"Grey Angel" (audio drama) by John French

'Grey Angel' is a follow-up of sorts to both the novel 'Fallen Angels' and the audio drama 'Garro: Legion Of One'.

Packaged as a CD with 'Burden Of Duty', to be reviewed later.

To recap: Now that Loken AKA Cerberus has been rescued from the terrible dump of Isstvan, it's time for him to actually get out there and start doing Malcador's legwork. Now, he and fellow catspaw of Malcador Iacton Qruze are dispatched to Caliban. Last time we were there, we saw a significant proportion of the Dark Angels - led by Zahariel, Luther, and the mysterious Cypher - throw off the shackles of Imperial rule and declare themselves their own rulers. As far as I can tell, that happened some time before the Heresy came to light at Isstvan. By virtue of it following on from 'Legion Of One' (and therefore fairly long after 'Garro: Oath Of Moment'), this must take place quite a while after the Calth Atrocity. The Fallen have been chillin' on Caliban for hella years dogg. Sorry I can't be more exact than that, but I'm sure there's a wiki somewhere with a more stringently researched timeline...

Therefore, the chief appeal of 'Grey Angel' is that it's a fascinating look at how Fallen Caliban has evolved. In fact, there's not too much change from before: it's still a grim old place, basically like feudal Britain. Full of castles, torchlit interrogation rooms and brooding robed figures, and it's constantly raining. We don't explore the forests, but I'm guessing creepy hordes of monsters are still out there killing everything that moves. The Dark Angels themselves are still a black-armoured, humour-lacking lot who continue to insist on wearing robes over their power armour. However, something is rotten in the state of Grimdark - will our Luna Wolves heroes sniff it out before it's TOO LATE?

Yeah, OK, that's pretty cool. The robe can stay.

'Grey Angel' isn't a story full of earth-shaking new revelations that will shock your cock concerning the Dark Angels narrative within the Horus Heresy. In fact, I imagine many fans will find it maddeningly inconsequential: hell with all that "mustn't disturb the balance" shit, why DIDN'T Loken tell Luther how things stood in the galaxy at large? A WHOLE AUDIO DRAMA GOING BY WITH BASICALLY NO BATTLES AT ALL?!?!?! However, I find it an extremely enjoyable audio drama for a few reasons. Firstly, the extremely compelling portrayal of Luther. It seems that TV and cinema have abandoned the old standby stereotype of their villains being, for lack of a better term, "gay and evil". (Even Disney doesn't do this anymore.) I'm (somewhat) glad to say Black Library have kept the flame burning with the Luther of 'Grey Angel', screamingly camp and bowel-weakeningly menacing at the same time. It didn't really jibe with my vision of Luther as gained from the books, where he seemed an understandably bitter, but much more bland character - kind of the 'boy next door' version of Kor Phaeron. This version of the dude is... weird. I don't trust him, but I kind of like him, y'know? I want him to succeed against that arrogant shit The Lion. Well done for that. The other voice acting is excellently done, too.

Scar: certainly evil, possibly gay, though not "evil BECAUSE he was gay" - key difference.

And the glimpses we get of the state of the Fallen Angels themselves, while maddeningly brief, are pretty great at evoking a group of Astartes unsure of themselves in every way. The more I read about this situation, the more I feel like a fool for previously dismissing the Dark Angels background in 40K as boring and uninspired. It'll heavily depend on what exactly Luther turns out to be, and how much they retcon the 'truths' we 'know' of the Lion's return to Caliban, but I can't wait to see a further Fallen Angels story in the HH line - it's been a long time since our boys got their hands bloody. Surely not ALL of them are staying on Caliban holding their dicks for the duration...

Idris Elba could play Luther, perhaps, though it would clash with him being cast as Guilliman (I'm just spitballin' here).

Also to recommend 'Grey Angel' is that it's our first look into Garvi "I AM BECOME CERBERUS" Loken's mindset now it's a little more settled than his full-strength crazy in 'Legion Of One'. The guy is putting the pieces back together. He'll never be the Loken we first knew, and he's certainly got more than his fair share of ghosts, but he's still straight up and down. Plus, I know some fans are incredibly bored/angry with Malcador's team of SPECIAL MARINES who seem to insinuate their way into every corner of the war, but I for one can't get enough of their exploits. See, the more we know about them, the more devastating it will be when they die. And I'm pretty confident they're going to die. Every one of them.

Despite Luther's pouting menace reaching Alan Rickman levels quite quickly, there are helping hands along the way: a Watcher In The Dark pops up like a grim leprechaun, and the proto-Inquisition Astartes are aided by a Dark Angel who may be Cypher but is much more likely to be Zahariel. Qruze's portentuous last words, I think, give a bit more weight to my favourite "Zahariel becomes Cypher and spends 10,000 years hated by both sides of the Long War" theory. One complaint I have is that Qruze and Loken's interesting relationship in the initial HH trilogy isn't built on at all. In fact, there's almost no dialogue between them as they're separate for most of the story. I guess we'll leave the "I thought you were dead!" "I thought YOU were dead!" recriminations for another time.

The Dark Angels are getting to be a little bit like the Emperor's Childen for me. Much like 'Fulgrim', I didn't care for 'Descent Of Angels' or 'Fallen Angels' at all. Yet subsequent HH contributions - 'The Reflection Crack'd' and 'Angel Exterminatus' for the 3rd, 'Savage Weapons', 'The Lion', 'Call Of The Lion' and now 'Grey Angel' for the 1st - have built on the disappointing foundations extremely well.

I enjoyed this audio drama a lot. I'm callin' it 9/10.

New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.

"Tales Of Heresy" (short story compilation)

'Tales Of Heresy' is the first short story compendium of the Horus Heresy series. I actually like these a lot; they give you an opportunity to learn a bit more about a legion's pre-Heresy background, or a particular battle, or Dark Scheme, or Desperate Attempt At Defense, and then move on to something else. If an author's great, then that's a bonus; if they're indifferent, they don't have time to get dull - and if they're TERRIBLE, you don't feel like you've been cheated for the cost of the book. Since they're all different stories, I'm gonna do some different reviews. I'll just get right to it.

