# Thoughts/Review on "Unremembered Empire" and "Curze" (spoilers)



## Lux (Apr 17, 2010)

After Unremembered Empire I have few ideas I want to express.

First I will say this, there really is two entirely different Konrad Curze, and I am not referencing to Curze and the Night Haunter. There is the Curze that actually wants to fight, win, and not purposely set himself up in an attempt to get himself killed in order to avoid fate. Then there is the Curze who with all his might is trying to get himself purposely killed by his brothers in order to avoid his pre-destined fate of dying at the exact moment, at the exact place, by the exact person he has foreseen all his life. 

Thramas Campaign: "Stalemate"
Both Legions are locked in a stalemate, every win the Lion gains is gifted with an equally devastating loss from the Night Haunter. The Lion's compose is beginning to suffer, due to the lack of progress after several yeas.

Round 1: "Curze is the victor"
The Lion and Curze engage one another in combat, the fight goes back and forth but at the end Curze holds dominance and was killing the Lion. For the most part Curze wins this fight for if the Lion's subordinate had not intervened then the Lion would have likely died via strangulation.

Round 2:"The Lion is the Victor"
The Lion ambushes Curze's fleet with newly acquired "heresy" technology/sorcery, The Night Lord's lose 1/5th of their legion. Furthermore the Titan legion that was accompanying them takes heavy losses, Curze in combat with the Lion suffers 12 severe wounds and is put into a coma. The Lion is the victor during this encounter.

Round 3: "Undecided - No winner"
Curze boards the Lion's flag ship in a desperate attempt to buy his legion time to flee, the night lords boarding party meets initial success from the shock factor. However they soon become surrounded, outnumbered and begin to suffer loses. Curze engages the Lion in combat once again, neither gains an advantage over the other. However Curze seeing that the longer he fights the more causalities his sons are suffering, decides to flee the duel in order to provoke his sons into surrendering to avoid further casualties. Curze hides aboard the Lions flagship for 16 weeks, nearly staves.

Round 4: Curze Defeats the Lion and RG in combat simultaneously & trashes Vulkan.
Once the Lions fleet enters orbit of the Ultramarine capital world Curze launches a wave of drop pods, he hides among one of them and flees to the surface. Once there he begins a rampage of destruction and carnage never prior seen upon that world, this catches the attention of RG, The Lion, and Vulkan.

It is critical to note that Curze has truly accepted his fate of dying by the hand of the assassin at a later date, and thus no longer fears death and believes himself immortal till that date. Curze displays never before witnessed durability, strength, and speed by any primarch to date. He lures the Lion and the RG to a location and engages both of them in combat simultaneously. He soundly defeats RG and the lion, and inflicts major wounds upon the Lion during the battle. 

Furthermore he engages Vulkan in combat at a later time, of which Vulkan hits Curze square in the face with his Dawn Bringer thunder hammer while swinging it with all his strength. Curze takes it square in the face, laughs, and proceeds to thrash Vulkan in combat.

Yet there are more interesting displays of power to Curze aside from his insane level durability and seeming immortality to damage when he believes it is impossible for him to die prior to his vision. Curze also displays the unique ability to become darkness itself, when fighting squads of Astartes he literarly becomes a glimpse of a shadow and begins to move at such hyper sonic speeds that the astartes can barely perceive the edge of a shadow flashing appearing and vanishing around them while they are being thrown across the room and torn in half. Yet again Curze shows the ability to appear where there is any darkness, such as vanishing mid combat and appearing instantly from a sliver of darkness in the corner of a room in a different location in the city (RG's mother's quarters).

Finally Curze confronts all three primarchs simultaneously, to kill all three of them. However a daemon of the warp abducts Curze, of which Curze then kills the Daemon inside the warp. Additionally it is important to note that I place extreme significance on the word "kill", Curze truly "kills" a daemon in the warp as it is no more.

