Mortis

[Marshal Loss]

Perpetuals for me. Don't like them at all, the whole setting would have been better off without them.

 

The perpetuals are particular manifestation of small universe syndrome. They're supposed to be incredibly important but then in practice they come off as just a mediocre rehash of Highlander, you know? None of the weight of deep time stuff shines through.

 

 

Although I would say that the thing that grated me the most during the novel was the feeling of a shoehorn cramming more references into my head whenever the perpetual storyline came into focus - specifically there being this constant need to show Oll as being present at key parts of Earth history and tales from mythology.

These are both really on the money. French clearly tries to add some of the "deep time stuff", as Sandlemad puts it, into Mortis - that's at the core of the Perpetual content in this book. Didn't do anything for me beyond reiterating "Oll is super old" and "the universe is surprisingly small", which was at odds with some of the broader, sweeping concepts that stress the import of contemporary events which French executes elsewhere in a much more effective manner.

[USNCenturion]

For me, I want to read about Primarchs. Every book where they are in a scene, my interest just elevates. They are so unique, and are so absent now from current lore that getting to be in their presence is exhilarating. I don’t want to read about a Navy pilot, or old remembrancers, or a merchant, or an army line sergeant. There’s dozens of books that can and do have those.

 

I get primarchs are hard to write, and that human interaction is needed for narrative, but I come to the HH and SoT series for primarchs and when they’re not in it, my attention glazes over. I notice what you are talking about in Mortis in my own read through of Solar War. Perhaps others feel the same way?

[Lord Lorne Walkier]

Full name Janus Vangorich Thor. Don’t know if those names have any significance though.

 

Who gave the kid his name?  Also now that I've finished Fury of Magnus I have a question about the Fate of the White Scar who brought him to safety.  Did he rejoin the Legion or wind up in the company of Garviel and Nathaniel?

[Cerbero666]

For me, I want to read about Primarchs. Every book where they are in a scene, my interest just elevates. They are so unique, and are so absent now from current lore that getting to be in their presence is exhilarating. I don’t want to read about a Navy pilot, or old remembrancers, or a merchant, or an army line sergeant. There’s dozens of books that can and do have those.

 

I get primarchs are hard to write, and that human interaction is needed for narrative, but I come to the HH and SoT series for primarchs and when they’re not in it, my attention glazes over. I notice what you are talking about in Mortis in my own read through of Solar War. Perhaps others feel the same way?

 

Agree. Primarchs and Astartes heroes should be the primary focus of the Siege. I want some civilians and other non-astartes characters to add to the world building and the perspective of the Siege as a cataclysmic event, but this is the ending of the Legions Civil War. It should be about those heroes that have been developed for more than 50 novels, short stories and novellas. I want more revenge like in the Saturnine Wall trap, I want more like Abaddon crying because he wanted to die as a warrior, more like Sigismund fighting solo against Aximand ploughing through his warriors, more like Dorn facing a Prince Daemon, or the Khan and his White Scars striking the enemy lines on an epic charge. So far, all that have been a small percentage of the Siege. 

[mc warhammer]

so far none of the mortis spoilers sound bad to me:  all the plot points seem fine, things happening "off page" can sometimes be more powerful depending on the skill of the writer. french is hit or miss for me, that being said, i'm looking forward to this more than tFW or tLatD.

 

on perpetuals, well... i don't hate them. but i'm also not excited by them. if you removed them from the HH series altogether, i wouldn't miss them. so far. i'm reserving final judgement till the last book.

 

with the "deep time stuff", i think abnett attempted that with erda in an almost galadriel kind of way. i don't think they remove agency from humanity, since they are humanity, and the level and success of their interference has so far only been implied not explicitly put to paper. at worst, they're an illuminati presence.

 

similar to tolkien's elves (elfs? idk) though, i think the perpetuals would have had more impact if they were less active in the actual plot but i feel that way about the primarchs too.

 

on the siege in general, i agree with most of the points here. it doesn't feel any more epic or horrific or civilisation shattering than any other conflict i've read in 40k. honestly? i was more on the edge of my seat with devastation of baal and helsreach than the series so far. i was expecting a war unlike anything that humanity had ever faced up to that point, a conflict that almost broke us as a species. not sure if we'll get there.

