Isstvan V that he died. And just this layer of imagery has different interpretations from different cultural perspectives. We have just talked about the aspect of alchemy preparation. Psychologist Carl Jung believed in his view of psychological analysis from alchemy that the head, as the most important part of a human, being beheaded has a symbolic meaning, often representing the separation of the pain and sorrow of the soul, transcending the limitations of the body, and the liberation of the mind. Just like how "Ferrus" converses with Sanguinius aboard the Vengeful Spirit, he repeatedly emphasises the fact that he is already dead, even delivering a line like, “A family comes together for a death or a birth; this could be both.”

Part Three: Other Iron Hands-Related Colours In the 15th century, people invented a method to synthesize iron oxide pigments. What I'm showing you now are also various iron oxide pigments. This pigment began to be mass-produced only after sulfuric acid could be obtained at a relatively low cost in the 19th century. It is obtained by heating iron filings in "aqua regia", a mixture of hydrochloric acid and nitric acid, and then calcining the obtained iron salts, or by heating sulfuric acid. This synthetic pigment is called "Mars Pigment". From the production method to the formula, it is quite alchemical and can be regarded as the purification of red ochre. Its original Latin name "crocus martius" is directly translated as "Mars Colours", just as the name "Ferrus Manus" is the Latin for "Iron Hands".

- Designer, video producer, writer: DBOA.ioopic

Illustrator: Jinmaodiyuquan

Special Thanks: AntsiLynn, Grace, Xiongmowu Studio

[skunts-own-truth]

I do think we need to take more lessons from Dan Abnett when writing 40K. The guy threw Men of Iron into the first Gaunt’s Ghosts book, he has invented narrative devices and actual devices that only really get used in his stories, for example the Ravenor and Bequin books make ample use of blank limiters that just… turn off the effects of being soulless? How, Dan? I don’t really care how, it’s cool as hell. But the guy just does what he needs to, he makes things like the Dark King and the King in Yellow happen, he names characters silly shit without fear, and he invents new words whenever he wants… and somehow, the guy just sells it! He rarely misses! It becomes 40K.

The End and the Death is heavily influencing the Rogue Trader game I’ll be GMing soon, that’s for sure. I was planning on making things a little more gritty and down to earth, but after this, I think I need to go big. Go weird, play with the fact that the Kornous expanse is a fairly stable region of space caged in by multiple warp storms, play with the fact that this is widely unexplored. Anything could happen, anything could show up, from named characters who the party has no hope in surviving, to obscure fragments of forgotten lore that has been “retconned” ages ago.

[about-faces]

“My dear Commissioner… I can only pray that you read this statement of mine safe in the knowledge that this strange case is closed forever…

“I affirm that my only intent had been to heal poor Harvey and restore to us the good, true man we all knew. The distillation I made to this end had wondrous powers, but I should have never tested it on myself… for it polarized the extremes of my nature, extremes that usually held each other in check.

“At first, my good self was brought forth, strong and vigorous and upright. But just as night follows day, the evil matter of my soul was able to manifest itself, pure and foul and unrestrained. The Bat-Man… the Joker… good and evil… two sides of a human coin. This is what my potion created.

“For Harvey, already split, I am sure it will be a genuine cure. But for a normal, balanced man… James, I pray that you and God will forgive me.

“Bruce Wayne, Gotham,

Anno Domini 1886.”

From Batman: Two Faces (1998), written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, art by Anthony Williams and Tom Palmer.

[firstchaplainerebus]

The End and the Death Review

What even is there to say about it. It’s over. It has been magnificent.

Looking back on the Horus Heresy back when I started reading it, I can’t believe that this is where we ended up, with such an absolutely beautiful landing.

Whether you like, love or hate these books, they are an achievement without precedent. This kind of narrative, on this scale, with this word count, that amount of different authors, that vision… The fact that it was ever completed is in itself amazing.

The fact that not only it was completed, but in a way that stays true and respectful to existing lore while putting its own spin on it and remaining relevant to its mission statement 18 years ago(!!!!) is nothing short of miraculous.

This final book, written in its dizzying, inspiring present tense opens and closes with effortless grace. Dan Abnett nails the stakes of it all home, he draws the parallels, he twists the knife, again and then again, and again. He explores every urge and emotion, from heroic, to insane, to pathetic, to simply thirsting for life, to bloodthirsty, to nonchalant… Everyone is their best and worst selves simultaneously, every card that must be played is played.