YEAH I ROCK THE AQUILA, FUCK Y'ALL

Blood Games: This is set on Terra, about a year after the events described in Flight Of The Eisenstein. It really has two halves: the mysterious, enigmatic intro where you're all "what is this character?" and "why is he doing this?", and then the slight letdown of the 'special diplomatic mission' scenario that makes up the rest of the story. This might be my least favourite contribution to the Horus Heresy made by Dan Abnett, The Dan Abnett (chosen of GW, anointed by the Four) but it says a lot about the quality of his writing that the 'least favourite' one is still very, very good. It gives us a bit more of a feeling for the Custodes, their slightly antagonistic relationship with the Astartes, and their 'background' role in the Heresy (they're like 30K era Terra's MI5 or Spectrum or something); a lot of this stuff was done better in later HH books featuring Custodes, but you can't build on foundations of nothing, can you? It's also nice to see some characters combining a nice mix of stealth, espionage, techno trickery and lettin' da gunz blow. What the fuck do you mean, "exactly like in 'Legion'"? Get out. I give Blood Games 7/10, and that's probably a little harsh.

Wolf At The Door: I could do with this being about half as long (I doubt this is the last time my inner editor, who is a spiteful cunt, gets a voice) but it isn't terrible. Much like Mike Lee's Dark Angels novel... or was that the bad one? I know I absolutely hated one of the 1st Legion books and didn't really care for the other... but which was which? I digress. In 'Wolf At The Door', Space Wolves battle foul debased xenos who are attempting to prey on an innocent planet of humans. But IS EVERYTHING AS IT SEEMS?!?! The story, again, feels like something that's been done better before and since, but has some great moments; the combat scenes in particular are well written. Additionally, there's a nice little sting in the tale that says a lot about the frustrating nature of the Great Crusade.

One criticism I've seen of this is that Abnett drastically changed the 'feel' of Heresy-era Space Wolves, and thus the 'honourable space-Viking' portrayal here feels... off. This is unfair, as it was written and published long before Prospero Burns - but yes, I too would rather have the Rout version than the mead-chugging Brian Blessed version. Really, though, this is a pretty entertaining story considering that usually my attitude is "pfft, Space Wolves? Fuck that shit." I'd give it 6/10 (ignoring the over-long intro which I'm not sure needs to be part of the story at all...). Oh, and hey, dark eldar, guess your units haven't changed in 10,000 years... nice to have the GW miniature line described so faithfully. SNARF.

Scions Of The Storm: A Word Bearers story. This deals with the period following the legion's censure, before they were all full-on jackin' off to Chaos. As you can tell, this is the period which was covered in the first period of The First Heretic. In terms of order of publication, I think this might be the HH debut of Lorgar and Kor Phaeron. Much like Wolf At The Door, I feel Scions Of The Storm suffers from a boring-as-shit intro and some pretty poor dialogue and characterisation... again like Wolf At The Door, it also has some crunchy fight scenes which are well-described, and some WHAT A TWIST!!!! moments. Unfortunately, this one suffers a bit more than the Mike Lee story because I feel that The First Heretic is a fucking masterpiece and Scions prominently features a mix of stuff First Heretic improved upon greatly (ie the forced compliance of a world which deploys 3-legged artificials) and stuff that First Heretic has rendered useless (the stuff about the Emperor telling Lorgar off privately on his 'battle barge' and the legion left to wonder "what was THAT aboot, eh?"). What also annoys me is that I just KNOW some asshole somewhere is reading First Heretic and sneering "All this shit was covered way better in Scions Of The Storm, GW need to pull their finger out and stop milkin' the cash cow!!!!" Oh well. I give it 5/10.

The Voice: I hated The Voice when I first read it, but mainly because I didn't have a clue what was fucking going on. Most stories in Tales Of Heresy need just a cursory knowledge of the Heresy storyline to pick up and appreciate, but that's not really so for The Voice. It concerns of one of the (fairly) minor characters from Flight Of The Eisenstein, and is set after that book finishes. It's full of allusions to vol. 4 of HH and while it's not technically mandatory for you to have read Flight Of The Eisenstein for you to understand The Voice, I'd really recommend it. Due to this it went from one of my least favourite short stories in the whole series, to one which has some of my favourite moments in Tales Of Heresy. Featuring a classic scenario - some iron-tough Silent Sisters battle through a Black Ship apparently claimed by THINGS from the warp - this tale has some great bone-crunching battle scenes and is rounded out with some fairly nifty Lovecraftian cosmic/body horror.

I'll be honest, I was utterly confused to death by the part near the end where it turns out the creature fucking with them is not in fact a daemonic critter of Horus but in fact a future version of one of the Sisters. Erm, or was it all a trick str8 outta Warpton? I admit, I don't have a fucking clue. First time I read this I was in so much of a hurry to get through this that I thought the Sisters were being contacted by the spirit of Garro, but reading it more closely, I'm barely the wiser. Anyway, the good thing about 40K fiction is, when you're a bit confused by shit, you can just go "well that sly motherfucker Tzeentch is probably behind the shit then". OH FUCK, I SHOULDN'T HAVE TYPED HIS NAME, MY HANDS ARE TURNING INTO FISH! I give The Voice a high 7/10.

Call Of The Lion: Siiiiiigh... the Dork Angels. These douches. I never really 'clicked' with any primogenitor loyalist chapter back in my days of being a full-on 40K player/fanboy, but probably Dark Angels were the ones I liked the least. Ahh, fuck it, I hated them all equally. Anyhow, let's just say they haven't been particularly well-served by the HH series so far in my opinion; it hasn't really challenged my view of them as pursed-mouth, uptight shitheads. But hist, what is this?! A good Dark Angels story?? Fucking hell!!!

I'm actually not sure if any of the guys in this tale are from the two full-length DA novels. Not that it matters. The story here on a basic level deals with tension between space marines from Terra and those from a primarch's homeworld. It's often hinted at in these books, but rarely shown in such explicit detail as it is here. Astelan is a battle hardened Terran Dark Angel; fairly intractable, but also conscious that even Space Marines need to build and not just destroy. Belath is a young Calibanite and he's ruthless, bloodthirsty and dogmatic... a true son of the Lion. Can these wacky, mismatched partners put aside their differences and show the Galaxy what they're made of????? When they encounter a human world with an apparently stable and non-debased society, they squabble over what exactly to do. (Yeah... another 'bring um to compliance nicca $$$' story! You sick of these yet?) I don't think it's a spoiler to say it doesn't really end well.