Edited February 17, 2021 by mc warhammer

[b1soul]

The most civilization-shattering scene IMO was when Oll led his band to the broken planet at the end of the DAoT. Ironically, the HH was mentioned as being much more existential

[DukeLeto69]

The most civilization-shattering scene IMO was when Oll led his band to the broken planet at the end of the DAoT. Ironically, the HH was mentioned as being much more existential

Wait a minute. Oll was in a band! Does it say what kind if music?

[Sonoftheforest]

I've read all the siege books upto now but can't remember before Mortis if it was mentioned about the Astronomicon being or the hollow mountain being lost was mentioned. Seems a pretty big plot point to have not been mentioned much considering a huge part of Dorns strategy revolved around delaying until his brothers could arrive

[Scribe]

Sounds like this book is a miss for me. Unfortunate.

 

EDIT: OK, read the spoiler (thanks for posting that) and yeah, 100% miss for me. God I absolutely despise, the Perpetual arc. 

Edited February 19, 2021 by Scribe

[Gongsun Zan]

I'm about halfway through this, and I have absolutely no idea what is going on with the Perpetual Arc. Is there a summary somewhere recapping what happened before the Siege? 

[Sothalor]

Honestly, I'm not sure Black Library knows what is going on with the Perpetual Arc.

[DarkChaplain]

I'm about halfway through this, and I have absolutely no idea what is going on with the Perpetual Arc. Is there a summary somewhere recapping what happened before the Siege? 

 

John Grammaticus used to work nine-to-five as a homemade Perpetual for the Cabal, a xenos conglomerate that forsaw the Heresy and Chaos swallowing up the galaxy. Their solution was to let Horus win, which they figured would make humanity go extinct, because Horus' nobility would return long enough for him to nuke himself too. Brief Chaos ascendancy, but then humanity would go the way of the dodo and leave Chaos without nourishment.

 

That plan didn't go so well, for various reasons, like the Alpha Legion that was supposed to make it happen going against the plan. John wanted out, but got sent to do some more jobs first, like going to Ultramar to retrieve a weird crystallized shard of the Big E's power, which would be enough to kill a Perpetual. It was used on Vulkan, but John cut ties with his employers and gave his perpetuality to allow Vulkan to return later. He made friends with Eldrad Ulthran, also a former Cabal actor, afterwards.

 

Damon Prytanis was also there to execute Vulkan back when John was running about with the crystal thingy, and Prytanis was a jackass hunter who wanted to add another trophy to his collection. Of course, he was hired by the Cabal. Before that point, he'd gone and kidnapped Cyrene from the Word Bearers - who resurrected somehow and may have become Perpetual too - but now he's just there to be a jerk and serve as a foil to John's own dubious morality.

 

Together with Eldrad, John went and executed every Cabal agent they knew of, before John left for Terra, popping back up during the Siege.

 

Before the whole Vulkan thing, John also made a call to Calth, where Ollanius Persson was hanging out being a farmer. He warned the dude, who apparently was there throughout all of human history and may be older than the Emperor, that Calth would blow and they should go for a drink on the Throneworld.

Oll wasn't thrilled, but left with some refugees anyway, and has been time-space-hopping with a magical knife for the past 4-5 years in publishing history. He's pursued by Alpha Legion, it seems, and says "Okay" a lot, which is an anachronism that his fellow refugees pick up as a catchphrase too.

Oll also doesn't like the Emperor because reasons. We find those out in the Siege, kinda.

 

Alivia Sureka, meanwhile, was buddy buddy enough with the Emperor to be left behind to take care of the weird chaos gate temple thingy on Molech after papa emps left. She finally found a family to fit in with, including kids (not her own) and was rather upset about Horus invading her world. Her defense of the thingy failed, and she got killed, but revived aboard the refugee ship her family was on. Instead of a nice family reunion, her daughter got abducted and she meets a Knight Errant dude who helped her get the girl back. She then spends years (in-universe) travelling to Terra on this spaceship, having bad dreams of her old flame John Grammaticus, who also tries to hit her up again via psychic communication, and they have a chat about Oll, who is super important to John's plans. But Liv is no longer a fan of Johnny, because he stood her up once in a bar that got bombed. Awesome.

