I know I haven’t reviewed the books of the Horus Heresy with diligence. The words I wrote before these were on The Primarchs anthology and that was ten months and four weeks ago. Since then I’ve listened to twenty-eight of the Heresy audiobooks.
It’s not for lack of interest that I neglect the reviewing habit, because it’s not only the Warhammer books that fall victim to my negligence. I’ve fallen out of love with recording my thoughts on all of the media that I consume. I wonder at the point of this chronicling. What possible reason could I have for writing down—and sharing—my opinions?
There’s a fear of narcissim, and self-centeredness. Am I seeking approval? Validation? It’s safe to answer “no” to both of those questions, as this medium—a hand-coded personal website free from any liking/sharing/commenting functions—doesn’t give me any feedback, unlike every social media platform. The only purpose this serves is historical, and then that begs the question of why I would want to look back at these words. To that, I have no answer.
I would like to say this about the audiobook experience: it’s not as enriching as reading printed text. Though I’ve now consumed forty-eight full volumes of Games Workshop's opus, I can only claim to have caught the gist. You can count the hours I’ve spent in the gym by tallying up the runtimes of the books, adjusted for 1.5x speed playback, for that’s the only setting where I’ve consumed the content. And though physical exercise requires only a minimum of mental focus, that distraction is enough to cause me to lose plot and character details despite the strong voices of the narrators being the only sounds in my ears.
For myself, I would trust the opinions and evaluations of someone who has read and understood physical text—Space Marine-based or otherwise—over those who’ve simply listened.
The Burden of Loyalty is an excellent omnibus, but to fully appreciate it one must have read the forty-seven volumes that preceded it. I am breathing very rarified air as I pound out the miles on the treadmill; very rarified air indeed.
2024.07.25 – 2024.08.10
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