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Well if I remember the book correctly, the first time someone says "There are no wolves on Fenris.", the answer given is something like "Except, of course, for the Wolves, sir?" "Exactly."

Pilau Rice wrote:There are no Wolves on Fenris because they are infact a breed of sheep.

Or what other posters have said

I'm looking forward to this, but then again I have looked forward to every Heresy book, only then being let down.

I've flicked through Prospero Burns and am interested in finding out Fulgrims involvement in the Council of Nikea. From reading Thousand Sons you can tell something is amiss with the Phoenician as one minute he is all chummy chummy with Magnus and then when the Emperor is speaking his decree, his face is one who has just had his butt smacked.

If that was true Wales would be a far scarier place... the 'sheep' outnumber the people...

Compel wrote:I thought the book was rather rubbish personally. Until the last well, 15 pages which changed everything.

EG, I was quite annoyed with the book for a very long time thinking, "he's utterly ruined the tragedy of the 1000 Sons."

I was pleasantly surprised by the ending.

Although, the logic of it all still doesn't make sense. To be honest, there's far too much time travelling going on in the series now!

Can you explain what disappointed you so much?

Ok, well, here be spoilers.

Just keep in mind what I was saying about the last 15 pages changing everything.

So, my thoughts while reading it were very much thinking that it didn't really feel like a Horus Heresy book for a significant portion of it. For example, a lot of the 1000 Sons 'mystery' felt like you could just replace '15th Legion' with 'A radical Inquisitor' and it'd read the same.

Also, there was some feeling of being mis-sold on it. While, I wasn't expecting a blow by blow retelling, I was however expecting, for example, Othere Wyrdmake to be the main Space Wolves character in it, for example, focussing more on his Company and his 'objectives' in his befriending of Ahriman, his thoughts, feelings and interpretations on Ahrimans actions. That's what I really wanted the story to be about.

Instead, he's in a completely different Great Company, drops into the book about twice and has no real significance to the books plot - Helwinter and Longfang being far more important to it.

The pacing did seem very off. A 430 page book, with only Nikea (and the Primarches) appearing in the last 80 pages and visiting Prospero only in the last 50. It sort of reminded me a lot of the Russell Crowe Robin Hood film, where if you just turn up to see it, you end up spending half the film going 'why isn't he sparring with the sheriff yet.'

But yeah, the last 15 pages. They completely sorted my 2 complaints with it. 1, I was upset that a Heresy space wolf book didn't have Bjorn in it, or even mentioned at all. So, that explains that aspect of it.

Also, like I mentioned, while reading the book, and not knowing about the twist, it got very disheartening when I was a big fan of the 1000 Sons 'tragedy' of them being loyal but misguided, and, at that point in reading the book you just read about one of their top dudes assaulting the Emperors bodyguards and being very nasty indeed. So, the ending wrapped up that little complaint nicely.

On the 'twist' though, I'm happy about it if I don't think about it too deeply. But, the logic of it just seems to start breaking down when I look into it. How could it happen without any outside guiding force - especially since Hauser wasn't a psyker or when the whole incident started, Horus was still loyal, so he couldn't be behind it.

It would have been better at some point, for example, if Erebus had cropped up at the start and set the whole thing in motion - maybe during that ritual, instead of a random time travelling plot twist.

Compel wrote:

Also, like I mentioned, while reading the book, and not knowing about the twist, it got very disheartening when I was a big fan of the 1000 Sons 'tragedy' of them being loyal but misguided, and, at that point in reading the book you just read about one of their top dudes assaulting the Emperors bodyguards and being very nasty indeed. So, the ending wrapped up that little complaint nicely.

On the 'twist' though, I'm happy about it if I don't think about it too deeply. But, the logic of it just seems to start breaking down when I look into it. How could it happen without any outside guiding force - especially since Hauser wasn't a psyker or when the whole incident started, Horus was still loyal, so he couldn't be behind it.

It would have been better at some point, for example, if Erebus had cropped up at the start and set the whole thing in motion - maybe during that ritual, instead of a random time travelling plot twist.

While I have a similar opinion to yours about the book I just feel the need to point out that the "Thousand Son" that attacked the Custodes, Hauser, Bear and Godsmote at Nikaea was in fact the Daemon in disguise. Also the Daemon was seemingly there through out Hauser's life manipulating him at every turn to further what the Chaos Gods wanted, remember the Gods can somewhat know the future so were shaping it how they wished and the Gods wanted the Wolves and the Sons, whom they felt were two of the most loyal Legions to be destroyed, but since that failed they made due.

