Reviews

It was wild going back to this series after putting it down to read the ENTIRETY of the Horus Heresy series. As such diving back into the scope whilst knowing all of the characters more in-depth was really interesting.

Great bits of cosmic horror with a story that is truly epic in scope.

xonrad's review against another edition

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1.0

Mortis has a few valuable pieces of lore hidden amongst its general fluff... greater story arch revelations from the whole Horus saga and the 40K universe at large... but... But!

If this were a standalone book, maybe a 2 star rating, but this proves the Siege of Terra, as a series, misses the point. Mortis is heavily infested with subplots about utterly insignificant characters and the details of most its events... a lot of it feels insignificant.

I don't care to remember which Heresy novel focused purely on a titan crew, but here again we are subjected to extraneous amounts of detail regarding titan crews and titan politics... which, this time around, would actually be good as a standalone novel delving into the deeper politics and machinations of the Mars cult, etc during that whole "final hours" scenario. But it feels like distraction filler here where you are constantly being deprived of any real meaty interactions with what you came here to read about; the Primarchs, Horus's final transformations, the Emperor's actions/responses, the greater impacts/influences of the Chaos powers and the true reawakening of the Warp.

Everything you want is still being hinted at and vagauely glossed over to constanly favour peon characters you wish would just die (or at least I did)... sweep them off the board to make way for the real players in this grand opera.

This one reminded me of how heavy that sense of saga fatigue felt by the time I reached the end of the Heresy books.

mandragora's review against another edition

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dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated

4.0

imweazle's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

thepattyshack's review against another edition

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3.0

Probably the worst case of sequalitis I've gotten from a book in this series, which, oddly enough, I would have expected to get a lot more.

Mortis gives us more exciting developments in the siege, and probably the most riverting of storylines touched on is Ol' P and his pals trying to reach John Grammaticas, with some great scenes with them. But sadly, unlike the rest, struggles to stand on its own. Excitement about the titans finally entering the fray quickly turned to dismay as what could have been an exciting countdown throughout the book, just seemed to be a waiting game for something to happen, which sadly was just the book ending.

I feel like I'm being too vague and too harsh.
But there are some.good moments, bit compared to the rest of the series so far, not enough, and had no succinct story to really tie up lioe the other, but just left very open ended.
Would be 2 stars if not for the great Orlenious developments.

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