The source content for blog.juliobiason.me
You can not select more than 25 topics Topics must start with a letter or number, can include dashes ('-') and can be up to 35 characters long.

58 lines
2.9 KiB

+++
title = "The Flight of the Eisenstein - James Swallow"
date = 2020-01-17
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "reviews", "horus heresy", "warhammer 40000", "sci",
"james swallow", "1 star", "2020 challenge"]
+++
[GoodReads Summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/80155.The_Flight_of_the_Eisenstein):
Having witnessed the events on Istvaan III, Deathguard Captain Garro seizes a
ship and heads to Terra to warn the Emperor of Horus's treachery. But the
fleeing Eisenstein is damaged by enemy fire, and becomes stranded in the warp.
Can Garro and his men survive the depredations of Chaos and get his warning to
Terra in time?
<!-- more -->
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
How do you tell a following story that takes over from another one, one that
feels somewhat complete, one that, even when discussing several events, have
at least one that goes to conclusion? One solution is to continue the story
from the point the previous one completed, but one could try to push the
story further by picking one of those events and showing another point of
view of something readers already know how it will end, being careful to not
build any suspense on what will happen, 'cause the reader knows what it will
end and you end up with just a bunch of text that it is just boring as heck
to read.
Another thing one should take care is to not build long sentences that just
keeps going on and on that add very little except burn the reader time, like
pointing out that long sentences burn the reader time, instead of going
straight to the point, avoiding running around the point, with no care about
that amount of information per sentence you're adding.
And, still, you get all those here.
Indeed, from one of the several events that happened in "Galaxy in Flames",
the author picked on of the things that happens in the sidelines (which get
some spotlight, in the end) and try to build a whole story out of it, kind
like "Shadow of the Giant" is built on the side-story of Ender's Game. But
while Shadow of the Giant, while still entangled with Ender's Game, have very
small touching points, about 60% is exactly what happened in "Galaxy in
Flames". Worse, with so much touching surface, the author decided to create on
suspense on what will happen to the nominal ship: Will it survive the attack
from Horus forces? Will they manage to get away? OF COURSE IT WILL, Galaxy in
Flames told us that they escape, so why are you making a huge fuss about the
amount of damage they are taking, like they won't be able to take away?
And there is also the long sentences that provide very little information with
a huge amount of words, which completely break the speed of the story. Think
about the longest, most boring line, with the most duplicate information, in
the middle of a battle. How would you feel about the battle speed?
Honestly, it's not that "Horus Heresy" is a masterpiece of literature, but the
series could surely survive without this book.