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  • Mortis

  • The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra, Book 5
  • Written by: John French
  • Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
  • Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (207 ratings)

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Mortis

Written by: John French
Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
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Publisher's Summary

Book five of the Siege of Terra

After a series of victories, the Imperial forces are on the back foot once more. The power of Chaos is rising, the Traitors gain ground, and all hope seems lost. Can Terra endure?

Listen to it because: delve back into the biggest war in Imperial history, which is getting even bigger as Traitor Titans land and the influence of the warp grows, plaguing the defenders in all sorts of vile ways.

The story: the victories of Saturnine and the sacrifices of the Eternity Wall space port have faded into the hope of yesterday. Denied but not defeated, the Traitors intensify their assault on the Imperial Palace. With the principal space ports in Horus’ hands, the Warmaster now drains the heavens of his reserves.

As the pressure of the assault increases, the power of Chaos waxes. The waking lives of the defenders are filled with despair, while their dreams pull them in search of a false paradise. As the fabric of the defences fails and the will of those who stand on them cracks, Horus commands the Titans of the Legio Mortis to breach the walls. Against them stands the might of Mercury Wall and the strength of the Legio Ignatum. Ancient rivals, the god-engines of both Legions meet in battle, while within the walls a few desperate individuals seek a way to turn back the tide of the warp’s malign influence. Across Terra, lost warriors and travellers make their way through wastelands and gardens of horror, towards home and an unknown future.

Written by John French. Narrated by Jonathan Keeble. Running time 16 hours 26 mins.

©2021 Games Workshop Limited (P)2021 Games Workshop Limited

What listeners say about Mortis

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nothing happened.

mortis legion starts 150km from wall and gets to the wall by the end of the book. That's all I got from this book. Nothing else significant happens. This book is a filler, like a filler episode in a TV series. you won't be missing anything if you skip this book.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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good but alot to take in

good but a bit overwhelming with soo many threads. the parts with Ol and his crew was too much in my view for what it brought.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not the strongest in the series.

Jonathan Keeble is as usually fantastic. with the exception of a couple story lines this one dragged abit.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Mortis is on the move

Great book overall, only thing I can say is things finally move along with seige engines and titan battles. Excellent.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Float Book

An epic struggle that stretches 16 hours that is obviously build up to books 6 & 7.

a little lacking in reveals or new insights on things, but the conflict is as brilliant as ever :)

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  • sam
  • 2021-06-21

Final third is amazing

It was ok to start, part one and two setting the scene, then BOOM! Part three happens, and it is incredible!

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Lame.

This book was all over the place. Barely advanced the plot. focused on some pointless stuff and was way late to release. The next one better be good.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Good but not as good

Definitly the weakest of the siege of terra books so far. It felt like the most important moment in the whole story was with Perturabo but its a quarter of the way through the book, I would have liked to see characters, especially Dorn and Horus, react more to it. The Dark Angels and titan battles near the end are the highlight.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good but not the best

I enjoyed the story, the Titan battle was really well done, but lacked the suspense that some of the other stories created so didn’t really care what happened in the end.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Listen and be amazed!

Amazing storyline arc. Well written and very interesting story about Titan crews. Always love Jonathan Keeble and his narration with many voices. Really brings the characters to life :)

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  • Kindle Customer
  • 2021-06-13

Not that great

How many times do we need t o hear about Ol falling? 3 Legios march against Legio Mortis and still get beat like they are nothing? What was the point of having so many subplots that it felt like the overall story was diluted?

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11 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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  • G. Marcelin-Williams
  • 2021-06-08

A good book but kind of all over the place

I would give this a 4.5/10 the book itself is a good one and a fine addition to the Seige of Terra but out of all the books this one is probably the hardest to digest what’s going on. Probably due to to many characters and some of the names of Titans and guardsman I can’t keep track of which adds to the confusion but a second read helps. All in all a good book

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9 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • Amazon Customer
  • 2021-06-08

High highs, low lows

This book was something of a disappointment.

I don’t take issue with the plot or the writing. The arc that French creates is excellent and the individual set pieces range from good to beautiful. There were many points in this where I had to pause and take a minute to have a cry. This is excellent writing.

However, it’s power and impact is diluted by the fact that he tries to do TOO MUCH. I said this in my review of Solar War and I’ll say it again here: FOCUS! There are two or three good books squeezed into Mortis and as a reader, for all the beautiful vignettes, I am left wanting and feeling a bit cheated by storylines he sets up and then knocks down when we’re not looking only to bring us back to look at the wreckage. When French is focused on less than 5 things in a novel, he’s masterful. When he focuses on more than that, his prose is still excellent but the threads are weak and unsatisfying.

Keeble typically does phenomenal work and this was largely in line with what I expect from him. That said, I was floored by the lack of consistency on some of the names. It’s really jarring to be in the middle of an intense scene and then have him butcher the name of a key character he’s named multiple times before, and then to have the character’s name pronounced another way once or twice more in the story. With all of the folks French throws on the page consistency is key and it was lacking.

