Galaxy in Flames by Ben Counter
My rating: 8.5 of 10 ⭐
My rating: 8.5 of 10 ⭐
Pages : 352
Year : 2018
Genre : Thriller
Series : Horus Heresy 3/54
Divided between 8 or 9. Probably more 8.5.
So what's this book about, well it's the culmination of this first and unique trilogy within the main series. If you have to read 3 novels, these three novels set stuff in motion. Later books will enhance some storylines here or give more feedback on stuff that happened between this point until the siege of terra. Are they all important? No. The vast majority, if not all, will say that you only have to read around 12 of them to get the full grasp of every intervenient.
So what's this about? Well, Horus have fallen to Chaos, to be honest he hasn't fallen, he is more using it to further his goals, he was duped by Erebus and, being a power hungry being that has daddy issues uses Chaos topple the emperor. Meanwhile he is doing that.. falling... he is trying to understand which of his brothers he can trust and who cannot. He is also trying to understand who among their recruits will not follow him. So in this novel, we basically have a battle between factions within the Luna Wolves, World Eaters, Death Guard and Emperor's Children. All other chapters are not even mention. We know that Space Wolves have gone to Thousand Sons homeplanet (interesting to know that Horus does not believe the thousand sons will be their partners (probably thing Space Wolves are) and the blood angels we don't know. He also states that he can't trust Ultramarines. Everyone else is blank card. So future novels will deal with that.
So, his novel was interesting to read. First of all , the three writers, try to make horus fall a bit of a tragic. IT could go either way kind of situation. One character I didn't enjoy reading about was Abaddon - which strangely enough becomes the Big Bad Guy in the 40k millennium.
We also get a bit of information of some loyalist like Garro, Tarviz, Torgaddon & of course Loken. We also get information on some humans that want to warm the Emperor, several of them the first believers that the Emperor is a God. Here is a difference between space marines & humans. Humans want to warm the emperor of Horus betrayal and thing he is a god. Space marines, loyalists, want to warm the emperor but don't believe he is a god.
In terms of "falling" I can get Emperor Children, I can get World Eaters and Sons of Horus. Death Guard? I don't know... (I think I know why, since I've already read stuff but this novel didn't show that). I liked the novel, don't get me wrong but I think some stuff should have been explained more, maybe there wasn't space or they didn't want since other novels will explain those topics or situations I've mentioned.
The ending is a bit heart-breaking and probably my favourite character was Lucius. Lucius first was deemed a loyalist but we know he exist in 40K as a chaos champion, so something happened, and thus we are show here.
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