Conclusion: Was Curze over the top, as well as overpowered in this book? I do not believe so. I believe it is as the writer stated himself "This is Curze at the prime of his abilities, similar to how other primarchs have been displayed at the top of their game in their own respective books".


Powers Curze displayed in the book
1. Insane Durability to survive from and heal from any wounds as long as he believes he is immortal until his pre-conceived vision of dying to the assassin
2. Ability to become literal intangible darkness itself, not figuratively either. Curze becomes/transforms into a literal shade of darkness that is almost entirely invisible. The astartes state they are only able to see it for a moment in the very corner of their eye, as it is moving around them at super speeds tearing them to pieces and tossing them across the room. 
3. Curze throughout the novel has accepted his visions of the dark future as being unavoidable, and displays a consistent 3 second pre-cognition. As in Curze is able to know what will happen at all times 3 seconds into the future, and uses this during combat and throughout the book during his rampage.
4. Curze outright erases a daemon while in the warp after being abducted by one, then hijacks its carcass and uses it to ride through the warp away from McCragge.

Non Curze Moments
1. The Lion finally sees the logic to RG's second empire, and agrees with it however he states he doesn't believe he should be the emperor either. 
2. Both RG and the Lion state that Sanguinus should be the second emperor
3. RG states he is jealous of the Lion, and looks up to him as he is the "eldest primarch"
4. Eldrad appears and is trying to keep primarchs "alive"
5. Vulkan dies after being stabbed with the spear (forgot name), he is burried in the "unbound flame" casket. (Hints at the very end say they hear his heart beat). This was done in order to cure him of his increasingly worsening insanity that Curze inflicted upon him, thus also why he performed poorly in combat against curze.
6. RG has a mother (adopted of course), who has been kept alive with drugs and surgeries. - Curze does not like her at all.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Lux said:


> Round 1: "Curze is the victor"
> The Lion and Curze engage one another in combat, the fight goes back and forth but at the end Curze holds dominance and was killing the Lion. For the most part Curze wins this fight for if the Lion's subordinate had not intervened then the Lion would have likely died via strangulation.


Debatable really. ADB himself said it was a draw and that Curze wasn't winning to the extent you claim. But meh, i'll give you that one anyway.



Lux said:


> Round 4: Curze Defeats the Lion and RG in combat simultaneously & trashes Vulkan.
> 
> He lures the Lion and the RG to a location and engages both of them in combat simultaneously. He soundly defeats RG and the lion, and inflicts major wounds upon the Lion during the battle.


Prior to the bomb, he hadn't defeated them at all. He wasn't even winning. He was holding his ground, admirably so, but the Lion and Guilliman would have killed him given time, of that I am certain. The only reason he didn't die is because of the bomb. I also think the Lion and Guilliman were more than likely hindering each other, two fighting one usually creates this problem, assumption on my part, yes, nothing to the kind of assumptions you're leaping to. Also the Lions wounds don't even slow him down, and heal very rapidly, to the point where he doesn't even acknowledge it or worry in the slightest.



Lux said:


> Furthermore he engages Vulkan in combat at a later time, of which Vulkan hits Curze square in the face with his Dawn Bringer thunder hammer while swinging it with all his strength. Curze takes it square in the face, laughs, and proceeds to thrash Vulkan in combat.


You really should mention here that Vulkan is not even close to his peak ability. He's at his utter and complete worst in fact, no Primarch has ever been so low at the point he is. He's been killed so many times that it takes almost nothing to kill him, a fall, Damon, Narek, all kill him multiple times. He can't even fight properly he's that broken. I also can't find the line where Curze supposedly laughs after being hit. Vulkan smashes Curze with a viscous swing and Curze returns 'screaming' not laughing, he's enraged now, Vulkan then hammers even more blows into him, quite easily dominating Curze. In fact, as I read it now. Curze doesn't even hit Vulkan _once_ during that final fight. Not once. From the moment the crazed and under strength Vulkan managed to get a real weapon with which to face Curze. He dominated him, not the other way around. 



