Listen free for 30 days

  • The First Wall

  • Siege of Terra: The Horus Heresy, Book 3
  • Written by: Gav Thorpe
  • Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
  • Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (261 ratings)

1 credit a month, good for any title to download and keep.
The Plus Catalogue—listen all you want to thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts, and audiobooks.
$14.95 a month plus applicable taxes after 30 day trial. Cancel anytime.
The First Wall cover art

The First Wall

Written by: Gav Thorpe
Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $40.99

Buy Now for $40.99

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

Siege of Terra Book 3.

The outer defences have fallen, and the walls of the Imperial Palace await the Traitors. Perturabo is determined to tear down the mighty edifices his brother and bitter rival Rogal Dorn has built - but first he must take the Lion's Gate Spaceport, so that his heaviest weapons can land.

Listen to it because:

It's time for Rogal Dorn's defences get their real test - the attention of Perturabo and the Iron Warriors. The irresistible force meets the immovable object - and carnage ensues.

The story:

The war for the fate of mankind blazes on. Though the outer defences have fallen, the walls of the Palace itself remain inviolate as Rogal Dorn, the Praetorian of Terra himself, uses every known stratagem and ploy to keep Horus' vast armies at bay. In Perturabo, the Traitor siegebreaker, Dorn faces an adversary worthy of his skill. A terrible, grinding attrition ensues. The crucial battle for the Lion's Gate spaceport is at the heart of this conflict. With it in their possession, the Traitors can land their most devastating weapons on Terran soil. Dorn knows it must not fall. But with enemies attacking from within as well as without and the stirrings of the neverborn drawn to the slaughter, can the Imperial defenders possibly prevail? 

Written by Gav Thorpe

Running time 12 hours 49 minutes. Narrated by Jonathan Keeble.

©2020 Games Workshop Limited (P)2020 Games Workshop Limited

What listeners say about The First Wall

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    194
  • 4 Stars
    47
  • 3 Stars
    14
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    206
  • 4 Stars
    15
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    158
  • 4 Stars
    41
  • 3 Stars
    16
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    3

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

I hate that stupid song they sing

I hate that stupid song they sing. Seriously. it drives me crazy and haunts my dreams.

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

why was there singing

overall it's decent, but that singing is hard to get through. I felt like that story line took away from what shoulda been an epic battle... 3 solid traitor champions vs a primarch and a battle for the spaceport shoulda been the main focus, not a story line that ended up no where. although I think the time jumping was done well.

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

That song drove me nuts.

A great story but the song segments are truly cringe inducing. It didn't add anything to the character development and if anything it felt wedged in like silk sheets up ork butt cheeks.

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Story of Siegecraft & Subterfuge

The siege of Terra continues with demons just over the horizon and the galaxy's greatest warriors going toe to toe in a life or death struggle! Conscripts march towards war, dealing with questions of loyalty, allegiance and training. Swords clash, bolsters flash, and great forces find their way into the walls of the Palace by any means necessary...

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

very enjoyable.

it was overall quite good. i didnt much care for the Adeba Free Core side story. I found it was pretty corny. especially when that song came on.

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book!!

Highly recommended. Gav Thorpe always delivers. Great narration by Jonathan Keeble. Love the ending. Enjoy.

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Doesn't really advace the plot, still good!

This book doesn't really advance the plot, that's okay though most know how this ends. The random love arc felt out of place and rushed. The narrator is A+ especially in the climax

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Important part of the story but meh on execution

A little hard to follow some of the jumping around between story lines. Eg. “blank” happed 4 days before attack and then jumps to 2 days after the start of the attack and then 5 days before the attack again with a different character.

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Good Story with Annoying Subplot

Overall the parts of the story focusing on the Siege of Terra was quite good... however the parts involving the Adaba Free Corp were annoying. Their plot twist was predictable and it felt very awkward in how it was eventually tied into the main plot.

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

review

great performance, but not much progress in story since last book. didnt feel like it lasted over 30 hours. some loose ends too

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Paul
  • Paul
  • 2020-03-04

Half good, half boring.

I've never felt compelled to right a review for a HH audiobook as Ive enjoyed every book Ive listened to thus far. When this book is focused on Primarchs and Astartes.. its amazing. When from the perspective of a 17 yr old conscript, its really boring. Unfortunately, that takes up about half of the book. Id say skip unless youre a diehard fan.

18 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Amazon Customer
  • Amazon Customer
  • 2020-04-26

The plot armor is strong with this one...

This novel is too much of too much and it’s attempts to tie in a variety of storylines ultimately saps all of them of vitality.

****Spoilers Ahead***
Three major critiques: story structure, plot armor, and dramatic focus.

This novel has three major storylines and perhaps two or three novels crammed into one It shows. Lion’s Gate, Adaba, and Lectitio Divinitatus: each of these could easily make a novella, if not a novel, their own right and by putting them together the author has had to water down three really enticing and engaging storylines into vaguely coherent mediocrity. We go from Rann to Kharn to Adaba to Forrix to Kharn (what has Rann been doing this whole time? What is the bigger picture?) to Ammon to Forrix to Adaba to Rann to Forrix to Abaddon (It’s been 4 days since we saw Kharn, what is Kharn doing? I can’t really focus on the story because I’m waiting for Kharn to jump out like it’s “The Shining.”) to Ammon to Rann to Forrix to Kroger (where’s Adaba??).... This is all complicated by the a-synchronous structure of events which makes it harder to understand how events in one strand of the novel relates to those in another.

Adding to this chaos is the fact that there are too many of our hero characters out there and nothing is really going to happen to them. Anybody keeping score knows that Rann, all three members of the Trident, Abaddon, Sigismund, Kharn, and others are going to survive the siege. This means that whenever they show up, all drama gets sucked out of the room. We only lose one hero character in this novel and they honestly deserved a better exit than that they got. The author clearly tried to make it meaningful for character development, but the brevity and suddenness of it makes that feel ham fisted and half hearted.

