Quite a good entry to the series. We see the return of Katsuhiro and he's just as good to read as he was in Lost and the Damned. This novel also featured Ollanius Pious more heavily and I became quite interested and invested in him. I’ll want to reread it again in the future to confirm my feelings but I found it was a good novel, and I'm looking forward to Warhawk.
Reviews and Comments
In late 2023 I was gifted a bunch of old Warhammer novels that I’ve decide to get through this year.
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PatentedGraph53 reviewed Mortis by John French (The Siege of Terra, #5)
PatentedGraph53 started reading Mortis by John French (The Siege of Terra, #5)
PatentedGraph53 reviewed Saturnine by Dan Abnett (The Siege of Terra, #4)
Siege of Terra: Saturnine review
4 stars
As expected, a very good book that is the best of the SoT so far. Saturnine is the first book in the SoT that has Dorn feel like an actual character and not the walking trope he was in the previous novels. The other characters are also good, the guardsmen are all quite interesting, and the new rememberancers bring back a normal perspective on the Astartes that had felt lacking at times. On the whole, good book but could be better, cant wait for the next one.
PatentedGraph53 started reading Saturnine by Dan Abnett (The Siege of Terra, #4)
PatentedGraph53 reviewed The First Wall by Gav Thorpe (The Siege of Terra, #3)
Siege of Terra: The First Wall review
2 stars
The best aspects of The First Wall are simply things taken from the previous novels in the Siege of Terra series so far. Abaddon and Layak’s interactions, the Primarchs being smart, that’s really all thats of note for good qualities the book shows, and even then they don’t meet the standards set by the last two novels. What brings down this book the most is the Imperial Militia story about Zenobi and her crew from Addaba. This plotline is such a waste and I feel no shame in spoiling it. The whole plotline, as explained in the afterword, existed as Thrope was mandated to show that there were traitors within the Imperial Army/Militia, which is a thing done in the last novel with the Alpa Legion agents. This is presumably meant to try to show it at a larger scale, with a whole regiment being traitors, but it’s conveyed so …
The best aspects of The First Wall are simply things taken from the previous novels in the Siege of Terra series so far. Abaddon and Layak’s interactions, the Primarchs being smart, that’s really all thats of note for good qualities the book shows, and even then they don’t meet the standards set by the last two novels. What brings down this book the most is the Imperial Militia story about Zenobi and her crew from Addaba. This plotline is such a waste and I feel no shame in spoiling it. The whole plotline, as explained in the afterword, existed as Thrope was mandated to show that there were traitors within the Imperial Army/Militia, which is a thing done in the last novel with the Alpa Legion agents. This is presumably meant to try to show it at a larger scale, with a whole regiment being traitors, but it’s conveyed so poorly. You don't even realise that they are traitors until the final paragraph of their last appearance in the book, the only ‘hints’ before are that they ‘for the cause’ instead of ‘for the emperor’. The characters themselves are basically nonexistent as well. There is nothing I can tell you about Zenobi or any of her faceless friends aside from ‘they are proud and secretly traitors’. In essentially their final chapter Zenobi meets a man from another regiment and falls in love with him immediately, which is a lovely way of trying to attach you to a character before they disappear forever. This is easily the biggest flaw in the book, maybe a third of it is this painfully draining plot line. Thats all I have to say, its hard for me to decide whether this should be a 1.5 or 2, but I suppose the decent plot lines being the majority of the book hold it up enough to barely be a 2. At least the next book is by Abnett.
PatentedGraph53 reviewed The Lost and the Damned by Guy Haley (The Siege of Terra, #2)
Siege of Terra: The Lost and the Danmed review
3 stars
The second novel of the Siege of Terra series, The Lost and the Damned picks up where The Solar War left off, with the traitor legions at Terra. Like its predecessor this novel falls flat in a few places, however I feel there are higher highs than The Solar War had. It might just be me, but the text feels somewhat off, I might call it a bit Young Adult for my liking. This issue mainly arises when Primarchs are involved though, other scenes with characters like Katsuhiro and the Alpha Legion agents feel quite good. Also, something weird about this novel is how it kind of feels like it is meant to be the first book of the arc. The first pages for multiple main characters, mainly Primarchs, describe them as though the reader has no idea who they are and what they're like, almost as though its a …
The second novel of the Siege of Terra series, The Lost and the Damned picks up where The Solar War left off, with the traitor legions at Terra. Like its predecessor this novel falls flat in a few places, however I feel there are higher highs than The Solar War had. It might just be me, but the text feels somewhat off, I might call it a bit Young Adult for my liking. This issue mainly arises when Primarchs are involved though, other scenes with characters like Katsuhiro and the Alpha Legion agents feel quite good. Also, something weird about this novel is how it kind of feels like it is meant to be the first book of the arc. The first pages for multiple main characters, mainly Primarchs, describe them as though the reader has no idea who they are and what they're like, almost as though its a jumping on point for whoever doesn't know the characters. Alongside all that though, there are the moral characters, and oh I love them. Katsuhiro is just a normal conscript to the defense of Terra, and seeing the conflict through his eyes helps establish what the war is like for your average person. He doesn't really get much information and is thrown into the thick of it, its very nice. With him are also two Alpha Legion agents, who were apparently characters from the Praetorian of Dorn novel, and these two are my favorite characters in this book, easily. They have been cut of from the Traitors after the Battle of Pluto and have just been tasked with causing destruction to the loyalists, and they way the two different characters deal with this fate is nice. One figures their job is done and they can wait out the war and try to live peacefully together, whereas the other is a true believer, staying dedicated to the cause until the very end. Its a pair of contrasting characters that really interest me, and honestly makes me want to retry reading Praetorian of Dorn just to see more of these characters. In the end, the book certainly seems to serve its purpose. I didn't talk about everything and all of the characters as many of them feel rather uninteresting and not that worth talking about. As I said before though, the best bits bring this novel up for me a little.
