Vulkan lies in state beneath the Fortress of Hera, and yet many of his sons still refuse to believe that he is truly dead. After a seemingly miraculous rescue by the Ultramarines, Artellus Numeon, once captain of the Pyre Guard, urges the other Salamanders on Macragge to leave Imperium Secundus and return their primarch’s body to the home world of Nocturne – there to be reborn in the flames of Mount Deathfire. But Numeon grapples endlessly with his doubts and fears for the future of the Legion, while their foes seek to carve out new destinies of their own... About this book
The Horus Heresy: Deathfire is released in July 2015. To be amongst the first to know when it goes on sale, set your reminder today.
There are a ton of these scientific/technical mistakes when it comes to 40k books. But most science-fiction literature has these as well, so I'm inclined to give them a pass on that one.
What a truly fucking awful abortion of a novel that was. I 'acquired' it to finally read as a break between real novels and holy shit, I'm about as glad I read it, as I was watching the latest Fantastic Four film. Sometimes you just need to experience how awful something is, but not in a good way like Sharknado. There is not one redeeming feature in the entire novel for me I'm afraid. At least in say, Vulkan Lives (and holy shit, didn't they just abuse the fuck out of that line), I sort of liked Curze torturing Vulkan over and over. That is until it was revealed he's a perpetual, then I kind of lost interest. But god, that was painful to read.
Other have nailed most of the bad points already, maybe when I regain my motivation for life, I'll come back and list more, but for now...
Kaspian Hecht...
So regarding 'Kaspian Hect'. Please tell me that we weren't at all meant to be surprised that he was actually Narek, albeit with a bit of completely unexplained psyker bullshit applied to him lovingly. I sincerely hope that nobody that read it didn't immediately call that. Because yeah......shock!
A rather large, and to me, glaring error
But here's a big one for me. Their second dive into the ruinstorm.....why did they have to do that? Or more accurately, how could they do that? When Magnus launched them out of the ruinstorm, they ended up mere weeks from Terra, in the Segmentum Solar. Which to those unaware, is situated in the galactic west-south west (despite being the 'centre' of the Imperium). Ultramar, and the ruinstorm, are situated in the Ultima Segmentum, in the galactic south east, Ultramar itself being in the south east of the Ultima Segmentum. So yeah, Magnus threw them to the other side of the galaxy. Cheers fella. They then decide to go to Nocturne instead. Which is also situated in the Ultima Segmentum, but in the south west of the sector. The ruinstorm in all other material thus far, had been described as only surrounding Ultramar, not the entire Segmentum. Yet somehow, despite coming from a different direction, they had to enter it again. Also, that close to Terra, they should have easily been able to see the Astronomicum, which is still active.
Also, did Magnus throw the Death Guard and Word Bearers to Terra with them? It didn't seem to suggest as much in their brief chapters. You would have though they would mention suddenly being right next to Terra. If not, how the fuck did they find them again. Even with the sliver of the fulgurite, it seems a little absurd.
The Reapers Shroud
It seemed to almost have been described as the same class as the Furious Abyss and it's sister ships no? Colossal and trident shaped. On that note, was it meant to be the Furious Abyss that they sailed through earlier on in the story? It seemed as if they were well out of Macragge by that point, and from what I remember the Furious Abyss was destroyed on the other side of Macragges moon. It was described as being larger than a Gloriana class vessel, which are what they Primarchs flagships are built from.
Though from the previous error and others, it wouldn't surprise me if Kyme had either just described it poorly like everything else and they were in fact still within Macragges orbit, or just as likely, he himself failed to remember or didn't check where the Furious Abyss had been destroyed and just though anywhere in the Ultramar system would suffice.
1. I don't think anyone was fooled by this. But it didn't detract from the story at all. In fact, I don't think the readers were supposed to be fooled. An Ultramarine called Antellus once told me that the technical term is Dramatic Irony. It's when the audience knows something the characters do not. It is supposed to create drama as we, the audience, wait to discover when and how the characters will discover what we already know. I enjoyed this term and wondered for a moment if it was dramatic irony that I knew that I was going to eat his face whilst he didn't.
