I took some time away from the Horus Heresy series to read about recent developments at the end of the timeline, in the 40K era. A friend into the tabletop Warhammer 40,000 game sent me a bunch of the latest campaign books that ushered in the 8th edition of the game: Wrath of Magnus, and the Gathering Storm trilogy of Fall of Cadia, Fracture of Biel-Tan, and Rise of the Primarch.
These are all very matter-of-factly written, in a dramatic historical style. They don't read like the novels at all. They're drier, but still kind of interesting. Things that would be momentous in a novel are at times glossed over or related with little to no fanfare. I think they are meant to serve more as background lore ("fluff" in Warhammer terms) for players of the wargame than as a successful dramatic narrative, which the Horus Heresy books hew more toward.
It was interesting being introduced to some of the successor factions 10,000 years after the era that I am most familiar with. Previously there were no loyalist primarchs around in M41, or M42 now, I suppose. Roboute Guilliman has been awoken from stasis as of the current events, though, and led the forces of the Imperium of Man on a century's crusade to reclaim worlds lost to the forces of the Warp after the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum, the great galaxy-spanning Warp rift dividing the Imperium in two.
I followed up these campaign books, which dealt with events leading up to Guilliman's resurrection from stasis, with the first new era 40K novel, Dark Imperium. Here Guilliman ends the Indomitus Crusade to go back to Ultramar and free it from an incursion of Chaos forces from the plague god Nurgle, led in part by the traitor daemon primarch Mortation, Guilliman's erstwhile brother in a previous era. The novel also introduces some Primaris Marines characters and delves into how they're fitting into the newly reconstituted Space Marine chapters since the newest Ultima founding that Guilliman undertook after his return to the Imperium. The novel leaves off with the primarch, now Imperial Regent and overall military commander in chief, setting of on a lead after Mortarion to hunt him down and kill him. I understand from the Lexicanum wiki that in the campaign to follow, the Ultramarines defeat and drive away the Death Guard, but that Mortarion escapes, and the Nurgle forces have to contend with advances from the other gods of Chaos into some of their newest territorial gains. I'm not sure any more has been written after this point in the timeline. Presumably Guilliman will circle back to Terra to do some of his non-military duties as Imperial Regent, leaving the newly bolstered ranks of Primaris and Adeptus Astartes to the work of war going forward, at least until its time to confront another of his brothers. He's already encountered both Magnus and Mortarion, and been taunted by Fulgrim, as well. Maybe that's the next showdown, or maybe Angron or Perturabo or Lorgar, if he's still out there, will appear to challenge the returned primarch.
My hope, though, is that we next hear from another of the several loyalist primarchs long disappeared. Maybe they come back as contra-Chaos, but also not aligned to the Imperium. That would be a likely role for many of them. It could be Vulkan, Jaghatai Khan, The Lion, Rogal Dorn, Leman Russ, or Corvus Corax. None of these are certainly dead, as far as I know. Dorn or Vulkan could be, I guess, but in the case of the latter, I doubt it. The rest I've heard have either disappeared or are kept in stasis (The Lion).
It'll be back to the Heresy time period next. I'm still in the middle of book 43, a short story collection. There have been 3-4 other books released in the meantime. There is other material in the universe outside of the Heresy that I want to read, though, The Beast Arises and the Black Legion series, in particular.
No comments:
Post a Comment