Cover Image: Heralds of the Siege

Heralds of the Siege

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Member Reviews

An excellent collection of Horus Heresy short fiction. Many of these I'd read before, but it was nice to revisit them in the context of the series as a whole and further reading.

The Horus Heresy series remains one of the most impressive, large-scale shared-universe SF stories ever told. Very highly recommended.

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Heralds of the Siege is a tie-in anthology in the Warhammer 40K universe and part of a huge body of collaborative work (novels, short stories, game lore) published in association with the tabletop game by Games Workshop. Released 31st March 2020 by Games Workshop as part of the Black Library, it's 432 pages and available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's unclear from the publishing info available online, but the eARC I received has a handy interactive table of contents. I hope the ebook release version does also. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. Presumably that feature will carry through to the final release version.

The quality of the stories is very high. They are well written, varied, and well curated. Of the 16 included works, only a few were from authors familiar to me. The book also includes extra lore material and background/world building history. This is a -gloriously- niche book and although some of the stories will probably bewilder non-40k-gamers, there are a number which are surprisingly accessible to readers unfamiliar with the fandom and world.

I've always had a particular fondness for collections/anthologies because short fiction is spare and technically challenging, so you get a better feel for an author's expertise with the form. Short fiction is less of a time commitment as well, so if one story is not working for you, there's another piece readily available in a few pages. Short fiction anthologies are also a rich source for finding new authors so you can search out their other works.

I really found a lot to love here and although it made me wistfully nostalgic for my hopefully temporarily vanished tabletop group (covid-19 and all), I liked being able to fill in a *LOT* of detail from the lore.

Four stars. Strong stories, generally strong writing, and good background lore.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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Heralds of the Siege is a short story collection done by some of the most well known authors of the setting. Being so late in the Horus Heresy series it covers a wide range of topics and vantage points that one can get a bit lost in if not clued up on all the current events. Some stories also lead up to the actual Siege of Terra happenings that is part of a different series. Non of the stories are bad, just a word of caution to not pick this up with no prior knowledge of what has gone before. I thank Black Library and Net Galley for giving me a chance to read this ARC.

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Heralds of the Siege is a great collection of short stories, each diving into a different legion or faction within the Horus Heresy timeframe. Fleshing out that time period seems like it has endless possabilities, and the authors really explored what was going on before the Siege of Terra ramped up. I will admit to bouncing between the book and the internet; I'd finish a story, and then, interest peaked, have to go dive into a character or faction that I didn't know as much about. Heralds of the Siege did a great job of expanding my WH30k understanding and interests, and I look forward to continuing within the Horus Heresy series.

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Must read before sivinf into the next ohase of 30k. A collection of mixed stories that builds the anticipaction for thw rest of the story while giving insight to why the evebts are unfolding

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I have to be honest and state I cheated a bit with this book, I alternated between reading and listening, my first time trying that and I it was a novel experience, the book itself is one of the better heresy anthologies in my opinion, Warhammer can be good, very good and downright outstanding this book falls into the very good as the different stories all give context to Horus approaching terra and the emperor, some are a little less engaging than others but I would happily read/listen to them all again

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