The Bolthole HH Book Club: 'Horus Rising'

[Erunanion]

I meant to do pretty much exactly that post yesterday, Squiggle (my bad!).

I received my copy of Deliverance Lost in the post on Wednesday, I already had Outcast dead waiting for me, and last night I picked up The Gildar Rift while in London, but yes, we must forge on with False Gods! I will have a peruse through out comments on HR over the weekend and put up a summary to maybe spark more discussion, or maybe to go on the blog if we all agree it to be a true account

In the mean time, let us plough on with False Gods - viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1458

[Therion]

Final Thoughts

Yay! I finished Horus Rising.

Here are my final thoughts.

Murder: After the disorientation of the sudden introduction of even more POV characters, coupled with that strange out-of-chronological-sequence mash of scenes preceding the Luna Wolves drop, Murder was all good fun. I did wonder what the carnivorous megarachnids ate when there weren't any marines around, as we have a planet populated with what is described as a large amount of them, everywhere, yet no food source. Ho hum I guess the marines just never noticed the rest of the ecosystem needed to support apex predators. But this isn't so important to the plot.

They don't need to be apex predators. They could be more like bees or ants. There are some larvae growing on "grass" it could be food for megarachnids.

Xenobia: Now this was very interesting. In the closing sequence of the book we see the first cracks in Horus's character. When conflict breaks out against the Interex, whom he had wanted to try to persuade peacefully to join the Imperium, Horus shouts out, 'Father why have you forsaken me?' and other words to the effect of, 'This is too hard!'

This actually happens quite abruptly now that I read it again. One moment Horus is all confidence and genius, happily slaying alien monsters on Murder with his brother, and perfectly satisfied that the Emperor is doing his important work back on Terra. The first occurrence of difficult decisions and it's all, 'Waaaagh! Daddy, I can't do it!' There was no signpost leading to this moment.

Horus was thoroughly sick of fighting advanced human civilizations through the book. The war on Murder was a relief to him because he was finally fighting against hyperviolent xenos instead of humans.
The Interex were actually human, very advanced and enlightened. Finding a way of incorporating them into the Imperium was both his great great ambition and something he considered to be a right thing to do.

Then the whole deal just suddenly exploded in his face and it wasn't possible to find a way to stop the fight from happening. It was a massive catastrophe. It condemned them to a war with another advanced human civilization and one that was admirable. It probably greatly undermined his belief in his capabilities as a Warmaster.

However, at least we see that underneath all the superhuman powers, Horus is still human at his core. Fear of failing your father's high expectations is an emotion that angsty teenagers all over the world will understand. At this point, I remember wondering when I read it the first time, 'How will he go from this to wanting to actually kill his father?'

I don't think it's about his father's expectations. I think he mostly failed his own high expectations for himself. Maybe the Emperor was much more convincing as the master of mankind or maybe he was much more ruthless.
He already wanted to find peacefully incorporate "Terra" even after Sejanus was murdered and have sent another of his officers to near certain death to try to negotiate.

He seemed to be strongly against spilling human blood. Then another war started because their hosts were accusing them of a murder and a robbery and burning of a museum.