From the desperate end of the siege, to the journey into the Vengeful Spirit, to the duel with Sanguinius and the final confrontation with the Emperor, the book is a constant nail biter and page turner. The stakes are simply too high to put the damn thing down.

There are plenty of Dan Abnettisms throughout, with wild concepts and lore additions (and callbacks to incredibly obscure tidbits of lore) being thrown at the reader consistently and without pause. I have no doubt I will forget most of this book until I have to read it again, and then I will be just as surprised as last time. This is not a bad thing. In an IP where the fandom is so religiously adherent to its version of the lore and characters, a good slap on the face to remind the fan base just who came up with all this crap in the first place is always welcome.

All in all, there is little to say to recommend this book, as its enjoyment hinges on reading upwards of 50 more of them. But what a journey, and what a relief it is, that all these endless hours and days of reading, re-reading, thinking and walking forlornly around town considering the plight of the Emperor and his sons ends as it was promised, with inglorious, raw tragedy, a testament of human folly and defiance both, and for a select few, just a little bit of comedy. The gods laugh, but Terra stands. And there is no way to adequately describe the Horus Heresy’s impact.

You just had to have been there, when Horus slew the Emperor.

[tagedeszorns]

What book would you recommend for a more “literary fiction” kind of reader? I write papers on Joyce and Beckett and Mann but I’m not a snob, just totally unfamiliar with genre fiction. I love your gorgeous muscle men and want to learn more.

I take my hat off to the papers on Joyce and Beckett - I quite enjoyed reading "Dubliners" but "Ulysses" defeated me at some point. Especially as a non-native speaker.

Warhammer novels, due to the different authors and the very lax hand of the Black Library editors, are incredibly heterogeneous and that is, in my opinion, their greatest strength. Every reader can thus find something they like and avoid the books that don't interest them.

For literary enjoyment I recommend (once again!) the Fabius books by Josh Reynolds. These are available with the accompanying short stories as an omnibus.

However, they are probably not ideal as an introduction to the universe, as they assume that the reader is familiar with some of the cornerstones of the Horus Heresy.

For this I would take "Horus Rising". The first book of the Horus Heresy. Dan Abnett writes solidly and you get a glimpse into a less complicated world than 40k ten thousand years later. From there you can either continue to follow the development of the rebellion, which is so Greek-tragic it's a joy. Including very classical motifs and structures. Or you can look around at the other things Warhammer offers.

For pure bolterporn with tragic heroes, I recommend the "War for Armageddon" omnibus. Orcs, Space Marines, Titans. It's all in there. Mostly very fast paced and full of action and blood.

Aaron Dembski-Bowden's "Ragnar" novel might also be a good place to start. Short, to the point and Ragnar is a very classic Space Marines champion. And Aaron Dembski-Bowden also writes very pleasantly. His own characters are not everyone's cup of tea, but he writes the canon characters very, very well.

There are also enough novels from the point of view of non-Trans Humans. I personally didn't like the "Eisenhorn" novels by Dan Abnett, but there are an incredible number of fans of them and maybe you'll like it? It's well written, it's just the characters that bothered me a lot (I don't need to elaborate on that now). Since that's an individual thing, it's definitely worth a look. In any case, it's a good look at the structure of the universe. Just like the novels about Shira Calpurnia, an Adeptus Arbites by Matthew Farrer. These are available as the anthology "Enforcer".

For someone new to the setting, Necron or Eldar-centric novels are probably not an optimal entry point. But I don't know enough about that. I've only experienced both races as antagonists due to lack of interest, but both probably have good novels as well.

I've probably forgotten half of them again - but I'm sure other fans have suggestions.

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

One of my very favourite White Dwarf (237) articles, with delicious fiction by Dan Abnett that has stuck with me for years.

In particular:

- Brian Nelson's Orks - peak Ork!

- Very sweet looted basilisk conversion from Andy Chambers.

- Blood Axe wartrak that I'm pretty sure was someone's Gorkamorka model.

- My personal favourite Space Marine chapter (the Hound Skull chapter) getting its first and to my knowledge only mention anywhere, ever (outside of my fanfiction, obviously) and forever securing their place in my heart.

- A Space Marine writing memoirs! What!

- Blood Axes are the best "Many Orks suspect that the Blood Axes are (have been or will be) in league with the humies and have become tainted with dangerously un-Orky ideas like taking cover when they're shot at and retreating if they're losing."

They never did a follow up for the other clans! Shame.

