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I'm pretty sure I said this before, but I predict an infinite series of books asymptotically approaching the final blow.
"Vol 27, the Emperor ties his left bootlace"

 Shadow Walker wrote:

 Malika2 wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:

 BrookM wrote:


Oh well, bring it on, might as well get it over with, just so long as Pandaemonium is the next book he is writing.

Yeah, it would be great but I am not sure if it is not something GG related or even somehing totally unexpected. Dan said years ago that he would like to write a book about Tyranids invasion, and also something from an Ork perspective, so who knows what it could be?

And I recalled he also wanted to write about the Unification Wars... So there's that.

They said it is set in ''a more contemporary period in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, one with a very different scope''.

One can only hope it is the final Bequin book that was originally planned for more than a decade ago…

Lord Zarkov wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:

 Malika2 wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:

 BrookM wrote:


Oh well, bring it on, might as well get it over with, just so long as Pandaemonium is the next book he is writing.

Yeah, it would be great but I am not sure if it is not something GG related or even somehing totally unexpected. Dan said years ago that he would like to write a book about Tyranids invasion, and also something from an Ork perspective, so who knows what it could be?

And I recalled he also wanted to write about the Unification Wars... So there's that.

They said it is set in ''a more contemporary period in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, one with a very different scope''.

One can only hope it is the final Bequin book that was originally planned for more than a decade ago…

That also has universe-obliterating potential consequences. Maybe he's just going to do a Necromunda novel about some downhive schlub needing to score enough creds to feed his slaught addiction?

 BrookM wrote:
Well, this is certainly becoming a ludicrous amount of padding for what was supposed to be an eight book finale, which in itself was already padding things out quite a bit.

I'd argue the majority of Volume 1 was itself padding. It's a little frustrating to read that they're now splitting the final novel into 3 volumes after most of the first was random scenes that have nothing to do with the plot. Large chunks of the remainder are tying up loose ends that should have been dealt with many books ago, ideally prior to the Siege books. Loken, for example, seems to appear because he was there at the start so...he has to show up now, I guess. I don't know why, and any effect they have on the story is likely going to be inconsequential next to the literal galaxy-changing main event. That's not to say you can't have these more personal, smaller moments in amongst the grand plot, but it feels like we're now getting almost nothing but that.

How it's claimed some of these books are "New York Times bestsellers" when they don't even make enough for their own UK website is beyond me.
Paperback for the latest book is "no longer available". How do people (that read real paper books) ever follow a GW series?

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
How it's claimed some of these books are "New York Times bestsellers" when they don't even make enough for their own UK website is beyond me.

I gueuss it was said about their books from years ago, like when HH started for example. I think A Thousand Sons was one of them.

I've had a good moan about this over on B&C and just don't have the energy any more.

In short, I'm disappointed Abnett has subverted his artform for what I assume were instructions from up on high to milk the cow just a little more. I love his work outside of GW and this just means he is stuck here padding out this story for another few years, so this is a loss to everyone.

I am honestly done and despite BLs effort here I will skip this one. There are some pretty good Heresy book blogs running that do some good plot summaries of each book, which I've used for a few in the series and I'll use for this one. Then forget about it for a couple of years and come back to when the Emperor finally fething kills Horus, if he hasn't put the Astartes immortality to the test by then and already died of old age.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
How it's claimed some of these books are "New York Times bestsellers" when they don't even make enough for their own UK website is beyond me.
Paperback for the latest book
is "no longer available". How do people (that read real paper books) ever follow a GW series?

They used to be around the time of A Thousand Sons/Betrayer, then they decided to start staggering the releases with collectors editions and hardbacks before the mass market. That resulted in lacking the critical mass at any one time to get back on the bestseller list. They probably make more money now but it's fragmented the sales and resulted in fans getting annoyed when they don't get on the initial releases.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
How it's claimed some of these books are "New York Times bestsellers" when they don't even make enough for their own UK website is beyond me.

