Mangoose
Arcane
Well it does show why the Big 4 consider Emprah a threat. First, that He was willing to do it. Secondly, that he beat them.I never liked that plot-twist that Emprah stole from/made a pact with the Big 4 to make the Primarchs, as not only it rigs the game from the start, it makes him look stupid.e understood that he was essentially on a timer to win after stealing whatever fire he stole from them to begin the primarch project.
And I'm pretty sure that if there were a pact he broke it. In other words he, one way or another, stole the Big 4's powers against their will.
It doesn't maek the Emprah look stupid. It makes him look like a conniving thieving bastard who is always successful.
Unlike Horus when Horus went to Molech, where he basically got possessed.
But
is the truth.Granted, that seems to be the point of the HH series...
If you write about the Horus Heresy you can't avoid this stuff. You can't avoid "daddy issues" because it's literally a son trying to kill his father. Just saying, if you don't have daddy issues, you'd probably lock him away or something. But GRAHHH DKILLLL.
I mean it's hard to judge these books when the setting is what limits it.
That being said, if you pick and choose books instead of following the whole novel series (like an idiot), and you set aside the setting a bit.. There's still plenty of quality. Abnett, obviously. Not to mention Chris Wraight came to fame in this Horus Heresy series. You also got Graham McNeill pushing out good stuff. TBH not too different from their regular 40k books, outside of setting limits, as said authors have had all sorts of freedom in terms of genre and individual stories. And any good author can write a good story in any setting - as long as they have as much freedom as they can get.