Mortis

[Scribe]

 

As much as I agree... there's the whole debacle with Falkus Kibre. You can't tell me that ADB didn't tell Abnett during their many Siege meetings that he's a big player in the Black Legion. First of the Ezekarion too I believe. From what I can see, the Siege series seems to operate as the most premium of canons (yes I know 'canon' in Warhams is a misnomer don't @ me) and can realistically get away with whatever it wants to. Just look at Perturabo withdrawing from the Siege, which isn't necessarily a bad thing considering his overall character arc during the Heresy, but in the wider scope of 30k/Legion Wars/40k, it's just a bizarre thing to introduce...

 

 

Its stuff like this which just gets to dismiss vast parts of the wider series as non-existent or irrelevant.

 

One cannot convince me that this sub-series was managed as they claimed it would be, it just didnt happen.

 

I actively just want it to conclude at this point so we can sort out the mess ourselves after the fact.

[Petitioner's City]

 

 

As much as I agree... there's the whole debacle with Falkus Kibre. You can't tell me that ADB didn't tell Abnett during their many Siege meetings that he's a big player in the Black Legion. First of the Ezekarion too I believe. From what I can see, the Siege series seems to operate as the most premium of canons (yes I know 'canon' in Warhams is a misnomer don't @ me) and can realistically get away with whatever it wants to. Just look at Perturabo withdrawing from the Siege, which isn't necessarily a bad thing considering his overall character arc during the Heresy, but in the wider scope of 30k/Legion Wars/40k, it's just a bizarre thing to introduce...

 

 

Its stuff like this which just gets to dismiss vast parts of the wider series as non-existent or irrelevant.

 

One cannot convince me that this sub-series was managed as they claimed it would be, it just didnt happen.

 

I actively just want it to conclude at this point so we can sort out the mess ourselves after the fact.

 

 

Scribe, do you ever think you invest too much energy into your complaints about the heresy series? It's like a fetish - I understand you don't like it, but must you keep returning to that well, keep detailing it in such detail and in such a black-and-white way? Wouldn't it be better for blood pressure/mental health/mindfulness to instead focus on something that doesn't make you so angry?

 

I don't know, but with the heresy, it feels like you have too much of an attachment to it, which doesn't feel good to see from the outside. To reiterate, it just feels like a negativity trap. Honestly all the issues we talk about and complain about aren't big issues, and in the grand scheme of things they don't matter - certainly not something to have an animus about.

 

Otherwise, why not try and create a Sump space which is expressly for negativity?

Edited October 3, 2021 by Petitioner's City

[USNCenturion]

If he doesn’t like the series, he’s free to articulate that as much as he wants mate. The old cliche of ‘just don’t read his posts if they bother you’ applies here.

[Petitioner's City]

If he doesn’t like the series, he’s free to articulate that as much as he wants mate. The old cliche of ‘just don’t read his posts if they bother you’ applies here.

Hard to do when negativity takes over threads! That's pretty frustrating. More so, it's just not a good mental space - not just for me, but certainly the poster themselves!

 

We honestly don't need to be this negative - we can just be more temperate and less absolutist. It just isn't a nice environment, and it can have negative impacts on us as readers. See here and even this from 2011. Sorry to say this, but it is good health to be a bit less invested/negative :)

 

Edit: I'm happy not to mention it more, but I do think it's important to be open about how negativity is difficult - with real health impacts - and can make a space (online or real) harder to engage with, harder to feel comfortable in, and much more burdomesome and harmful. I think sometimes as fans we are too negative - often about very subjective things where own highly conditional responses to a given subject we take to be an absolute truth - and this can make online spaces difficult to be just happy in, or find it harder to share joy in a common love. There is also a performativity to negativity which is another issue - but for the me the key thing is that by being constantly negative about a given topic one has too much attachment to, one can impact their own health - and that of others. I am not saying don't say what you don't like or when something strikes you wrong, but no need to keep saying it - for your own benefit as much as my own, and if you just want to vent, can there be a space for that on thesite, like yaktribe's Sump, which is a good safe space for it, running over 260 pages.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Petitioner's City

[DukeLeto69]

I quite liked Mortis! Wasn’t as good as The Solar War or Saturnine but was on a par with The Lost and The Damned and The First Wall.

 

I would say that ALL the SoT books are suffering from bloat and a need to cram too much in and tie up too many loose ends. IMO (probably unpopular) but I think it would have been better to finish the HH in much the same manner it had (wrongly in my opinion) evolved into and have a few anthologies, more novellas and some audios alongside some tighter novels. Keep the side plots, ya know, to the side.

