#Aaron Dembski-Bowden

I know there are constant newcomers to the Horus Heresy series so I thought someone might find this useful: HORUS HERESY READING LIST/TRACKER It’s a blank template so the idea is that anyone can create their own copy and use it in any way it works for them - adding, renaming, editing or deleting columns. I basically took this chronological list and made it into a spreadsheet so that I could filter it by: title author format (short story/novel/novella/audio drama) anthology (if it belongs to one) whether it is included in the minimalist version of this super useful guide (which includes recommended reading order and has been an invaluable resource for me) chronological order I added one anthology that was missing and tried to add at least an approximate timeframe) I also added the Primarch novels at the very end but they are numbered in order of release most prominently featured legion or primarch (there’s also “multiple” and n/a for non-legion factions etc.) reading status (ngl, the “plan to read” list is growing every day) rating - how much I had fun reading the book rating - how much I liked the idea/message of the book (bc those are two different things) any personal notes I think it’s nice that if you’re into a specific legion, you can just easily look up all stories that feature them :)) (me with Space Wolves hehe) and also see author-based patterns - be it themes or your own reading taste.

This is why Aaron Dembski Bowden is da best.

Konrad Curze lifted his dark eyes to meet his brother’s halved gaze. ‘I will brook no compromise. I will give no ground. The library will burn. 'Brother’ Magnus’ voice was a strangled plea. 'Let me send word to our father first. Let his word be the judge- ment we seek. He would never wish this library destroyed, I promise you. And I will remain with you while we wait. Neither I, nor my sons, will enter the Tower of Serenity until the Emperor sends his blessing’ 'How confident you are, the Night Haunter replied. He had gone back to looking down at his hands. The claws slashed out yet again. 'I am, Magnus confessed, passion giving heart to his tone. 'I am, brother. For decades even before my rediscovery and Prospero’s welcome into the Imperium, I spoke with father across the tides of the Great Oce Mind to mind, soul to soul. 'Soul. Curze’s chuckle was the rasp of a saw blam across bone. 'Soul. You talk such pretty nonsens brother. Spirits and tutelaries and Great Oceans an souls! Magnus rose to his feet. Gold flashed as he turne away in regret. Curze’s anaemic visage settled into a miserable mask of indulgence. 'Do you believe you are the only one to have spoken with father? That you alone know his wishes and his secrets, and what he desires us to achieve out here? Tell me truly, Magnus - do you honestly think we are all nothing but fools, capering in your shadow?“ The Crimson King’s features hardened, as did his voice. 'I speak of revelation and vision, and you speak petty words of bitterness. Brother, I’d hoped for so much more. Was your hunger to destroy not sated with the massacres you inflicted upon the people of this world?” 'Massacres,’ Curze murmured the words, 'that you did not stop. Massacres that spared ninety per cent of this world’s population and reached compliance in half the time Guilliman had estimated.’ From: The Abyssal Edge, Aaron Dembski-bowden (in sons of the emperor)

Reading more First Heretic, and the compliance right before heresy time is portrayed SO weirdly: Argel Tal: I hate it when we have to fight other humans and no one else understands. Except Acquillon. Because what if we could have PERSUADED them to JOIN? Are all my brothers brainwashed by their geneseed? What if I’m also brainwashed by my geneseed? Narration: Anyway this particular planet is full of humans that have ALIEN GENES, so we gotta kill them all regardless. Narration: We’re still gonna blame it on their ruler though. She’s fat. SO fat. And whiny. So we gotta kill them all.

