Mortis: The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra, Book 5

Good book, ties a lot of cool plot lines together before they spread out again in warhawk.

…..the more you’ve been paying attention.With the title “Mortis” a lot of expectation for this book was that it’d be Titans , Titans and more Titans. They’re in here a lot but as an aside to the build up to the final stage of the siege.Horus forces are finally able to deploy Titans now that they control the space ports , leaving Dorn few options to counter them. As Legio Mortis Warmaster Titans close on the wall an unexpected new force enters the battlefield.Speaking of new forces , without direct spoilers, the legion that showed up in book 4 makes a direct attack on the Chaos held Astronomicon facility with a suicidal air assault , aiming to relight the beacon. Success means the Ultramarine retribution fleet will reach Terra faster.Against the back drop of the war he reader is shown more about life going on within the palace as law and order break down and sheer hopelessness is replaced by crazy outbreaks of violence. As ever, there’s a plan to bring hope to the regular humans but it means going against what the Imperium stands for. Nobody expects the Inquisition….. because it doesn’t exist yet ?Finally Ol Pearson’s band close in on their final destination , a Chaos infested hive aside giving the reader greater insight to the Emperor’s early days and linking in to the Eisenhorn/Ravenor series with a discovery.Each of the three sections in the book is prefaced with a warp based symbolic interlude as the Emperor holds the broken webway psychic gate shut whilst Horus looks on, confident of victory.As the book draws to a close the defenders are outmatched with the last hopes they had defeated. The Emperor struggling. New allies betrayed.Have faith in The Emperor , and a dagger that can cut between points ;)Enemy 0km to wall…..

John French has, with this novel, written two siege of terra books, and he is, undisputedly, masterful, in his handling of the story. However, I think that the larger scale fights lack a certain brightness and immediacy that they had in The Solar War. Not the brightness of theme, but a vividness: I found these Titan v Titan fights harder to imagine in my mind.That said, this book is still excellent, and a must-read.

The Siege of Terra series has been much better than I expected. It’s avoided the dragged out, filler books of some of the later Horus Heresy ones. This book is well written and brings together the Siege and the Titan Death novel.

I enjoyed it, but for me personally I think it's the weakest of the Seige of Terra novels so far.

I like all the siege of terra books……… but, I find it feels like a missed opportunity. We have the largest battle ever recorded with deeds and legends being born every moment yet they seem to pass over it so quickly. 4/5 books in and it feels like we’re half way through.Maybe I’m asking too much but these books could have been stretched out to 10 books adding in so much more story, intrigue and action. Almost feels they’re rushing through it now.Mortis is good, but it’s the sub plots that are best. You find out a bit more about the emperor and how the legions/primarchs were made. Very interesting.

Loved this book. Great piece of pure science fiction, well written and advances the story from where it is to where it has to get to. Great central characters, not a primarch in sight, full of ordinary (ish) 30k citizens fighting for their lives. Brilliant.

Having lost count of the WH40k novels I’ve read including the Heresy, this is certainly one of the best and much more than a Titan battle which the name and cover suggest. Many story threads and a real escalation towards the end of this part of the saga - exciting stuff that displays all the great aspects of the WH40k universe.