Well... I've come to the end of the (published) Heresy series. I did this once before (when I finished the 'Mark Of Calth' review) but it took me almost 2 more book releases before I actually got this blog up and running. Of course, I'm not an HH authority now by any means. There's a few audio dramas I'm waiting on hearing, due to my preference for getting them on CD rather than just buying the MP3s. And of course, there are limited edition novellas I'm missing, stuff that's only come out on e-Books (which I think I will continue to NEVER buy), and stuff which has only been available at GW/Black Library events.
In keeping with this theme, I got an email today about this, the second Black Library Weekender!!! I'm very conflicted about this. I'd absolutely love to get my hands on the 'Know No Fear' tie-in graphic novel 'Macragge's Honour'. And even more than that, an exclusive Horus Heresy anthology called 'The Imperial Truth'? Sign me up! I'm not really too fussed about 'Visions Of Heresy', though I'm sure I will get that eventually. I feel like I need to explain a bit; it's not that I want to get this stuff before everyone else but I just can't wait too long for more of the HH story.
On the other hand... it is expensive. £70 for a ticket, plus I'd have to get the train up there, and probably stay in a hotel for a few nights - not cheap. Plus all the books there would probably cost a lot. But if I'm completely honest, I'm not as concerned about spending money as I am about travelling out of my 'comfort zone', and going there solo isn't a hugely attractive prospect for me. I'm pretty uncomfortable in crowds, too. So probably I'll just stay home, and wait a few years for all the exclusive stuff to become available to the rest of us shitmunchers.
As for the signings and meet-and-greets with authors... man, I already KNOW I like those guys' work, and I don't feel like I need an autographed book to reinforce that. And I'm not sure I would want to meet them... Then you have this terrifying sounding thing called 'Pitch Factor' wherein you compete against a hall of other attendees to pitch some possible Black Library fiction. Deep down inside (no homo) I'd love to write Black Library fiction but I know from experience that any obstacles I encountered would make me completely forsake this dream. 'Having my ideas criticised by a room full of people who are similarly fond of HH' would definitely count as an 'obstacle' for me. I'd probably grab a corkscrew and attempt some DIY version of the 'forgettingness surgery' from Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.
So yeah, don't expect to see Purple Heresy all up in the VIP at the Black Library Weekender...
Moving on from that downbeat shit. Next in the pipeline for HH? Some shit I'm pretty stoked about. Chris Wraight's 'Scars' e-book series is coming to an end fairly soon. If the release schedule followed for HH so far is kept to, I'm guessing the hardback version of this book will go on sale in early December 2013. I just don't fuck with e-books so I'm holding out for the physical form, but I'm really looking forward to it and I've heard good things. We've barely had any White Scars stuff in the Heresy so far, and Wraight's 'Rebirth' is definitely one of the better HH stories I've read. We also have the 'Thief Of Revelations/Hunter's Moon' audio stories, listed on Amazon as coming out mid-2014 in CD format. Apparently, one story will be about the Space Wolves, one will be about Ahriman and Magnus.
In terms of more HH books, the names of two anthologies, 'The Shattered Legions' and 'The Shadow War', have apparently been announced (according to this old, but very accurate, forum post). 'The Shattered Legions' will focus on Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard. I'd expect that we'll get a continuation of 'shattered legion' survivors we saw in 'Angel Exterminatus', 'Vulkan Lives' and 'The Unremembered Empire'... and I bet Gav Thorpe gives us a bit more setup for whatever the next Raven Guard novel will be. Allegedly, 'The Silent War' will show us the fallout from Magnus' astral-projection craziness on Terra, but I'd also expect us to get a lot more stories along the lines of 'The Sigillite' and 'Grey Angel' / 'Burden Of Duty'. I'm guessing it'll have a bit of an 'espionage' theme, so I'm guessing we may get a bit more Cold War craziness from those creepy Alpha Legion dudes. If they get creative with the title, we might see some more stories from Calth's Underworld War, or Lorgar and Angron's Shadow Crusade... Next up for me, though, will be 'Tallarn: Executioner' which I ordered a little while back and should get to me some time before the end of November. I'm guessing this will also be a bit of a 'full HH novel setup', as I doubt the entirety of Tallarn's fate is going to be dealt with in just one novella.
