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Nick Kyme
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Old Earth (47) (The Horus Heresy) Paperback – June 12, 2018

by Nick Kyme (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 568 ratings
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Reborn in the fires of Nocturne, Vulkan prepares for his final journey. With the choice between vengeance and duty, what will the primarch's destiny be?

Reborn in body and spirit beneath Mount Deathfire, the primarch Vulkan gathers his most trusted sons and prepares for the final part of his journey. The Legions shattered at Isstvan V have stalled the Warmaster’s advance across the galaxy, but fresh cracks are spreading through the alliance between the Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard, along with mysterious rumours of the return of Ferrus Manus. Haunted by a sense of destiny unfulfilled, Vulkan must choose between joining their war of vengeance against the traitors, or following his own barely understood path all the way to the Throneworld itself.
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Previous page
  1. Book 47 of 54
    The Horus Heresy
  2. Print length
    400 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Games Workshop
  5. Publication date
    June 12, 2018
  6. Dimensions
    6 x 1.4 x 9.1 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    1784967122
  8. ISBN-13
    978-1784967123
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nick Kyme is the author of The Horus Heresy novels Deathfire and Vulkan Lives, the novellas Promethean Sun, Scorched Earth and Sons of the Forge, and the audio dramas Red-Marked and Censure. For Warhammer 40,000, Nick is best known for his popular Salamanders series of novels, but he has also written the Space Marine Battles novel Damnos and numerous short stories. He has also written fiction set in the Warhammer Old World, including the Empire novel Grimblades and the Time of Legends novel The Great Betrayal. He lives and works in Nottingham, and has a rabbit.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Games Workshop (June 12, 2018)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1784967122
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1784967123
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.24 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.4 x 9.1 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 568 ratings

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Nick Kyme

Nick Kyme

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
568 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Adrian Espinoza
5.0 out of 5 stars Vulkan Lives
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2021
Verified Purchase
Immediately outing myself as a warhammer 40k purist and loving fanboy with the title, so pass on! It's just another review praising and kissing GW's fugging rear, right?

Not quite. The five star is first and to the fifth for the characters, the stories, the lore, the wonder, and the grandiose style of the story being told. I had very low expectations going into the book by these 3 and under star reviews that painted a 'Same-ol' picture, of a narrative seen time and time again.
Well duh, it's the series man. One of 54. yet still this book kept me turning pages. It started strong, and went on to really keep me engrossed to the bitter end.
The Horus Heresy is a 54 book series, and there were many things and smaller bits that I still had questions for as reader of each novel and book. Questions upon questions, and this book did well to answer a fair few I wanted known, and many others I didn't know I did. To be as vague as possible, of course.

It's a grimdark universe, and the time of prosperity is over. Now is the time of madness and turmoil as the fires of Hope and Faith fight back against the tide.

If you're wondering if you should buy it, dear reader, you've long gone past the point of no return already.

Vulkan Lives.
2 people found this helpful
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Stan J
4.0 out of 5 stars A big step toward the conclusion of the heresy.
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2018
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Old Earth was a pretty darn good book. Overall it pushes the heresy forward, which to me is a big deal, as this series has been going on a decade. While i do understand these things take time, this book and the book "Ruinstorm" which precedes this one, are making some big moves in the heresy.

Old earth rightly focuses on Vulcan and his sons, with a few twists and turns on the path to Earth. In between we learn of the Cabal, an eldar that doesn't like the cabal and the continuation of several characters from Death-fire, Unremembered Empire and the Shattered Legions compilation novel. One thing the black library novels have had a hard time doing in the past, was bringing strands that have spanned 50 plus books together. I feel this new approach is gratifying to see them try, and although tonally the characters come across a bit different at times it still shows major shift toward bringing Horus to Earth and the final battles of the war taking place, which I believe is important for this series to finish up strong.

We have to say goodbye to a few characters and a nice twist to the existing lore, ends up with a true surprise at the end of the book. Overall the advancement of the story, plus justice done for several characters that have been thrown to the wolves over this series.

If you're a frustrated fan due to the pacing, know that between Ruinstorm, and Old Earth we have gained momentum toward the final battle.
10 people found this helpful
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Jetpack
5.0 out of 5 stars Much better than I hoped
Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2018
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This is easily my favorite Vulkan book. I know, I know - a low bar, but it's true.

Stuff actually happens. We see the end of one storyline, and the future laid out for a Legion. Another storyline gets pruned down toward it's end.

And then we have Vulkan. Vulkan shows some bad assery, and we get another look at the plans of the Emperor. And his manipulations.

Easy to recommend.
8 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2019
Verified Purchase
I heard that some people have some issues with the book and no book is perfect but I genuinely enjoyed Old earth and would recommend it to other Warhammer fans
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DanJemi
5.0 out of 5 stars VULKAN LIVES
Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2019
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Poor Iron Fists. Iron Warriors and Terra will stand... Kinda. We all know how it ends, but will it?
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burak y�ksel
3.0 out of 5 stars Not the best book
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2020
Verified Purchase
I am not a big Salamander or Vulkan fan. The only reason i read this book is some reviewers said it moves the overall Heresy story forward.

The first 3/4 of the book is mind numbingly BORING. I can’t stress this enough. Nearly all of the first 3/4 of the book is about a pointless struggle between an evil what’s his name Sons of Horus captain and a dumb Iron Hands one. In the end this conflict have zero effect on overall plot. And the author never mentions them again after their parts are done.