[Scribe]

 

 

 

As much as I agree... there's the whole debacle with Falkus Kibre. You can't tell me that ADB didn't tell Abnett during their many Siege meetings that he's a big player in the Black Legion. First of the Ezekarion too I believe. From what I can see, the Siege series seems to operate as the most premium of canons (yes I know 'canon' in Warhams is a misnomer don't @ me) and can realistically get away with whatever it wants to. Just look at Perturabo withdrawing from the Siege, which isn't necessarily a bad thing considering his overall character arc during the Heresy, but in the wider scope of 30k/Legion Wars/40k, it's just a bizarre thing to introduce...

Its stuff like this which just gets to dismiss vast parts of the wider series as non-existent or irrelevant.

 

One cannot convince me that this sub-series was managed as they claimed it would be, it just didnt happen.

 

I actively just want it to conclude at this point so we can sort out the mess ourselves after the fact.

Scribe, do you ever think you invest too much energy into your complaints about the heresy series? It's like a fetish - I understand you don't like it, but must you keep returning to that well, keep detailing it in such detail and in such a black-and-white way? Wouldn't it be better for blood pressure/mental health/mindfulness to instead focus on something that doesn't make you so angry?

 

I don't know, but with the heresy, it feels like you have too much of an attachment to it, which doesn't feel good to see from the outside. To reiterate, it just feels like a negativity trap. Honestly all the issues we talk about and complain about aren't big issues, and in the grand scheme of things they don't matter - certainly not something to have an animus about.

 

Otherwise, why not try and create a Sump space which is expressly for negativity?

Not remotely. I used to be much more invested, but after fifteen years, I truly want this thing to finish, and not because I have a high opinion on it, but so the anxiety essentially that they will ruin it will go away.

 

I used to invest far more time, far more care into the setting, so no, I'm fine.

 

EDIT: I'll tell you what though, I'll try and reduce my righteous khornate ire, for your sake.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Scribe

[Petitioner's City]

 

 

 

As much as I agree... there's the whole debacle with Falkus Kibre. You can't tell me that ADB didn't tell Abnett during their many Siege meetings that he's a big player in the Black Legion. First of the Ezekarion too I believe. From what I can see, the Siege series seems to operate as the most premium of canons (yes I know 'canon' in Warhams is a misnomer don't @ me) and can realistically get away with whatever it wants to. Just look at Perturabo withdrawing from the Siege, which isn't necessarily a bad thing considering his overall character arc during the Heresy, but in the wider scope of 30k/Legion Wars/40k, it's just a bizarre thing to introduce...

Its stuff like this which just gets to dismiss vast parts of the wider series as non-existent or irrelevant.

 

One cannot convince me that this sub-series was managed as they claimed it would be, it just didnt happen.

 

I actively just want it to conclude at this point so we can sort out the mess ourselves after the fact.

Scribe, do you ever think you invest too much energy into your complaints about the heresy series? It's like a fetish - I understand you don't like it, but must you keep returning to that well, keep detailing it in such detail and in such a black-and-white way? Wouldn't it be better for blood pressure/mental health/mindfulness to instead focus on something that doesn't make you so angry?

 

I don't know, but with the heresy, it feels like you have too much of an attachment to it, which doesn't feel good to see from the outside. To reiterate, it just feels like a negativity trap. Honestly all the issues we talk about and complain about aren't big issues, and in the grand scheme of things they don't matter - certainly not something to have an animus about.

 

Otherwise, why not try and create a Sump space which is expressly for negativity?

Not remotely. I used to be much more invested, but after fifteen years, I truly want this thing to finish, and not because I have a high opinion on it, but so the anxiety essentially that they will ruin it will go away.

 

I used to invest far more time, far more care into the setting, so no, I'm fine.

 

EDIT: I'll tell you what though, I'll try and reduce my righteous khornate ire, for your sake.

 

 

Thanks for explaining and apologies to vent myself this morning!

[mc warhammer]

two weeks later, 30% in. as much as i tried not to, i've started skimming bits. mostly titan stuff, though i did really enjoy the scene where the different legios were discussing who will "walk".

 

the knights stuff works well for me  so far.

 

the problem is, all the stuff i really loved in the beginning...hasn't been touched on again. i keep waiting to go back to those characters but it's like french doesn't think i deserve to yet and i have to pay the toll of reading a few more chapters of stuff i don't care about before i'm given permission.