Lux said:


> Finally Curze confronts all three primarchs simultaneously, to kill all three of them. However a daemon of the warp abducts Curze, of which Curze then kills the Daemon inside the warp. Additionally it is important to note that I place extreme significance on the word "kill", Curze truly "kills" a daemon in the warp as it is no more.


Firstly, where on earth does he fight all three? At not one single point does he fight all three of them. Secondly, there is nothing to suggest that he truly kills the deamon forever. Deamons have been described as 'killed' in countless novels, never meaning they have been killed permanently, any time a deamon is killed for good, it is very much explicitly stated. Also, deamons can be killed inside of the warp, nothing is new about this either, the Grey Knights have done it, others have done it too. Lastly, there is nothing to suggest how powerful a deamon Ushpetkhar is, nothing, it could have been one of the most lower class deamons around for all we know. Though what we do know, is that it damn near killed Curze.



Lux said:


> 3. Curze throughout the novel has accepted his visions of the dark future as being unavoidable, and displays a consistent 3 second pre-cognition. As in Curze is able to know what will happen at all times 3 seconds into the future, and uses this during combat and throughout the book during his rampage.


Where does it say three seconds? Also that it is consistent throughout the whole novel. Quotes and page numbers.



Lux said:


> 4. Curze outright erases a daemon while in the warp after being abducted by one, then hijacks its carcass and uses it to ride through the warp away from McCragge.


More above on how much he defeated the deamon, pure conjecture on your part. And as for hijacking and riding it's carcase, it's pretty much described as them being spit back out into reality, nowhere does it said Curze hijacked the body or meant to be thrown clear of the warp, plus he's still on Macragge, though he initially had no idea where he was. 



Lux said:


> Non Curze Moments


You forgot to mention the most hardcore Space Wolve pack I've ever read about. Curze only killed one in the end, and they managed to inflict quite a few wounds before being mostly incapacitated by him. Beat him? No. Hardcore? hell yes.


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## Lux (Apr 17, 2010)

As for Vulkan being his weakest, I did include that bit on the "Non-Curze moments", I stated his poor performance was due to his insanity. 

Also I wouldn't say Vulkan's durability lessened, all the objects that wounded/killed him were pretty powerful. Such as the Ancient Eldar Shuriken weapons, they were stated to have been used by one of those ancient eldar lords (what is their name, the eldar version of primarchs). 

Furthermore RG also was nearly killed by a pack of Alpha legion agents, but that has to do with the fact he was unarmored, ambushed, and not prepared. Point still stands that different primarchs have different levels of durability, I rank Curze as one of the highest ranking primarchs in durability/endruance. RG on the other hand was nearly killed by bolter rounds, yes he was unarmored but compare to that Lorgar who took two fully charged Titan Plasma cannon rounds to his face point blank.

Overall this I believe is an amazing read, so action packed, and full of appearances by a plethora of different legions/primarchs.

As for Curze fighting all three, its near the end when he confronts all three if not for the daemon abducting him I believe his intention was to fight them and kill them. (keep in mind Curze throughout the book thought himself immortal due to that he wasnt at the right place/time to die yet. His visions were 100% accurate at this point, and I believe his belief in the power of his visions was so strong that it was altering reality.

IE his insane durability, no food for 18 weeks, tanking Dawnbringer to the face.

As for fighting the Lion and RG, I felt it was displayed very clearly that he dismantled both of them pretty quickly and would have killed both of them had the fight continued.

Curze was displaying psychic powers beyond anything we have seen thus far from primarchs, he was for all intents and purposes invisible while fighting the astartes. He became darkness itself and was moving at sonic speeds, to the point the astartes vision could register him nothing more than a glimpse of darkness.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Lux said:


> As for Curze fighting all three, its near the end when he confronts all three if not for the daemon abducting him I believe his intention was to fight them and kill them. (keep in mind Curze throughout the book thought himself immortal due to that he wasnt at the right place/time to die yet. His visions were 100% accurate at this point, and I believe his belief in the power of his visions was so strong that it was altering reality.