The number of books you have to sell to get on the list isn't much. High four digits in a week and you're in.

 Pacific wrote:
I've had a good moan about this over on B&C and just don't have the energy any more.

In short, I'm disappointed Abnett has subverted his artform for what I assume were instructions from up on high to milk the cow just a little more. I love his work outside of GW and this just means he is stuck here padding out this story for another few years, so this is a loss to everyone.

It was written as a single book. GW's decision was to split it into three and spread it out over multiple years of release. Abnett wrote it, delivered it and moved on yonks ago.

I'm sure that it was a totally organic series of decisions which led Abnett to write a book which was 'too long to print' - which must have been against GW's brief - and then they just had to split it into three books with all of the benefits for them which that entails.

deano2099 wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
I've had a good moan about this over on B&C and just don't have the energy any more.

In short, I'm disappointed Abnett has subverted his artform for what I assume were instructions from up on high to milk the cow just a little more. I love his work outside of GW and this just means he is stuck here padding out this story for another few years, so this is a loss to everyone.

It was written as a single book. GW's decision was to split it into three and spread it out over multiple years of release. Abnett wrote it, delivered it and moved on yonks ago.

That's not how publishing works. There would have been a word count target. It's the author's job to hit that target, which is usually agreed beforehand after a discussion about the plot between editor and writer. There is simply no way Abnett would have written something three times bigger than requested without having any sort of conversation about it with Black Library way before finishing the novels.

It's much more likely there was a conversation between Abnett and BL some way into writing the second volume that resulted in the decision to publish a third volume. Depending on how cynical you are, that decision may have been taken purely to boost the sales figures or purely to service the epicness of the story the writer wanted to tell. I suspect it's somewhere in between, but most likely closer to the former than the latter.

 Londinium wrote:
Why do I get the sinking feeling that there will be more stupid retcons coming our way, which haven't been built up to and change the vibe of the story, like the Erda stuff.

Somehow the defeat of Horus will be the reason why the Necrons are waking up or some other such nonsense that further shrinks the universe.

 Scottywan82 wrote:
Oh. My. God. HBMC called it. That's hilarious.

The only surprising thing about this is that you're surprised.

Only GW could make an 8 book series that has 13 books in it.

deano2099 wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
I've had a good moan about this over on B&C and just don't have the energy any more.

In short, I'm disappointed Abnett has subverted his artform for what I assume were instructions from up on high to milk the cow just a little more. I love his work outside of GW and this just means he is stuck here padding out this story for another few years, so this is a loss to everyone.

It was written as a single book. GW's decision was to split it into three and spread it out over multiple years of release. Abnett wrote it, delivered it and moved on yonks ago.

Ah that is interesting to know.. thanks !

Slipspace wrote:

deano2099 wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
I've had a good moan about this over on B&C and just don't have the energy any more.

In short, I'm disappointed Abnett has subverted his artform for what I assume were instructions from up on high to milk the cow just a little more. I love his work outside of GW and this just means he is stuck here padding out this story for another few years, so this is a loss to everyone.

It was written as a single book. GW's decision was to split it into three and spread it out over multiple years of release. Abnett wrote it, delivered it and moved on yonks ago.

That's not how publishing works. There would have been a word count target. It's the author's job to hit that target, which is usually agreed beforehand after a discussion about the plot between editor and writer.

That's true, but given the differences in word count across the HH novels and even Siege of Terra itself, it's clear that BL don't target very specific word counts. My suspicion is that Abnett said "what's the word count?" and was told "it's the end of a 15 year series that you start and telling one of the biggest thigs that happens in our setting - take what you need"

And Abnett delivered something Stormlight-size.

Or like you say, he started, realised it was going to be well over 200,000 words, the editor said "fine, we'll make it two volumes" and then he came back and said "might be more like three".