[shaydh]

Recommendation for where to start with 40K books?

tbh i’ve only really read some of Dan Abnett’s books which are enjoyable though Gaunt and Eisenhorn are both very…good (i’m a villain enjoyer) and the first book of path of the deldar (which imo would be better if it were a lot hornier). i hear The Infinite and the Divine is good and i plan on reading that at some point.

feel free to leave book recs in the comments for anon! and also for me. i like homoerotic fucked up stuff but i do not like space marines (though i will make an exception for chaos space marines)

[theseventhoffrostfall]

RE cratering charges, I remember in the first Gaunt's Ghosts book they specifically use artillery as rolling barrages of literal cover SPOILERS AHEAD

"For the first ten minutes, their line was silent as las-fire crackled up at them and the air sifted with white smoke plumes and drifting dust. Light calibre field shells fluttered down, along with a few rocket-propelled grenades, most falling way short and creating new foxholes on the slope. Blane first thought they were aiming astray until he saw the pattern. The field guns were digging cover-holes and craters in the flank of the hillside for the Jantine infantry to advance into. Already, to his west, Jantine squads had crossed from their advance and dug into a line of fresh shell holes a hundred metres short of the Ghosts' line. Immediately, the field guns adjusted their range and began digging the next line for advance."

And before I launch a tangent on how "pulpier" 40k used to be paradoxically more grounded and believable than it is now, I just wanted to say that yeah this really is the first and only (heh) time I have seen tactics like this used. Would it be possible IRL? Modern artillery and TBI and stuff alongside the terrain of the mountain and needing an enemy that needed to be assaulted like that makes it quite improbable especially since artillery engagement distances and many many other factors related to modern war.

But yeah I appreciate Dan Abnett for ironically in the first book that would become the Black Library actually doing something clever before it turned into superhero type stuff, same way the first 2 Gotrek and Felix books have not and will never be topped for Warhammer Fantasy.

Well the creeping barrage has been a mainstay of artillery tactics for as long as artillery has been accurate enough to make it a viable idea, so that part's doable. Using them to make craters for the advancing infantry to use as cover, I'm sure is an idea that's been floated but it doesn't strike me as a particularly good one. The dynamics of how artillery shells form craters aren't predictable and consistent enough for you to reliably get a shelter-worthy crater (also, artillery shells are designed to, as much as possible, avoid funneling that energy straight into the ground. Anything that makes a shelter-worthy crater is heavy enough that you have to be a long, safe distance away, which also limits its usefulness as an entrenching charge.)

I will admit, though, that the "accurate" version of that scene (where the heroes just start getting shelled to fuck and are keeping their heads down until realizing in shock that the enemy infantry advanced and are now assaulting at close range) is probably a lot less thrilling and pulpy

[patchoulism]

Finished reading First and Only by Dan Abnett. I had to force myself at it and by the end it seemed uncannily similar to plot structure of his Xenos novel. The translation was mostly good with some places I had gripes with. All in all, not the kind of book I'm interested in rereading down the line, so I will donate it to a local library.

[quortknee]

I am curious to know, what do you like the most of the WH40k universe and what do you like the least?

(note: i got too excited and rambled on for a while, sorry about the really long answer lol)

HI ANON, I’ve just recently gotten into warhammer proper— the black library more specifically. I’ve only read eisenhorn (excluding magos because I wanted to read ravenor beforehand), and the first three horus heresy books so far. I know about some other key story beats just because I am online™ and I cannot avoid the older, more well-known lore. I have never played the tabletop game nor any of the video games (yet). SO it’s a bit challenging to answer this properly.

that said,

off the bat if i could answer this OUT of universe, my favourite thing would be Dan Abnett just as a writer because that guy rules. my least favourite would be how games workshop is seemingly allergic to good business decisions regarding the reprinting of their older books and that they have done nothing to stop scalpers going hog wild lol. ALSO how mcneill writes women and "exposition" (aka tell and re-tell the reader important info so they KNOW it is important rather than treating the reader as a thinking being who can understand subtext and remember the most basic of things from previous chapters/povs/books)

jokes aside, here’s some answers to your question from my current perspective (this is so hard so im gonna share a couple rather than just one each, as i couldn’t pick. most of my gripes with 40k are out of universe minus one woman thing which ill mention below):

I very much enjoy the structure of the inquisition and how many moving parts and types of people an inquisitor employs while on the job. creates a really compelling and vibrant group dynamic within a noir-ish subgenre (i guess? i couldnt figure out how exactly to word that). although i am incredibly biased as the eisenhorn series has coloured my view on the inquisition quite ardently on its own so who knows!!

