Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter

[Brother Tholath]

Nahh, it doesn't let me put in a UK address :/

[mr.crusader]

There are many websites who can receive a package in US and ship it to UK. MyUS.com, for example.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Boo, mine is still in pre-packing stage. Did the UK get them earlier? I think US date is supposed to be Friday - which I'm assuming I will not get at this point...

Just got home to it on the doorstep in Canada, book 1431

 

Alright, so I finished it. I really liked it. A lot. You get to see curze in many different stages of his madness, all of which plays back into the question of fate compared to choice that's followed curze and sanguinius.

 

Now for spoilers;

The first thing that jumped out to me was his depression filled monologue towards the sculpture of his father. He goes on tangents that stray far from the point he's trying to make and needs to reign himself back on on course. Its chillingly realistic in that regard, but it also allows for the story to be non linear.

 

The book does a lot to add depth to the established lore of nostramo and really shows how the legion declined due to the quality of recruits, as does curze simultaneously. In other threads, I've blasted pharos for having the night lords be caricature villains and awful soldiers, stating that the only plausible explanation would be if skraivok's company was filled with the worst trash. Hilariously that's exactly happens, and skraivok's deliberate choice in the matter in

the changing of his training regime just to make terror-causing killers basically redeems pharos for me.

 

I also enjoyed that there was a passage referencing the corax book, as well as the night lords reaction to "special reflex technologies". It probably helped that I liked the corax book so much to start with.

 

Supporting characters. Were they mentioned in ADB's trilogy, the forge world black books, Pharos or Lord of the Night? They're in here. You get sevetar, you get skraivok, you get shang and everyone else. Again, one of pharos' weaknesses was that every night lord was the same backstabbing trope, but is fixed with all the different characters being presented. Sevetar is adamantly loyal to the primarchs ideals of justice; shang is devoted to the primarch himself; ophion is comedically outraged when his company's integrity is questioned; skraivok is skraivok. I'm still unsure if sevetar's a sociopath, but at least I'm also ignorant as to his ultimate fate.

 

Curze's conversation with the emperor and his realization at the end hit me hard, but I still think Hammer of Olympia is in the top spot for feels that get created.

 

Yeah, I don't know what else to say. I really, really liked the book. It pretty much perfectly fit into the Night lords lore and exploring Curze's character

Edited May 10, 2019 by SkimaskMohawk

[helterskelter]

Well... I nearly cried at the end of the book.

I can't give it 10/10 For reasons, but it gets a 9.5. Solid 9.5

 

As a Night Lords Fan/collector, well done that man Guy Haley

[SkimaskMohawk]

Well... I nearly cried at the end of the book.

I can't give it 10/10 For reasons, but it gets a 9.5. Solid 9.5

 

As a Night Lords Fan/collector, well done that man Guy Haley

 

Same lol. I actually did cry at the end of Perturabo which is why it came out on top in terms of emotional endings.

 

The only thing I don't think needed to be included was Talos and co. It was a nice nod, but I didn't feel like they added anything by being there, and actually detracted a bit as Talos is already singled out as the Prophet.

[Lord Abaia]

I just finished reading my copy and I think Guy Haley did an excellent job. The episodic format of the story being recounted from his final day, giving insight into Curze's different mental states at different times was very satisfying.

 

Haley's handling of other established Night Lords characters felt good to me. Sevatar felt like Sevatar, Kreig felt like Kreig. It was a fun reunion of my favorite murderers.

[Ashur]

Well this sounds a lot better than I thought.

I was fearing another rehash of Curze's origin story. But it really sounds good in the way Perturabo and Jaghatai where.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Ashur

[Kenzaburo]

Well this sounds a lot better than I thought.

I was fearing another rehash of Curze's origin story. But it really sounds good in the way Perturabo and Jaghatai where.

A rehash not so much. Haley shows you episodes from Curze's life - as the Night Haunter on Nostramo, as he discovers the bad seeds in his legion, as he orders the destruction of Nostramo and so forth. He manages to add to known lore, by showing you events right around them, without venturing so much into that known territory.

 

The parts, where we have Curze losing track of his narration, on his last day, those are chilling, haunting and his last conversation with a certain someone was absolutely moving. I was also fascinated by the way he views his brothers, how he sees the world, what he thought about the heresy (by the time of his death, the heresy lies in the past). The portrayal of his insanity is also very chilling and not as cliched, as I had feared it might be.

 

So: Well done, Guy Haley. And as someone mentioned - you get a little bonus mention, if you've also read Haley's Corax. Since Corax worries a lot about being too similar to the Night Haunter, this time we get his perspective on this issue.

[SkimaskMohawk]

I've been spending my reading time going back over Lord of Shadows. The irony of the book is immense, especially with the knowledge that him going to the system was a trick in the first place.

 

At the beginning, guilliman and corax say Curze's justice is a facade for revenge. And yet corax kills a slavemaster and leaves the slaves to whatever fate, in exactly the same way

curze leaves the beat victim to hunt down the escaped beater

. The difference being corax goes on about the oppressed and we know curze...just doesn't care about the individuals.

 

Another line from guilliman that jumped out was;

 

‘Yours is a tension between justice and vengefulness,’ said Guilliman at last. ‘You are similar to Curze in that way, though I would say the proportions are reversed.’

‘Who is the more vengeful?’ asked Corax.

‘You don’t need an answer to that. You have witnessed the Night Lords' work.’

