Trivia / Horus Heresy

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Judging by the afterword to Pharos, Guy Haley had a serious geek-out when offered the chance to write for Horus Heresy. Of course he took it.
• Creator's Favorite:
  • James Swallow produces unusual amount of works about Nathaniel Garro, suggesting this may be the case.
  • Nick Kyme's infatuation with the Salamanders is widely known in the fanbase.
  • Belisarius Cawl seems to appear in Wolfsbane either by Games Workshop's demand given Cawl's relevance at the time, or because Guy Haley enjoyed the character enough to include elements that tied to the reveals of Cawl's background in 40K novel The Great Work.
  • Chris Wraight seems to have adopted the White Scars, having written the V-Legion-centric books Scars, The Path of Heaven, and Warhawk, plus five novellas and short stories that focus on the Scars and Jaghatai's entry in the Primarchs sub-series.
• Deleted Scene: According to the author, Deathfire has a whole extra sub-plot written, but it was eventually cut because it distracted from the main storyline too much.
• God Never Said That: More than a few fans have claimed that the short story The Chamber at the End of Memory confirms that the Ultramarines and Imperial Fists absorbed the surviving Space Marines from the II and XI Legions after their primarchs were purged (to the point of presenting it as fact on some sites). All the story confirms is that Roboute Guilliman and Rogal Dorn convinced Malcador to spare the Marines from the two legions, and that Malcador had them repurposed in some way (so they went somewhere...); while it leaves the absorption theory open as a possibility, the evidence is circumstantial at best. While The First Heretic did introduce the rumour of the Ultramarines absorbing them, the way it was presented suggests that it was just Malicious Slander on the Word Bearers' part (something that author Aaron Dembski-Bowden has pointed out in at least one online discussion on the matter).
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The Siege of Terra, Primarchs, and Character sub-series have all received limited editions, typically released a month or two ahead of the standard version. The Siege novels are autographed, bound in faux leather with metal insets, and have gilt page edges, ribbon bookmarks, and full-color art pages. The primarch and character books have cloth spines, gilt pages, and ribbon bookmarks; the former come in leatherette slipcases with foil embossing, while the latter are autographed and have alternative art on their covers, which are also highlighted with foil. All of them have been limited to 2,500 copies and typically sell out very quickly.
• Line to God: Both Laurie Goulding and Aaron Dembski-Bowden, an editor and a writer respectively, have Bolter&Chainsword accounts and sometimes participate in discussions about newest books. Aaron Dembski-Bowden has also been reasonably active on Reddit's 40KLore subreddit since around 2018.
• Loads and Loads of Writers: Just look at the list of books on the main page and you shall see. Every notable author in Black Library's stable has written at least two Heresy novels and a handful of short stories apiece, and plenty of others have contributed novels, short stories, novellas, or audio dramas.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: The Horus Heresy came about because Games Workshop originally could only afford a single set of Titan moulds and needed a quick explanation as to why opposing factions would be using identical units. What began as a Hand Wave quickly snowballed into an intricate plot and a core part of the lore.
• Throw It In!: "Horus Heresy" was meant to be a bit of flavor text, but players quickly latched onto it, necessitating the creation of a back story.
• What Could Have Been: The series was originally supposed to be five books long, and focused exclusively on Horus. The first three books almost seem like a standalone trilogy. The runaway success of the first two books, and the popularity of the contemporary Index Astartes articles running in White Dwarf magazine at the time, which expanded much of the Heresy-era lore, showed Games Workshop that they had something special going and led to the series being expanded into the sixty-plus book series it is today.

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