'Call Of The Lion' is a great story; it gives us a bit of insight into what's happening in the Dark Angels chapter and how not everyone is "on board" with their "new direction", it gives us some nice battle scenes, and even though The Lion himself doesn't appear, I think it tells us quite a bit about him. With the similarly entertaining story 'The Lion' in the Primarchs anthology, it could be that Gav is THE best choice to make those First Legion fuckboys seem a little bit less unbearable. (Still, 'Savage Weapons' is another great Lion story - an Aaron Dembski-Bowden study of 40K-era Cypher, or of Heresy-era Caliban could be superb.) This shit shows 'Wolf At The Door' and 'Scions Of The Storm' how to do it. Bow down to the OG. Imma give this 8/10.

The Last Church: I have mixed feelings about The Last Church. A lot of HH fanboys go crazy over it, and I kind of get it; if nothing else, The Last Church is different. It's one of the only stories in the canon so far where there's no combat, no warp shit, and no Astartes. Instead, it deals totally with a priest-bro just gabbin' bout God with The Emperor (yikes, spoilers - but anyone who doesn't realise withing a few pages of starting The Last Church that the mysterious stranger 'Revelation' is in fact The Emprah... well, they might actually be retarded). My first caveat here is I don't necessarily 'get' McNeill and why he's often seen as the Black Library's premier author, tied with Abnett. I love some of Graham's books - ie Outcast Dead and Mechanicum - but some I just find stodgy and uninteresting. (Dembski-Bowden, Swallow and maybe Thorpe are all BL/HH writers I prefer.) However, all his stuff seems to feature at least SOME excellent moments, and 'The Last Church' is no exception. The characters are pretty memorable and some of the dialogue is very well done. Unfortunately, a lot of this is just Cliff notes of various theories and arguments I remember from A-Level philosophy. And, man, I haaated A-Level philosophy.

The arguments aren't exactly measured, either; the priest just angrily jams his fingers in his ears whenever the Emprah makes reasonable points about negative aspects of religion, and the Emperor comes across as a smug Internet atheist with all the answers - someone who's dead set on belittling you and making you renounce your entire way of life simply through use of his massive intellect. The fact that we know the Emperor has the blood of millions on his hands, yet is still going on about how religion is super gay and makes mad wars brah, makes him seem like, well, a dick. The dickishness is reinforced by the knowledge that the Emperor is going to birth the Imperial Cult - the most harmful, joyless, restrictive religion of Mankind's history - and subjugate the entire race to it. Perhaps we can't say empirically (huh huh) that he planned it that way - but I take the Traitor Legions view that THAT was his intention all along. Ho hum, well, Tzeentch is a jolly rogue isn't he. "Snide teenage goth vs aspergic born again Christian" vibe aside, I have to admire this for really trying to fuck with the Big Questions. Some shit that the haters would not expect from BL/WH40K affiliated fiction, for sure. Also, I liked the glimpse we got of the Unification Age here; it makes sense that McNeill shoved some Thunder Warriors into Outcast Dead - he uses them very well here, and they're barely glimpsed. For the sake of argument, for trying something different, and for the memorable, great moments in here (the Emperor sniping "Finally, a spirit I can believe in" when given a glass of liquor is a real keeper). I'm giving this 8/10.

After Desh'ea: Well, THAT title sounds like a 90s R&B singer... haha. I love After Desh'ea, it's actually one of my favourite short stories in the whole series and probably the moment (since I read Tales Of Heresy pretty early on) that convinced me I was down for the HH long haul and wouldn't just pick up the Abnett books as they were released.

Let's face it, the World Eaters could be the most widely/easily stereotyped legion in all the Chaos lore. I'll admit I don't own ALL the fluff, but my second/third edition run of White Dwarfs and Codexes has a dearth of Khornates doing anything but howling "Blood for the Blood God!" and splitting a motherfucker's head with a chain-axe. (Apart from that weird Kharn story I read once where his entire troupe of Berserkers get corrupted by a Slaaneshi Chaos Lord and get a little bit fey before becoming extremely dead.) GW have kind of written themselves into a corner with these guys; they have no Librarians, no real 'ranged war' capacity, and no tactics beyond getting out of the drop pod, thumbing the 'on' switch on the chain-axe/sword/glaive/mace/gunblade and running towards the enemy while yelling "FUUUUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUU" in some form. And yet here we get Angron doing an impression of a sissy-ass nobleman, Angron discussing tactics and, goddamnit, Angron showing actual human emotions beyond RAGE. Admittedly, it is mostly rage - this guy was created 28,000 years too late to become the world's best 'tough guy hardcore band frontman'. But we also see extreme vulnerability here, and how the Emperor's retrieval of his 12th son may have completely damned him; not only did it result in everyone Angron cared about dying, but he has no real way of comprehending a being more powerful than himself and - if he wasn't critically fucked in the mental before this - he sure as shit is now. Guess I always pictured The Red Angel as constantly yelping monosyllabic KILL KILL SHOOT SHOOT BLOOD BLOOD WHOOP WHOOP like some gigantic superhuman Waka Flocka Flame... yet this story shows him as someone who could be articulate and poetic, but finds it horrendously difficult to follow the thread of his own thoughts since the Butchers' Nails implanted in his head won't give him peace. I remember reading an Amazon review that said this entire story was kind of pointless "since we all know Angron was crazy" - well, that's fair enough, but with that attitude why bother reading HH books at all? We all know what happened anyway, right, in vague terms, so why expand on them...?

'After Desh'ea' does what I never thought any story could do: it humanises Angron and Kharn. I was pretty much expecting a meeting of these guys to involve them smashing their foreheads together howling "SHHHYYYEAHHHH" while Pantera played in the background, and sure there is some of that, but there's also pathos, humour and, well, the tragedy of seeing Kharn when he was still partially sane.
Like 'The Last Church', 'After Desh'ea' also adds to the 'is the Emperor a giant chode?' query: when he met Angron face to face, why did he permit someone so powerful, yet clearly and irrevocably broken to not only continue existing but twist a whole fucking legion of superhuman warriors to his every whim...? Of all the primarchs save perhaps Night Haunter, Angron is the one who so clearly needed to be fucking euthanised, and the fact the Emperor (who is no fool) was cool with giving them this much power, just shows (IMO) that he wanted some 'deniable assets' he could wipe out quietly once they'd done his dirtiest work. But hey, I'm kind of glad that didn't happen, since we have this and Betrayer as a result (I still haven't read that one tbf, but "Angron + Lorgar + AD-B" is unlikely to = shitty; I kind of hope he's continued at least some of Farrer's ideas).