In terms of non-HH Black Library fiction, I'm psyched for the new Gaunt's Ghosts book, 'The Warmaster', according to Amazon it's out July 2014 (which judging from the Amazon date/BL release date discrepancies I've seen in the past, should mean it's actually out in the first couple months of 2014). I'm eager to see what happens next in this series as the last couple books were brilliant. I'm also looking forward to the paperback of 'Pariah', which seems to have got some criticism from Ravenor/Eisenhorn fans, but I loved it. Bequin Book 2 can't come soon enough for me.
But just because I've read all the HH novels so far, doesn't mean I've reviewed them all. So, I just drew up my "Still To Review" list, of the 'mop-up' reading I have to do for books I haven't yet written reviews for...
Horus Rising - Dan Abnett
False Gods - Graham McNeill
Galaxy In Flames - Ben Counter
Fulgrim - Graham McNeill
Descent Of Angels - Mitchel Scanlon
Battle For The Abyss - Ben Counter
Mechanicum - Graham McNeill
Fallen Angels - Mike Lee
A Thousand Sons - Graham McNeill
Nemesis - James Swallow
The Outcast Dead - Graham McNeill
Deliverance Lost - Gav Thorpe
Two observations - one, it's quite McNeill heavy, and two, it contains some stretches I am NOT looking forward to reliving. From 'False Gods' through to 'Battle For The Abyss' is a run I remember as being some of the dryest, most joyless sci-fi writing I've ever encountered in all my nerdy days. And after the brief highlight of 'Mechanicum', it takes until 'The Outcast Dead' that we hit a sequence of books I actually relish the thought of reading again.
I'm not sure what to feel about the fact Black Library claim the overall series is "about halfway done". I mean, in a way, it feels like shit is rushing towards the inevitable conclusion... how could it really take 25 more books until we get to the point where the Emperor falls? Or even 25 books until the very end of the Great Scouring (is that even gonna be part of the series)? It's like, even after the gloomy tête-à-tête in 'Unremembered Empire', how long is it gonna be until those 3 dudes march on Earth? And even if the Siege of Terra gets a novel for each Legion which takes part, they can't spin that out for too long. Then again, we still haven't had jack shit about the White Scars. We don't know what those slippery bastards in the XX Legion are doing right now. Magnus is still moping around the Planet of the Sorcerors, biting on a pillow, and he's pretty far away from going full-on Fantasia. I still don't have a fucking clue what really motivates Mortarion or what kind of personality he has. "Hates magic, loves poison gases" isn't really much to go on. The Fallen Angels are, as far as can be told, standing around the surface of Caliban scratching their withered empty ballsacks. I'm just saying, for every Garro, Lorgar, Qruze or Fulgrim whose story is pushing onwards into fresh, weird new areas, there are story branches that seem to be in need of a definite kickstart, or perhaps just some STORY - any story at all. AND WHAT THE FUCK IS HORUS DOING RIGHT NOW???
I mean, I kinda hope that they don't decide to use one of the remaining 25 books to have Ben Counter describe in mind-numbing detail the alterations Dorn is making to the Palace, or have some new dude write about the Iron Hands being angsty and sulky about the fact they can't do SHIT anymore... but hell, I'm kinda content. So long as they fall into a 'holding pattern' of Abnett, Dembski-Bowden, Swallow and McNeill dealing with most of the releases (perhaps I'd give Gav Thorpe a place in the winners circle too, as long as he lays off the fucking hair metal references) I'm pretty casual. Shit, if we can get a few more 'Know No Fears', 'Angel Exterminatuses' and 'First Heretics', the series could probably survive some more yawnfests like 'Battle For The Abyss' or 'A Thousand Sons'.
So yeah, I'll keep marking HH release dates on my calendar. I'll even pay 20 FUCKING POUNDS for the hardback version just to read them about half a year earlier... because I'm loco like that.
Thursday 17 October 2013
Sunday 13 October 2013
"The Unremembered Empire" by Dan Abnett
'The Unremembered Empire' is, on balance, probably the least impressive book Dan Abnett has contributed to the Horus Heresy series. It's arguably also an incredibly necessary one.