Last quarter of the book takes a better turn and becomes really readable. And it is the only part about Vulkan anyway. If last 1/4 of the book did not change the tone i would give 1 star because i can’t give zero.

If you plan reading this do yourself a favor and skip first 75% of it. You won’t miss anything.
2 people found this helpful
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Sky Fall
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book with some great scenes.
Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2020
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This was a good story and had some truly noteworthy scenes. The writing was solid and engaging. It was neat to see Vulkan after Macragge. There were some retcons from old lore and several scenes seemed poorly paced or out of character for Vulkan. This book is fodder for some arguing or debate by fa\tg\uys.
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Diogenes
5.0 out of 5 stars Advances The Story Line
Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2019
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Liked this book because it advances the story line. Some HH books don't, especially the anthologies.
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Top reviews from other countries

Brian K
3.0 out of 5 stars It was not as good as I'd have hoped
Reviewed in Canada on May 23, 2019
Verified Purchase
I don't know, maybe I'm getting spoiled by the high quality books that exist in the black library, but this one was only 'ok'. I usually find this author's books pretty solid, but something was missing here. None of the plot points felt deep enough to really draw me in, the stuff with the Iron Hands didn't really invest me in their plight. It was only 'average' and I read it simply to see what happened, but I never really felt emotionally invested in any of the characters really.

I would say this one is easy to skip, there isn't enough truly interesting stuff about Vulkan to make it a must purchase, in fact, I would say in hindsight the characters I cared most about were common foot soldiers guarding the palace at Terra, who had to go out into crowds of civilians to investigate a 'terror attack'. That was a small portion of the story, but probably had the most relateable/sympathetic characters in the book.
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Nightwing
3.0 out of 5 stars A short story compilation, forced into a novel
Reviewed in Germany on February 28, 2019
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I have a confession to make. I dislike all of Nick Kyme's works in the Horus Heresy series. His characters are bland, his narrative uninspiring and his mysteries always seem superficial. Having said all that, Old Earth is by quite some margin the best work of Nick Kyme in my estimation.

Old Earth does have several passages, that really intrigued me and follow some storylines that I'm sincerely interested in. He is also very respectful towards notable characters from other authors and especially manages particularly well to not straw-manning the enemies. He depicts the Sons of Horus as very competent and serious adversary.

But overall the storyline of Old Earth is really fractionated. It tries to tie in various lose ends and binds them in a superficial narrative, which is completely meaningless for the story. To do that, he had to let Vulkan make many very arbitrary decisions, that seems rather forced and strange. The big revelation in the end also does not really fit the previous narrative. The head kind of does not fit rest of the body and feels imbalanced and forced. My greatest personal disappointment with Old Earth is, that Nick Kyme just skipped the most interesting combat/duel in the book and just let the winner admit later, that it was a tough fight. That was really a downer!

Altogether I think the different stories in Old Earth would have worked better as a compilation of Short Stories instead of a cohesive novel. This forced cohesion did not work very well. My final verdict is, that Old Earth is the best HH Novel from Nick Kyme so far, which makes it okayish to read. Not great, but also not the worst.
One person found this helpful
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RegularAmazonUser
5.0 out of 5 stars Quality book and series from a quality author
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 3, 2018
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This is a huge sprawling beast if a book. What I love about the series is twofold: the intertwining not just of the previous books of the series but other stories, which gives the landscape the colour it requires to bring this entire grimdark moment in warhammer 30k history to life, and how the light is shone on the delicacies of the Emporer's machinations. Some of his sons were built for war, but others were born for additional things. The sheer scale of the primarch programme, and it's utter failure is part of the beauty of this book.

My only advice to any reader is to read the first two books in quick succession first before reading Old Earth to fully appreciate and follow the varied sub plots which converge (from numerous other books). As a stand alone story, ironically like most salamander stories, twists and turns due to the nature of the legion: complex and contrary, as is their nature. The most human of legions should be no other way. This was the first Horus heresy book I have read where the concept, the scale, and the vastness of the story left respecting the skill of the author: t is quite simply a feat of great talent to have written this series and written it so well: as the final piece to the series it never lost momentum, contains surprises and shows the nature of both the defenders and the attackers of the imperium without losing itself in the process. Very Vulkan.

Pain is temporary but hope is eternal.
3 people found this helpful
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Evil Critic
4.0 out of 5 stars Solid piece closing several story archs
Reviewed in Germany on February 23, 2019
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The book could easily be re branded in " Cutting loose ends", in case of the Iron Tenth story arch of Shadrak Meduson, literally. It brings the story of Primarch Vulkan to a close, reveals his true purpose in the Emperors grand design( remember one line out of " The Outcast Dead" : "Sometimes the only thing you can do is keeping the enemy from winning" ? ) and cuts short the schemes of the cabal, well mostly anyway, along with their pesky perpetuals.

Considering how convoluted several of those story archs have become over the years of the drawn out Horus Heresy, the author makes a solid job of closing them, and driving the greater narrative to the inevitable conclusion at the Palace gates.
One person found this helpful
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andy
4.0 out of 5 stars Reasonable read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 26, 2018
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As a book it is reasonable,but,a bit disjointed,unusual for Nick Kyme. Plot seems to jump around a lot,not really much about Vulkan until the ending chapters
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