speaking of Eisenhorn and his crew; glossia is a really cool secret code concept and i personally love it, but that could also just be the romantic in me enjoying the beautiful idea of using personal relationships and poetry off hand with no written cipher to encode your speech

I love how chaos and faith are written as Things; how all of humanity is a hair’s width away from being corrupted, as it is simply the human condition to surrender to faith and “our” base values when threatened or otherwise. It’s really beautiful and tragic

speaking of tragedy; the creation and existence of each of the primarchs and their legions of astartes is just absolutely brilliant. The Emperor creating astartes after the thunder warriors (i think?) to give his soldiers more humanity overall and THAT being the thing that is his downfall (or ascension depending on how you look at it ig) is so beautifully tragic.

Fav characters so far have been literally every main/supporting character in Eisenhorn as well as Loken and Tarvitz from HH. I also think Magnus is really interesting as a primarch so far. Poor guy though lol. I am aware of his uh... big oopsie

Hereticus is still my favourite book I’ve read so far within the black library. (SPOILER: Fischig staying true to himself and his faith and doing all he can to save his friend but not knowing he just contributed to the very thing he hates most (chaos) through Osma, resulting in Medea having to kill him after hailing him to their location to give him a chance to apologize and rejoin the band (against Eisenhorn’s will). And THEN as a last stand while Aemos dies, he and Eisenhorn work together to turn Fischig’s freshly murdered corpse into a perfect daemonhost to imprison Cherubael as a weapon/tool for Eisenhorn to use in the coming battle… END SPOILER) I am still not over it and I don’t think I ever will be. That book is fucking nuts. Abnett did not have to go that hard but I am grateful for it regardless

i hate the remembrancer Petronella Vivar with a burning passion, she is the worst written character in the series period (so far?)

characters I would beat over the head with a steel pipe: Osma, Heldane, Erebus, Eidolon, Lucius, and Petronella. The other characters in this list I can still appreciate as villains. Petronella though... I could probably list some others too but those are the ones who came to mind right away

Other than Petronella idk what I would say regarding what I like the least as of now. I love the other remembrancers (minus the way Karsky was written in false gods, but again this is a McNeill issue), so its literally just her I can't stand. I blame McNeill for this though, with his glaring inability to write a compelling woman whatsoever

also orks are silly i like them

i hope this is satisfactory to you, anon!! please excuse any errors, i answered this first thing in the morning and got way too excited about it lmao. ty for the ask : D

[leareadsheresy]

Horus Rising Parts 2 and 3: Brotherhood in Spiderland and The Dreadful Sagittary

This post contains spoilers for Brotherhood in Spiderland and the Dreadful Sagittary, the second and third parts (together comprising roughly the second half) of Horus Rising by Dan Abnett, first published as a novel on (as nearly as I can tell) April 6th, 2006.

Unlike the first half of the book, where I have reservations, I pretty much don't have anything negative to say about the second half. I think it's deft storytelling that does what it intends to do and effectively sets up a tragedy that False Gods will, if I recall correctly, fail to deliver on. There's one specific part that's a bit on the nose; I'll get to that.

Basically four things happen in the second half of the book. The 63rd Expeditionary Fleet go to (ultimately embarassingly pointless) war against a planet of giant spider-aliens to rescue a group of Emperor's Children who are themselves there to rescue a group of Blood Angels; Loken is introduced to the Davinite Lodge secret societies; Loken is introduced to the horrors of the Warp; and Horus meets and fails to make peace with a much more enlightened integrated human/alien society called the interex, testing out a tragic could-have-been version of rebellion against the Emperor, which also, I feel, clarifies his urge to rebel somewhat.

