Buried Dagger: Doom of the Death Guard

[Tymell]

There are a fair few oddities in the DP:

 

Murgax Murnau - died in Distant Echoes of Old Night, and was a Chaplain there, not just a legionary

Durak Rask - died on Isstvan III
Kahgor Lothsul - died on Isstvan III, and was a dreadnought

Hunda Skorvall - shown in FW Book I as Ancient Skorrvall [different spelling], as a dreadnought

Kargul - there was a dreadnought Kargul in the Visions books, not clear if this is the same as Serob Kargul

 

All the dead/dreadnought-interred characters do make me suspect there will be some flashbacks, as bluntblade suggests.

[Morovir]

I think that's our best hope, and that all the supposed discrepancies are just flashbacks to a time long before the heresy.

[TheRealMcCagh]

I should probably read the Garro novel before this comes out. I skipped over it since I listened to several of those audios (though not all of them) and figured I wasn't missing much. I don't know a couple of those Knights Errant

[Tymell]

The main ones are Garro, Rubio, Varren and Loken. Ison appears in The Watcher and Vow of Faith, but doesn't play a major role in either, and Gallor only appears in Ghosts Speak Not and Patience.

 

Not that reading "Garro" wouldn't help prepare for Buried Dagger in general, but if it's those last two Knights that seem unfamiliar to you, it probably won't help much on that front.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Tymell

[Moonreaper666]

Didn't Abaddon kidnap one of the Founding Grey Knights and claimed he was a Sons of Horus?

[Plaguecaster]

Still really pissed about the fact the first actual true heresy Death Guard novel will share the spotlight with damn loyalists as frankly I don’t give a damn about the grey knights their predessors or whatever I just hope the major focus will solely be on the Death Guard and their fall as i’ve been looking forward to it actually being written as a novel for years ever since the first heresy novel was released Edited February 7, 2019 by Plaguecaster

[b1soul]

James Swallows first HH novel since Fear to Tread

 

The bar is low...will cross my fingers for a decent novel

[Phoebus]

Didn't Abaddon kidnap one of the Founding Grey Knights and claimed he was a Sons of Horus?

The events in question are in the novel Pandorax.

 

The identity of Epimetheus is not revealed, but he is strongly hinted to have been a Dark Angel who subsequently recruited into the Grey Knights as one of their original eight Grand Masters. A popular fan theory is that Epimetheus is Zahariel, from the Dark Angels Horus Heresy novels, but we’ll have to see how that plays out.

[Carach]

to be fair to the author, plaguecaster, the story of the DG's ultimate fall is pretty straight forward. I can't help but feel if it was focused entirely upon that it would risk becoming somewhat repetitive ala a certain repeatedly dying Primarch or, in the case of this particular author, his previous work in Fear to Tread - a novel that started out really well with foreboding and horror-style scenes but then unfortunately got bogged down in bolter porn repetitiveness. 

 

All the good novels have had multiple threads being woven. Albeit secondary, human characters mostly rather than what has become pretty big names in their own rights with the Knights.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Carach

[Fedor]

I think there's enough meat in the Death Guard and Mortarion lore as yet unexplored by BL to support a full book for them alone. I'm not against Garro showing up, but hope the terran/grey knights stuff is secondary.

[Biscuittzz]

I don't think it's anything to do really with lack of material regarding having an only DG book, rather that it could possibly become somewhat tedious and boring for both the readers and the author. Not many books have been fully 'mono', for want of a better word. There's only so much that can be written about the DG as they are becalmed in the warp and become corrupted. 

 

Take the Raven Guard's and Imperial Fists only books, Deliverance Lost and Praetorian of Dorn respectively, and both of them are half shared with Alpha Legion.

 

I can't think of many books that are fully based on a single legion without significant secondary casts.