2. The second of the mentioned occurances was indeed stupid. But I put this down to the idiocy of the Dinosaurmarines and NumaNuma (or whatever his name is). A more vexing moment for me was how a certain 'special guest' was depicted. He seemed rather evil, which is perhaps understandable given all that has happened. But the last time we saw him, he was still a pretty cool guy. The transition was jarring for me.
3. This is not even a valid point. Something 'seemed' like something else in your mind and that has made you angry. The thought didn't even cross my mind. It's just a normal battlebarge.
So it 'seemed'- implying that it wasn't actually described as such, but in your head you formed the image.
to 'almost'- so not even fully 'seemed', but perhaps 70% 'seemed'.
So you are angry because you formed an image in your head based on a description which you admit was probably not even related to the image you formed. And this is Nick Kyme's fault, how?
The nails are biting hard into my skull over this one.
Seen some accounts stating that the Ruinstorm blocked half of the galaxy, not just the 500 worlds. Clearly its grown over time, perhaps the dark gods stirred it up even further.
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Astronomican
Following the Battle of Calth, Erebus of the traitorous Word Bearers Legion, had managed to complete a blasphemous ritual on Calth's surface, which summoned a Ruinstorm to the galaxy's Eastern Fringe -- a monstrous Warp Storm larger and more destructive than anything space-faring humanity had witnessed since the days of the Age of Strife. It would split the void asunder, dividing the galaxy in two and rendering vast tracts of the Imperium impassable for centuries.
Problem with that wiki is it never says where the passages are sourced from. And from every Heresy novel i've read so far, it's said nothing more than the Ultramar system.
I don't especially care about plot daftness unless it's absurd, and the second dive into the storm with the bad guys following them perfectly again does kinda edge that way. Getting hung up on plot elements is often a sign of bad criticism tbh, but there's def some questionable choices made in this book where the plot is concerned.
However, the book's bad (to me) because the writing is uninspired and terribly workmanlike. Like, barely-has-the-talent-to-even-be-workmanlike. And it's actually one of the better Kyme attempts at interesting prose. His stuff is turgid building blocks linked by one metaphor played to death as if he's sitting with a thesaurus, a couple of repeated descriptive phrases that don't justify the repetition, and then some barely disguised references to actual literary work turn up either as a character or a whole bloody plot.
It's not a fricking homage or clever nod to name a character in your book Circe when you're just doing a bad version of the Odyssey, it's bluntly obnoxious.
At least he didn't do a McNeil and actually have someone turn and directly tell the reader what one of the references was.
"So you see Numenon, I'm from the planet of Prospero, and by an amazing coincidence, I'm now going to act exactly like the character called Prospero in this book by this dramaturge called Will Shakspur, have you read it? Allow me to tell you the plot, you should probably check out this other book called the Odyssey while you're at it mate."
Mind you, the Ultramar system itself only have the 8 or so worlds from curren days. Not the 500 worlds of the Great Crusade era that Imperium Secundus encompassed.
Why we even discuss this heresy guys? Deathfire in company with the Outcast dead should be put into the darkest abyss and forgotten for all times.
AND if that's a second book in Vulkan HH trilogy - I DREAD TO THINK what would be depicted in the last book. Vulkan shooting rainbows from his a... would be a normal event comparing to what we get upon release. :angry:
We all knew that Deathfire was going to have a followup.
Nick Kyme has been posting on his twitter account that he has started work on a sequel (as yet untitled) to his novel Deathfire and that he has completed a short story called Sons of the Forge to bridge the gap between those 2 books. Also he has a Audio drama Red-Marked in the pipeline.
What is with the hatred I keep hearing for Deathfire, I honestly thought it was one of the best HH novels in ages and had reignited my interest in the Heresy. I was willing to give up on the series completely until reading this novel. In fact it made me crave the next novel so much I brought the xmas day novel the day of release.
Some people in here have an unreasonable hatred for Nick Kyme. Sure he is not top tier, but I wouldnt call him entirely trash either. His EC stuff have been really good, and shows he benefits from branching out from the Salamanders.
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