So! I really, really like Brotherhood in Spiderland, and not just because it's called Brotherhood in Spiderland. It's well-written bolter porn that serves as a critique of bolter porn. Blood Angels throw themselves at a death planet, which is so hostile that you can only get there by drop pod and then can't leave because of weaponized weather, botch it so badly they name the planet Murder, ask for help. Emperor's Children, who are largely arrogant assholes, show up and decide to help by throwing themselves into the exact same blender. We meet Eidolon, Lucius, and Saul Tarvitz, who accidentally clears a hole in the weaponized weather, then our 63rd Expeditionary Fleet shows up to save the day, Tarik Torgaddon arrives, and then Tarik, Saul, and Lucius get up some Big Soldierly Brotherhood Feels bits that would be familiar to anyone who's a fan of the Clone Wars series, with even notorious future villain Lucius getting a humanizing moment. We're then told they wage a pure glorious war of extermination against the spider aliens for six months, performing many awesome feats of glory and heroism… and then an interex ship shows up and goes "Hey, why are you attacking our nature preserve? Didn't you see the beacons we set up that clearly say not to go down to the planet we moved the spider-monsters to after taking away their space flight tech so we and they could co-exist peacefully?" The whole glorious six month war full of brotherly feels and tragic deaths and heroic accomplishments was all just the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet attacking a lion habitat at the space zoo because they couldn't read the sign, just stickin' a series of hands in a series of wild animal mouths because Imperial doctrine demands it no matter how pointless it is. Womp womp. This makes it sound silly but it's great and it serves the themes of the book, I don't really have critique here, it's all well-enough executed that I'm satisfied just kinda describing the events as they happen. Whatever the hell glorification of the Imperium would look like, this isn't that, no matter what YouTube lore shorts that describe the Megarachnids as terrifyingly deadly alien threats would have you believe. They're big spiders that want to eat you because they're big spiders, you can just not go down there and you'll be fine.

Meanwhile, Loken is inducted into one of the Luna Wolves' secret warrior lodges, which is… cool and chill and doesn't seem to be a cult. Maybe it's a bit love-bomb-y but giving these strictly regimented emotionally stunted child soldiers a place to just be people does seem like a good idea, even as Loken points out that their secrecy could make them problems even if they're fine right now. Again, this is set up as an effective tragedy -- we, the audience, know that the Davinite lodges will ultimately be the cancer that rots the traitor legions from within through secret chaos cult infiltraton, so the book sells them as something fulfilling a genuine social and emotional need as the buildup to that tragedy and as an implicit critique of how official Space Marine social organization fails them as people and forces their emotional lives into the closet where they can be victims of manipulation. Good section! Smart writing! Even here it's clear that the Heresy is going to go down not just because of the ambition of Horus and the machinations of the Ruinous Powers, but because the Emperor opened the way for them by refusing to recognize the Astartes as people. The only reason the secret warrior lodges are secret is because the Emperor doesn't like them, because they don't involve his soldiers spending all their time lining up in neat rows.

Also Loken gets pointed to an epic Unification-era war poem where he finds references to daemonic possession that match his experence with Samus and Xayver Jubal, and all I can think is, this is great, I wish the bit in Part 1 where Horus just explains what went down had been written not to make this superfluous. In the better version of the book where Loken is figuring out what happened on his own and Horus didn't just hand him the answer and tell him to keep it a secret, this bit is unchanged!

So, the interex. My read on how the interex situation goes down is that Horus, who has been given license to prosecute the Great Crusade as he sees fit via the Emperor bestowing him the mantle of Warmaster, wants to do it right and wants to do it his own way. He's out from the Emperor's shadow and wants to spread his own wings -- he wants to rebel. But… he doesn't actually want to kill the Emperor and take control of the Imperium by force, he just wants to prove that he has wisdom and authority to make his own decisions. And so we see him try to fix his mistake from 63-19 by making peace with this peaceful, functional human society, who he has no reason to war against despite the fact that they exist in a multi-species civilization, which is itself an abomination in the eyes of Imperial doctrine. Horus is like "I'll show my dad and not do a xenocide." That's a good idea! It also probably never would have worked, because the Emperor wouldn't have accepted that outcome, so there's that inevitable tragedy raising its head again. The interex themselves -- and this is not an original observation -- serve as a critique of the Imperium, proving that it's a lie to say the fascism of the Imperium is the only way to survive in the 30k galaxy. They visibly coexist with multiple alien races, from the peaceful to the openly hostile, and they deal with the threat of Chaos by educating everyone about how much of a threat it is so people don't mess with it. They were doing fine.

The bit where Horus screams at the sky "Father, why have you forsaken me?" is a bit much, but part of that is me being a bit allergic to Christian allegory in fantasy and science fiction. It's fine, I'll move past it.

Interesting anachronisms: There's brief mention of a massive Space Marine "in gold Custodes armour." Didn't know they ever wore that.

Also, not an anachronism, but there's a delightful bit that stuck with me where Loken and Torgaddon are walking down a hallway and Torgaddon runs ahead and jumps to slap some pipe work on the ceiling, just for the joy of it, and then brags about being able to do the same in another part of the ship where the piping is twice as high. Space Marines are just people.