Old Earth

The Horus Heresy, Book 47

By: Nick Kyme

Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble

Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Reborn in body and spirit beneath Mount Deathfire, the primarch Vulkan gathers his most trusted sons and prepares for the final part of his journey.

The Legions shattered at Isstvan V have stalled the Warmaster’s advance across the galaxy, but fresh cracks are spreading through the alliance between the Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard, along with mysterious rumours of the return of Ferrus Manus. Haunted by a sense of destiny unfulfilled, Vulkan must choose between joining their war of vengeance against the traitors and following his own barely understood path all the way to the Throneworld itself.

©2017 Games Workshop Limited (P)2017 Games Workshop Limited

Vulcan Guardian Eternal

Wraps up a lot of stories and prepares for the great siege of Terra.

Vulkan's Bizzar Adventure

The book was amazing. I purchased it for the Iron Hands lore, but every character really hold your interest. Worth it for Iron Hands and Salamanders fans.

Awesome 👍

Finally got to enjoy this great book. So can I assume that if Vulcan would recover from the Emperor's Fail-Safe device that the notion extends to the emperor himself?

Flesh Out (No Pun Intended) Your Charaxters

The good:
- VULKAN LIVES!
- Little moments of brotherhood

The Bad:
- The Iron Hands

Overall, I enjoyed this book thoroughly. I would have liked a lot more about the Salamanders - they always get left a bit short in my opinion. Those who are included, though, get a wealth of beautiful pose slid their way. Some of the descriptions are mind blowing. There were points where I cried.

On the flip side, the Iron Hands feel very two dimensional. Maybe this is the point, but they were just irritating and if I re-read I will probably skip some of their chunks. To be frank, the Shattered Legions side of things felt a bit like tying up loose ends rather than telling a good story.

Keeble’s performance was, as always, amazing.

A great perspective into the Broken Legions

As always, Jonathan Keeble was masterful. This book had a great deal of what's best in the heresy, Demons, Primarchs, and plans going awry. I would listen to this one again.

Easily one of the more entertaining 40k books.

I listened to this audiobook in hopes of learning more about Salamanders and Vulkan, particularly after the events at Istvaan. You do learn some about them but not much. The story itself is quite good though and I especially enjoyed the Iron Hands arc and all its zaniness. The narrator does an absolutely fantastic job and I'll gladly listen to any other audiobooks read by him. He goes to great lengths to do voices, proper voice acting and is an overall joy, barring a few select characters that seem almost forced (particularly Aug and the Great Unclean One near the end of the book).

This story managed to hold my attention entirely and I almost finished it in 2 days while working. Great read. Highly recommended.

Too much of Meduson and Iron Hands

Good book. Great narration. Too much of Meduson and the iron hands. Not enough of Vulkan

Not bad at all...finalizes several story lines.

As Kyme's stories go this one is not half bad it definitely helps if your read or listened ro his other Vulkan books in the Heresy series (even if most are rather sub par)

Several HO hum short Stories

I was disappointed with this short story collection. Even though A lot of the stories were a continuation of earlier tales that Jonathan Keeble has read, his character voices were all different and the overall writing of the stories was subpar they were just boring. I think he is an amazing reader and his voice is awesome the accents he used were just different and the plot lines of the Heresy story jumped all over the place. I expected to take another step toward the gates of Terra instead it felt like this book was two steps back

Underrated

Okay so I’m a bit biased. Salamanders were my first army as a kid, before I even really knew how to make an informed choice on what I wanted to play - and they turned out to be the ones I would’ve picked anyways. My second army that I collected was Eldar. So the idea of a Vulkan/Eldrad book was obviously very appealing.

That said, I genuinely thought it was pretty good. Yes, some of the characters were flat. No I’m not sure I needed so much Iron 10th stuff along the way. But given where the universe is now in the 41st Millennium and Eldrad’s work to awake Ynnead, watching him twist fate 11,000 years earlier - presumably to set events on a course that could lead to the creation of the Ynnari - is pretty dope.

The series generally lacks character and personality. The Primarchs and factions are intended to be living manifestations of their play style and the existing cannon limits some decision making. That said, Vulkan is the exception. The author does a passable job showing his compassion (more telling than showing at times, though) but this ultimately represents one of the biggest changes to the traditional HH narrative (along with the stuff about the Alpha Legion). It’s good. I liked it. Just a shame the other Vulkan novels were not as good.