The Master of Mankind (Volume 41) (The Horus Heresy) [Paperback] Dembski-Bowden, Aaron

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Despite His best efforts to promote peace and harmony across Old Earth, the instinctive values of martial honour, ambition, defiance, and self-satisfaction could never be eradicated from the Human character.

Some of my favorite parts were simple conversations between two characters, particularly any that involved the Emperor. It's just that in the 40k universe, that's the kind of leader that is needed to ensure mankind's survival, you don't need to like him along the way. In Angron's condition, sending him out to lead his legion into battle is the equivalent of making him comfortable in his decline.

But as the New Man's psychic powers further developed, He became ever more aware of the terrible dangers that awaited Mankind in the broader universe and He resolved to do all in His power to defend and guide Humanity towards a future as the predominant species in the galaxy. The Custodes were the main perspective of the Emperor in this, so they see him as their buddy/cool dad, and the rest of the Imperium are not his kids, just his tools.

For example, the Emperor, in this book, refers to the primarchs almost exclusively by their numbers.

As the Emperor grew older His powers began to manifest themselves and become more potent and He gradually remembered His thousands of past lives, adding all of their knowledge and experience to His own.

The crusade would also subdue, destroy, or force into exile all intelligent alien races of the Milky Way.

While Ra is leading the attacks directly, Diocletian, another high-ranking Custodian, and Kaeria, a high-ranking Sister of Silence, are sent to Terra's surface to recruit valuable assets to the war effort.

If anything, it seemed to exist more to take jabs at the Emperor and the World Eaters than anyone else. The story opens with a brief look at Magnus' intrusion into the Imperial dungeons to warn his father about Horus' treachery, an event that set of a cataclysmic series of disasters for the Emperor secret project and Terra itself. The Emperor is unable to personally help in the conflict since he is now confined to the Golden Throne, focusing all of his psychic might just to keep the Terran portion of the webway from crashing in on itself. Really, the finale is easily one of the best since Helsreach, and retains three of the best last-second twists of any Black Library book.Would the Emperor give voice to his feelings for his son, to a high-ranking Mechanicum adept who would see it as a flaw in the Omnissiah? The demon created from the very first murder amongst mankind, a being so powerful that even the Emperor is hesitant to face it.