 

Malcador tries to recruit Alivia to his inner circle, but she just flat out refuses his agent after landing on the Throneworld, deciding to spend time with her family instead. Until she gets sick of teenage girls and goes to meet with Malcador anyway. Maybe she just likes Regicide.

 

Erda is a new totally surprising addition to the roster in Saturnine, so she didn't do anything on-page before that book.

 

So that's basically it. The Perps all seemingly know each other, John had a fling with Alivia, John had a change of heart, and Oll says Okay a lot and was buddy-buddy with various mythological and historical characters it seems like. That's about it.

Edited February 24, 2021 by DarkChaplain

[DukeLeto69]

Not a fan of the perpetual subplot either but following that summary from @DC I dislike it even more!

 

Plus I can’t get Dolly Parton out of my head now!!!!!

[Preliminary Bombardment]

I'm totally fed up with perpetual stuff now. In the next book it will probably be revealed that Malcador was Judas Iscariot or something.

[mc warhammer]

not here to defend perpetuals

 

but if we boiled down a lot of heresy plots to just their dot points, i'd wager most would sound as silly if not worse

[Bobss]

not here to defend perpetuals

 

but if we boiled down a lot of heresy plots to just their dot points, i'd wager most would sound as silly if not worse

 

Kinda this

 

I'm not a fan of Perpetuals either (although conceptually I like them and I think Abnett especially writes them, as mysterious characters, well enough to justify their existence), but Oll showing up on the Vengeful Spirit has been known and expected for almost ten years now - whether we like it or not. I totes get why people don't like and reject these characters, but it's sort of shouting into the wind at this point in time. For example, I don't like that ADB turned Angron into a Demon Primarch 1/2 years into the Heresy because it locked the World Eaters Legion into acting like plonkers for the rest of the war, but Betrayer dropped in 2013 and that book/plot point has been built on several times now, including one of my favourite scenes in the Heresy (Angron Vs. Perturabo) so I rarely moan about it

 

Meanwhile the Basilio Fo episode of The Sindermann & Keeler (& Amon) Show isn't even a year old yet and given what we know about 40k it is almost guaranteed to go nowhere significant, sucking up pages in the process that could be given to other things. Yes, there are a few possibilities about where this could lead in the next few books as aa.logan alludes to, but I struggle to believe this will justify its inclusion when all is said and done

[Lucerne]

Frankly Perpetuals shouldn't be handed out to most of GW's writers.

 

Just let Abnett do this thing with them.

[Arendious]

Frankly Perpetuals shouldn't be handed out to most of GW's writers.

 

Just let Abnett do this thing with them.

Unfortunately, this just leads to "Oh, that's not 'Warhammer', it's 'Abnett-hammer'. (Though I'll admit to feeling like Abnett set up a bunch of subtle/mild 'surprises' in Legion that then became flanderized as the series went on...)

[nagashnee]

When the Heresy reboot happens i just hope they leave them out. Edited February 25, 2021 by nagashnee

[DukeLeto69]

I think the Perpetual stuff *might* have been ok if used more sparingly (with less of them)

[Preliminary Bombardment]

The one thing I will say is that perpetuals are marginally more interesting than the Sinderman and Keeler show. I mean really I thought we dealt with the origins of the Imperial cult in the Lost and the Dammed, conclusion was "not for now" and Keeler goes to jail. In this book it looks like they are wanting her to revive it what... 4 weeks later? Who cares!

[byrd9999]

I like the Perpetuals, and Chaplain your recap made me laugh out loud. Great stuff, thanks!

[Fedor]

I'm just disappointed French didn't return to Horus ranting away at his Ferrus skull.

[SchultzChaos]

Wasn't Fo introduced in Abnett's short story Misbegotten (from the Sons of the Emperor anthology)? That's like three years ago.

[m_r_parker]

Wasn't Fo introduced in Abnett's short story Misbegotten (from the Sons of the Emperor anthology)? That's like three years ago.

 

Yes, he was. He's been chilling in the Blasckstone on Terra ever since.