[mc warhammer]

and as soon as i say that i get some more perty goodness. the shiban stuff i quite like...it's like an astartes in mccarthy's the road

[USNCenturion]

and as soon as i say that i get some more perty goodness. the shiban stuff i quite like...it's like an astartes in mccarthy's the road

The Road. Now that was a grim dark novel…

 

I’d rather walk the Road then have to read Mortis again though

[DarkChaplain]

I've been consistently baffled by all the mythical figures that Oll's sections just canonize as real historical figures in-universe. Medea, Ariadne, Orpheus, Persephone, Theseus, Minos & the labyrinth presumably with Minotaur, Jason, Nimue aka the Lady of the Lake from Arthurian legend, and then there's the whole Babylon thing.

 

It's honestly too much. When you have literally the "queen of the underworld", daughter of Zeus and Demeter and wife to Hades, as a real figure, you might as well assume the rest of the olympian pantheon to be real as well, which opens up a whole new can of worms. You can of course derive that, say, the Oracle of Delphi would be a potent farseeing psyker, or that the Warp mutated a boy into a bull, considering the Sirens are also a thing. But when you make the ancient gods "real", especially without proper context, you're jumping the shark.

And then having one solo guy be best buds with half of the mythological figures? Man, lay it off, Abnett & French. Less is more, in these cases.

 

Fun fact: Keeble managed to mispronounce Ollanius as Ollainus repeatedly in the paradise-climax of the audiobook. Instead of feeling the threat emanating from the foe's words, I had to laugh, so that took me out of the experience quite thoroughly.

 

On the subject of names, it's pretty much absolute that Actae is Cyrene, with even John pointing out that insufferable Damon Prytanis having gone for her. Not that it mattered, because he went from Betrayer to The Unremembered Empire without her or having shut her down.

However, I find it hilarious that the novel itself tries to make Actae all mysterious about her identity, with her not telling Oll her real name... as if the reader wouldn't know from the conversation up to this point, anyway.

The more interesting part is that Oll is confirmed to be using an adopted name himself, which I don't think was 100% confirmed before.

 

And here's my prediction for Oll's identity reveal aboard the Vengeful Spirit: He's Adam, either the one from Eden or Primordial Man. It'll make him being pseudo-catholic even funnier.

Alternatively, he's Epimetheus, which would match his hindsight is 20/20 attitude. This one would fit better if he wasn't a bunch of millennia older than the Emperor - there'd have been a decent level of symmetry between Emperor-as-Prometheus and Oll-as-Epimetheus instead. While this could still be considered, since greek mythology wasn't around when either of them were born yet, it would not work as their primary identities.

 

I think my favorite part of the book is actually Katsuhiro's coming-of-age, so to say, towards the end. Him realizing how far he'd come mentally, while not really progressing much physically, and gaining command of his section, inspiring the troops around him and being heard for his steadfast faith, that really worked. It also worked how initially, he was close to breaking in his hope, if not faith, because of what he witnessed, the growing understanding of the forces of Chaos' logic, but then manages to move past that and reaffirm his faith through an Astartes sacrifice. It's a great scene.

Edited October 18, 2021 by DarkChaplain

[Valkyrion]

I've been consistently baffled by all the mythical figures that Oll's sections just canonize as real historical figures in-universe. Medea, Ariadne, Orpheus, Persephone, Theseus, Minos & the labyrinth presumably with Minotaur, Jason, Nimue aka the Lady of the Lake from Arthurian legend, and then there's the whole Babylon thing.

 

It's honestly too much. When you have literally the "queen of the underworld", daughter of Zeus and Demeter and wife to Hades, as a real figure, you might as well assume the rest of the olympian pantheon to be real as well, which opens up a whole new can of worms. You can of course derive that, say, the Oracle of Delphi would be a potent farseeing psyker, or that the Warp mutated a boy into a bull, considering the Sirens are also a thing. But when you make the ancient gods "real", especially without proper context, you're jumping the shark.

And then having one solo guy be best buds with half of the mythological figures? Man, lay it off, Abnett & French. Less is more, in these cases.

 

 

 

 

I may be mistaken, it's been a while since I read it, but doesn't ADB imply in Master of Mankind that the Emperor is the Olympians during one of his psychic throwbacks with Ra?

[Bobss]

Katt=Morianna is the best thing since tinned tuna. Not only does it give some purpose to the Calth tagalongs who stand out like a sore thumb at this point in the finale, but it also bulks up the theme of '30k's nobodies are 40k's somebodies.' Also, her otherworldly arrogance and complete lack of fear in the presence of demigods, which K-On remarks upon in Black Legion, can be explained by everything she's experienced, jumping through time with Oll and the like. Facing down Abaddon probably isn't all that difficult when you've seen things no other human has. I would much prefer this to Cyrene/Actaea=Morianna, and seeing two of the Inquisition's earliest head honchos (Katt and Kyril) go on to do big things would give me a lot more appreciation for their respective stories

[byrd9999]

I finished Mortis today.... and what a slog that was.