Now, 'least impressive' seems like stark terms to describe a book by one of my favourite authors, but like my opinion of his short story 'Blood Games', just because I feel it's nowhere near as good as the others, doesn't make it bad, by any definition. Dan's the victim of his previous track record here. 'Horus Rising' started the ball rolling and we've probably all got very fond memories of it. 'Legion' is seen by many as the pinnacle of the entire series and I definitely agree that it's a masterpiece. 'Prospero Burns' is probably my favourite work of Space Marine fiction ever, in HH or outside of it. 'Know No Fear' is incredible and I doubt we'll see any subsequent book in the series able to sustain its intensity; even the Siege of Terra will probably be spread out across several books. In comparison, 'The Unremembered Empire' just doesn't stack up. Perhaps my expectations were too high but Dan was four-for-four until now, which might be why I pre-ordered this in hardback and finished reading it less than 24 hours after I ripped the cardboard packaging open.
Let me explain why I'm using the word 'necessary'. While many HH Abnett books (and also quite a few HH books from other authors) are better and more enjoyable than 'Unremembered Empire', they don't always give us this much narrative thrust. From 'Legion' and 'Prospero Rising' we got a shitload of incredibly interesting background, but in terms of plot points that were relevant to the larger series, only a few (OK, it was a BIG ONE for 'Legion'...). I know I've said in the past that people who want to shove the narrative forwards, and have no patience for 'world-building' interludes, are what is killing the Horus Heresy series. But sometimes it is a good thing for a book to be overcrowded with significant events - it won't necessarily be too great to read, but subsequent books will build on its revelations and, given more space, they'll be able to put more detail and art into what we first read. Like 'Galaxy In Flames'. I wouldn't say I enjoyed that book at all, but the events and characters have been used as a foundation for much more interesting stories by a lot of authors in HH series.
'The Unremembered Empire' is a follow-up to the events of 'Know No Fear', the 'Mark Of Calth' anthology, and 'Betrayer'. What transpired in those books shapes the story here, though don't expect to see a return of characters like Ventanus, Lorgar, Angron, Kharn, Kor Phaeron, Tetrarch Nicodemus, etc - it's more like, this centres on a Guilliman incredibly scarred by the monstrous events of Calth and the Shadow Crusade, and haunted by fears for the sons he left to fend for themselves in the Underworld War, which began over two years ago. However, in terms of stories and characters being picked up, 'Unremembered Empire' is a follow-up to... so many things. Most significantly, 'Vulkan Lives', but it also draws on 'The Lion', 'Rules Of Engagement', 'The Iron Within', 'Prince Of Crows', and 'The Crimson Fist'. And I'm not saying you get a brief glimpse of one character from each of these stories as 'fan service' and then they're never mentioned again. Dan does his best to integrate all these storylines naturally into his own. It's a massive task and he manages it very well; at no point was I thinking "You're here? But why?" A plot-heavy book, tying together a lot of the diverging storylines which have been left dangling or vanished in previous books, may well be exactly what the Horus Heresy series needs right now. However, the combination of all these different storylines comes at the expense of a lot of the things that made the previous Dan books so great: a clearly defined and fast-moving narrative, lashings of gallows humour, excellent dialogue, superb action sequences. All these things are THERE, certainly, but... less than I'd like. Power struggles and squabbling between Loyalist legions seems like a meaty topic Dan could really get his teeth into... so I'm not sure what happened.
My first, and most petty, complaint is that the cover of the book is misleading (this isn't exactly Dan's fault, I know). I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's Guilliman and Sanguinius, right? Yet Sanguinius makes no appearance until the end of the book, making this cover an actual spoiler (since it depicts an event which is literally a couple pages from the end of the book). DANG YOU BLACK LIBRARY! You made me think Sanguinius was going to be a major character here!
The lengthy introduction of this book is a bit of a slog, I won't dress it up. At first, I thought a novel entirely about Roboute Guilliman playing politician while slowly losing his mind would be a fun time. What can I say, sometimes I love it when series totally de-rail and also piss off their more inflexible fans. (For this reason, I also love the Star Wars Rogue Squadron book 'The Krytos Trap', which pauses a series about dramatic, high-stakes starfighter dogfights to... tell the story of a lengthy, politically motivated court case.) But this book drags a little. For a lot of the story setup, Guilliman and co. are just sitting around, going stir crazy, wondering what's going on at Terra, and arguing amongst themselves about the direction 'Imperium Secundus' will take. (The difficult second album, eh? It was doomed to be poorly received.) This is topped off by Guilliman seemingly having to convince himself constantly that he's not secretly hoping to usurp his Emprah, and thinking about the temptation to do that A LOT. This whole storyline does certainly shed light on his comments at the end of 'Rules Of Engagement' though. You can't accuse these HH dudes of not planning ahead!