No. By this point he thought he already _had_ killed Guilliman and the Lion, he never confronted all three, Damon releases the deamon before Vulkan can keep hammering Curze, quite literally hammering him. So no, he doesn't fight them, nor do his visions ever state him killing all three. As for his visions altering reality. No, just not. Nor am I going to argue that conjecture.



Lux said:


> As for fighting the Lion and RG, I felt it was displayed very clearly that he dismantled both of them pretty quickly and would have killed both of them had the fight continued.


I really don't, they are both still coming at him, he's stalling them and that's it, and he knows it, he's fighting more to evade than actually commit, to keep them there as he knows he could never take them both out in actual combat. 



> Curze was displaying psychic powers beyond anything we have seen thus far from primarchs, he was for all intents and purposes invisible while fighting the astartes. He became darkness itself and was moving at sonic speeds, to the point the astartes vision could register him nothing more than a glimpse of darkness.


I wouldn't say beyond anything we've seen at all. You've already pointed out Lorgar producing a kine shield that took two plasma blasts from a titan, granted it failed on the second and severly wounded him, point still stands though. You have all the insane shit Magnus can do. And whilst Curze is *nearly* invisible to the Astartes, Corax _is_ invisible to Astartes if he wishes, quite completely, just try and think of the utter chaos and carnage he can make by being totally invisible. Hell just imagine if Corax thought like Curze did, feeling Terror as a weapon.


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## Lux (Apr 17, 2010)

You are not taking into account the full power Curze displayed, yes Corax could cloud the minds of others so that they believed they couldnt see him, corax never for all intents and purposes tangibly vanishes.

Curze on the other hand becomes absolute tangible darkness, not a trick of the mind as Corax performs. Additionally Corax has never shown the ability to be able to meld into any shadow of darkness, no matter how small and travel between the shadows. Curze slipped into a shadow in one area and came out of a small sliver of shade inside of RG's mothers house. 

They are two entirely different power sets, Corax is able to cast an illusion on the mind, which never seems to work on primarchs. Curze on the other hand can turn into real tangible darkness that can move at super sonic speeds, and is able to go into other shadows and traverse between them to cover large distances.


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## DeathJester921 (Feb 15, 2009)

Lux said:


> You are not taking into account the full power Curze displayed, yes Corax could cloud the minds of others so that they believed they couldnt see him, corax never for all intents and purposes tangibly vanishes.
> 
> Curze on the other hand becomes absolute tangible darkness, not a trick of the mind as Corax performs. Additionally Corax has never shown the ability to be able to meld into any shadow of darkness, no matter how small and travel between the shadows. Curze slipped into a shadow in one area and came out of a small sliver of shade inside of RG's mothers house.
> 
> They are two entirely different power sets, Corax is able to cast an illusion on the mind, which never seems to work on primarchs. Curze on the other hand can turn into real tangible darkness that can move at super sonic speeds, and is able to go into other shadows and traverse between them to cover large distances.


So basically what you describe Curze as being able to do, is what Sharrowkyn (the raven guard marine) is able to do in Angel Exterminatus. Wraith Slipping. I'm willing to bet that if Sharrowkyn (among others as is stated in Angel Exterminatus) is able to wraith slip, then Corax could as well.


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## Veteran Sergeant (May 17, 2012)

I'm not going to lie, Unremembered Empire sounds awful. Why are the primarchs turning into cartoon characters?

The Night Haunter fluff has changed from "Foresaw his own death" to "Is literally fucking invincible because he can't be killed except by some nebulous future assassin"?

