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The End and the Death: Volume I

The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra, Book 8

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Siege of Terra Book 8, Part 1

The arch-traitor Horus Lupercal's forces have bombarded Terra and the Imperial Palace lies in ruins. With the Emperor's dream in tatters, he seeks only to rob Chaos of its ultimate victory...

LISTEN TO IT BECAUSE

It's the beginning of the ultimate conclusion to the Horus Heresy, and hope still remains for the Loyalists! The Emperor plans a gambit that could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat – but at what cost?

THE STORY

There is no way out.

The walls have fallen, the gates are breached, and the defenders are slain. It is the end and the death. After seven brutal years of civil war, the Warmaster stands on the verge of victory. Horus Lupercal, once beloved son, has come to murder his father. The Emperor, a shining beacon of hope to many, an unscrupulous tyrant to others, must die. The lives of uncountable numbers have been extinguished and even primarchs, once thought immortal, have been laid low. The Emperor's dream lies in tatters, but there remains a sliver of hope.

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.

There is no way out.

©2023 Games Workshop Limited (P)2023 Games Workshop Limited Military Science Fiction Fiction Emotionally Gripping Siege
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I have to say I loved this book! And I’m so happy Dan decided this story needed more space to conclude satisfactorily,

First of all Jonathan Keeble does a great job bringing (so many) characters to life and capturing the mood and pace of the varied scenes.

Dan does a amazing job of bringing together a vast cast of characters from across the series and giving them all their due. This book is telling the story we know of the end of the heresy but constantly provides fresh revelations, deep cuts to 40K lore, brand new ideas and meaningful characterization.

This is mature Abnett completely in command of the detail, rich in prose and unafraid to tell the story His way, Recommended.

Mature and satisfying start to the end

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It's difficult for warhammer to do shock, awe and existential horror well as everything is always so over the top already but holy hell nearly every chapter of this book left me tense with apprehension and the hairs standing on my neck

Mind boggling

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It nears the end of one of the most epic sagas ever told and sets it up excellently for the final story to be told.

Sublime

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Just excellent. Subtle, and not so subtle, reveals throughout , whilst posing more and more questions as the story progresses. Excellent narration as well. Am now eagerly looking forward to the next.

Excellent

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Dan Abnett has said that he once wanted to call the final book "The Emperor Must Die", and I think that would have made a much better title than the somewhat awkardly phrased reference to Samus.

Jonathan Keeble is amazing as always. His Malcador sounds worn down by time, his Horus is articulate and emotive, and his Emperor is and has always been the highlight of his narration.

The abundance of POVs make the story slightly unfocused. We jump back and forth between them so rapidly that most of the chapters are abnormally short, obscuring the fact that very little actually happens in this book, even if what does is immensely important. It suffers from Derek Landy syndrome, where the chapters are treated like scene changes in a movie. Not everyone who listens to this will have listened to all the previous books, and it would be easier to get invested in returning characters we haven't seen before if we stayed with them a while longer.

Maybe this is intentional, because Terra is supposed to be sinking into the warp and reality is being distorted, but the writing style is a little confused. Like parts of the previous book Echoes of Eternity, but unlike the entire rest of the series, most of it is in the present tense. If I'm not misremembering, it shifted back and forth inconsistently from past to present tense in places when describing current events, and that's just bad writing no matter what it's trying to convey.

For the fact that this is probably his fifth in-person appearance in the whole series, The Emperor doesn't have as much weight or gravitas as I'd come to expect from his appearance in Master of Mankind (although that book in itself wasn't very good). When he fights, it doesn't convey his power very well. It makes him feel more like a regular Primarch than the lynchpin of the whole story.

The chapter titles were also blatantly incorrect in some places ("Remembrance sir") last I checked. Audible better get on that.

But that's all I've got for negatives. Horus' descent into madness is a joy to listen to, the new lore and Malcador's perspective on The Emperor are intriguing, it's the third time in the entire book series we get to see The Emperor fight (including that one short story), the characters are great, the universe feels real, the battles are engaging, the stakes are higher than ever, it's the culmination of about fifty bloody books' worth of build-up, and - thank God - Erda is still dead.

The Emperor Must Die

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