That interview is pretty telling and quite surprising as it clearly communicates he's not particularly happy at the way it has been released and wants people to read it through as a single novel. That's what is telling to me. Like, it's a GW article, we can assume GW are evil and they lie, sure. But given what they've actually published Abnett saying is actually quite critical of how they've released it, then I tend to believe Abnett when he says it was written as a single novel.

And if you want to know why it's Part 1, 2 and 3 and not books 8, 9 and 10... I bet he's only being paid for the one book.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Londinium wrote:
Why do I get the sinking feeling that there will be more stupid retcons coming our way, which haven't been built up to and change the vibe of the story, like the Erda stuff.

Somehow the defeat of Horus will be the reason why the Necrons are waking up or some other such nonsense that further shrinks the universe.

 Scottywan82 wrote:
Oh. My. God. HBMC called it. That's hilarious.

The only surprising thing about this is that you're surprised.

Only GW could make an 8 book series that has 13 books in it.

*cough*A Song of Ice and Fire*cough*cough*

deano2099 wrote:
Or like you say, he started, realised it was going to be well over 200,000 words, the editor said "fine, we'll make it two volumes" and then he came back and said "might be more like three".

Abnett now has the clout where the editor doesn't get to tell him "can you trim it down a little?"

Dan had that clout for a long, long time now. Fell Cargo was solely written because he wanted to write about pirates in the Old World setting.

 BrookM wrote:
Dan had that clout for a long, long time now. Fell Cargo was solely written because he wanted to write about pirates in the Old World setting.

At least that was a short, self-contained book that didn't really make much of a fuss or delay his other output much.

 SgtEeveell wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Londinium wrote:
Why do I get the sinking feeling that there will be more stupid retcons coming our way, which haven't been built up to and change the vibe of the story, like the Erda stuff.

Somehow the defeat of Horus will be the reason why the Necrons are waking up or some other such nonsense that further shrinks the universe.

 Scottywan82 wrote:
Oh. My. God. HBMC called it. That's hilarious.

The only surprising thing about this is that you're surprised.

Only GW could make an 8 book series that has 13 books in it.

*cough*A Song of Ice and Fire*cough*cough*

At least Abnett has actually wrote his books.

 Shakalooloo wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
Or like you say, he started, realised it was going to be well over 200,000 words, the editor said "fine, we'll make it two volumes" and then he came back and said "might be more like three".

Abnett now has the clout where the editor doesn't get to tell him "can you trim it down a little?"

Of course the editor could tell him that. The question is: "why would he?"

Especially if Dan has already been paid his advance, so is getting the same regardless of what he turns in.

Black Library are very much *not* some huge publishing house - they don't have immutable schedules planned our years in advance, they're really a small indie in the actual publishing world. They can certainly flex enough to publish something in multiple parts.

Sometimes what the author wants to do, and what works well for the publisher, align perfectly. It doesn't need some conspiracy.

I believe Abnett when he says it was written as one book. The three volumes combined don't seem like they're particularly long for a book. They're long for a Black Library book, but not in the grand scheme of things. Especially for sci-fi fantasy. 300k-400k words is one of the longer Wheel of Time books or a shorter Stormlight. It's a bit less than Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and a bit more than Hamilton's Pandora's Star.

Anyone who has ever worked with an author ever knows they will turn a shopping list into 200,000 words if you don't actively stop them, I imagine BL just felt that they could do exactly what they have - split them up if necessary.

Heck Lord of the Rings was one book split into three parts.


Plus its not just authors, many films have a huge amounts of material cut from them. Gangs of New York was something like 8 hours long before they cut it for show. It's sometimes why films end up disjointed and feel like huge chunks are missing - but they really are. Done badly you end up with something like Alien 3 where key parts were cut and only re-introduced in final directors cut editions.


So the idea of a writer making something way longer than your standard single paperback can hold, yeah that's not unbelievable. It's a big reason why skilled authors work with good editors and proof readers because part of the process of creating the book is knowing when to include more and what you can cut out because its getting too long.