While not every scene is gripping stuff, the actual writing is excellent; an early highlight is a brutal fight between Guilliman and a ten-strong kill squad of Astartes, one of the best action sequences in the series, outside, well, 'Know No Fear'. Guilliman's heightened reactions and superhuman ability to calculate the current 'practical' make this one of the best uses of on-page 'bullet time' (for want of a better phrase) I've ever read. But much of the first half of 'Unremembered Empire' is just... setup. Characters and events being manouvred into place, slightly clumsily, for when the plot can finally kick into gear. 'Vulkan Lives' felt like it followed the same school of thought - pages 0-200 set 'em up, pages 200-400 knock 'em down - and that wasn't my particular favourite book either. Having said that, around the time of the Lion's arrival, and the near-simultaneous arrival of John Grammaticus (and... some others) things do finally step up in pace. Sluggishly at first, but the feeling of quickly-increasing tension is very well done. It's just a shame we're nearly 200 pages in before the shit starts flyin'. And then, when the action starts, the problems don't exactly stop, though the book certainly becomes much more enjoyable.
There were a few odd choices made in the writing of this book. In place of Abnett's trademark biting down-to-earth wit, the dialogue seems oddly stilted and... Shakespearean. Weirdly, it works very well. I wonder if it's because some people felt 'Know No Fear' showed the Ultramarines being too 'normal' in their speech? I'd much rather have that style as Dan is superb at it, but I can't deny that the more ornate language fits in with the 'family tragedy' theme the book has. Another strange thing is that Abnett sometimes refers to single Astartes as plural ("the Ultramarines sat with his feet up, eating an ice-cream sandwich" "the Dark Angels was an expert at karaoke"). Is this how they're meant to be referred to? Or a search-and-replace spellcheck gone wrong?
Also, there's a chronology issue I'm hella confused by. 'Vulkan Lives' ends with Vulkan escaping Kurze and teleporting to Macragge. This teleportation happens very near the beginning of 'Unremembered Empire'. 'Prince Of Crows' begins with Kurze in a coma after being badly wounded by the Lion; he's in a coma for most of the story, which ends with him teleporting onto the Lion's flagship. We're told in 'Unremembered Empire' that he ran amok on the flagship for around three months and is still loose down there when the Lion comes to Macragge. So... 'Vulkan Lives' takes us right up to the beginning of 'Unremembered Empire' in terms of Kurze's actions. And 'Prince Of Crows' and the Lion's exposition do the same... but the two timelines don't reconcile in my head. The only way I can understand it is if the entirety of 'Prince Of Crows' plus another 3 months transpired in the apparently split-second gap between Vulkan thumbing Dawnbringer's teleportation switch and Vulkan appearing in Macragge's atmosphere. I suppose that's not impossible, with the nature of time being famously fluid in the 40K universe... but I'd like a little bit more explanation on this... I'm sure they'll clear it up eventually (or maybe they'll just say "Ahriman is responsible"). Just like the timeline fuckery in 'The Outcast Dead', this didn't have any impact in my actual enjoyment of the story; in fact I only realised the weirdness after I'd finished the book. But you know, that's gonna make SOMEONE pretty angry... someone out there. 40K nerds seem VERY hot on this shit.
So the 'day-to-day running of a new Empire' aspect of the book is something of a non-starter. It sort of feels like Abnett could have dealt interestingly with the plot of the first third or so of this book as a novella, and then the high-octane action stuff could have been handed off to a Gav Thorpe or a James Swallow. However, that would cut out perhaps the most interesting plot point here: the troubled relationship between Guilliman and Lion El'Johnson. A Primarch groupie such as myself is always on the lookout for expansion of these characters and Abnett certainly delivers in that regard. Their rivalry is presented in a way that makes it easy to be sympathetic to both sides. Part of Guilliman's great unease at the Lion's presence is not knowing how his brother will react to the overturning of the edict of Nikaea. Yet we already know from the novella 'The Lion' that Johnson has gone far further in acting against their father's anti-psyker rule than Roboute had even dreamed of. This is just one of many plot points that reinforce the fact these two brothers just can't talk to each other maaaan. The increasingly tense confrontations that they have in this book make you wish that any other Loyalist Primarch had been the first to answer Macragge's call.
