‘The End and the Death: Volume 2’ – Dan Abnett (Black Library)

 

Page Count: 737 Pages

I’ll tell you what, I know it sounds really dumb but I didn’t realise just how much I was struggling with my reading until I got new lens’ in my glasses… :o) Just seeing words suddenly come back into focus was just the best feeling and gave me a little boost to finish off some books where the bookmark has stayed on the same page for far too long. And there was only one book that I could go to first… With its small, blurry font, ‘The End and the Death Volume 2’ has been a nightmare to get to grips with but that all changed yesterday when another visit from insomnia gave me some unexpected time to finally finish the book.

Terra is besieged. Humanity’s salvation lies on a knife edge. The Warmaster Horus’ bloody seven-year crusade has led to this: the cradle of mankind, where he is to kill his father, the Emperor. With the war at this critical juncture, Sanguinius, primarch of the loyalist Blood Angels, braves the horrors of the Warmaster’s flagship, The Vengeful Spirit, with a single purpose in mind: to slay his brother Horus, decapitate the Heresy once and for all, and stop the forces of Chaos from taking Holy Terra. But at the whim of a Warmaster fallen so far from grace, the Dark Gods will not make Sanguinius’ task an easy one, and as the war edges towards its explosive, bloody conclusion, events are about to unfold that could either save humanity, or plunge it headlong into an eternity of darkness.

‘The End and the Death Volume 2’ is another compelling instalment in ‘The Siege of Terra’; one of those books where just as you think that the stakes couldn’t get any higher, the knife-edge that everything is balancing on suddenly gets a lot sharper. The only problem (apart from the state of my eyes, I’ll stop talking about them now) is that for the first half at least, the pace and structure of Volume 2 is more or less exactly the same as it was in Volume 1. And that’s fair enough, to a point, as Abnett is still managing a hell of a lot of plot and a veritable host of characters spread out across an entire planet (although sometimes they’re not, more on that later). The issue for me was that this approach meant I had the same old problems with Volume 2 as I did with the preceding book. I won’t go into that again here, just click over Here for my thoughts on Volume 1. It’s not so bad though; as we get across the halfway mark, there is a very definite move from Abnett to start trimming things down so that it’s more streamlined heading into the final stretch.

And there is a hell of a lot to like in Volume 2 as a whole. The problem, as far as this post goes, is that Abnett continues to deliver on what he did well previously and I really don’t want to just repeat what I said in the last post :o) Like I said earlier, just click on that link for a recap.

What I will mention though is how well Abnett continues to control the emergence of certain revelations and how these add to the urgency of the plot. Moments like the sudden breakthrough of the traitor forces, to the inner parts of the Palace, would appear contrived anywhere else but just work here, in part down to the groundwork that Abnett has already put in but also because he is more than up to the task. It all adds to the horror of the setting and how reality is literally breaking down around everyone.

I know I’m late to the party but the revelation of the ‘Dark King’ was delivered superbly, all the more so because it’s Ahriman who suddenly turns up to illuminate Sindermann. All of a sudden, everyone is terrified and that is the moment Abnett chooses to have Oll finally meet with the Emperor. It is masterfully done.

And I couldn’t do this post without mentioning the final showdown between Horus and Sanguinius. If you’re new to this confrontation then you’re in for a treat, that’s all there is to it. Where Abnett excels though, is laying this out for longer term fans who just know how this is going to play out. I knew where this was going but still got swept up in a mix of inevitability that still, somehow, had me hooked and wondering, what if…? Remember when I moaned about Volume 1 and Malcador spending a good 2-3 chapters trying to get the Emperor to notice him? Well, this fight spans a similar length and none of it was filler. Bloody brilliant stuff.

‘The End and the Death Volume 2’ is ‘more of the same’, good and bad, but things are moving now and you come away with a real feeling that we’re at the end of the end game (with a couple of decent cliffhangers that have got me excited for Volume 3). It’s all looking good for the final book...