Eidolon. The Auric Hammer opinion

[Sea Dragon]

I just finished reading this novel, and left me a bittersweet aftertaste. The first half of it felt extremely slow, although at least it included some interesting character descriptions. Along the second part it got way better, even if it suffered from the classic "bolter porn" most of the Heresy novels have in spades. But closer to the end (I shan´t include spoilers) it finally got really interesting, with the appearance of an important and fascinating character and Eidolon finally being badass, instead of just a coarse ruin of a man.

What I speacially like was how the two extremes of the legion, noise marines and obsessively dexterous palatine blades, are represented. Vocipheron´s (the palatine blade) character is very well built, efficient and credible. Also, his armor description is one of the most aesthetically pleasing slaaneshi ideas I´ve seen in a while, based on kintsugi art (like they did in Ahsoka´s series with Thrawn´s soldiers, if you are into Star Wars). Vocipheron´s character also gets a load of development towards the end, and not in the way I expected.

On the other hand, I loved the noise marine protagonist, Plegua. He is a bit more rational and operative than the super-detached and mystical noise marines in Renegade, and still as fascinating as all of them, specially regarding the descriptions of his voice, talks and combat actions. he also has the absolute best quote in the entire novel (imo):
‘Do not worry, little mortal,’ he murmured, distracted as he began to cut –
as he began to milk the man’s howls into the glory of the ever-louder song.
‘I am not here simply to make you suffer. I am here to make you sing.’
Our man Plegua hits hard here lol.

All in all, I´d say it is a mid novel. Not bad to read in a saturday afternoon, but not a magistral opus of literature either. Sadly, it doesn´t contain much extra or new lore for EC or Slaanesh, and the plot revolving Eidolon feels kinda tame.

If someone else has read it, I would love to know your opinions!

 

[Korra]

This one I still have to get! Was really surprised the Luxury edition didn´t sell out immediately, and now I´m waiting to receive mine

 

[MolotovKraken]

After finishing the book and mulling it over, it's a marked improvement over Lord of Excess but not without issue. I'd agree that it's kinda mid.

The beginning does an alright job establishing the characters, the current state of things and the mystery of the shattered king and I think the most memorable and best aspects come from it's ending.

I found the middle a tad meandering and after thinking it over I think it comes from the problem that Tatricala is an unimpressive world with no bite to it, the legionaries land walk through the opposition and occasionally take some skin, the world doesn't stand out even with the descriptions of it from the great crusade as something that if taken would gain a general the Lord Commander rank but instead another world that would be taken in a few assaults, given an number and left to the imperial army to clean up and the debauchery laid upon it by the corrupted legionaries is standard affair. The Tatricalans as a people are barebones fodder with little detail given to them aside from being wallsmen on an insular world ladden with defenses and even these apparent defenses have little relevance.

Von Kalda is probably the stand out among the supporting cast. While the other 3 commanders while effective at contrasting Eidolon, as the author intended, they never really get beyond the 3 major archetypes of the corrupted legion, the unreliable hedonist, the swordsmen maintaining himself in the face of corruption in the vein of Ravasch Cario and the kakophoni that cares for little but the song in the vein of the likes of Ramos.

 

[Sea Dragon]

After finishing the book and mulling it over, it's a marked improvement over Lord of Excess but not without issue. I'd agree that it's kinda mid.

The beginning does an alright job establishing the characters, the current state of things and the mystery of the shattered king and I think the most memorable and best aspects come from it's ending.

I found the middle a tad meandering and after thinking it over I think it comes from the problem that Tatricala is an unimpressive world with no bite to it, the legionaries land walk through the opposition and occasionally take some skin, the world doesn't stand out even with the descriptions of it from the great crusade as something that if taken would gain a general the Lord Commander rank but instead another world that would be taken in a few assaults, given an number and left to the imperial army to clean up and the debauchery laid upon it by the corrupted legionaries is standard affair. The Tatricalans as a people are barebones fodder with little detail given to them aside from being wallsmen on an insular world ladden with defenses and even these apparent defenses have little relevance.

Von Kalda is probably the stand out among the supporting cast. While the other 3 commanders while effective at contrasting Eidolon, as the author intended, they never really get beyond the 3 major archetypes of the corrupted legion, the unreliable hedonist, the swordsmen maintaining himself in the face of corruption in the vein of Ravasch Cario and the kakophoni that cares for little but the song in the vein of the likes of Ramos.

Agreed on Kalda, shame there isnt more development to his character.

 

[Snackelwolf]

Excellent, I'll still read it. I wonder if it is available on Audible.

 

[Sea Dragon]

Excellent, I'll still read it. I wonder if it is available on Audible.

Looks like there is audible version available: https://www.blacklibrary.com/new-titles/the-horus-heresy/ebook-eidolon-the-auric-hammer-eng-2024.html (Black Library - Eidolon The Auric Hammer (eBook))

 

[Snackelwolf]

Looks like there is audible version available: https://www.blacklibrary.com/new-titles/the-horus-heresy/ebook-eidolon-the-auric-hammer-eng-2024.html (Black Library - Eidolon The Auric Hammer (eBook))

Downloaded it several hours ago. I forgot to check the quality of the narrator -- I hope it wasn't a mistake. Usually for this genre the are solid and well done. Thanks for the link.

