nooo, damnit, noooooo!!!! (in a good way)

False Gods, by Graham McNeill. Well, if one wants to ask the question, how does one follow up an amazing start to an epic series of novels by Dan Abnett in any satisfying way, the answer is to call on Graham McNeill. If I were so inclined to give awards, he'd get Best Author I've Never Ever Heard of Before. I'd go on about the grand space opera that The Horus Heresy is shaping up to be, on how it has so skillfully taken the already-well-done backstory of the 40k setting and made it into a heart-achingly personal narrative, but I fear that it just wouldn't have the same import to a reader not versed at least somewhat with the original setting. So it's up to Wyatt and I to struggle through them, I guess - not struggle on account of poor quality, of course, but just on account of how tragic the story is - I'm sure I looked randomly stricken at several points this past weekend because of it. Now, let's just hope the next author can match up to the first two....

And as a postscript, the opposition and synthesis of religion, politics, and science in The Horus Heresy is almost already a match for Herbert's Dune novels, in my opinion, in the sense of the Dune epic being well-regarded in academic literary circles for that aspect. Unlike Stargate, which has made it kind of banal, but I guess I can give them points for trying, within a television show and all that.