Yeah, that's fucking stupid. The Black Library done gone full retard. First they ruined the Alpha Legion, and now it looks like they want to ruin the last cool Chaos Primarch.


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## DeathJester921 (Feb 15, 2009)

Veteran Sergeant said:


> I'm not going to lie, Unremembered Empire sounds awful. Why are the primarchs turning into cartoon characters?
> 
> The Night Haunter fluff has changed from "Foresaw his own death" to "Is literally fucking invincible because he can't be killed except by some nebulous future assassin"?
> 
> Yeah, that's fucking stupid. The Black Library done gone full retard. First they ruined the Alpha Legion, and now it looks like they want to ruin the last cool Chaos Primarch.


Er, don't put much stock into what Lux says in most of his posts. It brings up interesting fluff debates, which is probably the only good that comes from his posts and his threads.


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## Lux (Apr 17, 2010)

DeathJester921 said:


> So basically what you describe Curze as being able to do, is what Sharrowkyn (the raven guard marine) is able to do in Angel Exterminatus. Wraith Slipping. I'm willing to bet that if Sharrowkyn (among others as is stated in Angel Exterminatus) is able to wraith slip, then Corax could as well.


Wraith slipping is moving from shadow to shadow.

Curze was pure darkness in broad day light, he wasnt just moving from shadow to shadow...he was pure darkness moving at super sonic speeds in combat while tearing marines apart.

P.S. The writer stated that he wanted to make Unremembered empire very similar to a comic, with the primarchs being comic book heroes battling one another.


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## DeathJester921 (Feb 15, 2009)

Lux said:


> Wraith slipping is moving from shadow to shadow.
> 
> Curze was pure darkness in broad day light, he wasnt just moving from shadow to shadow...he was pure darkness moving at super sonic speeds in combat while tearing marines apart.
> 
> P.S. The writer stated that he wanted to make Unremembered empire very similar to a comic, with the primarchs being comic book heroes battling one another.


Still sounds like a load of crap. All it sounds like to me is either he's able to wraith slip adding in his primarch's speed to appear as just a total blur of darkness, or its just his ridiculous primarch speed slipping around the marines and staying in their blind spots the entire time.

How about to give us an idea, post the actual pages for once so we have more to go off of.


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## Veteran Sergeant (May 17, 2012)

DeathJester921 said:


> Er, don't put much stock into what Lux says in most of his posts. It brings up interesting fluff debates, which is probably the only good that comes from his posts and his threads.


It's not his interpretation I'm concerned with, it's the idea that Curze is indeed getting in fights, and being murdered over and over because he knows he can't die. That's ridicutarded. Even ridicutardawful.

This series seems like it's running off the fucking rails because they've already run out of stories to tell but aren't willing to 



 and just have the Battle of Terra instead of dragging the plot line out by inventing more battles to write more books to sell about.


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## DeathJester921 (Feb 15, 2009)

Veteran Sergeant said:


> It's not his interpretation I'm concerned with, it's the idea that Curze is indeed getting in fights, and being murdered over and over because he knows he can't die. That's ridicutarded. Even ridicutardawful.
> 
> This series seems like it's running off the fucking rails because they've already run out of stories to tell but aren't willing to get on with it and just have the Battle of Terra instead of dragging the plot line out by inventing more battles to write more books to sell about.


It doesn't sound to me as if he's dieing over and over. Go read reviews elsewhere. If anything, some people are complaining that he seems invincible in his fights.

Hell, AoB and anyone else here who has read the book (I have not read it myself) will probably tell you the same thing.


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## Lux (Apr 17, 2010)

DeathJester921 said:


> It doesn't sound to me as if he's dieing over and over. Go read reviews elsewhere. If anything, some people are complaining that he seems invincible in his fights.
> 
> Hell, AoB and anyone else here who has read the book (I have not read it myself) will probably tell you the same thing.