Unfortunately, author Matthew Farrer doesn't seem to have tackled any other HH stories, or be in line for any. I know that the Index Astartes dealt with a lot of the 'introduction moments' when a primarch met the Emperor and their legion - and they did it very well - but I want MORE STORIES LIKE THIS. Goddamn. I give this motherfucker 9/10, goddamnit, and ONLY BARELY does it escape 10/10. GRRRRRR!

A THRILLING CONCLUSION: So is there an overreaching theme to Tales Of Heresy? Well, not really, beyond the, well, heresy. There's not really a common time-period, Astartes legion, or scheme uniting these stories. Perhaps the 'a world needs to be brought to compliance, but some fuck shit occurs' motif could be called a "theme" if were were being generous. Some stories here are kind of shitty, some are great, some are like nothing that had come before (or sometimes since) in HH and some seem like just more of the same (Wolf At The Door and Scions Of The Storm really shouldn't have been right next to each other). In other words, it's your common/garden anthology. As a book, this gets 7/10 from me. I thoroughly recommend it; just don't make it your very first purchase unless you already know at least the basic 'overview' of the Horus Heresy.

New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.

"Legion" by Dan Abnett

So with an excellent starting shot for the HH Race, this marks the second time Dan Abnett steps up to the plate of the 31st Milennium. Fuck me, what a horrible mix of metaphors. I'm not a sports guy, OK?

One of my all-time favourite HH covers. You really get a sense of the scale of the Astartes compared to 'normal' troops.

Dan Abnett's excellent 'scene setter' novel 'Horus Rising' got the ball rolling on the Horus Heresy series. It introduced some characters that I felt weren't brilliantly served by subsequent authors. It introduced some characters who are still going strong today. It also introduced some themes that are sometimes well-handled by subsequent HH authors, but have become a bit of a cliché in some ways. But waaay back when 'Horus Rising' was Dan's sole contribution to HH, many 40K nerds were eagerly anticipating more of the same from this next Abnett missive from the 31st milennium. And hell, it was one concerning a, um, Legion that we never really knew that much about, as well. Panties was a-wettenin'; would Abnett deliver???? Well, you already know he did... but probably not in the way that everyone hoped.

Abnett had me at hello here; the book starts with a monologue of someone cussing a lot while resisting torture, and you're only a few pages in when someone casually drops the word 'fugger'. We also learn, to some readers' obvious disappointment, that Legion will focus primarily on the 'geno', or elite (yet, horrifyingly, human) ground-pounding soldiers of the Imperium, who fucking die in droves fighting an inscrutable, stubborn enemy. Horrendous casualties, arrogant clueless dickheads throwing the lives of their grunts away casually, and (barely censored) cussing? Oh, so that's what it's about, Abnett getting on his 'Naked And The Dead' shit? Sign me the fug up.

This book got fugging banned because of all the fugging cursing. I highly recommend it.

Not only that, HOLY SHIT, some actual fucking! I didn't think anyone would get laid in this whole damn Heresy (not lookin' at you Fulgrim, you damn slut) but hey, look who's burnin'; not just the galaxy. Come to think of it, that female remembrancer back in 'Horus Rising' got some as well, didn't she? Actually, the (not that graphic) sex in 'Legion' isn't gratuitous at all. It leads to one of the book's most painful moments, and also the most shocking. Puns about 'the shocker' are going through my head right now but I'm not gonna stoop to that level...

For better or for worse, 'Legion' doesn't fit in with the Horus Heresy series so far (which was only five books), or since, really. No Isstvan, no fraught interactions between different legions, no gradual corruption, no Erebus popping up like some power-armoured Zelig. I can see how it would bum people out that there was this sudden diversion to something that appeared to have no relevance to the series at first. 'Legion' does, however, deal extensively with three areas which can't be discounted: the Imperium's non-Astartes footsoldiers, the Cabal, and the Alpha Legion's reason for siding with Horus.

The "Imperial guard" bits of the book might be my favourite. If you're a fan of Abnett's non-BL book Embedded, this will appeal to you too. It's Gaunt's Ghosts with the 'grimdark' taken out; he's really good at making you feel the easy, unforced camaraderie between soldiers in awful combat situations. It's like Band Of Brothers with no flag-waving. Plus, his too-brief descriptions of the different regiments and their garb reminds me of my favourite 40K artwork: really weird, hideous-looking but flamboyant cohorts of things that look more like goblins than men.

The Cabal is an interesting, but potentially problematic, MacGuffin for 'Legion' - and in fact, the whole HH series. They're basically a bunch of foul xenos who've traveled the cosmos jerkin' civilisations around like their name was Puff Daddy, and swearing to always fight Chaos. They sometimes seem to be around just to push the story forwards: the Alpha Legion are looking for them, and the Cabal have dire warnings they desperately want to communicate to the Alpha Legion, but they're also way too cool to just knock on the door of the battle barge and lay out their motivations, so they have to have a big song-n-dance around the galaxy. While the Cabal are the basis for some AWESOME scenes in Legion (their chosen 007, John Grammaticus, is some kind of weird Jerry Cornelius self-hating immortal - instant jackpot), I am going to need a LOT more information about how this Cabal was formed before I "buy it". I'm not a 40K fluff expert, but how come we haven't heard of these dudes before - especially since they seem to have played such a pivotal role in the Heresy? What could make so many disparate breeds work together...? And don't just say "Chaos, innit". Having said that, I'm not trippin'. It looks like they get a bit more fleshed out in later books (I do remember them playing a minor role in 'Deliverance Lost', but when I read that book I didn't have a fucking clue what they were). And suspension of disbelief is a big part of all sci-fi, really, so a bit more isn't exactly breaking my enjoyment of HH.

As for "the reason for betrayal", it's on some Sophie's Choice shit. The Alpha Legion primarchs are basically told "If Horus wins, he'll wipe out the human race, but the machinations of Chaos shall forever lie ruined. If Horus loses, the human race will stagnate, and bring about a decisive Chaotic victory at some point between the years 40,000 and 50,000 CE. Pleasant dreamz!" Now, we know that the Alpha Legion joined up with Horus. We also know Horus lost. So... WHAT DID THEY DECIDE?!?! Did they fuck Horus over intentionally, in the hopes the human race would persevere and NOT succumb to Chaos? They are specialists in infiltration and subterfuge, after all. Or did they try their best to engineer Horus' victory but fail? Or did they start as fifth columnists and slowly get corrupted? Gawsh. It may seem like a cheap trick the way I've presented it, but it's actually some shit that's got me eagerly awaiting the next Alpha Legion-dedicated story. No doubt it will be filled with dark hints fit to leave me screaming with insane laughter at the knowledge which has broken my mind. I really love that even this early in the HH series, Black Library were prepared to give us revelations of plot developments utterly contradictory to the so-called 'unquestionable truths' the fluff had previously asserted about this period.

