The End and the Death: Volume III

The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra, Book 8, Part 3

By: Dan Abnett

Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble

Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Siege of Terra Book 8, Part 3

It all comes down to this final confrontation – the Emperor versus the Warmaster. The father versus the son. After 63 novels and a slew of short stories, omnibuses, audio dramas, and more – this is the End and the Death.

LISTEN TO IT BECAUSE

The Horus Heresy series reaches its dramatic climax. After years of civil war, the Emperor and Horus clash aboard the Vengeful Spirit in an epic battle of blades, wits, and wills. See how the greatest conflict of the age plays out, and follow fan-favourite characters from across the saga as they desperately try to influence the outcome.

THE STORY

The Great Angel, Sanguinius, lies slain at his brother's hand. Terra burns as reality itself unravels, and the greatest bastion of civilisation teeters on the brink of annihilation.

Desperate defenders gather, banding against the rabid traitor hordes. The Hollow Mountain, host to the pilgrims of Euphrati Keeler, is one of the last redoubts held by the Dark Angels while the unclean host of Typhus lays siege. Malcador the Sigillite sits ablaze on the Golden Throne, trying to buy his master more time. But time is running out...

Guilliman races across the stars to reinforce the Throneworld. Will he return to ashes, where a Warmaster of Chaos has ascended to godhood, or will the Emperor have triumphed? And at what cost?

©2023 Games Workshop Limited (P)2023 Games Workshop Limited

Amazing

A lovely capstone to a project long in the making. Bravo. Would highly recommend the Siege of Terra

More than does justice to this epic story

This is Dan Abnett’s magnum opus. He more than rose to the challenge of finally telling a story sketched out in fragments over the last 35+ years and closes out a journey in this series started some 18 years ago. Another master at the top of his game is Jonathan Keeble, who ruined me for ever actually READING a HH novel again. A fitting end, and (many) a death. But also a beginning. Highly recommended.

An unfitting end

Let me get the two parts I've wholeheartedly love out of the way: the reading performance was absolutely stunning, and the writing style was good too.

"So, what's wrong?", you might ask: the story itself, sadly.
I of course want to keep this review spoiler free, but: there is hardly any new lore introduced in this book, and some parts openly contradict what was established in the last two books.

Accounts in the world of Warhammer 40K are unreliable and often non-linear, but that cannot mean the Horus Heresy is concluded with a chapter that simply doesn't make sense with it's immediate predecessors. The warp may subvert all sense of logic, but we readers are not in the Empyrean.

The saddest part is that this gets to be the *definitive* account of what went down at the end of the Heresy, and the wasted potential is just unbearable.

After 70 books - is this a satisfying end?

Put simply - yes it is. No spoilers, but this does finish the series in a way that fits. They could have ended with more deviance from the established lore - but otherwise a great end.

finally the end!!!!

chefs kiss 🤌🏻 if you like any info on the minds and insights of the emperor and the primarchs.

Stellar end to an amazing series

super entertaining and a great payoff to anyone who has walked the long path of the horus heresy.

I can’t believe Horus Would Do This

Liked: The Emperor
loved: me las carbine
Hate: Horus
F***: Erebus
Simple As.

Also, is Loken dead?

Too good to put into words.

nothing I say will do this justice. anyone picking apart a book that found a way to land an ending for so many different stories is unreasonable. This was spectacular.

Absolutely perfect ending

I loved it. It was such a fitting end to the series, and an amazingly well done version of the story we already knew the broad strokes of. Abnett gave me everything I wanted along the way, and Keeble’s pitch perfect narration and dramatic chops had me completely immersed.

Perfect.

Phenomenal

After 15 years and dozens of books, Abnett brings the Horus Heresy to a satisfying conclusion. Even the ridiculous perpetual storyline was tolerable.