I really need to re-read First Heretic and Betrayer

I am sooooooo sorry I doubted you Mr. Aaron Dembski-Bowden. I was utterly unfamiliar with your game and my bad experience with The First Heretic was, in fact, due to fundamentally flawed characters and pre-determined conflicts and not your skill as a writer

Sam reads things™ Nefertari rocks (1) ….they can’t just throw a scary winged alien lady wielding a knife in there and *not* expect me to get waaaayyy too attached (2) Tell meeeeeeee moooooore! Now we wait and find out later if we actually get to hear that tale Dammit Khayon, you can’t just say shit like that. I wanna knowwwwww. (also yeah you’re totes being normal about her, pfffft, don’t know what you’re on about. you? emotional? never ) (3) Yeah totally not intimidating, that. No sir. Also totally not hot, nope, scary alien lady clawing at the walls with her bioluminescent claws is totally not making me horny. (4) Awe. And they were friends . God forbid girls become besties whilst serving under the same sorcerer as a bloodward and a familiar. Can’t do anything these days. *sigh*

Throwing this up on tumblr in the hopes that I won’t keep losing it, because I love it so much. Angron walked over to where Lehralla dangled from her cables, bound to the auspex console. With a gentleness none of his brothers would have believed he possessed, he rested a massive hand on her shoulder. ‘You are not hurt?’ The crippled young woman, surgically implanted onto the table, raked her filthy hair back from her face. ‘No, sire,’ she replied, utterly undaunted by the demigod before her. Angron gave an ugly grin and looked back over the bridge. ‘And where is Delvarus now?’ from Betrayer by Aaron Dembski Bowden Just. Something about how Angron is capable of tenderness, but only with a fragile human, not with his transhuman brothers or genesons.

Argel Tal: ‘We will return with the answers the Legion needs. You have my word,’ he gestured to the parchment bound to his shoulder guard, ‘and my oath of moment’. ADB: btw Lorgar’s wearing lipstick! The smile remained upon the primarch’s painted lips. …. searching for this in my copy of FIRST HERETIC, Lorgar’s lips sure get mentioned a lot. Appropriate, I suppose, as that’s one place he bears the Word but still. *side-eyes ADB*

reading my first aaron dembski-bowden book and I really like his writing style, I very much understand the hype towards him. but let me go. set me free mr dembski-bowden. im 80 pages in and im on chapter 2. this is not normal or good for me

What’s the best horus heresy book and why is it the first heretic

Not that it’s important, but it is my considered opinion that anyone interested in the 40k “Horus Heresy” backstory can skip the entire turgid 64 book series and get the whole thing from the beautifully written finale, “The End And The Death” trilogy. Anyone wanting to have some more context before going in need only read the separate novel “Valdor: Birth of the Imperium”, with the option to add in “The First Heretic” and “Legion” from the main series, and the other standalone Alpharius, Head of the Hydra" (just because it’s awesome) in that order first. This gives a good size set of books that tells the whole story, with an approach to the timeline that echoes previous old masters such as Herbert and Asimov, dealing only with the important events over 50000 years (including flashbacks), rather than every single repetitive detail of a 9 year war. Also it drops all the unbearably badly written filler leaving only beautifully crafted novels by Dan Abnett, Aaron Demski Bowden, Chris Wraight, and Mike Brooks, meaning that on prose quality alone I can recommend it even to people who aren’t invested in the setting, which is impossible with the full set. (I also feel quite strongly that the main Horus Heresy series should have been ten books at most. The main throughline of the story cannot possibly be said to need more than that. Many of the numbered books in the series would genuinely have been better (if they needed to exist at all, so many of them are just bad) as standalone books in the 30k setting. That period in the setting was so dominated by the Heresy that all the great battles and little wars and other stories not directly related to Horus’ path to Terra could be excused for relying on it as background, without having to be read in any kind of sequence.)

Have you ever paid attention to how frequently the word “chain” appears in “Butcher’s Nails” and “Betrayer”? These Heresy books seem to use this word much more often than other books in the series. Chains on wrists and on weapons, chains wielded as weapons, renowned chain harpoons, chain-fights and chain-brothers, numerous metaphorical chains, and naturally billions of chainblades, chainswords, chainaxes, chainsaws, and so on. Even Word Bearers seem to enjoy wearing chains. I guess the use of “chain” as a keyword in World Eaters’ books is rich in symbolism. No matter what, the chains - a sign of slavery that Angron forced upon them, whether willing or not - will always bind the XII Legion.

