The End of the Horus Heresy and Beginning of the Siege of Terra

So it's come to our attention that the Horus Heresy saga is ending. Well, sort of. It's to come to a close with a novel focusing on the Death Guard, The Buried Dagger, which will show their fall to Nurgle. After that, the actual end will play out with a new series focusing on the war in the Solar System and the siege itself. This is old news, several days old in fact, and due to my situation, I was unable to comment on it at the time. As such, this is just me throwing in my two cents and considering just what this could lead to, or whether this is truly a good thing.

The Horus Heresy series itself was celebrated on its announcement as a look into an era. We knew of the key events behind it, we knew of the major battles and the big players (well, the primarchs and a few other people, anyway) while the ending was the very thing which made M41 such a hellhole. We knew the skeleton, it was a chance to see it fleshed out. It's difficult to believe now, but the names Garviel Loken, Barabas Dantioch, Euphrati Keeler and Maloghurst were all unknown. They didn't exist, and many now infamous twists such as Magnus the Red's Faustian pact, the true history of the Black Rage or the Alpha Legion's fall were unknown. The benefit of these novels was to fully flesh this out, to explore the era and offer such points in greater detail.

The reason I bring this fact up is simple - The Siege of Terra is huge. Even ignoring the rest of the conflicts which might play out across the Solar System, the battle was one of the single greatest conflicts seen in thousands of years. It wouldn't be matched again for centuries to come, and even then people still contest its importance. While William King wrote an excellent short story depicting the core events (one which still stands up well today, I might add) it would be difficult to fully explore this in a single tome. Slaves to Darkness tried to balance out just the traitors alone, and even then it had to write several out of the story just to give the others time in the spotlight. As such, having one novel to focus on the siege? That was unbearable. Even at the time of Unremembered Empire, I was personally thinking it needed a trilogy of sorts. Perhaps two full novels, and an anthology of short stories to examine all that took place in the smaller tales across the world.

So, the benefit of having a new series is to break up the two. We have the journey, all its tales, battles and twists have played out. Now we have the finale, with its own segment to fully cap off what came before it. It gives it focus but also a degree of freedom in this sense, to allow each major player involved to have some time to explore their actions in this historic event. After all, wouldn't you want Sanginuius' thoughts, actions and efforts to be a major part of a book, rather than being crammed into a single chapter or mentioned in passing? With this being said, however, there is a definite problem which could easily stem from this. Specifically, that of bloating.

Now, let's be honest here: Having the Horus Heresy expand upon past events? That was a mixed blessing. The story developments we were given were certainly welcome, but there were times when it felt as if the narrative was tying itself into a knot. The subject of the Shattered Legions and Imperium Secundus were a particular sticking point in this regard, as the series seemed to orbit them for quite some time. Both were potentially interesting ideas, but there were narrative threads which either didn't go anywhere, or failed to make full use of their potential. The idea behind the Alpha Legion civil war was a good one, but beyond a single novella and short story, little was actually done with it. The same was true of Meduson, and when that was actually addressed it was done simply to piss on the Iron Hands yet again. Yes, that's the only time I will harp on their treatment here, don't worry.

The point is simply that, this is a new series. It's meant to carry on the Horus Heresy, and from a financial standing, I could see them trying to treat it as such. One where you have frequent yearly, or even bi-yearly, novels released to keep a large audience interested in events. Dragging out this is desirable in terms of simple monetary numbers, as it's their big literary centerpiece. As the editors are unwilling to go back - and we have yet to hear anything about a Great Crusade or Scouring series - that means it could be easy for them to justify stretching things out for another ten or twenty novels.

Even without that, there is also the subject of the formatting here. Now, this website very rarely covers short stories. It's mostly for a financial reason, and the fact I only have so much time I can devote to any work. However, I'll be the first to argue that I quite enjoy the shorter tales within the Horus Heresy. Many allowed opportunities to have snapshot events which were too short for a full novel, but wouldn't work when fitted into a bigger tale. Stories like The Last Rememberancer, or The Value of Fear, and Distant Echoes of Old Night are all great examples of this. With that being said, they did need the larger and longer stories to make things work. You can't simply make things meet in the middle and expect them to work. While I have avoided talking about the War of the Beast series - mostly because I only delved into part of it - a big problem was its structure. The stories it told never seemed complete and their novella length never suited such a large tale. To repeat that again here would be a mistake, and it wouldn't be able to convey the same sense of immensity the saga needs.

Now, this is just purely some (relatively pessimistic) thoughts on how it can play out. There is always the chance that something great could be made from expanding upon the known events. Yet there's a big difference between expanding on something and stretching it out. As a whole, a new series is potentially a good idea, but it depends on which direction Black Library wishes to take this.