I always loved the tiny amount of Alpha Legion fluff that I'd read - that Primarch Alpharius trained all his marines to be just as deadly on their own as in a unit; that when all the other Traitor Legions retreated from Terra in disarray following Horus' death, the Alpha Legion were completely organised and fell back in good military order. 'Legion' as a book is completely in line with what we've been told about them before, but it also makes several key changes and additions to their background. The 20th Legion make extensive use of human agents, since they can get sneaky more easily than a gene-bulked 9-foot superhuman. Having said that, Legion XX also seem unafraid of shelving their armour and making more of an effort to be stealthy; diplomacy, sabotage, kidnapping, black ops, psyker obfuscation, all that good shit. They won't hesitate to stitch up Imperial troops if it serves the greater good (quickly established, but reiterated on a MUCH larger scale at the end) and they are, even for Astartes, ruthless as fuck. Most of the Alpha Legion stuff involves their Primarch, or rather, Primarchs. Alpharius/Omegon can easily be described as terrifically intelligent and terrifically arrogant. However, they're an oddity amongst the many primarchs who can be similarly described, in that they may actually be as clever as they think they are. And they've trained their legion incredibly well; it seems a little ridiculous that these guys are the only ones who've tried to break down the sycophantic hierarchy that apparently exists in every chapter. Instead of starstruck teenagers desperately competing for a pop idol's attention, the Alpha Legion Astartes/Primarch relationship seems more like a circle of academics reciting their dissertations; still competitive and egotistical, but much more cerebral than all the "Lupercal/Aurelian/Russ, look at meeeee, I love you the best and I am sooooo awesome" crowd.

Alpharius and Omegon: probably less likely to bring about humanity's downfall than these dudes

The coolness of 'Legion' is tempered by the sadness that not many HH books have learned its lesson (memo to certain BL authors: you don't have to "let us in" to Astartes minds and have them gabble about their motivations like a 14-year-old girl's diary; just show-n-prove, motherfucker). I sometimes feel like a lot of HH books - especially ones starring legions who haven't had an HH book before - blueprint 'Horus Rising' or 'Fulgrim' like it was mandatory, but where are the 'Legion' clones? There aren't any. Maybe I should be grateful; this book will stay unique in the Heresy series, and probably in Black Library in general.

My rating for 'Legion' is 10/10. I toyed with a 9/10 rating because of my lingering doubts about the Cabal, but they clearly had to be introduced somewhere in HH and I suppose here's as good a place as any. They wouldn't really come back into the narrative until around book 20 of the series, though...

New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.

The Index Page

As noted in the blog title, spoilers are all over my reviews, along with half-baked theories, unsupported claims and a whole lot of cussing. Please don't take any of it too seriously. These reviews aren't necessarily intended for people who haven't read the books; you will get key plot details spoiled, often in the form of a shitty joke.

Horus Heresy novels

Horus Rising - Dan Abnett

False Gods - Graham McNeill

Galaxy In Flames - Ben Counter

The Flight Of The Eisenstein - James Swallow

Fulgrim - Graham McNeill

Descent Of Angels - Mitchel Scanlon

Legion - Dan Abnett

Battle For The Abyss - Ben Counter

Mechanicum - Graham McNeill

Tales Of Heresy - Various authors

Fallen Angels - Mike Lee

A Thousand Sons - Graham McNeill

Nemesis - James Swallow

The First Heretic - Aaron Dembski-Bowden

Prospero Burns - Dan Abnett

Age Of Darkness - Various authors

The Outcast Dead - Graham McNeill

Deliverance Lost - Gav Thorpe

Know No Fear - Dan Abnett

The Primarchs - Various authors (Second review: Part One / Part Two)

Fear To Tread - James Swallow

Shadows Of Treachery - Various authors

Angel Exterminatus - Graham McNeill

Betrayer - Aaron Dembski-Bowden

Mark Of Calth - Various authors

Vulkan Lives - Nick Kyme
The Unremembered Empire - Dan Abnett
Scars - Chris Wraight
Vengeful Spirit - Graham McNeill
The Damnation Of Pythos - David Annandale
Legacies Of Betrayal - Various authors
Deathfire - Nick Kyme
War Without End - Various authors
Pharos - Guy Haley
Eye of Terra - Various authors
Path of Heaven - Chris Wraight
The Silent War - Various authors
Angels of Caliban - Gav Thorpe
Praetorian of Dorn - John French
Corax - Gav Thorpe
The Master of Mankind - Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Garro - James Swallow
Shattered Legions - Various Authors
The Crimson King - Graham McNeill
Ruinstorm - David Annandale
Old Earth - Nick Kyme (December 2017)
The Burden of Loyalty - Various Authors


Horus Heresy novellas & 'limited edition' novels

Promethean Sun - Nick Kyme
Aurelian - Aaron Dembski-Bowden (Also available in 'Eye of Terra')
Brotherhood Of The Storm - Chris Wraight (Also available in 'Legacies of Betrayal')
Corax: Soulforge - Gav Thorpe (Also available in 'Corax')
Scorched Earth - Nick Kyme
The Imperial Truth - Various authors (Also available in 'War Without End')
Tallarn: Executioner - John French (Also available in 'Tallarn')
Ravenlord - Gav Thorpe (Also available in 'Corax')
The Purge - Anthony Reynolds (Also available in 'The Silent War')
Sedition's Gate - Various authors (Also available in 'War Without End')
Death And Defiance - Various authors (Also available in 'War Without End')
The Seventh Serpent - Graham McNeill (Also available in 'Shattered Legions')
Blades Of The Traitor - Various authors (Also available in 'War Without End')
Tallarn: Ironclad - John French (Also available in 'Tallarn')
Meduson - Various authors (initially Warhammer World exclusive; all stories published in 'Shattered Legions' anthology.)
Cybernetica - Rob Sanders (Also available in 'The Burden of Loyalty')
Wolf King - Chris Wraight (Also available in 'The Burden of Loyalty')
The Honoured - Rob Sanders
The Unburdened - David Annandale
Garro: Vow of Faith - James Swallow (Also available in 'Garro')
Sons Of The Forge - Nick Kyme

