So I just finished reading the WH40K book Fulgrim. I have mixed feelings about it, but I will admit that Graham McNeill (the author) is masterful at weaving depictions of depravity and hopelessness. Emotion is his strong point (as is, no offense, redundancy when describing the primarchs; I get it. They're awesome), and it really comes out in a book that follows the emotional decent into Chaos. Overall? Good stuff. Read it, though I suggest reading the Horus Heresy (the series) in order to make more sense out of it.

I think there's a funny thing about reading series describing tales that have already been established and/or have already occurred in some way. You know the outcome. We all know what will happen to Fulgrim, Horus, The Emperor, and all of humanity (plus everybody else). In fact, the only tales we don't know for certain are the small characters these authors have the leeway to create. Ostian never existed before this book, and even though we could see his outcome a mile away, we didn't know for sure.

But no, what's really the interesting thing is that, even though we know all this, we still hope. We hope that Fulgrim will cast off the shroud of Chaos enveloping him, that he won't kill his brother, that he will stop Horus. The authors do this masterfully: they make you think something other than the known outcome can happen. We are left with a sense of despair and defeat as the daemon that has possessed Fulgrim's body in the very end walks out of La Fenice, damning Fulgrim to an eternity of torment. But we knew this would happen. We shouldn't be bothered.

Yet it still evokes such great regret, such loss. The horrendous betrayals, the gruesome mutilation of corpses by mad warriors, the crumbling of the Imperium--we know they all happen, but we still feel like they didn't have to.

Well done, McNeill.