The End and the Death: Volume I (Volume 8) [Hardcover] Abnett, Dan [Hardcover] Abnett, Dan

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While I've given this book 5 stars for the massive enjoyment I've drawn from it and I was truly blown away even though I already loved most of the series up to this point, it's not perfect. If there's one thing I have to single out, then that its connection to its direct predecessor, Echoes of Eternity, feels... off, somehow. I won't go into too much detail to avoid spoilers, but it feels like this was written off an outline of the ending of Echoes, without all the details in place. It's not totally jarring, but there were several moments that made me go "Wait, this doesn't fit". The other thing is that even now, three books later, the regrettably bad Mortis raises its head yet again, forcing Abnett to drag along some of its elements and going so far as to almost flat out retcon some others. It had to be published in sections simply because we simply mechanically can’t print books that big! Dan: Loken, obviously. No, Abaddon. And John Grammaticus. Also Sanguinius, and the Khan, and… actually, the more I write (and read), the more favourites I discover. I now love characters and Legions that held little interest for me to begin with. I wasn’t a particular fan, for example, of Space Wolves or Ultramarines at the start. Now I adore both. The more you engage with the material, the more compelling things become. What would however definetly improve the book is bit of shuffling and cutting of scenes, putting them to the volume II, putting some of them closer. Moving the ending. A subreddit for the lore and stories encompassing the dark future of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise

Someone needs to make a list of all the plot threads that currently are lined up for this book, top of my head its basilo flo, loken, keeler, perpetuals, any meaning to the erebus/arda thing. Tho probably forgetting some/lots. It's fair to say there is a lot going on, and this wouldn't be the book you would start with, but it's got some great things to recommend it. I really like the way that Malcador is in the first person - and Horus Lupercal in the second... with all other stories being in the third person. It takes a bit of time to get used to, but its a great way of telling the reader which protagonist is currently centre stage. Another bloated entry in the Siege of Terra series, featuring ADHD storytelling, glacial pacing and a meandering plot. Someone needs to make a list of all the plot threads that currently are lined up for this book, top of my head its basilo flo I’ve read the first 62 books of the Horus Heresy series, knowing nothing about the wider WarHammer universe or lore. I don’t know whether the Emperor dies or triumphs, the fate of the legions, or humanity’s place in the future. I’m waiting impatiently for the final two books to be released, so that I can start reading 40k and find out what happens.Secondly, of 21 chapters, only ~4 have contained any plot and the rest is filled with purple prose about wars and warriors and holes in walls and random people we have never met doing inconsequential things like dying pointlessly, or loading shells into artillery one more time, or just ranting in circles about war and warriors and death and 'thrones'... Wholihan D. Seeing the light: End-of-life experiences-visions, energy surges, and other death bed phenomena. Nurs Clin North Am. 2016;51(3):489-500. doi:10.1016/j.cnur.2016.05.005 A perfectly fine novel that could have used some significant editing and the surgical removal of several of the sub plots that primarily serve to ensure everyone’s favourite characters are mentioned at least once. There’s definitely a really strong Warhammer novel in there somewhere, and if the viewpoint characters had been restricted to Loken, Corswain, Sindermann, Malcador, Horus, Sanguinius and Oll we might have found it. Instead the tour round minor characters detracted severely from the pace of the novel. “Oh, here we go, Fafnir Ran is killing things again” was not the enduring takeaway I expected after Johnathan Keble (who puts in the usual hard yards as the audiobook narrator) spoke his last. These scenes would be better left to a short story compilation than trying to squeeze them into a mainline novel. I wonder if this well tone down the purple prose. Given that he describes it as a continuation I doubt it. The use of lexiphane words spoiled my immersion. Its hard to keep in the flow of the thing if you are reading a description and have to look up what smaragdine means ( or lexiphane ).

Well this one is hard to rate. To say that there are huge expectations for this book is understatement. After reading part 1 i can already say the bloat is real and this is very much 1-2 books MADE into 3. The first and foremost being the perpetual subplot with Oll and John, it was always terrible but it reaches new depths of pointlessness in this novel with Oll essentially declaring his plan was just to have a chat with the Emperor yeah like that was going to achieve anything at this point Horus is about to obliterate Earth and you think you can fix it by having a chat with the Emperor. I never had hopes this subplot had a point but this is pathetic.As with all the other entries in this series Jonathan Keeble has been consistent, flexible and clever with his delivery. Massive fan of the break up chapters which glance over snippets of the horror of the galactic civil wars culmination (several chapters titled “Fragments”). In more than this aspect, this is (part 1 of) the Magnum Opus. The sheer depth of language, of stylistic diversity Abnett summons here is staggering, and where many fantastic authors over the decades have fallen prey to the idea that just making up words will help make your fantastic world sound "more real" somehow, this is a far cry from such stumbling attempts. While the vocabulary can become weird and arcane, it's not just "calling a rabbit a shmirp", it's coming up with words that might make you stumble, but make total sense in context. When reality itself begins to drift apart, it stands to reason that the things to be witnessed defy a normal vocabulary, and when the central point of view is that of Malcador the Sigillite, it feels absolutely natural a character such as this would see the world through a truly unique point of view and use arcane terms to describe it. Yes, I finished this book in one day. Partially because I was on a long flight, and mostly because it was great.