 

[LSM]

...While the other 3 commanders while effective at contrasting Eidolon, as the author intended, they never really get beyond the 3 major archetypes of the corrupted legion, the unreliable hedonist, the swordsmen maintaining himself in the face of corruption in the vein of Ravasch Cario and the kakophoni that cares for little but the song in the vein of the likes of Ramos.

I'm curious to see how Vocipheron is handled, when I read the book. (I prefer paperbacks, so it'll no doubt be awhile.)

It's interesting that you bring up Cario (I assume) as a major archetype of the Legion, considering that in the end of The Path of Heaven... Cario chooses to kill himself, no longer seeing a place for that sort of ideology in the Emperor's Children.

“...Cario's art was of a different kind – the disinterested pursuit of martial perfection, immune to the vagaries of battle-lust. It was one of the great galactic ironies that the doctrine, once shared universally by the Legion, had been changed into the pursuit of unbridled excess...

“Every soul he had ever ended, he had done so as the mortal warrior he had been from the start, bearing the colours of the Legion as they had been forged on Chemos. Throughout all – the great Turn, the slaughter of the Terra-cleavers, the march towards the Throne – he had been himself: Ravasch Cario, Palatine Blade, most perfect warrior of the most perfect Legion, devoted to nothing but the quest for exactitude.

“He regretted nothing, no choices, no kills, for he had wished for all of it. But no longer... he would die as he had lived – the true and only Child of the Emperor...

“'Unsullied,' he gasped with his last breath, and knew no more.”

 

[Sea Dragon]

I'm curious to see how Vocipheron is handled, when I read the book. (I prefer paperbacks, so it'll no doubt be awhile.)

It's interesting that you bring up Cario (I assume) as a major archetype of the Legion, considering that in the end of The Path of Heaven... Cario chooses to kill himself, no longer seeing a place for that sort of ideology in the Emperor's Children.

Oh yeah, Vocipheron and Curio are based on the same idea of a quasi-zen sword master. But you´ll see (0 spoilers) that Vocipheron ends up with a lot going on! There are also some references to War in Heaven along the whole novel, it being one of the most important endeavours Eidolon undertook with his command.

 

[MolotovKraken]

I'm curious to see how Vocipheron is handled, when I read the book. (I prefer paperbacks, so it'll no doubt be awhile.)

It's interesting that you bring up Cario (I assume) as a major archetype of the Legion, considering that in the end of The Path of Heaven... Cario chooses to kill himself, no longer seeing a place for that sort of ideology in the Emperor's Children.

You've got Cyrius' lot being the third of the legion aiming holding itself together as a proper force to fight the war in compare to Julius' "let's go full daemon like dad" and Eidolons "screw you I do what I want". Issue is we get no details on them in comparison to Eidolons forces.

 

[LSM]

You've got Cyrius' lot being the third of the legion aiming holding itself together as a proper force to fight the war in compare to Julius' "let's go full daemon like dad" and Eidolons "screw you I do what I want". Issue is we get no details on them in comparison to Eidolons forces.

Aside, but I'm curious about Curius's lore... though I assume the answer is "BL editors aren't particularly strict, so the canon's all wonky."

But in Khârn: Eater of Worlds, Cyrius's one underling is a character (and the highlight of the story). It's said that he got separated from Cyrius at the end of the Siege, and had to pick up a ride out of there with the World Eaters. (Before rejoining the Third at Skalathrax.)

Buuuuuhhhuuuuut...

Slaves to Darkness has this passage, suggesting that Cyrius should be dead around the middle of the Heresy (emphasis mine):

“Fulgrim stared at him, contempt burning in the gaze. Then he shook his hair out and tilted his head back. His throat rippled. Wet red gills opened. Pouches of skin inflated. Fulgrim called into the abyss. It had no true sound, but reality blurred and vibrated as its silent note rose... It was a command, a call to gather like the cry of a wolf to its pack. Sensations and images came with it, fragments of nightmares and joy: the taste of a fruit picked just as it ripened, the gasp of someone dying in strangled terror, the warmth of flesh against the razor’s edge.

“Out the call went, piercing time and space. It vibrated through the gene-laced blood of Fulgrim’s bastard sons. On his throne Eidolon heard it, and blood flooded the whites of his eyes. In the sound-drowned ruins of Nus, Glorocletian, Apex of the Crescendio, heard the cry over the sounds of shattering stone and the screams of the dying. On Netis’ black sands, Lucius looked up from the scattered limbs on the ground beneath his sword. The faces on his armour swirled and echoed the call. In a thousand places of suffering, the children of the Emperor heard and raised themselves from the pleasure of their slaughter. They rose with bitterness in their hearts, with joy, with apathy, but rise they did. Ships broke from the orbits of mutilated worlds. Scattered fleets came about as they rode the frayed remnants of the Ruinstorm. From across the burning Imperium, the Emperor’s Children heeded the demand, and the promise, of their primarch.