I'd add that just because a book is huge, doesn't mean it wasn't edited properly or that the author left in loads of stuff that should have been cut. It often just means it was even longer initially. I was just reading yesterday about one of the Sanderson Wheel of Time books being 300,000+ words, but he later released a short story consisting of some "deleted scenes".
Long books are a thing, and they *are* distinct from trilogies consisting of three separate books. And they are often published in multiple volumes.

I know some people have said the first book of The End and the Death was slow and dragged a bit... that actually makes more sense now as it was the first third of a book. In most books, the first third is generally slower-paced setup. It's exposition and rising action.

That is the difference between a book split into volumes, and a trilogy. In a trilogy, the books are expected to work alone, have their own identifiable structure and pacing, and work to that. A single book, split into volumes should absolutely read differently.

(And a single book, split into volumes, should absolutely not be released with a year between the first and last entry - because you're not meant to stop. You're not meant to read anything in between, any more than you'd stop reading one book in the middle, and start a different one, before going back to it)

deano2099 wrote:

That is the difference between a book split into volumes, and a trilogy. In a trilogy, the books are expected to work alone, have their own identifiable structure and pacing, and work to that. A single book, split into volumes should absolutely read differently.

I would say most trilogies the first book can often stand alone as sometimes trilogies are made off the back of one successful story spread out. However there are far fewer where you can read books 2 and 3 out of order or on their own. They do often share the same core structure of start-middle-end in terms of how the book is lain out; however most 2nd and 3rd books have to assume you've read the preceding ones. Indeed it can feel really jarring if the author spends too much time/focus on the early part of sequel covering the events of the previous. Reminders are needed of course, but too much and it feels like its breaking you out of the narrative of the new story to try and summaries a whole book.

Pre-orders https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/08/05/black-library-pre-orders-a-regiments-worth-of-astra-militarum-stories/

 Overread wrote:

deano2099 wrote:

That is the difference between a book split into volumes, and a trilogy. In a trilogy, the books are expected to work alone, have their own identifiable structure and pacing, and work to that. A single book, split into volumes should absolutely read differently.

I would say most trilogies the first book can often stand alone as sometimes trilogies are made off the back of one successful story spread out. However there are far fewer where you can read books 2 and 3 out of order or on their own. They do often share the same core structure of start-middle-end in terms of how the book is lain out; however most 2nd and 3rd books have to assume you've read the preceding ones. Indeed it can feel really jarring if the author spends too much time/focus on the early part of sequel covering the events of the previous. Reminders are needed of course, but too much and it feels like its breaking you out of the narrative of the new story to try and summaries a whole book.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I don't mean "work alone" as in "don't need to read the rest of the series" - as you say it's about structure and, it's hard to explain, it's that feeling of actually having read a book versus having read half a book. Or the idea that you need to read the previous books, but you don't necessarily need to have read the previous books immediately before.

For example, it'd be fair to have a very minor plot point at the start of a book become a major part of what the plot turns on in the last third of the book. That's good writing, that's foreshadwoing, that's laying a breadcrumb trail for the reader so when they look back they can go "oh, of course". Whereas it would be bad writing to mention something off-handed in book one of a trilogy, then have the conclusion of book three turn heavily on it. At least, not without re-capping it. And if you do that, you sort of ruin the surprise - it instead becomes "oh I'm being reminded about this, it must be relevant" - in both cases it'd generally be seen as bad writing.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/08/09/the-end-and-the-death-volume-iii-the-final-cover-reveal/

Not a huge fan of the final covers. The Emperors pose seems very weird and it’s angled very strangely.

The personalized chairs are nice. Angron has the khorne one, Magnus has the tzeentch one. Is the bone for Curze? And the fourth is Fulgrims? Can a snake man use a chair?

That cover is a travesty.