Horus Heresy: The Primarchs novel series

Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar - David Annandale
Leman Russ: The Great Wolf - Chris Wraight
Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero - Graham McNeill
Perturabo: Hammer of Olympia - Guy Haley
Lorgar: Bearer of the Word - Gav Thorpe
Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix - Josh Reynolds
Ferrus Manus: Gorgon of Medusa - David Guymer (2018)
Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris - Chris Wraight (2018)
Grandfather's Gift (Mortarion short story) - Guy Haley

Horus Heresy audio dramas

Garro: Oath Of Moment - James Swallow

Garro: Sword Of Truth - James Swallow

Garro: Legion Of One - James Swallow

Garro: Burden Of Duty - James Swallow
Garro: Shield Of Lies - James Swallow
Garro: Ashes Of Fealty - James Swallow

Grey Angel - John French (second review) (Also available in 'The Silent War')

Butcher's Nails - Aaron Dembski-Bowden (Also available in 'Legacies of Betrayal')

The Sigillite - Chris Wraight (Also available in 'The Silent War')

Honour To The Dead - Gav Thorpe (Also available in 'Legacies of Betrayal')

Censure - Nick Kyme (Also available in 'Legacies of Betrayal')

Wolf Hunt - Graham McNeill (Also available in 'The Silent War')
Thief Of Revelations - Graham McNeill (Also available in 'Legacies of Betrayal')
Hunter's Moon - Guy Haley (Also available in 'Legacies of Betrayal')
Echoes Of Ruin - Various authors (Also available in 'Legacies of Betrayal')
Templar - John French (Also available in 'The Silent War')
Master Of The First - Gav Thorpe (Also available in 'Eye of Terra')
The Long Night - Aaron Dembski-Bowden (Also available in 'Eye of Terra')
Stratagem - Nick Kyme (Also available in 'Eye of Terra')
The Herald Of Sanguinius - Andy Smillie (Also available in 'Eye of Terra')
The Watcher - C Z Dunn (Also available in 'The Silent War')
The Eagle's Talon - John French (Also available in 'Eye of Terra')
Iron Corpses - David Annandale (Also available in 'Eye of Terra')
Raptor - Gav Thorpe (Also available in 'Corax')
The Shadowmasters - Gav Thorpe (Also available in 'Corax')
Grey Talon - Chris Wraight (Also available in 'Meduson') (See here for prose review)
Red-Marked - Nick Kyme (Also available in 'Eye of Terra')
The Either - Graham McNeill (Also available in 'Meduson') (See here for prose review)
The Heart of the Pharos - L. J. Goulding (originally titled 'The Dark Between The Stars', also available in 'The Burden of Loyalty')
Echoes of Imperium - Various authors
Children of Sicarus - Anthony Reynolds
The Thirteenth Wolf - Gav Thorpe (Also available in 'The Burden of Loyalty')
Perpetual - Dan Abnett (Also available in 'The Burden of Loyalty')
The Soul, Severed - Chris Wraight
Valerius - Gav Thorpe
The Binary Succession - David Annandale (Also available in 'The Burden of Loyalty')
Dark Compliance - John French
Blackshields: The False War - Josh Reynolds

Horus Heresy art books / 'other' types of publication

Macragge's Honour (graphic novel) - Dan Abnett / Neil Roberts
Visions Of Heresy - Various authors and artists
Book One: Betrayal (Forge World) - Alan Bligh/John French/various
Book Two: Massacre (Forge World) - Alan Bligh/John French/various
Book Three: Extinction (Forge World) - Alan Bligh/John French/various
Book Four: Conquest (Forge World) - Alan Bligh/Andy Hoare/various
Book Five: Tempest (Forge World) - Alan Bligh/various
Book Six: Retribution (Forge World) - Alan Bligh/various
Book Seven: Inferno (Forge World) - Alan Bligh/various
Book Eight: Angelus (Forge World) [Dark Angels and Blood Angels book!]
The Scripts, Volume One - Various authors
The Scripts, Volume Two - Various authors
Garro: Knight Errant - James Swallow (audio drama collection)

Loose stories (generally eBook Stories not currently set for inclusion in any 'official' HH publication)

Distant Echoes Of Old Night - Rob Sanders (Now available in 'The Silent War')
Lost Sons - James Swallow (Now available in 'The Silent War')
Vorax - Matthew Farrer (Now available in 'Eye of Terra')
The Gates Of Terra - Nick Kyme (Now available in 'The Silent War')
Luna Mendax - Graham McNeill (Now available in 'The Silent War')
Child Of Night - John French (Now available in 'The Silent War')
Daemonology - Chris Wraight (Now available in 'Blades of the Traitor')
Blackshield - Chris Wraight
Myriad - Rob Sanders
Into Exile - Aaron Dembski-Bowden (Also available in 'The Burden of Loyalty')
The Grey Raven - Gav Thorpe
The Painted Count - Guy Haley
Exocytosis - James Swallow
The Last Son of Prospero - Chris Wraight
Ordo Sinister - John French
The Ember Wolves - Rob Sanders
Restorer - Chris Wraight

Selected fiction with significant ties to the Horus Heresy series

The Talon Of Horus - Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Parting Of The Ways - Chris Wraight
War Of The Fang - Chris Wraight
Holder Of The Keys - Gav Thorpe
Sons Of Wrath - Andy Smillie
The Ahriman series - John French
The Night Lords trilogy - Aaron Dembski-Bowden
The 'Lords of Caliban' trilogy - Gav Thorpe
Kharn: Eater of Worlds - Anthony Reynolds
The Beast Arises - Various authors
Dark Imperium - Guy Haley

"Flight Of The Eisenstein" by James Swallow

Fuck the dude who booked this out at the public library and didn't return it for 5 months, hence making it one of the last HH books I read. MAY NURGLE COVER YOU WITH SORES BRO.

Garro goes downstairs with a big hand.

This book takes you through the open defection of the Death Guard at Isstvan III, as witnessed by Terran Death Guard and staunch loyalist Nathaniel Garro, and his subsequent attempt to bring the news of the Heresy to Terra, with the help of some of his still-loyal brothers and that motherfucker Iacton Qruze, the Half-Heard. While this isn't a 'scene-setting' book almost entirely about showing you the character and temperament of a legion, it does give you a bit of insight into the character of the Death Guard before they defected. There's a great (albeit brief) scene where we see that the Death Guard traditionally chug a 40 of mixed poisons in celebration of a victory - which, of course, their Astartes immune system neutralises very quickly, but not without discomfort. We also learn that Mortarion carries around globes of 'poisonous atmospheres' which he will sometimes 'sample (like) a fine wine'. Disgusting yet badass.

