Mortarion: The Pale King (Volume 15) (The Horus Heresy: Primarchs) [Hardcover] Annandale, David

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An exploration intended to give readers not only a better understanding of the men themselves but also the legions they command. These moments of quality become harder to find in the portions of the book that do not directly involve character writing, and unfortunately that represents most of the story. By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file.

The parallels he saw between Galaspar and Barbarus were compelling (although not entirely convincing at times) and reflected his character well. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written Warlord: Fury of the God-Machine, the Yarrick series, and several stories involving the Grey Knights, as well as titles for The Beast Arises and the Space Marine Battles series.These battle scenes aren’t particularly compelling in their description and they aren’t well-written enough to truly put an image into the mind of the reader. Billions of people toiled endlessly to enrich their masters, enduring short lives of poverty, squalor and fear. Pero el grueso del libro es la primera campaña de Mortarion y su Guardia de la Muerte, la cual se narra con un ritmo y falta de soltura que a mi en lo particular me hizo eterna su lectura. Annandale doesn’t give the reader an understanding of what the arcology looks like or how the different zones of battle relate to one another.

High levels of radiation, everything is poisoned, blown up and there are literally hills of bodies next to the spires on the planet with people crawling over them. Good book, good setting up what Mortarion will do in the Horus Heresy, no remarks from my part, might even have been a bit longer. Annandale does incredibly well is the introspection and reflection on the motives of his characters and the events that unfold. The development of this story felt visceral and intense, and the city itself being used as an antagonist was reminiscent of a TTRPG dungeon crawl.

Their cruel, wealthy overlords work them to death like human batteries and keep them docile with a steady stream of drugs (it’s worth noting the same drugs make the overlords more aggressive, kind of like the “pax” from Firefly).

Then one of the "units" appears and while afraid tells Mortarion how she finished her allotted corpse counting. questionable treatment recently in the novels so I was half-expecting that slightly woeful track record to continue. The book is very well written and fun, it was cool seeing Typhon and Garro when they were just legionnaries, and we get brief glimpses of their personalities, but in the end, it is not part of the core of novels of 40K that are fundamental for your understanding of the story or characters.

It is still vulnerable from above down the shaft it came down so a force including Garro is sent that way. The balancing of his two "personas" in the Liberator and Death was an interesting dichotomy and does wonders towards explaining why Mortarion cleaves so strongly to his convictions and acts so brutally in the wake of Galaspar and beyond. I’ve been consistently let down by this series as the books seldom offer insights into the characters that I really enjoy or want to see. Mortarion who is usually quite a predictable character, was cast in more of a favourable and complex light which I found interesting considering his usually cold calculating nature and the villain he later becomes.

The parallels between the enemy that he fights in this book, the tyranny that he fought on his homeworld in the past, and the monstrous entity that the Imperium later becomes is a clever plot device which works really well in this book. This book comes close to flirting with some explanation as it’s revealed that while the Emperor understood Mortarion’s actions, he was deeply disappointed in him. Annandale makes these passions clear, and in so doing, accomplishes the purpose of writing such a book. But was so interesting to also learn of some of the original battle captains of the legion, and how Typhon and Garro ascended.

It's kind of funny that this homicidal maniac Primarch is entirely justified in intent, and had he reduced collateral damage, would be laudable for it.