[Plaguecaster]

At least those ones which half shared the books actually had a force revelant to the story of the main legion as part of the same battle/ engagement it focused on

 

Really struggling to find how the loyalists mainly the Grey Knights or whatever the heck the loyalist continent is have anything to do with the fall of the Death Guard unless Swallow :cuss: up the lore going against the original lore how it was the Death Guard who got stranded by the actions of Typhus with Mortarion having to make a dark bargain to save his legion

 

The loyalist part from the book synopsis sounds like it has literally nothing at all to do with the Death Guard at all taking place entirely on Terra. What does that have to do with the Death Guard at all it just feels like Swallow likes Garro so much he crammed him in just since he was originally part of the DG. That’s what I am hating the most about it if it has nothing to do with the Death Guard fall it should of been completely cut out and put in a damn novella, maybe if the loyalist part was about some shattered legion force or other imperial trying to delay the Death Guard or even Garro and these possible Grey knights acting directly to impede the Death Guard’s attempts to get to Terra I wouldn’t mind but it just feels like adding “Malcador, Garro and the first Grey Knights” in a completely different plot to the main story is will damage the actual Death Guard part especially with how Swallow tends to write

Edited February 9, 2019 by Plaguecaster

[DarkChaplain]

I think Mono-Legion books are a thing that also doesn't suit the narrative anymore. The late Great Crusade and early Heresy allowed for it to great extent, but now? Everything is being funnelled to the Siege. It is inevitable that storylines converge the closer we get to the finish line. You can't really tell something like Legion or even A Thousand Sons anymore (though even that shared some screentime with the Wolves, for obvious reasons, despite its primary focus on Thousand Sons). Most forces are converging around the center of the Imperium. The theater of war has shrunken to center of human civilization, and they're going to be bumping heads.

 

And again, we've had indications that the Death Guard's story is intertwined with that of the Grey Knights founders for years, including Mortarion's Heart and Pandorax. Their part isn't big for the Heresy itself, but a bunch of their post-Heresy role is rooted directly in the Heresy, including the stuff on Pythos with the Damnation Cache, where a Death Guard daemon prince will be involved at the closing of the rift.

 

Frankly, I'm not enthusiastic about Swallow writing this. Wraight would have been my preference. But by the Emperor, that degree of incessant whining about how a plotline we haven't experienced yet supposedly ruins the main narrative weeks before we get to read the book is just silly. We can complain and critique later when we've actually had the book in hands, but right now, you're complaining based on conjecture, based on a dramatis personae, which often list characters with barely any role whatsoever or even to somehow "wow" the reader going in.

Edited February 9, 2019 by DarkChaplain

[nagashnee]

My hopes for this single death guard book being a death guard book can now be laid to rest. Edited February 10, 2019 by nagashnee

[b1soul]

I fail to understand people's preference for 400 pages of DG by Swallow over 200 pages of DG by Swallow. To me, more pages mean more potential damage wrought by Swallow's poor writing.

[Biscuittzz]

I fail to understand people's preference for 400 pages of DG by Swallow over 200 pages of DG by Swallow. To me, more pages mean more potential damage wrought by Swallow's poor writing.

 

Otherwise popularly known as the Gav Thorpe Effect.

[Kelborn]

Can we just stop backbiting about an author and a book which isn't even out yet? :facepalm:

 

We all understood that most of us are plenty disappointed that James's wrote it. We all know that most of us dislike his previous work.

 

Can we now get over it? For Emperor's sake.

 

You can start again, when it is released.

 

Thanks.

[DarkChaplain]

 

I fail to understand people's preference for 400 pages of DG by Swallow over 200 pages of DG by Swallow. To me, more pages mean more potential damage wrought by Swallow's poor writing.

 

Otherwise popularly known as the Gav Thorpe Effect.

 

 

Meanwhile, I am pretty happy with most of what Thorpe has put out. His WHFB was excellent, for one, with The Sundering still being a gem in my library. For all its flaws, Deliverance Lost was a rather clever book that plays with the reader's perception (and is one of the few I'd actually recommend reading again after seeing the following years of releases and branches of this particular storyline), while showcasing both Raven Guard and Alpha Legion. Corax's three novellas all build upon another and draw the thematic knot tightly around Corax's neck. What may not have appeared like much in individual limited edition releases (especially with the general negativity about pricetag and limited nature) actually turns out great when read as a full arc, the way it was always planned by the author and the editing staff.

Gav's Eldar Path and now Rise of the Ynnari as well as the Phoenix Lords have been wildly praised, especially because they manage to capture the inhuman nature of the alien race.

And his Dark Angels? Well, I quite enjoyed the Legacy of Caliban trilogy and tie-in shorts, even though the action could sometimes be too much of a focus. His Angels of Darkness is a defining novel to this day, and Angels of Caliban had some of the best stuff the Legion had ever seen (although I also quite enjoyed the more medieval fantasy Descent of Angels by Mitchell Scanlon, precisely because it wasn't a typical Heresy novel with Space Marines all over).

