Finished reading Saturnine, some thoughts (spoilers)

My favourite moment in the whole book was Abbadon fighting tooth and nail thinking this is the end only to be teleported out and asking to be sent back.

I was dissapointed how Aximand went out rather easily and ignobly albeit to Loken. I felt Aximand deserved more.

I think over all the book had a lot of dialogue that felt like filler. I dont think there was enough action or dialogue from the traitors as I feel these books should cover their perspectives more.

I feel overall Saturnine is a book of consequences that from my perspective the traitors misplayed the siege and perhaps doomed themselves as they expected to have a longer time frame and were thus not very careful with their troops, especially the emperors children.

The writing seems a bit derpy in portraying the emps children as they just kinda get taken out and that s it. I found it incredibly lame and a cop out to just say they become incompetent and fell for a trap when their motto is perfection. I dont care if they are tainted by the warp they are still space marines and not retards they should be capable of complex tactics and adaptation, instead the book literally and I mean literally just says well Fulgrim and his legion are arrogant so nearly all 100k of them just die to Dorns trap the end. The book doesnt even really describe the Violence its literally like Fulgrim saying haha dorn I have won dorn goes Nuh uh you fell for my trap card. Then Fulgrim goes oh noes, transforms and leaves leaving 20 of his best men to try to kill Dorn.

For a book series that is supposed to be portraying warfare and violence as well as individual battles id honestly rate Saturnine as a 6/10 being generous on that front. Also the cover is a big fucking tease because Angron basially does nothing.

I feel like the book had cool concepts and cool moments but it utterly failed in portraying the Saturnine trap in any meaningful way that the reader could visualize or understand. Its not really something easily understood I mean the author just says Fulgrim threw his entire legion at a section of the wall and they were winning until they found out it was a ruse and there was a larger fortification behind it and then Dorns troops off camera killed all 100k Emps children instantly. WTF its like the author had a brain fart and didn't know how to portray what was going on.

Then Later Dorn has this retarded conversation where he says he won because Fulgrim is good but hes also always been like a wild animal which is like paper beating rock in siege warfare. This is the dumbest explanation I've ever heard considering the primarchs are supposed to be demi-gods and above humans in terms of intelligence. Abnett is basically saying a super human demi-god who was bred for war and commanding legions who has experience in conquering entire planets and is known for perfection is now suddenly an impetuous teenager chasing glory and cant think properly against another strategist and this some how makes him still good. That's literally one of the dumbest things I've ever read. Its like imagine if you had a military commander who was an excellent duelist and diplomat and lover of fine art and because hes kind of aggresive and a big showman then it somehow makes it okay for him to be a crazy fuck up sometimes who can lose an entire army in a siege because that sort of battle is not his forte. BITCH when you are commanding a human army a regular unmodified human is expected to be disiplined and know how to deal with any sort of battle and has tonnes of resources for that, considering the tech we have today and the internet this sort of warfare is understood well by normal humans. You are now writing a story about genetically modified supersoliders who are supposed to be like living gods and masters of warfare that is bred into them and you write them off like oh hes just a fuck up because its in his nature to not be good against me.

I could understand this logic if you were putting a pro against a talented rookie or the commander of the us army is going against a general from Nepal. But no you are pitting two superhuman demigods who have conquered planets and were engineered for war. Its bad form to just say well one of them is kinda incompetent because hes a brash overconfident teenager in a god's body and I won because I was super disciplined he also knows me very well and decided to not factor in my super discipline or mastery of defense. I mean come on man, again unless its Angron that's just poor form. Considering Fulgrim tricks and beats Guilliman after the siege I think you should show the source material and characters and your readers more respect.

And again im not mad that Abnett had Fulgrim lose, Im mad because the way he portrayed it in every sense is childish. If you want to portray Fulgrim as a sadistic genius who is obsessed with pleasure you can do better than having him gloat at Dorn who responds with nothing or not much further baiting Fulgrim. If Fulgrim is so smart and perfect he should see through this and attempt to bait Dorn in other ways. I mean thats all I can say is if you are going to portray the champions of Slaanesh and a Deamon prince I dont think its good writing to just say its in their nature to be fuck ups in this situation. I would say Discipline in warfare and understanding your opponent could be an apsect of perfection and excess. In the end what I'm saying is that the defeat of the emperors children is too one sided and Dorn should have lost more or felt like it was more of an investment/sacrifice doing something unexpected like blowing up his own troops to kill more of the enemy or collapsing buildings ontop of everyone to create a more indirect killing field that is gritty and hard to assail.

I didnt expect to go on a rant but I feel like that section of the book which id argue is THE main plot point, there was no real pay off there and I found pay offs in other small moments that were too few and far between. When you fuck up the big moment or main plot line of your novel it leaves a sour taste in the readers mouth. Also when you feature Angron on the cover im expecting him to do something big.