I'm pretty sure it was implied in A Thousand Sons that the first colonists to land on Fenris altered their genes in order to survive - they then became a close facsimile of a wolf.

BrotherStynier wrote:
While I have a similar opinion to yours about the book I just feel the need to point out that the "Thousand Son" that attacked the Custodes, Hauser, Bear and Godsmote at Nikaea was in fact the Daemon in disguise. Also the Daemon was seemingly there through out Hauser's life manipulating him at every turn to further what the Chaos Gods wanted, remember the Gods can somewhat know the future so were shaping it how they wished and the Gods wanted the Wolves and the Sons, whom they felt were two of the most loyal Legions to be destroyed, but since that failed they made due.

I was trying to avoid outright saying 'demon' to avoid spoiling people who haven't finished the entire book. Hence all the references to the last 15 pages, which is where we found out it is a daemon.

So, to be clearer now, since there's no point being subtle.

Hauser wasn't a psyker, was not fully exposed to the warp at any point and generally speaking, with the exception of the 'ritual' scene, which he ran the eff away from, there's no logical reason for the daemon to actually have access to him at all.

And the reference to time travelling plot twist was about the daemon seeing the future. I just find it to be bad writing. There was no uncertain futures, mystical prophecies, anything of that like. It was just 'I know the future....' From a random, unnamed daemon.

it would have been much better if, instead of it just being this random daemon pulling the strings of it all, it was Kor Phaeron (since Erebus was having too much glory in other books), perhaps he was visiting Terra during the years of the ritual in the Library and, true to The First Heretic, recognised or created the chaos cult there. So, that way, the whole thing wasn't a 'haha I know the future' but simply a contingency plan which was one of many contingency plans.... One that worked.

Compel wrote:

BrotherStynier wrote:
While I have a similar opinion to yours about the book I just feel the need to point out that the "Thousand Son" that attacked the Custodes, Hauser, Bear and Godsmote at Nikaea was in fact the Daemon in disguise. Also the Daemon was seemingly there through out Hauser's life manipulating him at every turn to further what the Chaos Gods wanted, remember the Gods can somewhat know the future so were shaping it how they wished and the Gods wanted the Wolves and the Sons, whom they felt were two of the most loyal Legions to be destroyed, but since that failed they made due.

I was trying to avoid outright saying 'demon' to avoid spoiling people who haven't finished the entire book. Hence all the references to the last 15 pages, which is where we found out it is a daemon.

So, to be clearer now, since there's no point being subtle.

Hauser wasn't a psyker, was not fully exposed to the warp at any point and generally speaking, with the exception of the 'ritual' scene, which he ran the eff away from, there's no logical reason for the daemon to actually have access to him at all.

And the reference to time travelling plot twist was about the daemon seeing the future. I just find it to be bad writing. There was no uncertain futures, mystical prophecies, anything of that like. It was just 'I know the future....' From a random, unnamed daemon.

it would have been much better if, instead of it just being this random daemon pulling the strings of it all, it was Kor Phaeron (since Erebus was having too much glory in other books), perhaps he was visiting Terra during the years of the ritual in the Library and, true to The First Heretic, recognised or created the chaos cult there. So, that way, the whole thing wasn't a 'haha I know the future' but simply a contingency plan which was one of many contingency plans.... One that worked.

The whole thing could have started when Hauser first met the 15th Legion on Terra during the excavation when they ordered him to move and expressed surprise at his name. Since the 15th was always prone to having psykers and I'm not sure if they always had the framiliars or not but the daemon could have caught on then and like you said created a contingency plan that happened to work or was guided so that at least a part of it would always happen. Daemons frequently lie to serve their purpose and it could have just been misinforming him as to how long he was being used.

As for why they'd be interested in a non-psyker, he was one of the founders of an Imperial Organization who kept a Chaos Touched friend close to him the whole time, perhaps the daemon ended up going for Hauser be cause he wouldn't have freely given into the daemon so would be unaware of what he was, that way it, in theory, would have been harder to detect him.

I'm also gonna throw out that you can definitely tell this book was hit hard by Abnett's illness, which was no fault of his and I wish him well in his fight against it.

I have a question to put towards all of you. Did it feel to you that Godsmote was actually meant to be a second main character, but something happened during the writing (mind changing or illness) led to him being put to the side as a less important character?

Edit: I mention the spoilers and such, because people have been warned in the topic's title that HERE BE SPOILERS.