Does 'Unremembered Empire' feature the tragic infamy and mind-breakingly huge battles of 'Betrayer'? Is it a fast-paced page-turner like 'Angel Exterminatus'? Is it an edge-of-your-seat masterwork of storytelling like 'Know No Fear'? Is it an uncomplicated, ceramite-splintering romp that requires almost no effort to enjoy like 'Fear To Tread'? No fucking way. But it does seem a hell of a setup. With Kurze still at large on Macragge, with Vulkan... possibly... not being dead, with the three loyalist brothers here consolidating their power, and with John Grammaticus' story taking a new and strange turn, it definitely sets things up nicely for the next few books. But I'm hoping that for his next chapter in the HH saga, Abnett doesn't bite off more than he can chew.
In my ideal world, he'd return to writing about the Sons Of Horus ('Little Horus' really piqued my interest in Abnett writing about those dudes again) but if this book tells me anything, it's that it might be a good idea for Dan to be given a new Legion to write about every time he does a book, as this is the first time he's 'returned' to a Legion he's already written about and it sometimes seems like he's a little... bored. So... remnant Iron Hands, or perhaps the Death Guard, could be a nice idea... but hell, it's probably a little early for all this - I'm sure we've got several more volumes to come before we get another Dan HH novel. Since Gaunt's Ghosts and the Eisenhorn/Ravenor sagas are getting better and better, maybe he should focus on those for a while... and considering how good 'Embedded' was, non-Black Library fiction by him would be just as interesting to me.
I will give 'Unremembered Empire' 7/10 for now. 8/10 is a strong possibility the more I think about it, but we'll see. Depending on how the setup in this book is actually utilised, perhaps I'll look back on this as the foundation for something great. Or perhaps as another slightly disappointing HH book, from an author who can do much better.
New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.
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| OMG SPOILERS. |
Let me explain why I'm using the word 'necessary'. While many HH Abnett books (and also quite a few HH books from other authors) are better and more enjoyable than 'Unremembered Empire', they don't always give us this much narrative thrust. From 'Legion' and 'Prospero Rising' we got a shitload of incredibly interesting background, but in terms of plot points that were relevant to the larger series, only a few (OK, it was a BIG ONE for 'Legion'...). I know I've said in the past that people who want to shove the narrative forwards, and have no patience for 'world-building' interludes, are what is killing the Horus Heresy series. But sometimes it is a good thing for a book to be overcrowded with significant events - it won't necessarily be too great to read, but subsequent books will build on its revelations and, given more space, they'll be able to put more detail and art into what we first read. Like 'Galaxy In Flames'. I wouldn't say I enjoyed that book at all, but the events and characters have been used as a foundation for much more interesting stories by a lot of authors in HH series.
'The Unremembered Empire' is a follow-up to the events of 'Know No Fear', the 'Mark Of Calth' anthology, and 'Betrayer'. What transpired in those books shapes the story here, though don't expect to see a return of characters like Ventanus, Lorgar, Angron, Kharn, Kor Phaeron, Tetrarch Nicodemus, etc - it's more like, this centres on a Guilliman incredibly scarred by the monstrous events of Calth and the Shadow Crusade, and haunted by fears for the sons he left to fend for themselves in the Underworld War, which began over two years ago. However, in terms of stories and characters being picked up, 'Unremembered Empire' is a follow-up to... so many things. Most significantly, 'Vulkan Lives', but it also draws on 'The Lion', 'Rules Of Engagement', 'The Iron Within', 'Prince Of Crows', and 'The Crimson Fist'. And I'm not saying you get a brief glimpse of one character from each of these stories as 'fan service' and then they're never mentioned again. Dan does his best to integrate all these storylines naturally into his own. It's a massive task and he manages it very well; at no point was I thinking "You're here? But why?" A plot-heavy book, tying together a lot of the diverging storylines which have been left dangling or vanished in previous books, may well be exactly what the Horus Heresy series needs right now. However, the combination of all these different storylines comes at the expense of a lot of the things that made the previous Dan books so great: a clearly defined and fast-moving narrative, lashings of gallows humour, excellent dialogue, superb action sequences. All these things are THERE, certainly, but... less than I'd like. Power struggles and squabbling between Loyalist legions seems like a meaty topic Dan could really get his teeth into... so I'm not sure what happened.