We've also seen the Night Lords work, and I'm pretty confident that corax is the more vengeful of the two. Curze cares about achieving order through justice, a means to end and. Not about individuals; what society would make him vengeful?

 

Anyways, ramble over. There's just a lot to digest in the Curze book, and I quite enjoy going back to other works with a newer perspective

[helterskelter]

We can also kill one of Valraks fan theories about a certain fist related individual returning

[DarkChaplain]

I tend to ignore fan theories, so please elaborate on that one, if you don't mind

[helterskelter]

I tend to ignore fan theories, so please elaborate on that one, if you don't mind

Curze in referring to his dead loyalist brothers, mentions a beheaded Ferrus, a cut down Sanguinius, and a Dorn torn to pieces. Dorn being specifically the one I was talking about as his hand has been the only thing that's mentioned to have been found

 

I know it's not specifically Valraks theory, but the fact we can meme him about returning primarchs and all :p

Edited May 13, 2019 by helterskelter

[DarkChaplain]

Does the book specifically state that Curze witnessed it somehow, or has reliable proof about it? I'd love that!

[helterskelter]

Does the book specifically state that Curze witnessed it somehow, or has reliable proof about it? I'd love that!

He knows how everyone dies,

except Sevatar apparently, can't see the specifics at all

And his visions are gone into in more detail, seeing 2 versions of events, a good one and a bad one. Eventually the bad one takes over but I think given he put in the 2 deaths we do know about, that's a pretty sure thing I'd say, given what's established in Curzes lore.

[Kilofix]

Feel a little bad for the Night Haunter, Sevatar as well as Shang

[Fedor]

Do we get anything on his early mentoring by Fulgrim or being confronted by Dorn about his visions?

[SkimaskMohawk]

No, the dorn part is in the Dark King and the Lightning Tower

[Kenzaburo]

Do we get anything on his early mentoring by Fulgrim or being confronted by Dorn about his visions?

There's basically no rehash of known events. As I mentioned before,  the book shows events before and after the already known stuff. Partially immediately before or after known events. For example you see some ot the things happening shortly before the Dark King and shortly after. You also get to see in a limited form, how Sevatar and a few others react to these events at times.

 

It's fascinating, really - the insanity interlaced with clearer moments, how they make you question his motivations. On top, we as readers need to keep in mind, that Curze is also a highly unreliable narrator - in fact, he does question some of his own motivations and deeds. And the ending is oh so powerful - I'm still unsure, if it was realy or just his imagination / wishful thinking. I tend toward the former, because it's sooo much more emotional and shows a side of the Emperor, that has been questioned in BL fiction recently - matter of fact, Guilliman himself is struggling with it in the current timeline. 

[Sanctimonius]

Bah. Still awaiting packing, starting to get nervous - did this happen with the Solar War for people?

[Kelborn]

Reading all of this hypes more than any other Primarch novel before.

 

Can't wait for the regular release. Curze always was one of not the most interesting one of them. If Aaron ever decides to finish or rather continue certain arcs, I'd more than happy. :D

[Kilofix]

Do we get anything on his early mentoring by Fulgrim or being confronted by Dorn about his visions?

This book has the Night Haunter saying he went to both Dorn and Fulgrim to warn them but was called a monster

[Kilofix]

The other things I took from the book (super spoilers):

 

 

The Night Haunter’s approach to terror was for a specific purpose - to actually minimize casualties - or so he told himself.

 

The Night Haunter looked down on pointless barbarism. But he couldn’t help falling to it himself.

 

Whatever Sevatar was, he was loyal to and believed in the Night Haunter to a fault. Shang too in a different way.

 

The fall of Nostromo and the decline of the Legion was sabotage.

 

The Night Haunter recognizing Talos’ fate.

 

The Emperor speaking to the Night Haunter post-Heresy (maybe?)

 

The Night Haunter’s end being choice not fate.

 

Fate - Lamentation - Guilt - Spite

 

[Kelborn]

Do we have anything stating that the Night Haunter is his incarnate madness/ a seperate person taking over from time to time?

 

Somehow someday I started to think that Curze would be the mean to an end and the Night Haunter being the mad driving side effect.

[Fire Golem]

Really wishing I’d picked this up at Warhammerfest now!

[Lord Abaia]

Do we have anything stating that the Night Haunter is his incarnate madness/ a seperate person taking over from time to time?

 

Somehow someday I started to think that Curze would be the mean to an end and the Night Haunter being the mad driving side effect.

From my reading of the book it didn't seem like Curze and the Night Haunter were separate entities. At one point he reveals that he never liked the name Konrad Curze, but that's about it. It seems to be that he just slipped into madness as time went on for a few different reasons.

 

1. His visions become worse over time similar to Talos' prophetic seizures in ADB's trilogy. Eventually he starts waking up and discovering that he has trashed the room and torn people apart while he was out.

 

2. He is unable to deal with his conflicted nature. He is compelled to punish the guilty and at the same time he enjoys murdering people a lot. The dissonance between those two aspects (the judge of the guilty and the guilty deserving of judgement) seems to do much to unravel his sanity.

 

3. His foresight of all the worst parts of the future (the Heresy, the deaths of those around him, probably the 41st millennium too) combined with his internalized doubt about whether the future is fixed or changeable is also a big part of it. The horror of realizing that fate was not immutable and that he had a choice to be something other than a monster seems to be nagging the periphery of his consciousness.