Finally, the author misses the dramatic center of the novel, though this is perhaps more a critique of what GW seems to be doing than what the author composed. There was a tension in the Hours Heresy novels between moving the story forward and fleshing our the universe. That said, the scope of the series and the breadth of details involved meant that even works which barely moved the plot forward and focused mainly on fleshing things out could still be excellent in their own right. However, GW appears to want each novel in this series to grind the story on relentlessly and thus comes at the expense of the ambiance. This novel centers on the brawl at the spaceport. It’s a grind and we get that grind in abundance, even if it’s not always clear how all the pieces fit together. Because we have so much plot armor running around on the backs of our heroes, there isn’t any suspense here and there are so many heroes to follow that we make little forward progress. Instead, the most exciting pieces are those following Ammon “Holmes” Taurmachian and the Adaba Free-corps. Despite a hideous cliffhanger for Adaba, these are both well done but got scant attention compared to the spaceport. This is unfortunate because these are actually the dramatic heart of the novel. The characters involved actually develop! Yes, Abaddon is becoming the Abaddon we know from “The Talon of Horus” but it’s ham fisted in this book. His development in “The Solar War” was deft, clear, and compelling. Yet, immortals change on a longer timeframe than this novel, or in some ways even this siege, can allow. Instead, it’s the mortal, human experience that shows growth - and not necessarily for the better. We get to see the men and women Adaba Free-corps struggle with this new imperium, though they ultimately make nonsensical decisions that are given no explanation. We see the first buds of the new, stagnant police state that the imperium is becoming and we see it through the eyes and choices of individuals. This is also the core of the Ammon/Keeler story and the birth of the imperial church. As said, each of these deserve and could have used a novel in its own right but instead we get them muddled in with the rest.

Overall, I don’t fault the author. Thorpe has demonstrated multiple times that he can create better stories than this one and that he knows how to write all angles of this conflict. His portrayal of the imperial navy in the War of the Beast series is still some of my favorite writing on “normal humans” in the 40k universe. Instead, I blame GW for taking multiple, excellent story lines and forcing the author to shove them all into one novel. After the precision, focus, and depth we got in “The Lost and the Damned,” I was hopeful that the series would not sacrifice coherence and quality when moving the plot forward in this novel. Instead, we got another go at “The Solar War” as too many characters crowd the stage on story lines that make sense on their own but, together, are badly choreographed. Let’s see what comes next.

11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Jordan Hernandez
  • Jordan Hernandez
  • 2020-03-09

a waste of time for the most part light spoiler

so let me start by saying i loved the second book and liked the first this book was honestly somewhat awful. a 3rd of the book was spent talking about an imperial guard company that was on their way to the palace. They never really had any good moments aside from the very last moment. They were really obvious filler that stretched the story along. the story had plenty of great heroes but none of them really did anything. except for an imperial fist who told a joke with no punch line it was awful. I dont recommend this book if you are a fan of good imperial guard writing like from legion and guants ghosts. it is not here and the space marine writing isnt that action packed this is almost like the mersaide oilton crap where its a lot of filler for 1 good moment.

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for lake macleod
  • lake macleod
  • 2020-06-30

skip this one

could not finish. 140 pages are dedicated to a concscript riding a train. a side story with no payoff whatsoever. a major stain on the siege of terra series. although im sure the rest will be as great as the first two. just a symptomof a weak author attempting to stand alongside giants like wright and bowden

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Anonymous User
  • Anonymous User
  • 2020-05-25

skip this one

love most horus harrasy books this one is just boring. alot of story lines that just suck and are not intresting. worst book in series in my opinion.

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for gabriel s.
  • gabriel s.
  • 2020-03-15

Luck luster

hate to say anything bad about it, but this definitely was not one of my favorites. Story jumped around too much and they added in too much filler. I found myself skipping certain parts. There were some accents Keeble should not do. Overall book was ok and not what I expected.

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Moira Johnson
  • Moira Johnson
  • 2021-07-26

Pull Gav from the Siege of Terra

It may be to late to pull him, as he wrote this book and the next unreleased one. This one did nothing but reduce the amount of enjoyable books in the series. I hoped the siege series would have been reserved for the A++ writers but McNeil and Thorpe found their way in and underdelivered.

Excellent narration. I have listened to all of the other siege books twice. This and fury of magnus or regretfully meh.

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Thaipugg
  • Thaipugg
  • 2020-03-10

Great book!

This was a great book, and a good continue from the first two of the Siege of Terra!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for TJ
  • TJ
  • 2022-05-18

Squandering the Siege

Ya blew it, Gav. We get it, your best work is comedy and intrigue, but this key event deserved better. Found my attention wandering until Keeble starts making the old man voice again. Zenobody couldn't carry the story if it were printed on a battle standard.

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Chad Kinzly
  • Chad Kinzly
  • 2021-09-28

worst of siege of terra

 
This book is a complete drag. The worst character gets the majority of the focus. This annoying hive worker turned solider called Zenobi is the focus of almost every other chapter and they are long….. I could not care less about her story. When the interesting parts would come up such as the investigation of a daemon inside the walls, or the planning of the siege of the space port you would get maybe 5 minutes before bam back into another 15-20 minute drag of Zenobi. I understand the benefit of putting human perspective into these stories but this character eats up far to much time. Im pretty disappointed I’ve really enjoyed a lot of Gav Thorpes other books and this is by far on the bottom of the barrel. Do yourself a favor and just read a synopsis on the internet and skip to the next book.

1 person found this helpful