I never said Curze dies over and over, I am saying Curze truly believes he cannot die and that he can only die at the exact place and time as he has seen in his vision. Thus he is tanking extreme damage without dying, and is surviving things that would kill most primarchs.

Curze was fighting multiple primarchs simultaneously and winning, showing extreme cunning and intelligence. As well as showing amazing hyper sonic speeds and the ability to turn into darkness incarnate.

Tanks dawnbringer to the face, goes without eating for 18 weeks, falls off a sky scraper, explosions, fightings a primarch killing squad of space wolves, etc.

Curze really did beat down Gulliman, The Lion, and Vulkan, all the while destroying McCragge because he knows he can't die except at the time and place in his vision.


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## DeathJester921 (Feb 15, 2009)

Lux said:


> I never said Curze dies over and over, I am saying Curze truly believes he cannot die and that he can only die at the exact place and time as he has seen in his vision. Thus he is tanking extreme damage without dying, and is surviving things that would kill most primarchs.


I never said you did. That is what Veteran Sergeant got from your post, I explained otherwise citing other peoples complaints about the Curze in the book.


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## locustgate (Dec 6, 2009)

Generally one should never read a Lux comment sober. Note not talking about alcohol.


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## sadLor (Jan 18, 2012)

Veteran Sergeant said:


> It's not his interpretation I'm concerned with, it's the idea that Curze is indeed getting in fights, and being murdered over and over because he knows he can't die. That's ridicutarded. Even ridicutardawful.


I think it should be his interpretation you should be concerned about. It's almost like he read a completely different book.

Curze's actions are extremely consistent with his "stalker and hunter, sower of terror and discord" role in the book.

First, the fight with the Lion and Guilli. The entire point was to lure the two into a building rigged with explosives. It's hardly him getting into a fair fight. Even before the explosives went off, the fight was pretty even. He scored some hits, a neck wound on the Lion being the most severe, but they wounded Curze as well.

Second, his visions. The book very clearly states he has false visions but he is able to better read the visions now. They are not 100% absolute. In fact, Curze even mentions how he can't see Vulkan in his visions. 

Third, his fight in the residential house. Curze flat out flees from the area crowded with space marines and goes to the residence house, which he assumes to be devoid of space marines, to kill the civilian staff there. Again, pretty consistent with Curze's character.

Fourth, his fight with Vulkan. Curze did not go looking for this fight. Vulkan surprises Curze at the residence house and that's how the fight got started. In fact, Curze tries to flee from the Vulkan fight by jumping on a stormbird away from Vulkan.

Fifth, the last fight. Lux flat out completely makes up a scene. Curze never confronted all 3 primarchs. He didn't even confront 1. Vulkan had been fighting with the 2 perpertuals and a loyalist word bearer. The word bearer blows Vulkan's head off. It's right after that scene...THAT is when Curze confronts them. He confronts one space marine and 2 (in his mind) humans. He waits in the shadows for the big bad Vulkan to get incapacitated before he makes his move... Again, consistent with his character.

Sixth, the demon. The demon's "death" is no different from any other demon's death shown in any of the other HH books. Here's the quote from the book. "The torn and wet mass of Ushpetkhar, choking on its own black ichor, shuddered and died, collapsing backwards into the warp and closing the tear behind it."

That's it. It dies in the material world and disappears back into the warp. Pretty standard.


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## Veteran Sergeant (May 17, 2012)

Lux said:


> I never said Curze dies over and over, I am saying Curze truly believes he cannot die and that he can only die at the exact place and time as he has seen in his vision. Thus he is tanking extreme damage without dying, and is surviving things that would kill most primarchs.


Either way is god damned stupid.


Basically, Vulkan and Curze are now cartoon characters. Which puts them in line with Alpharius and Omegon who have been cartoon characters for a while, and Angron who has _always_ been a cartoon character (he was forgiven since he comes from a time when it was okay to be named Angron, the Daemon Prince of the Chaos God of being angry).

Who's next?