 

I have enjoyed the Siege so far. For me, each author has upped their game, producing some of their best BL work yet, culminating in Saturnine, which managed to surpass my already high expectations for a Dan Abnett novel.

 

But this... this is the first book that felt like a backwards step, if you'll excuse the pun. It seems like John French wrote out the bulletpoints of what was going to be an exciting SoT novel, but then forgot to make them interesting and just padded it out with 550 pages of mostly filler.

 

This could be condensed into a punchier 150 novella, and would be vastly improved (addition by subtraction).

 

The Haynes manual of Titan combat bored me to tears. It started slow but I grew resentful as the book wore on that nothing really clicked in terms of narrative drive, and that I was just footslogging my way through page after page of "things happening". If the idea was to get me to empathise with Shiban or Katsuhiro, then job done.

 

Normally, I don't like reducing books to a series of bulletpoints of events, because the point of a good book should be about the journey, not just the destination, but this book was less than the sum of its parts. I realise this is an ironic counterpoint to John French's Afterword about journeys, but apart from the final 50 pages, the rest of this book could be skimmed without really missing any nuance or detail.

 

 

Overall, Mortis wasn't bad, per se, just incredibly dull, and a real let down at this point in the Siege.

 

4/10

[Fire Golem]

I know it’s different strokes and all that, I just don’t get how Mortis was the first stumbling block in the Siege for some people. It wasn’t the best siege novel by a long shot but I found it vastly better than books 2 or 3.

[Valkyrion]

I can't speak for everyone, but I really dislike reading about titans, knights, or battle scenes in general, and Mortis by its very nature had a lot of those.

I knew that going in though, so it's not a stick to beat the book with.

However, the shiban story arc was pretty poor and the only interesting thing I took from it was Perturabo bailing out. 

 

I'm not unhappy I read it, but I doubt I'll read it again.

[Bobss]

I know it’s different strokes and all that, I just don’t get how Mortis was the first stumbling block in the Siege for some people. It wasn’t the best siege novel by a long shot but I found it vastly better than books 2 or 3.

 

I think the writing quality in Mortis (and of John French in general) is much higher than that of The Lost and the Damned and The First Wall, but I can sort of understand where people are coming from when they make this statement, because compared to the other five books of the Siege thus far, Mortis feels unnaturally compartmentalised. Personally, I thought the book felt like three or four novellas slapped together. During future rereads, going from Saturnine to Mortis and then to Warhawk will feel very off to me, even if Warhawk does a stellar job of incorporating the breach of the Mercury Wall into its first few chapters. For those who have read both titles, Saturnine and Warhawk are written very similarly in that they cover several major fronts of the Siege simultaneously and on every level from Primarch to Army grunt. By comparison, Mortis sort of zooms into several storylines more than anything. So with that criticism in mind, The Lost and the Damned, which I thought was a pretty milquetoast book anyway, and The First Wall, which wasn't quite as bad but had its own structural weirdness what with the timeline stuff, perform better at keeping us updated on the goings-on of the Siege from The Solar War to Saturnine. Mortis is like half-time in a footy match where there isn't that much action (besides the obvious stuff like Titan carnage... lol) but uses this lull in the action to become a bit more introspective. Problem is... this lull is artificial. During and between Saturnine and Warhawk there is no lull, just an endlessly grinding siege in which offensives and counter-offensives are launched; ground is gained, lost and retaken. Shiban's spiritual trek through the pulverised Outer Palace feels very gratuitous and sticks out like a sore thumb, even if it was nice to read. Also, if the final book of the Siege is split into two volumes, Mortis performing this kind of recapping, recuperating, half-time roll will be even more apparent as it's quite literally the middle book. I might sound like I'm huffing my own farts here, but I genuinely believe Guy Haley was originally intended to write book #5 of the Siege, due to his ability to connect well between other authors and their ideas (even if his writings are pretty bland imo) and his writing speed IRL would also serve as an anchor for the later and much more complicated books. Just my own tinfoil here, but it's premium-grade tinfoil all the less

[Fedor]

Lost and the Damned, First Wall and Mortis all just feel like authors carrying water for other authors, rather than being allowed/deciding to forge their own more expansive books.

