Dorn's sons, philosophical nominalists?

Sigismund, without a doubt, is one of the greatest astartes of the Heresy Era. How awesome is it that there is finally an origin story for him!?!

Awesome, except where it wasn't.

So as for the performance, I am unfamiliar with Timothy Watson, but he sounds a lot like John Banks. . . except that almost every astartes voice is a blue-collar, south London mode of speech.

Why?

Why is it also that Archaemus, who is only scantily older than Sigismund, and who this very book says is cold as stone, is voiced like a kindly, warm, old grandfather who needs a blanket and some warm cocoa?

Bad job!

Apart from those irritations, at least the narrator was consistent and did not suffer other technical errors.

Why is our hero searching for "his truth"? There's a big difference between the search for absolute truth and passing, subjective, adolescent, nonsense.

Dorn and his legion are the DEFINITION of Realism, stolid, disciplined, concerned with the natures of things.

There were a few occasions of pretty serious lurches in tempo. There were times where all momentum in the story just snapped to a halt, and it sucked.

John French can write a good book, but here he cuts and pastes "the message" over what is an otherwise pretty good story.

The Grim Dark is not the place for Gen Z Modernism, soft accomodation, and social justice warriors. Those people get stepped on, chewed up, spit out, and are soul fuel for the uncaring dark gods of the Warp!

Why is the hardest of the hard, Sigismund, going all "identifying my truth"?

Most of the book was pretty good. Narration was bad. Ham-handed messaging and an inability to grasp real human motivations and philosophy hurt John French in this book.

4 people found this helpful

Incredible

The format returns to that of the most successful 40k books wherein the post-human experiences of a space marine are filtered through a solid human character. The pacing is excellent. The motifs commonly wrapped around Sigismund - the stillness in a moment where the drops of rain slow to pause, the strength of the character in his refusal to stay down when he falls, the cold efficiency of his being - are expounded upon without feeling ham-fisted. Instead, they are deftly woven into the story and its structure. There is a great balance between pieces of lore we already know and new ones like his experience being chosen as a child for reforging into astartes. This book is now among my top 5 Horus Heresy novels at large. The narrator is also to Sigismund what Kevin Conroy is to the voice of Batman. It's so important to get right and Timothy Watson kills it. He also manages to voice distinct and well known characters like Kharn in the way we're used to hearing them - also important for immersion. 5/5, 10/10. Listen to this book if you like the Horus Heresy and if you like books in general.

2 people found this helpful

Love it

I always love to see the legions do their thing and get some interesting characters along the way. This book delivers on both of those. If you want to see the Imperial Fists and Sigismund do some cool stuff this one is a good choice.

2 people found this helpful

Suffers from modern 40k identity politics weirdness.

Behind every great violent space crusader is a legion of inexplicably virtuous and talented women and space marines of color.

Just the increasingly common 40k trend of having any competent human being be a woman of peerless virtue, from the noble orphan who taught Sigismund how to be brave, to the hyper competent commander who’s so stone cold she doesn’t even flinch at the personal command of Dorn despite even space marines reacting in awe.

Other stuff like the author not knowing about space marines having eidetic memory, and the author doesn’t really offer any insight into a reason why Sigismund is the best, he just is because of his “Truth” which somehow even the world eaters ramble about.

As usual with these books, performance is 10/10 writing is wildly varying.

1 person found this helpful

very good

great narration and author, John French really knocks it out of the park, sigismund is built up as a great complex character.

1 person found this helpful

one of the best warhammer 40k books

I was very engaged with the story, I started thinking the it was going to be a "ok" story but it blow my mind. I'm not even a fan of the imperial fist but this really grew on me

simply excellent

this is a story I have waited a long time for!!! a treat for fans of the imperial fists or the black templars!!

worth it

Well worth getting for any warhammer fan, especially if your a fan of either the Black Templars or the Imperial Fist.

French fails to capitalize

This should have been a better story, lackluster writing is only exacerbated by a stilted performance with Watson succeeding to only add character to Sigismund by making him sound like a teenage edge-lord interpretation of bad-ass complete with the gravely voice and the perpetually irritated-sounding intonation of words...even when Sigismund was still a child.

This didn't feel like Sigismund, this felt more like a generic Astartes complete the cookie-cutter backstory of the orphan feral-boy growing up in the plot of a Death Wish movie, no hint was given as to what set him apart from his brothers and cousins beyond "being Sigismund" and that his success was "through the power of determination" which is too tired a battle-manga trope to dignify in what is supposed to be a serious work of the Grim Dark setting. He doesn't present as having better insight or deeper introspection than any of a panoply of Astartes as depicted throughout the myriad stories of both the Horus Heresy and 40K setting, less soulful than we've seen from Sigismund in previous writings, the stoic melancholy that has defined him in previous writings is absent here and he seems more like the recalcitrant child who hates his family and/or job versus the man who was willing to risk his life and honor to stand at the side of his Primarch-Father. If this was the first work in a series, it could be better excused.

The story isn't worth a stand-alone purchase, use a monthly credit then refund it after listening, it has no worth beyond that.

PERFECTION

Perfection at its absolute finest 👌
Love The Entire Listen.
Definitely worth the free Credit if uranyway shape or form