Shit's done gone off the rails, lol. Haven't finished it yet, but I can only imagine where it goes wrong from here.


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## zerachiel76 (Feb 12, 2010)

It sounds like they're filling the remaining time between Terra and Istvaan with everyone attacks Ultramar?

Just so I'm clear, why is Vulkan crazy? Is this a side effect of the events in Vulkan lives or something else?

I didn't realise there was a way of weakening a Primarch like that.

Also why are the perpetuals and the loyalist Word Bearer trying to kill Vulkan anyway?

This book sounds bizarre.


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## sadLor (Jan 18, 2012)

zerachiel76 said:


> It sounds like they're filling the remaining time between Terra and Istvaan with everyone attacks Ultramar?
> 
> Just so I'm clear, why is Vulkan crazy? Is this a side effect of the events in Vulkan lives or something else?
> 
> ...


It's a decent book but honestly, there was a little too much going on for my taste. I haven't read Vulkan Lives(my next read) yet but this book does an okay (not great) job of explaining why Vulkan went crazy. Curze tortured and killed Vulkan a bunch of times... now he's crazy. The perpetuals are working under the order of the Cabal. 

The loyalist Word Bearer... I honestly have no idea. He comes out of nowhere and says he wants to kill Lorgar and needs John Grammaticus' help. So he decides to help John kill Vulkan first so John would help him. Honestly, I was baffled by this character.


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## Matcap (Aug 23, 2012)

sadLor said:


> It's a decent book but honestly, there was a little too much going on for my taste. I haven't read Vulkan Lives(my next read) yet but this book does an okay (not great) job of explaining why Vulkan went crazy. Curze tortured and killed Vulkan a bunch of times... now he's crazy. The perpetuals are working under the order of the Cabal.
> 
> The loyalist Word Bearer... I honestly have no idea. He comes out of nowhere and says he wants to kill Lorgar and needs John Grammaticus' help. So he decides to help John kill Vulkan first so John would help him. Honestly, I was baffled by this character.


Vulkan lives is one of the direct predecessors to this book. 




The loyalist Word Bearer and his relation to Grammaticus gets explained in there.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

sadLor said:


> It's a decent book but honestly, there was a little too much going on for my taste. I haven't read Vulkan Lives(my next read) yet but this book does an okay (not great) job of explaining why Vulkan went crazy. Curze tortured and killed Vulkan a bunch of times... now he's crazy. The perpetuals are working under the order of the Cabal.
> 
> The loyalist Word Bearer... I honestly have no idea. He comes out of nowhere and says he wants to kill Lorgar and needs John Grammaticus' help. So he decides to help John kill Vulkan first so John would help him. Honestly, I was baffled by this character.


Yeah you probably should have read _Vulkan Lives_ first, as Vulkan, Curze, Narek and Grammaticus are all main characters of the novel, with many of the events having a direct impact on this novel and the characters motivations.

See, this is why I always advise everyone to read the Heresy series in release order.


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## Veteran Sergeant (May 17, 2012)

_Vulkan Lives_ is incredibly skippable, lol. If you need the context, read one of the summaries on the Warhammer Wiki. Reading _Vulkan Lives_ could represent a number of hours you won't get back. I'm only lucky I was able to listen to it while doing some other stuff.


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## Over Two Meters Tall! (Nov 1, 2010)

Angel of Blood said:


> Yeah you probably should have read _Vulkan Lives_ first, as Vulkan, Curze, Narek and Grammaticus are all main characters of the novel, with many of the events having a direct impact on this novel and the characters motivations.
> 
> See, this is why I always advise everyone to read the Heresy series in release order.


It would make absolute sense, with no spoilers, about why Grammaticus is trying to kill Vulcan... he's the most vulnerable loyalist Primarch who's destruction would further advance their interests. In this way, I could see the Cabal broadening even beyond the Alpha Legion and actively allying with other Chaos forces.


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