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7 people found this helpful

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  • Joan Tappe
  • 2021-06-09

Johnathon Keeble is the true Big E

Incredible book with the most inspiring narrator. Johnathon Keeble is a treasure that needs to be protected at all costs.

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  • Ted B.
  • 2021-07-22

Not sure of the point of this book

It was 16.5 hours long, and basically all that changed is that [SPOILER] the enemy legions made it to the walls of the Inner Palace, and Perturabo decided (somewhat spontaneously?) to take his ball and go home. [/SPOILER]. Primarchs barely make an appearance. Katsuhiro finally appears again, but accomplishes basically nothing. Grammaticus features prominently, but once again, accomplishes nothing. Even the titular Mortis Legio barely shows up. Honestly, I think this book could have been skipped entirely, and we would be none the worse for wear.

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  • Mrslick
  • 2021-06-09

Hot diggity

Daddy emps needs some gawd dang aquafina. He is a very thirsty boy.extrs words

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  • Kindle Customer
  • 2021-06-05

Gibberish

Makes no sense at all. Don’t get this book!
I can’t believe I wasted money on this trash.

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    2 out of 5 stars
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  • Taco
  • 2021-07-30

Just too much nonsense with the traitors

I get that we're supposed to be at a climactic and the game battle however it feels like the author I just decided to keep trying to one-up himself by showing why the enemy is evil each and every single time. If things were as dire as there are in this book then this whole thing should have ended three books ago. FA happens that makes sense.

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4 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • The Foxes
  • 2021-07-24

Boring, even for a filler book

The Siege of Terra books have been very good, if a bit slow. This one, however, brings new meaning to "slogging". While true there are mammoth war machines attacking giant citadel walls, confrontations between Horus and the Emperor, and people entering the Astronomicon and yet it somehow it manages to be painfully boring.

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  • Garrette Griffin
  • 2021-06-29

A story too long with little attention to detail

This is a story that I was pretty excited for. It had several key details in the HH series and SoT story, we finally get the Legio Mortis, Perturabo and Co bail, the battle moves closer to the esoteric, etc. What we actually get is about 6 stories that do are uninteresting and unfulfilling. The "Script" we have been following around wanders a little aimlessly for several chapters then gets a promotion. Every Dark Angel must be in the process of betraying the Emperor ala Fallen with little reason or context. Perturabo literally gets up and leaves with essentially no explanation, details, or follow up. An entire legion abandoning the biggest battle of the millenia and we get no real perspective from the traitor side or even mention of it by Dorn or the main loyalist faction. The entire segment with Oll is honestly exhausting. It felt like it dragged on for hours and hours with only some meaningful story expansion and elaboration. This book tried really weakly to tell a lot of stories instead of focusing on a few significant ones. The entire story with the White Scar was mostly a way to throw in a moral grim bright and could have been cut for more time with a traitor PoV or just not at all, this was a 16 hour book.

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  • Angus
  • 2022-11-15

A decent book that is hard to like

If there is one thing that is truly well written within this book, it is tension. The slow rise of tension, the story building up pressure, going crescendo before a strong reveal - the kind of feeling conveyed when an author wishes to describe an horror scene; a door slowly opening on creaking hinges, diverting the reader's focus before a monster reveals itself few pages later.

And, you know, generally this works just fine, except the scale of the story is completely not adapted to this style of writing.

This book set out to make us experience multiple stories all related to what is, within this fictional universe, the greatest conflict humanity has ever witnessed, and it does it through tension slowly building up independently within all these different storylines. Granted, when there are scenes of true horror describing the eldritch nature of the warp, and the mind twisting abominations the Emperor's Children have become, this style of writing truly shines and becomes genuinely impressive. But these moments are rare, and there is only so much tension that can be garnered from describing soldiers endlessly holding a wall, or an open conflict between battle titans, again and again. This book is sixteen hours of tension, trying to build up, with more than five different storylines all attempting - and failing - to lock into a coherent whole.

Let me say that again; sixteen hours of tension buildup, trying to slowly reveal everything - from describing the environment to an actual open battle - trying to keep you on the edge, with barely anything being plainly presented, just buildup.

Eventually the buildup have to loop around itself; one moment a character would overcome a daunting obstacle, ending the tension buildup within their storyline, then a few chapter later it starts all over again because the story has to progress. Except the author seems to lack the imagination to come up with new ways for the characters to overcome challenges, so they just end up doing the same thing endlessly, just in a different context. Actual *changes* within the story are few and far between.

Thankfully, Jonathan Keeble still remains the god-tier narrator that he is and saves it partially thanks to his impressive reading. If you don't mind a very slow book that has some strong moments (again, in the case of eldritch horror and genuine moments of tension) but is, overall, kind of a slog that'll make you roll your eyes because of how silly this buildup gets, then you might enjoy this book. Otherwise, look for a sum up online and skip this book altogether, you'd only get frustrated.

It's a shame though, a lot of interesting things happen throughout this book, I am simply unsure if these plot points and the rare instances where this book shines are worth the ponderous writing.

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