PatentedGraph53 started reading The Lost and the Damned by Guy Haley (The Siege of Terra, #2)
PatentedGraph53 reviewed The Solar War by John French (The Siege of Terra, #1)
Siege of Terra: The Solar War review
3 stars
The Solar War, the first novel in the Siege of Terra series details the titular conflict, as the traitor legions make their way through the Solar system to Earth to begin the siege propped. This book is rather plain, I cant particularly say that I enjoyed it that much, but it wasn’t bad to read. One of the flaws of the book is probably the number of characters present, many of whom are new, and are also dead by the end. The afterword explains that French’s intention was to show that in war not every death really means anything, some people just die. I do like this idea, but when these are all new characters with less than a single book worth of characterisation I just didn’t really get attatched. This meant when seeing the characters doing things it just felt somewhat flat. This also hampers the action, which has …
The Solar War, the first novel in the Siege of Terra series details the titular conflict, as the traitor legions make their way through the Solar system to Earth to begin the siege propped. This book is rather plain, I cant particularly say that I enjoyed it that much, but it wasn’t bad to read. One of the flaws of the book is probably the number of characters present, many of whom are new, and are also dead by the end. The afterword explains that French’s intention was to show that in war not every death really means anything, some people just die. I do like this idea, but when these are all new characters with less than a single book worth of characterisation I just didn’t really get attatched. This meant when seeing the characters doing things it just felt somewhat flat. This also hampers the action, which has some cool concepts, I really like what was done with the battle for Pluto and its moons, but the lack of developed characters involved somewhat reduced my investment. I understand why they couldn’t just kill a bunch of previously named characters from other books, that might just be a letdown for some fans, but the point still stands. On the whole though, the book is fine. Not an ideal beginning to the end of the heresy but it does its job in detailing part of the conflict.
PatentedGraph53 started reading The Solar War by John French (The Siege of Terra, #1)
Storm of Iron review
4 stars
Quite an enjoyable book. I’ve often found McNeill’s novels to be rather middling, but this one stands out from what I’ve read as quite good with some interesting characters. Would recommend.
PatentedGraph53 reviewed The Lion: Son of the Forest by Mike Brooks
The Lion: Son of the Forest review
4 stars
Son of the Forest covers the awakening of Lionel Johnson just prior to the events of the Arks of Omen books and details who the Risen are. The novel does a good job of establishing the Lions character in M42 and his views on what has become of the Imperium over the last 10000 years. The Risen characters are also enjoyable characters to read, seeing how all of them came to become different from the stereotypes of both the Fallen, and the Dark Angels themselves. All of the action is well written too, although I found the final fight at the end of the novel to be a bit overdone. On the whole, the novel is still quite good, and is probably one of the novels I would recommend if someone asked what to read about the modern setting.
PatentedGraph53 started reading The Lion: Son of the Forest by Mike Brooks
PatentedGraph53 reviewed Ghostmaker by Dan Abnett
Gaunt’s Ghosts: Ghostmaker review
4 stars
Yet again, another good novel as everyone knows to expect from Gaunt’s Ghosts and Abnett. This novel delves a lot more into the characters from Tanith which I really appreciate. Milo is probably one of my favorite characters so far, up there with Gaunt himself. So as expected, another great book, look forward to the next one.
PatentedGraph53 reviewed First and Only by Dan Abnett
Gaunt’s Ghosts: First and Only review
4 stars
I don’t know what i can say that isn’t already said about Gaunt’s Ghosts. Its a good novel that anyone can read without needing to be familiar with 40k. So yeah, good novel cant wait for the sequel.