The End And The Death: Volume I (The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra Book 8)

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He summons Vulkan, Sanguinius, Dorn and Valdor to the throne Sanguinius praises Dorn and hugs him, crying a single tear. He then praises Valdor and calls him brother. Valdor in annoyed by this and tells Sanguinius to do it another time. Sanguinius tells him to pretend they may not see each other again and Valdor praises his honour but says no embrace is necessary The Emperor sees that the shields of the Vengeful Spirit are down and he needs to take the chance to kill Horus because otherwise he will lose the war on Terra. he commands Dorn and Valdor to come with him, tells Sanguinius to remain on Terra and command the defences as Warmaster, Vulkan will remain in the Throne room, ready to blow it up if everything goes wrong. The Emperor can kill Horus but doesn’t have enough power to cleanse the physical universe of the immaterium Unfortunately, the Oll Persson subplot is decaying in quality, mainly due to John Grammaticus' pestiferous presence. The Emperor gains power from humanity’s worship, becoming stronger than a primarch, but never attains the god-like power He stole from Chaos

All parties introduced in the first volume play a role. Perpetuals are a pivotal set of characters - they manage to persuade the Emperor to step down from the apocalypse path. Of course they do not do it on their own but with help of other loyalists. Emperor is presented as a very deadly psyker, who sometimes gets a little bit too much driven and is not a person who easily trusts the others. But when confronted with arguments he is ready to take the necessary steps. Horus is crazy as ever, with grand plan of rebuilding the entire reality, He even has a role for some of his kin. Others are just scattered throughout the crazy new reality, fighting daemons and traitor forces who have finally breached the last bastion. With the war at this critical juncture, Sanguinius, primarch of the loyalist Blood Angels, braves the horrors of the Warmaster’s flagship, The Vengeful Spirit, with a single purpose in mind – to slay his brother Horus, decapitate the Heresy once and for all, and stop the forces of Chaos from taking Terra. That at this point Horus has devolved into a delusional, almost mindless husk doesn't help the series either. Horus was such an effective antagonist because he was brilliant, while his fall is handled badly in the Heresy, he was supposed to be an individual that initially raised valid concerns and was pushed over the edge by the involvement of Chaos. Abnett does well enough, but endnig something so wast so massive as is Horus Heresy is not easy task.Now, at the final hour of the final day, the Emperor rises. With him come his Angel, his Praetorian, and his Captain, all determined to enact terrible vengeance. Yet the hope is slim, for the Warmaster sees all and knows all, and the ultimate victory of Chaos is at hand. You seem to be under the impression that the Horus Heresy series of books is going to end in a way that radically changes the setting. Battle between Sanguinius and Horus is not just physical battle but psychological - what can be more moral breaking but destruction of one Primarch that is personification of deities of past. Sheer brutality of the duel is breathtaking. And everything seems to be done with goal of goading the Emperor to cross the threshold and cause more harm than good. The POVs of Malcador and the Primarchs are somewhat interesting (no mean feat after 60+ books), and at least we do not get any new out-of-character revelations or derailings on that front.

