soniampride:

Let’s talk Ruinstorm

Everybody hello and welcome to the exciting world of Dorothy making a post that is a) meaningful, b) capitalized and c) longer than two sentences. This has no read more as it’s on mobile, so be warned, HERE BE SPOILEEERS.

Today our subject is Ruinstorm. I haven’t heard many opinions on it. Mostly because I finished it a day after it came out. And because it just so happens that I only just finished my whiskey as well, I have decided on a comprehensive review.

It was a good season finale. There was almost nonstop action going on, which I understand can alienate some readers. One of them is me. However, one has to realise we are reaching the final act in a galactic civil war. The Horus Heresy has been a victim to navel gazing, unending lack of things happening, in fear that if too many things happen, well, they might run out of content and thus out of money to milk out of us.

Well, Ruinstorm was not one of those books. If you ask me, it’s almost a relief. It is everything that it promises. It’s three Primarchs, against the horror of the Ruinstorm and against themselves. (Or well, four Primarchs, but Curze is never tempted by the Ruinstorm. Curze does not have it in him to be tempted by evil, as he thoroughly accepts it as the only reality.)

First things first. David Annandale is a pretty dry writer. It doesn’t bother me particularly, not after Graham McNeill’s or Dembski-Bowden’s unending theatrics. (There is a time for those as well. But back to Ruinstorm.) He is to the point. He is, above all, a horror writer. The concepts he creates, and the ideas he has for Chaos all through the Damnation of Pythos, to The Unburdened, to the Ruinstorm now, are all top notch creepy.

Special mentions go to the way too big chaos fortresses in the void, which are just fucking there, dwarfing planets and mocking reality in the face, and the Necrosphere surrounding Davin, a thick cocoon where the corpses of humans, animals, and even abstract ideas and concepts all join together in a sphere of bone. The Deamon Chaplain is another scary entity, the herald of Chaos Undivided, finally hailed as the all encompassing horror it is. (Personally, I’m sour af that we didn’t get Erebus in a book about the Ruinstorm with the tagline Destiny Unwritten BUT ANYWAY)

So there you have it. A setting that is solid in how uncanny it is, a threat that seems to be ever-present, and a writing style that seems to make it more uncanny with how dry and matter of fact it is. So that was fun.

But no story ever gets on with atmosphere alone. It needs its characters. We don’t get to see the Primarchs catch a breath in this book. If you expected banter and debate between them, there’s very little. The urgency of the situation makes them put most of their pettiness aside, not that Guilliman and Sanguinius have much in the way of that to start with. The Lion does. Each brother keeps their secrets still, closer to their breast than ever, because the secrets they have left are few and too valuable. Each of them fights with their own rationale, each has to make a choice for their soul.

Guilliman needs to choose between utility and integrity, between using his enemy’s weapons against him, when that enemy begs for him to do so. The Lion needs to choose between his cold instincts and his spirit of unity and loyalty, between ending the life of his brothers and showing mercy, understanding and trust, in a truly chilling moment of realization of scale. And Sanguinius…

Oh boy. Sanguinius. Chaos will not leave Sanguinius alone. The brightest light of the Imperium, the symbol of the best of mankind must fall, at all costs. And with his fall, he would eclipse the grandeur of Horus, he would rise and become THE Everchosen, the perfect vessel for the Gods to spread their dominion over mankind.

In Vulkan Lives, Erebus says something simple, but terrifying to think of; “It need not have been Horus.” This book brings this quote back to relevance in full force. Horus is a consolation prize to the Chaos Gods. The true prize is Sanguinius. And why is that? Because Horus is a conqueror. Sanguinius is an Emperor. Each of the Four might want Horus the most separately, as he will achieve their goals, but Chaos Undivided, the Will of the Four, the Primordial Truth itself cares not for simple war. It needs faith. It needs adoration. All love Sanguinius. To make an Everchosen of him is to steal the very soul of humanity. David Annandale understands that Chaos works in metaphors. It works in symbols and myth. Sanguinius has to make the hardest choice of all. To choose between survival, triumph, ultimate glory, and death, damnation of his children, and humility.

As the Heresy spirals to the end, Ruinstorm manages to put through the question of fate like no other book before it. Who is the master of their own fate and who is not. Is there really such a thing as being the master of your own fate, or is everything truly set in stone? Where does the future split, is there really such a thing as ineffability? It doesn’t really answer any of these questions, simply posing them for you to decide.

Curze in the meantime faces his own personal nightmare, the idea that indeed, the darkness that he sees coming for them all might, just might not be inevitable. But right as he doubts, right as he hopes for something better, it’s not Chaos that damns him, or the Emperor, or forces beyond touch and reckoning. It is Sanguinius that judges his fatalism unworthy of forgiveness, and condemns him to the fate he’d always been so fixated on.

It was a powerful book. It has its ups and downs, but the entire final arc is masterful in its own ambiguity. It’s a book that can generate discussion and provoke further thought. And it was a fitting end to three Primarchs searching for their way through themselves, and finding what they are really made of. They are not humanised too much, which is all for the best. Their concerns and fears are beyond a common mortal, they are questions for gods and monsters. But one cannot help to see themselves a little bit in their struggles. Rationality and morality, destructiveness and trust, vanity and humility, all conundrums that we’ve faced a little bit at least. We all have our own small Ruinstorm within, seeking to undermine us at every corner. But they overcome them. And in the final act, at the end of the long journey, we can only hope that we’ll be worthy enough to scream “Terra!” with them.