The End and the Death

The End and the Death: Volume 2 is the next part of the finale of the Horus Heresy series and continues directly from the end of the previous volume, as could be assumed. This is the biggest volume of the 3 parter, being ~750 pages, and at some points you can really feel it. There are some plot lines that feel rather unnecessary and that they only exist to fill time. For example the Dark Angels defending the Astronomican, it’s nice to see Dark Angels doing stuff, but is it really necessary to the point of the novel? Along with this the plot following Basilo Fo is interesting, but so far its not doing much for the main plot. This story focuses on conflict between Malcador and the Custodes which is interesting, but it lengthens the novel in ways that may not be necessary. Unfortunately though, until the end of Volume 3 I cant actually say for certain if these plot lines matter. This point causes an issue with a rather big plot element involving the Dark King, which we get a bunch of buildup to and interesting character interactions surrounding, but it /literally/ gets thown out half way through the novel. I have to assume that this will come up again in Volume 3, because if it doesn’t I really feel like I’d need to decrease my rating of this to at best 4/10. Though there are plenty of things that I really enjoy in this book. As previously mentioned Basilo Fo’s plot is quite interesting to me, alongside what was being done with the Dark King. Additionally, the fight between Horus and Sanguinius I felt was quite well done. There is quite a lot of things I like in this novel, but its just too long I think for what it provides. On the whole, the length is an issue, to the point I can’t comfortably call the novel that good. I’ll currently give it a 5/10, but that may change for better or worse depending on the final Volume.