Warhammer 40k

I'm glad you enjoyed Thousand Sons! The size and different flavors of the 40k Novelverse is part of the excitement.

The Sons being up their own asses and not being nearly as smart as they think they are is apparent, my gripe is that we're beaten over the head with that fact for half the book before anything interesting happens.

This full sequence happens 3 times in the first third alone (entering the mountain, the titan, and tentacle hugs):

1. Ahriman watches as handsome and sexy genius Magnus does something everyone thinks is suicidal/insane
2. Magnus is in trouble! Thousand Sons onlookers scream/cry/freak out. All is lost! Sexy Primarch-san noooooo
3. Cut to Magnus’s perspective: “hehe I’m so smart nobody knows how smart I am but me”
4. Magnus is okay! Rejoice! Ahriman cries tears of joy.

Then the scene where Ahriman and Magnus exposit to Lemuel so we the reader can be spoonfed the history felt like a scene that should've been left in the rough draft. I can't believe self-important Magnus would take such an interest in a rando mortal, even if they are Ahriman's pupil, and so excitedly regale them with the tale of the bird pieces.

I'm powering through and nearly done, it really picks up after the council of Nykea. IMO, the book should've started there as the rest could've been an email. Until then, all on-screen Thousand Sons all horrifically unlikable and not even in a fun way like the Sons of Horus.

Also not arguing and it works for folks. Magnus being an ouroboros of head-to-ass should've worked for me, but McNeil's dialogue pains me even when not trying to make an inherently unlikable person seem sympathetic. Hopefully Abnett can flesh em out in Prospero Burns.

Legion sounds like my next stop after 1K Sons series, but should I read First Heretic->Battle for the Abyss first, or go straight to Legion then Know No Fear?