![]() Abnett’s prose and dialogue are, as ever, among the best Black Library has to offer, and this book shows his mastery of perspective as well. The End and the Death: Reviewed As a Novel What Works and What Doesn’tįirst, we can discuss the book in the simplest and, perhaps, purest way. ![]() Too much of the former, and he’d just be dictating a future Lexicanum entry too much of the latter, and it wouldn’t feel like the Heresy at all. That’s the task Abnett had set before him: to tell you a story that you already knew, and to make it seem both fresh enough to entertain but familiar enough to satisfy. No spoiler tags here – you know these things, but you are reading anyways, to find out how they happen. ![]() Everyone knows that the effort of doing this leaves the Emperor on the brink of death, such that his loyal followers have no choice but to install him in the Golden Throne. Everyone knows that the Emperor arrives on the scene, engages Horus in single combat, and annihilates him. Everyone knows that Sanguinius gets there first, challenges his brother, and is slain by him. He had to write a book that stood on its own as an entertaining novel he had to write a conclusion to the massive Horus Heresy/Siege of Terra project that satisfied he had to write a legend that fit into the larger Warhammer universe and he had to do all this while hitting specific plot and character points that every Warhammer fan has known for longer than the Heresy series has been running.Įveryone knows that the Emperor teleports up to Horus’s flagship in a last desperate ploy. Abnett readily admits in his Afterword the impossible task before him. Of course, a book this big, with this much riding on it, can’t be reviewed from just one perspective. It really is one book, albeit a bloody long one, and so I’m going to try to review it as such here. It’s not just that TEATD’s plot plays out over three books it’s that there are themes, character arcs, and elements of mood and tone that don’t snap into focus until you’ve digested the whole volume. That may seem like a semantic distinction at best, but with all three parts in our hands, I think it’s actually just an honest way of describing the book. You should check out his reviews of parts I, II and III as well.Ībnett has said repeatedly, in interviews and in the length afterword that accompanies this book, that TEATD is not three novels, but one in three parts. I’m not going to try to review The End And The Death 3 as a standalone book my friend and colleague Lenoon has already done that, and nothing I write could improve what he’s already done. He started this whole mess, and despite his penchant for unsatisfying endings, he’s earned the right to finish it. ![]() Eighteen years later, the Horus Heresy series (and the Siege that followed it) has bloated like its namesake, swollen with power, drunk on possibility, seeking to draw everything into its embrace because it simply could not imagine the word “enough.” The series has sprawled, and not to its benefit, but it’s fitting that as we reach the bloody denouement we are once again in Abnett’s hands. We glimpsed, too, a series that could have been: tight, economical, spinning myth onto the page and setting forth the secret origins of the Dark Millennium. ![]() The Greek-tragedy structure of the Heresy illuminated the flaws in his soul, flaws that would bring the Imperium crashing down, but in Horus Rising we saw a glimpse of the Horus that could have been. The Horus we met back in Horus Rising was a noble man, an honorable man, a man trying to do his best in impossible circumstances. Like Loken’s brothers, we chuckled at the sheer treason of the conceit, especially when Dan Abnett pulled back his lens to reveal the conjurer’s trick he’d played on us. It’s been almost 18 years since Loken first told us about how he was there, the day Horus killed the Emperor. It’s been almost 18 years since Horus Rising introduced us to Garviel Loken, his heroic-but-doomed dad, and his brothers-in-arms. This review will contain spoilers for the End and the Death, but they will be spoiler-tagged. ![]()
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