Of course, I don't feel like I know anywhere near the amount about them as the Night Lords, Sons Of Horus, Blood Angels, World Eaters etc... but the Death Guard are no longer just "The tough ones with a Grim Reaper for a Primarch, who - for some stupid fucking reason - chose Nurgle as their patron." I mean, is +1 Toughness worth it for your cock rotting off and your guts becoming an external organ...? But I now have a bit more character (and they really are tough). For one thing, there's a grime to this Legion that kind of foreshadows the muck and slime they'll soon be covered in when they all turn into Plaguemarines. Not exactly subtle, but cool. They also seem to have a keenness for trench warfare that one would think would be a little irrelevant by the 31st Millennium, but it's another fairly cool trait. Also, Mortarion - while not as unique and fascinating or exhaustively explored as some of the Primarchs - has some nice moments. Here's a quote:

"Praise from one's peers must be given when the moment is right. Without it, even the most steadfast man will eventually feel unvalued." 

There was an edge of melancholy that flickered through the primarch's voice so quickly that Garro decided he had imagined it.

The Death Guard seem to be - like Iron Warriors - one of those 'stoic' legions who secretly feel they aren't getting enough recognition. As Horus preys on the insecurities of his brothers very well, it makes more sense to me now that Mortarion was corrupted pretty easily. Although I remember in my old Codex Chaos it implied he was corrupted because his entire legion was trapped in the Warp and got space-SARS, and he cut a deal with Nurgle to stop them from dying of plague (???). Anyway, we don't quite get as much as Mortarion and his Mortivations as I might like, but it's good to see him not just being a massive cardboard cutout of a glans just for plot's sake (koff koff THOUSAND SONS).

I knew I should have signed up with Slaanesh.

Oh, we see Rogal Dorn as well, that gigantic golden asshole... but enough about him.

Swallow writes well. He's like a Graham McNeill with an even more terse, 'get to the point quickly' writing style, which suits the no-nonsense approach of the Death Guard. He also doesn't seem to fall into the McNeill trap of "Oh man, I guess I better have a load of non-combat scenes now where everyone talks about their feelings and thinks about the Primarch in order to build the plot, even though that's not my forte at all." I guess my main complaint is a common one with Horus Heresy books. As with previous entries in the HH series, (particularly 'Fulgrim') there are some JERKMARINES who very clearly have pencil moustaches and a lot of 'hair tonic' under their Terminator helms and are just itchin' to lay a hurtin' on their naive, trusting Loyalist brothers. Perhaps a little more ambiguity in the characterisation wouldn't hurt... the fuck am I saying? This is Horus Heresy... and Typhon IS a badass, for all my complaints...

All in all, Flight Of The Eisenstein is a great progression of the HH series. It does go over some scenes and events we've seen done before in the opening trilogy, but it adds dimension to them instead of providing eye-rolling repetition. (That came later.) It also gives some new events, including a tantalising look at Terra (still something I feel doesn't happen enough in the books, which is probably why I liked The Outcast Dead so much) and gives us a great, hard-ass character in Garro. The distinction may seem like a meaningless one, but it strikes me that Garro is a Space Marine, NOT an Adeptus Astartes. While he hasn't appeared much since in the book series, mainly preferring to keep it gangsta in eBook and audiobook form, I'm confident this isn't the last we'll see of him in print. It also nicely sets up Qruze's role in 'The Last Remembrancer' and beyond (he might be one of the only characters, save perhaps Lucius, who's got better since his Abnett debut).

I give 'Flight Of The Eisenstein' 7/10. It may rise to 8/10 in time, but reading this it's easy to see why people got so frustrated when the series lost momentum. The first four books, regardless of their relative merit, certainly didn't let up when it came to plotting.

Nathaniel Garro will return in 'Notapusy'

New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.

A brief overview

Some time ago, back thru' the mists of time, I was a big-time Warhammer freak.

Did a something search for Warhammer Memes. This seemed the most appropriate.

Every month I would get the new White Dwarf and pore over it for the new releases and army books. Ahh, I had hopes of collecting just about every single Warhammer Fantasy and 40K army at one point. (Except for Dwarfs. Never liked those little dudes.) Finances and a short attention span meant I rarely bought more than a few units per army. That didn't stop me from planning 2,000 point forces in excruciating detail. It wasn't just the models that captured my imagination. White Dwarf was full of fiction and 'faction' expanding the grim darkness of the 40K universe. It tended to be just a page, involving an Imperial Guardsman being horrendously murdered by whatever new unit WD was puffing, but it was effective, and usually passably well-written (despite frequent overuse of the words 'routed' and 'chitinous'). I'm pretty sure reading these had a lasting effect, not just on my vocabulary (I throw 'routed' out there whenever I can) but on my tastes in fiction. Along with Michael Moorcock's 'Hawkmoon' series and Tolkein's 'The Hobbit' (though not 'The Lord Of The Rings'), I think 40K's universe-building laid the foundations for my lifetime fondness for epic fantasy/sci-fi/sci-fantasy sagas.

Sure, as I got older, I realised Games Workshop rips off most of its ideas from easily identifiable sources or fantasy tropes. Eldar, Orks and the unlamented Squats are just Tolkein's races transposed into space. The Tyranids are heavily influenced by the dripping, fanged monsters of the Alien movies (and later models seem equally indebted to Starship Troopers). The Tau are perhaps the most brazen "we're out of ideas" moment in the studio's history - just a collection of barely-disguised idea-snatches from any 'mech suit anime' you could care to name.

The Imperium, though - that always seemed like a less blatant stew of rip-offs. "Catholic Space Nazis" is how one meme describes the Imperium and boy, does it ever fit. Colossal, terrifying ubermenschen who can kill a dude with a finger, countless legions of willingly-expended dog soldiers, huge cathedrals flying through space, everyone flying banners with ever-so-slightly fascistic iconography of fists and eagles. And skulls, skulls, everywhere skulls - it seemed sometimes that was the one original thing GW contributed. Some space somewhere? Put a skull on it! A flying skull, an animal skull, a skull 40 feet tall that shot fire - whatever.

You may have noticed an omission on the above list. I've said before I was kind of fickle about army loyalties. However, I definitely reserved a special place in my heart for the legions of Chaos. Dudes had SO many skulls.

Took me years to see the giant mushroom cloud on this cover.

