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", "books:2020"] +++
GoodReads Summary: 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?
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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.