False Gods: The Horus Heresy, Book 2

It really delves into the history of the empire. I don't know, it's well written and stuff. Orks are the best tho.

After the first book you love Horus. After this you see a better turn to the dark side than any Star Wars film has ever pulled off.I still want to love him! But I know he is going to destroy so many things.

It is a difficult position to be in, following Horus Rising. A high bar to live up to.After pouring himself unwaveringly and passionately into his peace deliberations with the interex, making great progress despite the endless opposition from his most trusted, only to have it all set ablaze in an unexpected rage of sabbotage. His soul-crushing depression leaves you feeling his hopelessness just as deeply.As the Afterword said - it is heart breaking to watch as Horus, honorable and caring as well as emotive and considerate, slowly poisoned and twisted by Chaos. Slowly descending into darkness. In lore and history he is purely evil and cruel, it is hard to believe - you can't help but fall in love with wonder at his genuine charisma and warmth. Which makes witnessing his fall from grace all the more painful, and often hard to accept - despite already knowing the outcome. You still find your heart breaking with Garviel and Tarik as they are both left helplessly wondering.. "How did this happen..?"The fall of Lupercal hits home like a Bolt to the chest, the inevitability of the day Good went Bad.

4 AND 1/2 STARSWhile more focused than the first book due to fewer characters and situations, I found this book to be just as highly engrossing and satisfyingly addictive as the first. Fast paced, and at times, downright gripping, author McNeill continued Abnett's dark and dangerous story masterfully. Some nice atmosphere and a constantly building dread had me reading long into the night. While this entry is only book 2 of 54 novels in just the first series, if the rest of the books are even half as entertaining, I will be in for the long haul. There were some surprising deaths that let the reader know that no one is safe in this world. The book divides the characters into what promises to be one bloody epic war. Very much looking forward to the next book, Galaxy In Flames.

Graham McNeill is one of the major innovators at The Black Library. His books are always filled with the kind of "fluff" that excites Warhammer enthusiasts and I consider him the speartip of Warhammer creativity.For the most part I am thrilled by his creative inventions. His descriptions of the various planets and societies are inspired and his descriptions of Chaos rituals are among the best in the Warhammer universe.I would have given this novel five stars but for some niggling complaints, which I am going to enumerate out of a certain frustration.My frustration arises from the following: (1) he usually employs multiple points of view (a practice endemic in Warhammer writing). This is not bad in itself but he employs short passages that break the flow of the writing and slows the narrative. Tolstoy uses multiple points of view but he lets the narrative develop and flow, allowing the reader to become involved in the narrative. Frankly, I want to be unaware of the change in point of view; I want to sink so deeply into the novel that I am living it. If a novelist shifts back and forth in short machine gun like bursts, it disrupts the narrative flow. This works in a movie; it doesn't work well in a novel. (2) He tends to use anachronistic expressions that distract from the narrative. For instance, twice Horus, the great Warmaster, says to his Mournival- "You are a sight for sore eyes." (3) Horus acts child-like over and over again (but so did Hitler and Stalin, you say), even spilling his guts to a journalist in an attempt to immortalize himself in print, when he thinks he is going to die.In addition, certain plot choices confused me. More particularly, I didn't understand the motivations behind the invasion of the Davin moon. For instance, why would the Legion transport Titans to the moon to battle an army of the undead, which they dispatch with a blow to the head? Was Horus' hubris such that he saw every battle as an insult to his pride and honor? Was it necessary to display the almost incalculable strength of the Legion against a rebellious brother? Or was it necessary to introduce the Titans into the plot? Additionally, at the end of the novel,why does Horus abandon the crusade to attack a potentially friendly world? Does he seek their technology or has Chaos already taken hold of him and he wants simply to kill and maim?Irrespective of these criticisms, I say bravo to McNeill. He took the threads of the Horus Rising and substantially raised the level of discourse.