 

Frankly, Thorpe's prose style and often rather distanced narrative style may not be to everybody's taste, but I have to say that usually, his ideas and execution are quite nifty and suit the subject matter.

[Fedor]

I usually like Thorpe too, agree his WHFB stuff was often great.

 

Personally i don't think there has ever really been a BL author that was so obviously bad or out of touch with the setting as to write them off before a new book comes out. Maybe the  oft-maligned Goto back in the day came close, yet still wrote a fantastic Necromunda book and some good shorts.

 

Swallow's probably wrote as much things i like as dislike so he gets the benefit of the doubt comfortably, i just hope there is enough room for the DG plot to breathe.

[Noserenda]

Wasn't this Available at the weekender? Apparently no one having finished it and commented from amongst the arguably biggest fans of the heresy isn't particularly promising...

[1ncarnadine]

Wasn't this Available at the weekender? Apparently no one having finished it and commented from amongst the arguably biggest fans of the heresy isn't particularly promising...

 

True, but to be fair, this is also pretty common. Not everyone has the time to dig straight into novels they pick up at these events, and sometimes those that do aren't necessarily on the B&C. Titandeath was available early and no one talked about it either, and we only had a little bit from Wolfsbane to go off of until that dropped. And that went so well that I doubt some of the folks who spoiled info from that want to repeat the experience...

[m_r_parker]

I’m two chapters in at the moment (although I did also read a chapter towards the end, with the Knights Errant and the glorious picture of the Emperor), buts its 375 pages long so will take a bit of time to digest.

With a bout of con-flu I wanted to go into the shorter stories rather than try to go straight for the massive novel. It’s only been a week, so I’m sure in a few days people will start to post their thoughts. Not hearing anything means they haven’t got to it yet - if they had and didn’t like it, they would have told us exactly that rather than saying nothing.

[Biscuittzz]

 

 

I fail to understand people's preference for 400 pages of DG by Swallow over 200 pages of DG by Swallow. To me, more pages mean more potential damage wrought by Swallow's poor writing.

 

Otherwise popularly known as the Gav Thorpe Effect.

 

 

Meanwhile, I am pretty happy with most of what Thorpe has put out. His WHFB was excellent, for one, with The Sundering still being a gem in my library. For all its flaws, Deliverance Lost was a rather clever book that plays with the reader's perception (and is one of the few I'd actually recommend reading again after seeing the following years of releases and branches of this particular storyline), while showcasing both Raven Guard and Alpha Legion. Corax's three novellas all build upon another and draw the thematic knot tightly around Corax's neck. What may not have appeared like much in individual limited edition releases (especially with the general negativity about pricetag and limited nature) actually turns out great when read as a full arc, the way it was always planned by the author and the editing staff.

Gav's Eldar Path and now Rise of the Ynnari as well as the Phoenix Lords have been wildly praised, especially because they manage to capture the inhuman nature of the alien race.

And his Dark Angels? Well, I quite enjoyed the Legacy of Caliban trilogy and tie-in shorts, even though the action could sometimes be too much of a focus. His Angels of Darkness is a defining novel to this day, and Angels of Caliban had some of the best stuff the Legion had ever seen (although I also quite enjoyed the more medieval fantasy Descent of Angels by Mitchell Scanlon, precisely because it wasn't a typical Heresy novel with Space Marines all over).

 

Frankly, Thorpe's prose style and often rather distanced narrative style may not be to everybody's taste, but I have to say that usually, his ideas and execution are quite nifty and suit the subject matter.

 

 

I guess we'll agree to disagree so. His WHFB is excellent yes but his marine writing is poor. The two can be mutually exclusive when determining his writing skills. Deliverance Lost was anything but clever in my opinion and I could tell who WAS NOT the infiltrator within a heartbeat by the way he tried to ram it through in every scene concerning the character. Can go on and on but don't want to derail this thread.

[m_r_parker]

So I'm about half way through the novel now. it's roughly split into three concurrent storylines:

• Mortarion being reunited with Typhon and being assailed in the warp on their way to Terra
• Flashbacks to Mortarion's youth on Barbarus, before the coming of the Emperor
• Knight Errant on Terra dealing with cults that leave broken (and talking) Sisters of Silence in their wake

There's still plenty for me to read, so I won't go too much further into a discussion about the details. 

[Robbienw]

Thanks for the info :)

 

One quick question for you, is there any info on what happened to Corswain and his Dark Angels force who were fighting against typhoon and his grave wardens?