It was the above book that cemented my love for these legions of psychopaths, their dark gods, and their fondness for putting spikes on everything. When the switch to 3rd Edition 40K happened, I managed to snake my gaming club's copy. My gaming club was run by a local church, so the last third of the book - which dealt with daemon allies for your Chaos armies - had been torn out so as to not corrupt young gamers. (The same fate, for some reason, had befell [or befallen?] all the stuff about Huron Blackheart, noted Satanist.) Still, daemons were never really what interested me about the armies of Chaos. It was the backstory of the Horus Heresy I loved. I devoured the fluff about the Chaos Chapters (they were still Chapters, back then) who turned against their brothers during the Heresy and remained a thorn in the Imperium's side. I was absolutely fascinated by the idea that these refugees from an event ten thousand years ago were still out their, nurturing their grudge, becoming bitterer and, let's face it, crazier as time went by.

Ralph Fiennes - The Wilderness Years

Third edition - and oh, man, that's when then shit got real. Motherfuckers had tubes coming right out of their heads - and for what? And what is going on with dude's chin??? This is where I started SERIOUSLY planning my Chaos horde; it was going to have a little conclave of worshippers for each of the Pantheon, united by a cynical, black-hearted Aspiring Champion who had hopes of carving out his own pirate kingdom. Wish I could remember what I was going to name him. "It's even better, because the third edition rules let you play with armies twice the size in half the time!" I probably thought to myself. In retrospect, this was exactly what 3E wanted us to think.

But then what happened? Puberty happened. I started noticing that girls had become a new, interesting type of person who I wanted to impress, and studies seemed to show very few were impressed by 28mm scale armies. Not even Sisters of Battle armies... and so the Ravening Horde of Chaos Undivided was put on hold indefinitely. As time went on it also became apparent that girls wouldn't be much impressed with me anyway, toy armies or no, but by then I'd come too far and going back to gaming would have felt like a defeat, so I got interested in music instead.

Girls. +3 invulnerable save on 2d6.

Fast forward to around 2006, and I (surreptitiously) pick up a couple of Black Library books at the non-Black (local) Library by mercenary writer-dude Dan Abnett. One is 'Traitor General', which was then probably one of the most recent books in the Gaunt's Ghosts series. The series was already well-established so I had a bit of a struggle getting up to speed with the chracter arcs - but it led to me reading every Gaunt's Ghosts book, and 'Traitor General' remains one of my all-time favourite military sci-fi novels.

The other book is 'Horus Rising', which kicked off the Horus Heresy series.

This shit blew me the fuck away.

How can I really describe the Horus Heresy to people who aren't familiar with it? For a contemporary audience, I feel comfortable saying it's "Game Of Thrones, in space, without the sex." If the labyrinthine allegiances and power plays and ancient vendettas and double-crosses of the warring Great Houses are your favourite element to those chronicles of Westeros, and you don't feel a compulsive need for your fantasy epics to include armies of whores and rapists, then mayhaps The Horus Heresy is for you. Sex is almost completely off the table (the vast majority of the characters are not human but 'posthuman' warriors known as Astartes, who have no discernible sex drive) as is bad language, since this is tie-in fiction with a gaming system popular with kids under 12 as well as adults. There are some authors who are given a little more leeway with the sex-and-bad-language ban, but mostly your heroes won't say much more that 'damn!', or do anything more lewd than "mildly lustful thoughts". Some see that as a problem, some as a bonus. Myself, I kind of like a LOT of swearing, and I like my heroes to act like they possess genitals, even if they don't use them, so it's a thumbs down from me on that aspect, but it's a fairly minor point that doesn't affect my enjoyment of the series as a whole.

Oh, and despite the conscientiousness in other areas, these books are incredibly violent. It's not quite American Psycho level, but these guys don't shy away from depicting the horrors of war and the effects on the human or non-human body. Boltguns are always exploding people, skulls are frequently split by gauntleted fists, and the standard sword that people carry in this universe is actually a fucking chainsaw.

It's a sword, plus a chainsaw. It's a chainsword. I don't think it could be clearer.

Also in common with Game Of Thrones is the huge cast of this series. The main characters are the eighteen Primarchs, and their 'father' the Emperor: larger than life characters, each with their own flaws, strengths and secret agendas. Between them, though, they command thousands upon thousands of Space Marines, many of which are major characters in their own right. And that's not even taking into account the non-genetically-modified human military, who outnumber the Space Marines by a huge amount. Or the strange, sinister bureaucracy of the Imperium's central government. Or the daemonic entities that use mortals as puppets. Or the non-human races boppin' around the galaxy, sometimes taking an interest in this upstart species called 'humans', sometimes not. It can be incredibly hard to keep track of who serves who, who hates who, and who is helping (or blocking) who's agenda.

Despite my love of 'Horus Rising', I was still quite wary of actually getting into the series, as it would have been necessary to accept to myself that I was still fascinated by the 40K universe. I grew up knowing the 'history' of the Horus Heresy, and this book series promised to delve into far greater detail than a few pages before the 'army list' in a Chaos Codex, but surely I would be better off reading more worthy, serious books? And for a while, that (shaky) logic held. But a year or so ago, I started getting as many of the books as I could out of the library (I'm still not that interested if they're only library loans, right? It's not like I'm buying them), only to find there's, what, 20 of these books? Crazy. "I'll just read the ones I can get from the library; buying them would be a step too far." But the library doesn't have a copy of 'Know No Fear'. Or 'Flight Of The Eisenstein'. Or 'Legion'. People say good things about those, so maybe, y'know, I'll buy 'em... second-hand, or something.

Soon enough, I've got copies of every HH book.

And I love the series. Oh sure, there are some events I'm unhappy about, and some entire books I'd rather forget about, but I've rarely had more fun, or been as invested, in a series this massive. And as I've been going, I've been inspired to jot down notes about each book - sometimes facetious jokes about lame stuff I don't like, but more frequently theories, or enthusiastic burbling about how gay I am for Dan Abnett. All this shite has been saved on a (initially little) WordPad document on my computer. This document has grown and grown, full of reviews. Some are half-baked nonsense, some read like arguments with myself, and some are pure shit, but I've had a lot of fun writing them. And so I figured, why not start a HH review blog? I'm planning on writing about some other fiction - both Black Library and non-Black Library - but HH will be the main focus.

Above all, I'm a fan of the series, so please keep that in mind even if I'm sarcastic, flip or critical about elements of it, or even the publishing practices of BL, I'm coming at you from a place of love... just like the glorious Emprah in his ever-benevolent wisdom.

And with that, I'm gonna get this shit started...