 

I don't mind that too much given how many cooks there are. It seems inevitable some would play it safe story-wise and focus on being a foundation or bridge to more pivotal books. Haley was so prolific in his handyman role at the time, i'd have been surprised if his book was anything else.

 

French has also changed his writing style from the approach of books like Ahriman and Praetorian, something that seems to have missed the mark for many people, though i didn't mind it as i like to see authors reach for different things. He's gone from a very dry, plot focused writer that could be a Sanderson pseudonym, into clunkily developing a more singular, abstract style. It's one of the BL books i've seen the most actual prose critique of on the net...most for other books usually comes down to being pissed at an author misrepresenting their idea of power levels, saying the guy can't write at all, or just not liking the ideas. On the other hand, here a lot of readers seem to have bounced off the writing style itself.

Edited October 21, 2021 by Fedor

[cheywood]

That’s interesting to hear. Reading Mortis right now and the writing style is 90% of why I’m enjoying it.

[mc warhammer]

it's taken a month to reach the 50% mark and i'm stunned to read that katsuhiro is still supposed to turn up at some point.

 

mortis is a mix for me so far, i find my attention drifting between different chapters (at odds with many, i'm actually most interested in oll's at this point, followed by shiban's) which is not better or worse than any other 40k book i've read that isn't by a favourite author of mine.

 

i think french has a good command of prose and i wouldn't mind that he seems be leaning into theme over character or plot with this book (the horror of the war on populace is great and long overdue), but it is a heavy tonal whiplash from saturnine.

Edited October 22, 2021 by mc warhammer

[USNCenturion]

I usually don’t like Gavs novels, mostly because of the choices he makes lore-wise, but his character interactions and conversations are really well done compared to French and Haley. My opinion of course, and I may be misremembering things or overloaded with binging 6 siege novels in two months.

 

This novel just seemed to me like French saw what Abnett was going for, and decided to throw whatever that was (which I don’t think he has) into this novel. Like every single thing is so overly described, and in a way that felt really forced and contrived. With Wraight and Thorpe (the character dialogue for Gav) things seemed natural and flowing; Mortis was just stunted and bloated and it honestly felt to me like the author was smelling his own farts while trying to do another Saturnine. The disappointing part is French didn’t need to do any of that. He’s a solid writer obviously and while I also struggled through bits of solar war, I thought that was a far better book than this.

 

Perhaps it is because he got saddled with the two outlier novels of the siege; not so much ground marine action but void war and titan conflict? I don’t know, just thought I’d offer more of my thoughts on it for anyone to digest.

 

Edit: I want to point out that after posting this, I went back and read some of the previous posts, and I think it’s subconsciously telling that Bobss and myself both had the sense of “someone smelling heir own…” when discussing this book. I hadn’t read that prior to writing my blurb. I don’t think Bobss was relating it to French specifically but it is something to consider. That’s a definite vibe I got when trying to read through Mortis.

Edited October 22, 2021 by EnsignJoker

[mc warhammer]

some arresting imagery that has stayed with me long after, like the blood angels going out to face the darkness and the ruin of one of them passing the torch to katsuhiro. beautiful and grim.

 

in fact, katsuhiro was a highlight for me, though the other fact that i forgot he was in the book till about 3/4 in... is not great.

 

too much meandering, not enough cohesion for this stage of the siege novels. i had to look for things to like in the book and there are plenty, but now that i'm reading warhawk at x10 the pace of mortis...the difference in enthusiasm is obvious. and to be clear, i'm not even sure i like warhawk yet. it's decent so far.

 

mortis wasn't exactly a page turner, but the horror of the traitor titans and the emperor's children's garden was top shelf.

 

10/10 for mood

5/10 plot

5/10 characterisation

[DarkChaplain]

The garden was cool, but there was somehow a distinct lack of Emperor's Children in there. Those few we got weren't really all they've been made out to be, either. Still waiting for a novel that actually has the EC rampaging through civilians in an active manner.

[mc warhammer]

yeah, i actually liked that...they were conspicuous through their absence. i thought that bit with that EC

bathing in dreams and secrets

was all the stronger and eerie for it and i imagine he wasn't the only one.

 

but i'm like you, a novel where we actually see them get stuck into it is something i'd like to see. hell, i'd just like to adb's take on the third legion full stop.

[grailkeeper]

I finished Warhawk a week ago. It made the White Scars lengthy trudge in this book even more pointless. That story line added nothing to Mortis for me, and had very little impact on this book. I had thought it might be building something bigger but it didn't, despite the white scar being one of the main characters in Warhawk..