The traitors make their landing in The Lost and the Damned by Guy Haley, swarming Loyalist lines with hordes of cultists, conscripts, and mutants in a bid to overwhelm the mighty Aegis shield dome protecting the Imperial Palace. After weeks of bloody battle, the weight of the traitor assault – combined with a ritual conducted by the Thousand Sons – exhausts the Aegis and the Palace itself lies open. I Horus Rising • II False Gods • III Galaxy in Flames • IV The Flight of the Eisenstein • V Fulgrim • VI Descent of Angels • VII Legion • VIII Battle for the Abyss • IX Mechanicum • X Tales of Heresy • XI Fallen Angels • XII A Thousand Sons • XIII Nemesis • XIV The First Heretic • XV Prospero Burns • XVI Age of Darkness • XVII The Outcast Dead • XVIII Deliverance Lost • XIX Know No Fear • XX The Primarchs • XXI Fear to Tread • XXII Shadows of Treachery • XXIII Angel Exterminatus • XXIV Betrayer • XXV Mark of Calth • XXVI Vulkan Lives • XXVII The Unremembered Empire • XXVIII Scars • XXIX Vengeful Spirit • XXX The Damnation of Pythos • XXXI Legacies of Betrayal • XXXII Deathfire • XXXIII War Without End • XXXIV Pharos • XXXV Eye of Terra • XXXVI The Path of Heaven • XXXVII The Silent War • XXXVIII Angels of Caliban • XXXIX Praetorian of Dorn • XL Corax • XLI The Master of Mankind • XLII Garro • XLIII Shattered Legions • XLIV The Crimson King • XLV Tallarn • XLVI Ruinstorm • XLVII Old Earth • XLVIII The Burden of Loyalty • XLIX Wolfsbane • L Born of Flame • LI Slaves to Darkness • LII Heralds of the Siege • LIII Titandeath • LIV The Buried Dagger Anyway, the book has quite a number of basically superfluous battle scenes that do nothing to advance any plotlines, only show that Choas is bad and evil - which might be ok if we haven't had to muddle through 60+ books establishing that fact. Also, Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith would be proud with the sheer amount of mind-breaking, sanity-blasting eldritch vocabulary thrown at us readers. Especially when it comes to Choas, which faction, it bears repeating, is Eeeeevil. The Emperor and Oll Persson once conquered the Tower of Babel when Oll was his Warmaster because it was dedicated to learning Enuncia. Oll thought they were going to destroy the Tower but the Emperor thought Enuncia could be useful. Oll stabbed him. The war for the future of the Imperium has reached a critical juncture. With Terra besieged, and the defenders scattered and broken, the Warmaster’s victory seems to be in sight. Sanguinius, Primarch of the Blood Angels, steps foot on The Vengeful Spirit with only one goal: to kill his corrupted brother and end the war once and for all.Book is very readable, very cinematic, main story chapters with lots of [what author calls] fragments sections in between. In these fragments sections we are given scenes from the battlefields, civilians escaping the city battlefields, we see actions of Abaddon and his troops, Horus' POV (which is hilarious) and finally Neverborne's thoughts and reactions on the Horus' progress. Chapters are relatively short so pacing is pretty fast. All in all very well organized, with only downside being author's use of some more exotic dictionary that made me scratch my head for a while.

My issue with the Siege has always been bloat. Erda is a prime example: did we need another Perpetual, especially such a prominent one, parachuted into the narrative? Do we need all these characters flouncing about on all their individual sub-plots, still dangling as we move towards the sharp end? My praise of Echoes is that it's an incredibly tightly-focused book. It is, in short, a fantastic addition to the ethereal concept of what the Siege series should have been. The construction of the book is killer. It drives home its core concepts, it's sharply-edited, it is focused on giving the audience a brutal contrast and comparison of two Legions and their Primarchs at the very end of the war. In a perfect universe, that it ends as the shields go down, is genuinely a perfect place to end. We don't need to know how, or why, only that the final assault is about to happen, the last, desperate gambit for the last, final book of the series. In a perfect universe, every Siege book would have been like this, sharpening the narrative edge down to a singular point, giving us a whole book that could deal solely with the Vengeful Spirit. The first half of this tome is tedious. You have different characters figuring out that time has stopped and it's all going wrong... Endlessly. It's like a Bollywood drama getting everyone's opinions and views on it. With the release of Siege of Terra: Echoes of Eternity this weekend, the Warmaster’s forces push forward on Terra, and the epic conflict takes one step closer to its ultimate end. The final moments are now at hand. Book have big problem with phasing. I need to elaborate a bit. Book have 4 large parts made of chapters. Doombreed, the host of Drach'nyen, Be'Lakor, N'Kari, Ku'gath, Skarbrand, The Masque, Bubonicus, Ulkair from Dawn of War etc. were all summoned by a person Horus thinks is Zardu Layak and are fighting on Terra

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There’s no substitute for experiencing the Siege of Terra series yourself because it’s a tale of such epic proportions, but before we reveal the final chapter in this story, let’s briefly catch up on the story so far. This weekend, the eighth – The End and the Death: Volume I by Dan Abnett – will be upon us, closing out the series in a multi-part spectacular. It’s one of the most important narrative events in Warhammer history, and to make sure you’re all caught up before the awe-inspiring climax, we’ve put together a guide to the major moments. The Emperor remains a perpetual with strong but not god-like psychic abilities (similar to the regent). He loses the power He stole from Chaos. Maybe this book would benefit from being split even more. Two large books and one smaller (Knight of grey, Fury of Magnus style book) to relief main story a bit.