#Galaxy in flames

[skunts-own-truth]

A friend who has been resistant to Warhammer for 12 years has picked up reading the Horus Heresy because he played Space Marine 2 and “understands Space Marines now.” Fella just finished Horus Rising and False Gods in one week, and I asked him “how was it?” He tells me “I only read the first two books, and now I am so sad…”

Fella just started Galaxy in Flames. If the first two bummed you out, hey, you enjoy that third one there! :D

[candyswirls]

I’m on the last chapter of Galaxy in Flames - Ben Counter.

I’m sobbing. I am in tears.

(Spoilers below the cut)

They all tried so hard!

Saul Tarvitz set on finding Lucius only to learn of the betrayal. Tarik’s death. Little Horus’ regret. Loken welcoming death as rubble collapses around him.

Abbadon feeling empty and Little Horus crying.

The final stand and the loyalists going out with all they had.

My husband is going to be so concerned when he comes home and I’m sobbing but then he’ll understand.

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[leareadsheresy]

Galaxy in Flames

This post contains spoilers for Galaxy in Flames, by Ben Counter, first published as a novel on (as nearly as I can tell) October 10th, 2006.

I'll be honest, I don't have a lot to say about this one. This book is the story of how Horus took the major part of the Sons of Horus, Death Guard, Emperor's Children, and World Eaters Legions to the Istvaan system on false pretenses of putting down another rebellion, and on the planet Istvaan III deployed those portions of them he judged most likely to object to his rebellion against the Emperor in a spearhead strike against the planetary capital, then bombarded the planet from orbit in an attempt to kill all the potential loyalists in a first strike. Saul Tarvitz, an Emperor's Children marine from Horus Rising, does some investigation behind the scenes, figures out the plot, then flees to the planet's surface in time to warn the spearhead, who take shelter underground, allowing many of them to survive the bombardment (virus bombs that otherwise kill all life on the planet, including its six or so billion civillian inhabitants). What follows is then three months of fighting on the surface in the ruins of the planetary capital, with the loyalists in slow retreat, getting whittled down to buy time in the hope that word has gotten out of Horus's treachery and a relief force will be sent to rescue them. No relief force arrives, but their slow defeat does tangle up the traitor forces in time for word of Horus's treachery to make it back to the Imperium. Loken and Torgaddon, the loyalist half of Horus's advisory Mournival council, fight Abaddon and Aximand, the traitor half; Abaddon and Aximand both live, Torgaddon dies, and Loken's fate is left unclear (spoilers he survives and is a character in later books).

It ends like this:

In the meantime, three embedded civilian observers who've been secondary characters in the last two books escape from Horus's flagship the Vengful Spirit to the Eisenstein, the one ship in the fleet held secretly by loyalists, which escapes and will be the subject of the next book. One of them, Euphrati Keeler, is now preaching the Emperor's divinity, manifesting miracles, and being called a saint.

It's essentially an extended action story with a jailbreak B-plot. It makes some odd pacing decisions, basically skipping from the bombardment to the last few day of the siege; I feel like it could have wrung more drama from making the situation more grinding and desperate... but then I'm just describing Helsreach, which is not surprising because Helsreach did this better.

All but one of the traitors have ridden a slip-and-slide down into Saturday morning cartoon villainy in this book; they're now all sneering monsters, constantly internal monologuing their own sense of superiority and expressing petty contempt for everyone around them, including amongst each other. Horus imperiously tells people who were his trusted allies, friends, and close confidants in Horus Rising how cool he is and how they'd better not fail him; those former close confidants and trusted allies just accept that he's right to do that and then treat their former friends and subordinates the same way. It's not even that they feel out of character; they don't really have characters. The exceptions are Lucius, who's like that but more so, because he's one of the series' designated ultra-assholes like Erebus, and Aximand, who kills Torgaddon and feels bad about it. I assume that'll come up later.

Look, it's fine. It does the job it sets out to do. It doesn't fail in any interesting or infuriating ways like False Gods did; the ending is reasonably affecting if you like Saul Tarvitz. It successfully novelizes some lore that was around for decades and moves the events of the series forward. This is one of the most important events in the Heresy and we'll be re-visiting it a lot in future material; I hear some of that future material treats it better than this did.

Euphrati Keeler's role is weird. You would think the book would be interested in playing with tone when it comes to the death of the atheistic Imperial Truth and the birth of the Imperial cult, but like the death of all native life on Istvaan III and the betrayal and murder of the loyalists by their traitor brothers, it's all presented in a very matter-of-fact manner.

[waste-of-a-song]

My favorite part of Galaxy in Flames is when Erebus shuts the fuck up and stops talking

[firstruleofmethclub]

That's what I was saying!

[the-wolf-and-moon]

AE Aurigae. Flaming Star

[spacewonder19]

Flaming Star Nebula © sajjadahmed1

[puppetmaster13u]

Because it is Mermay:

Originally did this art for one of @radiance1 prompts/story ideas, which also gives an idea of colors so.

[tamethespaghetti]

Sometimes an apology isn’t enough.

[shallowoak]

[cali-kabi]

~ Random Favorite Character Canvas Doodles💫🌟🎨

[boanerges20]

Dusty Horsehead & Flame Nebula by Plorimor

[alizera62quartz]

💙❤️💕

[the-punforgiven]

I know there's that whole stereotype of DMs and PCs hating each other or whatever but to be 100% honest the most joy I get out of D&D is when my players come up with some absolutely crazy batshit idea that should be absolutely impossible rules as written because as the DM I can choose to ignore that dumb nerd shit and just say "That sounds fucking rad dude, I'm giving you inspiration for that idea, now make an Acrobatics check."

[firstruleofmethclub]

I lovelovelove the way Ben Counter writes how Lucius fights.