Well, I’ve finished reading Echoes of Eternity and I have something to say. First, it’s a great book, and I don’t mean it’s just good or interesting. I mean “great” like the Great Crusade or the Great War (but in a good way, of course). I saw a comment on the internet that says that Aaron Dembski-Bowden “makes a mistake of cramming too much stuff in a single book”. Yes, there’s a lot of stuff in it. And it all is brilliant. The Blood Angels Legion (and Nassir Amit personal) prehistory. Kargos and Amit, their past friendship and their grievous present. Both their duels. Kargos POV being SO poetic, though it’s a poetry of decay, and destruction, and madness, and - unanticipated display of emotions so strong and so human. I read their first duel with tears in my eyes, and it was just the first time I cried (the second was after Angron and Sanguinius fight, and the third - reading Guilliman’s letter. Yes, I’m sentimental too, thanks, Lotara). And there’s so much more. What a great character is Transacta-7Y1. She is barely human, but in fact she is so relatable, so plain, and honest, and faithful. And I like her relationships with Arkhan Land, whose POV is one of the best, and Land’s relationships with Zephon. Oh, and have you seen one of her chapter’s name? A Curious Choice of Emissary! It sounds almost autistic, so suitable for a cyborg. In fact, it reminded me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and I’m sure ADB called it this on purpose. Sanguinius. How did ADB manage to write him so human and so perfect, so mighty and vulnerable at the same time? So righteous and so doubting. So worth of compassion. I always thought of him with some wryness, but now I love him. And knowing his secret love to “those who struggle to reach the perfection the others take for granted”, I know the Great Angel loves us back. And Vulkan, made of pure cardboard in other books, he became alive for me after the final episode with Magnus. So full of self-rightness and so wrong. Just like all of us sometimes. I like Lotara’s chapters less, but in any other BL author’s book, they might be the best part of it. They are bleak only compared to those I’ve written of above. So, I think we’re watching right now how ADB becomes a great writer (“great” like in “Alexander the Great” or “Charles the Great”). And, Slaanesh bless me, I need his shirtless photo (for a friend, of course).

No meme can convey the emotional ride that was. Echoes of Eternity was 11/10. No spoilers but wow. ADB crushed it as I trusted him to. It was everything I could have ever wanted.

He knew this because he’d read it in the mission data- feeds, and studying the operational data was what a good soldier had to do. Context was vital in a warzone. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Shang’s voice was a crackling purr across the vox. I don’t know, thought Sevatar. How do you tell if some- thing is beautiful? 'Yes,’ he said aloud, because he suspected that’s what he was supposed to be thinking. 'Truly a marvel.’ 'It will be a shame to pull it down’, Shang added. 'The law is the law, Sevatar replied with the instinct of repetition. From: The abyssal edge, aaron dembski-bowden (in Sons of the Emperor)

@blood-sweat-and-oil - element order came today. Night Lords omnibus, bargain! @lostdollbaby - this is partially your fault.

“Do not mistake intimacy for sensuality. There was nothing of lust in that moment. Merely raw, intimate closeness.” Talon of Horus “Eye to eye, face to face, it is the most intimate moment on Kargos’ life, a moment of intimacy without sensuality.” Echoes of Eternity Dear Mr. Bowden, I’ve made up a disclaimer for you to save your time. WARNING: this book may contain traces of intimacy, but no sensuality at all. Ingredients: blood (52%), gore (36%), cannibalism (2%), other (10%). You may place it before Dramatis Personae. You’re welcome!

Started listening to the audio of Echoes of Eternity. No spoilers but since it’s been officially out for a few days I can say THrOnE, THE GrIMDArk. ADB has really turned it up to 11 for this one. This is going to be an emotional ride.

This is where ADB really shines, the little moments between characters and the description of big events through individual acts I think other siege authors have been better at big spectacles and complex actions, but this is his time to shine really; the final desperate moments and flashbacks before the finale