I couldn't even get halfway through this one. A real shame, because Abnett started things off so well. McNeil takes every bad expectation you have about a book like this and delivers in spades. Did he read the first book? Did he have a solid outline? Was an editor involved at any point?Characters here are markedly more shallow, losing entire dimensions if not undoing entire personality changes between the previous book and this one. The one common element is that everybody has regressed to the level of a 13 year old brat, sniping inexplicably at each other without rhyme nor reason. Personal conflict is just shoe horned into relationships, entirely unexplained and with no good reason beyond an entirely artificial method from the author of forcing character drama into the plot. Whole relationship dynamics change, friends are suddenly enemies and you wonder if you'd missed something. Don't worry - you haven't. It doesn't make any sense.All vestiges of subtlety have been beaten and locked in an oubliette. Conversations are overly obvious, accusations fly left and right without regard for scene or setting or, as previously mentioned, established character or history. It's all amateur dramatics, ham-fisted mockeries of dialogue, reducing everything to a grimdark sci-fi version of an MTV reality show. In a shallow attempt at forcing tension, characters are unaccountably obnoxious and overly obvious. Horus himself has become a whiny emo kid with the diplomatic apptitude of a horny elephant. Erebus is a bollocks stand-in for Grima Wormtongue. None of this has context.McNeil has the writing skill of a block of cold spam left too long at back of a disused fridge.

A well-paced page-turner covering some pretty sacred (or should that be profane?) ground in the Warhammer 40K mythos. The critical event in The Horus Heresy transpires and the road to ruin is set in stone.Now this could have been a real exercise in going through the motions. After all it is an event much talked about and referred to in other 40K material. The story of the ascendent figure in it's mythology and the plot to bring about his tragic fall from grace. It's a story told many times and not always successfully, naming no names Anakin.The headline here is that this is very much not the case in False Gods and there is some genuine layers to the tale told within these pages. Much as I enjoyed the preceding book Horus Rising, it was by design setting the stage for the events to come and thus never got the pace going in the way this book did.As said, it's a well paced read with solid characterisation driving the plot. It's quite the journey Horus undergoes en-route to his powerful moment of revelation but he never feels like a wooden, hollow evil caricature. It's a shades of gray transformation that reads well especially during the final few chapters.Overall, I tremendously enjoyed it and will be starting the next one shortly. Highly recommended.

This is the second book in the Horus Heresy series, and I'm still eager to continue the series! I've stated before that I'm a big fan of the 40K universe, and this series reveals one of the core foundations for that setting. As with the first book we learn more about the Warmaster, and follow his descent into heresy.The story delves a bit deeper into Horus' personality, and in particular the seeds for his fall. The mechanisms weren't unexpected, but it did have some surprises. It certainly sets the scene for events to come. It's also well reflected in the surrounding characters, in particular the members of the Mournival introduced in the first book. The new characters from other chapters play a significant part and also help identify the nature of the different Astartes chapters (well legions at that point).The bleak nature of the universe is one of its best features, it's all very much shades of grey, even when there's a supposed purity of purpose. This is reflected in the writing which has a formal, and almost sombre feel. Having different authors in a series can be a mixed bag, but the style is consistent with the previous book. The style of writing suits the setting, but there are nuances here as well. For superhuman characters, there's some appreciated subtlety in the writing and characterisation.The books downside is shared by many others in the world. As they're aimed at players of the game there's a lot of assumed knowledge, although for fans it does add a lot of richness to the background. Overall it's a solid action story, with some thoughtful moments. Definitely a good read for fans.

Mr. McNeill does a fine job of following on from Dan Abnett. Continuing the tale of how humanity faced it's most tragic treachery, this is a fine second book. Characterization is good, action is fine. I find the main characters to be naïve and stupid rather than strategic or tactically intelligent. Gullibility being their downfall. That aside this episode of the Heresy makes me wish to continue on.

This book tells the story of how the space marines (bioengineered warriors that are a part of a humans crusade to conquer the galaxy) meet and are corrupted by supernatural evil. I enjoyed the first two thirds of this book. The story follows a linear path. There are several groups of characters (writters/remebrancers, military personel, and space marines) that somehow reflect the complex structure of the imperium during that time. Each scene is well described, both characters and environment (constructed places, alien landscapes, magical realms). The actions are explained, the reasoning of the characters decisions makes sense. There is a strong horror part in this book and is depicted very well (the setting is very appropriate for a horror story, the monsters are scary, the fight against them has a lot of tension). Excellent part.Then the story jumbs 10 months into the future, in the middle of a war and the main characters have made up their minds about very important matters without much explanation (that was given in the previous part). Neither the main character's confessions, when he was seriously injured, are shown nor his reasoning for the choices he made. .The first two thirds is a five star, the last part is not bad, but overall the story felt strongly incomplete to me. I've read 7 books in the HH series and my favorite are the "Prospero Burns" and " Nemesis" because the main characters story (ordinary human in these two) is complete. I think its 3.5 stars as a stand alone but i give 4 because its part of a series. So i guess that some parts, that i think they should have been in this book, are explained in other volumes of the HH series.