Flight of the Eisenstein

[IVSothicIV]

Pissed me off. Why were the Death Guard yelling battle cries?

[masterofweirdness]

Originally Posted by IVSothicIV

Pissed me off. Why were the Death Guard yelling battle cries?

Umm... they were pre-heresy loyalists?


Haven't actually read the book, yet.

[JoeGuardsman]

Battle cries were fine, you kind of need them unless you are the Sisters of Silence.

If anyone has read James Swallow's "master piece" Deus then you know he has no clue about the Warhammer Universe. His numbers and concepts of power were very much aschew with the table top game and any previous novelization. He kills the entire number of the Blood Angles Chapter thinking that there was 1,000 brothers in in a company, and a dude kills a dreadnaught with a chain sword while surrounded by blood letters. I digress that is for another book review post and an ugly one at that.

The book starts off far behind where the first one left off, which made me upset as I has over-paid at 1,900 yen for the book. After paying that much money I was hoping for as much forward progress as I could get. The opening involves a pathetic little character and some terrible writing furthering my depression but in the end it all pays off.

Swallow gets a decent grasp of his characters as the tension builds in the middle of the book and you grow to love all of them, even a tiny little human house keeper. The charaters begin to jump out and the decisions and emotional conflict between the imperial truth and the cult of the emperor couldn't have been done much better.

That is as much as I'll write as I don't want to spoil or bore you.

[MSguardsmen]

wait a black library book that sucks? blashpemy! this has to be a first

[Baron Spikey]

Im hoping that was sarcasm because the 2 books I've read of C.S.Goto are shockers

[BrainDeleted]

Don't know about his other books but I thought this one was pretty good, not the best BL book ever but it was entertaining...

[Icarus Athrasuriel]

Most definately not BL quality, and nowhere near as good as the books Graham and Dan wrote (Horus Rising and False Gods)

[Gregor Xenos]

Its hard to compare anyone w/ Abnett

[Lord Commander Erus]

Originally Posted by Gregor Xenos

Its hard to compare anyone w/ Abnett

Indeed. I found the pace kinda bland and dry, but driving over all. However, a big complaint was it didn't have many twists or turns. It was pretty straightforward, almost like reading a history book or something. Not bad, but nowhere NEAR what it could or SHOULD have been.

Verdict: 2.75/5 stars

[Heroka Vendile]

tchnically speaking, the Horus heresy is a bunch of history books - in as much as its going to extreme detail regarding things we've only ever known about in very little detail before.

[Torquemada Coteaz]

I liked the new info
some of the stuff just bothered me, they didn't give me the right FEEL. i can't really describe it

still Eisenstein was a LOT better than a lot of BL books i've read.
I'm pretty sure the editors put these books through hell because, well, i mean it's Horus Heresy!

It wasn't terribly graet, but it wasnt BAD either, is all im sayin

[Heroka Vendile]

I can agree with you there. Several time in the books i've read something and gone "wtf? that's not possible/right".

The thing I dislike the most of the books is the vast generalisation when it comes to the forces involved - Captain Garro only seems to actively command three squads including his own, despite a captain back then easily being in command of 200+ marines, the other squads are never even named.

In all the books there have been silly things like:
huge massive battle going on so its fair enough that the writer focuses on one unit, but they do it to the extent that you forget its a big battle with thousands of marines and troopers, making it loose all sense of scale.

Galaxy In Flames is the best so far IMHO (not surprising, I love Ben Counters stuff, always seems more real than anyone else's), although I have a copy of Fulgrim sat on my bookself still unread (its taken me longer than expected to get through The Last Chancers - and I've got Armour of Contempt to read as well).

[Drax]

Originally Posted by Heroka Vendile

Captain Garro only seems to actively command three squads including his own, despite a captain back then easily being in command of 200+ marines, the other squads are never even named.

that is because Typhon saw to it that Garro only had a handful of his troops aboard the Eisenstein. Enough to avoid suspicion but few enough to stop them being a threat to Grulgor

but in truth, there are very few squads named in any of the books. i think there were 3 squads maximum named from Loken's company, only one from Torgaddons and one each actually named from Lucius' and Tarvitz' company.

i think that it is exactly because there are so many squads in each company that so few are named, else the details would be spread too thin or the story too long.

[Torquemada Coteaz]

Yeah,

the massive battles do go off and explain that there is a huge conflic going on, and details cool/special/author-wanted-to-point-out-randomly kills that give you at least some sense of "oh, there's more than just 10 guys fighting here"

[Biadetic]

yeah, i found Eisenstein a little tiresome to get through. i certainly enjoyed the first 3 horus heresy books alot more. i dont know why but Eisenstein, for me, took a little while to actaully get interesting, and even then it was near the end. i also didnt like some of the authors phrases, nothing that i can recall, i just know some of it annoyed me. lol. currently reading Fulgrim, so hopefully itl be better