Lucius can't be in the Armour of Shrieking Souls until after he's possessed Cyrius, and he's in it in Slaves to Darkness.

 

[MolotovKraken]

Aside, but I'm curious about Curius's lore... though I assume the answer is "BL editors aren't particularly strict, so the canon's all wonky."

But in Khârn: Eater of Worlds, Cyrius's one underling is a character (and the highlight of the story). It's said that he got separated from Cyrius at the end of the Siege, and had to pick up a ride out of there with the World Eaters. (Before rejoining the Third at Skalathrax.)

Buuuuuhhhuuuuut...

Slaves to Darkness has this passage, suggesting that Cyrius should be dead around the middle of the Heresy (emphasis mine):



Lucius can't be in the Armour of Shrieking Souls until after he's possessed Cyrius, and he's in it in Slaves to Darkness.

Lucius by reflection Crack's is already in armour covered in screaming faces and by Crimson King he's been mutated to almost resemble his 40k form until Sanacht made him into a little Fulgrim. McNiell in his speed running of the legions corruption has just kinda borked Lucius' character and French seems to have leant into it by giving allowing the carved faces to scream earlier than they should. We still don't have him leading an assault squad in the phoenix guard despite the 3.5 codex and instead got him alone running around with the thousand sons. His HH model also shouldn't be bald at the point it's depicting.

''Many millennia ago, Lucius was a Space Marine of the Emperor's Children Legion, following his Primarch Fulgrim across the galaxy in the name of the Emperor. He led his bodyguard of Assault Marines with such passion and skill that Fulgrim honoured him with the rank of Lord Commander.''

''His hair was lacquered black and his lips full, giving him a smile that would have been arrogant had his skill been any less''

''Lucius had only recently begun to ornament his armour, its plates strikingly adorned with madly screaming faces stretched beyond all recognition.''

''Lucius had his sword drawn fractionally faster, and his loathsome whip coiled in the air like a serpent. Lucius grinned, the web of self-inflicted scars turning it into a rictus leer as he saw Sanakht approach – His silver blade sliced the slender ceramic-and-steel calves of another yokai. Lucius landed lightly, spinning with both arms extended and a reptilian leer splitting the reticulated skin of his hairless skull. He snapped his wrist and the lash coiled around its ebon handle in a manner altogether too organic for Sanakht’s liking. He grinned and his lizard-like tongue swept over sharpened teeth. Lucius sprang to his feet, massaging the scorched patch of skin at his neck. said Lucius, his almost reptilian eyes flicking towards the walls of mirrors. Oily skin, dense muscle mass, meat and gristle, ossified bones and blue glistening organs that had no place inside this grotesquely enlarged transhuman frame. And every part of it rotting to pulp with every breath.''

 

[LSM]

"His hair was lacquered black and his lips full, giving him a smile that would have been arrogant had his skill been any less''.

Aside: anyone else ever wondered if this was a typo? "Lacquered back", instead of "black"?

Also... the wording in the 3.5 Codex is ambiguous. "He led his bodyguard..." could be read as Lucius leading Fulgrim's bodyguard, but it could also be read as him leading his own bodyguard. (Not that he has a bodyguard in the HH series either... Phil Kelly certainly created a Chosen Retinue for Lucius, though as far as I know Vaust the Bull was the only one ever shown off.)

 

[Sea Dragon]

Aside: anyone else ever wondered if this was a typo? "Lacquered back", instead of "black"?

Also... the wording in the 3.5 Codex is ambiguous. "He led his bodyguard..." could be read as Lucius leading Fulgrim's bodyguard, but it could also be read as him leading his own bodyguard. (Not that he has a bodyguard in the HH series either... Phil Kelly certainly created a Chosen Retinue for Lucius, though as far as I know Vaust the Bull was the only one ever shown off.)

Both black and back are good possibilities I guess, although black has rather more sense I´d say, in conjunction with laquered, since black laquer is a luxury product widely used in art, with a shining black look (much alike hair), while lacquered back would entail he is using lacquer to hold the hair back, wich would be a bit strange use for lacquer (although still possible, just a way of describing how shiningly and sturdily some lotion is keeping the hair backwards).

 

[LSM]

Both black and back are good possibilities I guess, although black has rather more sense I´d say, in conjunction with laquered, since black laquer is a luxury product widely used in art, with a shining black look (much alike hair), while lacquered back would entail he is using lacquer to hold the hair back, wich would be a bit strange use for lacquer (although still possible, just a way of describing how shiningly and sturdily some lotion is keeping the hair backwards).

Google tells me that "lacquered" is used in British English synonymously with "hair sprayed", and that "hair lacquer" is a synonym of "hair spray".

 

[Sea Dragon]

Google tells me that "lacquered" is used in British English synonymously with "hair sprayed", and that "hair lacquer" is a synonym of "hair spray".

Oh, didn´t know that, thank you!

 

[Korra]

Finally was able to read this one, after dealing with a huge book backlog! Loved it, it is making me so excited for the new Fulgrim novel! In this one I really loved all the character developments, really gives insight into that wonderful "Slaanesh marine" mind!