A disappointing ending to a disappointing trilogy

After reading Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work, Haley had really elevated himself in my eyes. The book was an absolute breath of fresh air. Characterization was fantastic. Creativity positively oozed from it. The lore developments that it brought to the table, while relatively minor, were fascinating,

So despite my (somewhat minor) misgivings with the two previous books of the Dark Imperium trilogy, I decided to pick up book three as well.

What a mistake that was.

The novel is bad. Really bad.

And that's a by-product of Haley's general fatigue, I'd imagine. He had to rewrite two books on top of Godblight (Plague War and Dark Imperium) to better fit them in the timeline and it shows.

The book is flat. It's nonsensical. It's filled with cookie cutter characters that might as well be from a Saturday morning cartoon. Even Guilliman himself, who was one of the strong points in the previous entries to this series was dry, flat and uninteresting. That's not even getting into his out of character decisions that completely contradict previous Heresy-era books.

The most egregious mischaracterization in this novel comes in the form of Mortarion, however. There's absolutely no sign of the primarch we saw in books like Scars or the Buried Dagger. Hell, even his short appearance in the Lords of Silence oozed (no pun intended) with more characterization than he got in this entire trilogy. Instead that grim, intimidating, layered figure - we get a parody of him. For any scene where Mortarion appears, you might as well slap a "Poison man bad. Nurgle primarch hypocritical" sticker on it and call it a day. There's no depth or nuance whatsoever. Nor does Haley even attempt to give him any. For a series that's nominally about a Death Guard vs Ultramarine conflict, the latter receives the lion's share of the spotlight. Mortarion essentially acts as a cardboard cut out for Guilliman and his amazing Ultramarines to Worf. That and as a verbal punching bag for other Nurglite characters.

Another casualty of Godblight is its dialogue, excluding one or two scenes that I'll mention at the end of the review. Rather than dynamic or involved conversations that take Guilliman's status and stature into account , people just talk at him like he's a blue-coloured wall. Hell, there's parts of Godblight that are just pure exposition. Rotigus is a huge offender. Mathieu is another.

Although this book does offer some interesting lore developments, they're executed in such a God-awful way that's it's almost impossible to swallow them without laughing. The ideas presented could have been absolutely brilliant but their sloppy, lazy, non-sensical introduction really leaves a sour taste in the mouth of anyone who isn't the most rampant fan of the Imperium. Any book that has to rely on a (literal, in this case) Deus Ex Machina has some serious fundamental flaws in the story it was trying to build and execute. The only thing that redeems this even slightly is the sheer scale of what was revealed and how it might impact the larger setting as a whole.

The only reason that this isn't getting a one star review is because of Banks' performance and a few scenes that were the novel's saving grace. An example would be a conversation about Godhood that Guilliman has with a few choice characters very early in the novel. Another would be the daemons. Although I'm not really a fan of Haley's humorous approach to the Nurglite characters, you could tell he still had passion while writing their scenes and plot lines.

I really couldn't recommend this book unless you're really interested in the lore developments it brings. If you're anyways interested in Chaos (or good writing) be prepared to grit your teeth and groan your way through each page.

Personally, I sincerely hope that Haley takes the time he needs to reset before moving into a new work. That or he moves onto a project he's truly passionate about or where he isn't constrained by a pre-ordained outcome. He's capable of producing some truly awesome books. This however, certainly isn't one of them.

11 people found this helpful

Never gets good

Solid performance but lackluster story. No in depth view of Mortarion or his motivation. What does not help is the constant praise of primaris marines.

3 people found this helpful

Best book ever

So great to know the emperor orcastrated all of this. And now better times are ahead

3 people found this helpful

It's absolutely great! Just not a perfect end.

This is the third or 4th time i have listened to this trilogy but the 1 time i finished this last book in the Dark Imperium trilogy.
I don't know what i expected or rather what i wanted to be possible.
The first 2 books are BRILLIANT and give the pure essense of WH40k while clearly marking that WH40k is evolving inte something completely new, ending what everyone had grown accustomed to.
Ending the stagnation of the lore and giving us a fair amount of prophetic hints of the future of the WH40k story line.
If you're open minded, perceptive, wise to the lore and have a bit of fantasy you can even see a few hints of how the author teases that there might be plans for the great conclusion, to what? That remains to see.
But apart from that i expected more of a climactic, EPIC resolution to a duel/war that has been a long time coming!
But it is AMAZING and WONDERFUL even if it didn't live up to what i wanted.
But if the story leads into what the trilogy hints, then a lit of AWESOME EVENTS are about to happen in the near future.
which would make me extremely happy to see one day!

3 people found this helpful

READ AND SUPPORT

Magnificent. This book levers open the new emerging world of 40k read it if you want to know what’s going on

Many thanks

Duncan

2 people found this helpful

Excellent

Fantastic listen. Massive well done to Guy Haley and also John Banks. Probably the best 40K book to date

1 person found this helpful

Fantastic and Game-Changing

A well-wriiten and entertaining book that gets the characterisation right.

Make sure that you pay attention and read between the lines. If you don't, the ending can seem to come out of left field.

Those final chapters set up a whole new paradigm for 40k.

1 person found this helpful

So much to look forward to!

I was annoyed I had to purchase the first 2 Dark Imperium books to get the retcon but this book closed the Plague Wars in a way that provided closure (as much as can be expected in WH) and also opened so many possibilities going forward, the return of the emperor… the unremembered empire, so much to look forward to, i personally hope for a Tattleslug novella sometime soon 😉

1 person found this helpful

This series is exceptional

I would recommend this to anyone interested in science fiction.

Genuinely competes with contemporary work.

Amazing finalé

A great finish to the plague wars series, another great performance by Guy Haley and John Banks these books are a definite listen/read what are you waiting for!!!