"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.

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