My first, and most petty, complaint is that the cover of the book is misleading (this isn't exactly Dan's fault, I know). I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's Guilliman and Sanguinius, right? Yet Sanguinius makes no appearance until the end of the book, making this cover an actual spoiler (since it depicts an event which is literally a couple pages from the end of the book). DANG YOU BLACK LIBRARY! You made me think Sanguinius was going to be a major character here!
The lengthy introduction of this book is a bit of a slog, I won't dress it up. At first, I thought a novel entirely about Roboute Guilliman playing politician while slowly losing his mind would be a fun time. What can I say, sometimes I love it when series totally de-rail and also piss off their more inflexible fans. (For this reason, I also love the Star Wars Rogue Squadron book 'The Krytos Trap', which pauses a series about dramatic, high-stakes starfighter dogfights to... tell the story of a lengthy, politically motivated court case.) But this book drags a little. For a lot of the story setup, Guilliman and co. are just sitting around, going stir crazy, wondering what's going on at Terra, and arguing amongst themselves about the direction 'Imperium Secundus' will take. (The difficult second album, eh? It was doomed to be poorly received.) This is topped off by Guilliman seemingly having to convince himself constantly that he's not secretly hoping to usurp his Emprah, and thinking about the temptation to do that A LOT. This whole storyline does certainly shed light on his comments at the end of 'Rules Of Engagement' though. You can't accuse these HH dudes of not planning ahead!
While not every scene is gripping stuff, the actual writing is excellent; an early highlight is a brutal fight between Guilliman and a ten-strong kill squad of Astartes, one of the best action sequences in the series, outside, well, 'Know No Fear'. Guilliman's heightened reactions and superhuman ability to calculate the current 'practical' make this one of the best uses of on-page 'bullet time' (for want of a better phrase) I've ever read. But much of the first half of 'Unremembered Empire' is just... setup. Characters and events being manouvred into place, slightly clumsily, for when the plot can finally kick into gear. 'Vulkan Lives' felt like it followed the same school of thought - pages 0-200 set 'em up, pages 200-400 knock 'em down - and that wasn't my particular favourite book either. Having said that, around the time of the Lion's arrival, and the near-simultaneous arrival of John Grammaticus (and... some others) things do finally step up in pace. Sluggishly at first, but the feeling of quickly-increasing tension is very well done. It's just a shame we're nearly 200 pages in before the shit starts flyin'. And then, when the action starts, the problems don't exactly stop, though the book certainly becomes much more enjoyable.
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| SHIT JUST GOT REAL (pg. 200) |
Also, there's a chronology issue I'm hella confused by. 'Vulkan Lives' ends with Vulkan escaping Kurze and teleporting to Macragge. This teleportation happens very near the beginning of 'Unremembered Empire'. 'Prince Of Crows' begins with Kurze in a coma after being badly wounded by the Lion; he's in a coma for most of the story, which ends with him teleporting onto the Lion's flagship. We're told in 'Unremembered Empire' that he ran amok on the flagship for around three months and is still loose down there when the Lion comes to Macragge. So... 'Vulkan Lives' takes us right up to the beginning of 'Unremembered Empire' in terms of Kurze's actions. And 'Prince Of Crows' and the Lion's exposition do the same... but the two timelines don't reconcile in my head. The only way I can understand it is if the entirety of 'Prince Of Crows' plus another 3 months transpired in the apparently split-second gap between Vulkan thumbing Dawnbringer's teleportation switch and Vulkan appearing in Macragge's atmosphere. I suppose that's not impossible, with the nature of time being famously fluid in the 40K universe... but I'd like a little bit more explanation on this... I'm sure they'll clear it up eventually (or maybe they'll just say "Ahriman is responsible"). Just like the timeline fuckery in 'The Outcast Dead', this didn't have any impact in my actual enjoyment of the story; in fact I only realised the weirdness after I'd finished the book. But you know, that's gonna make SOMEONE pretty angry... someone out there. 40K nerds seem VERY hot on this shit.
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| HH chronology confusion? The chickens are coming home to roost, y'all. |
Does 'Unremembered Empire' feature the tragic infamy and mind-breakingly huge battles of 'Betrayer'? Is it a fast-paced page-turner like 'Angel Exterminatus'? Is it an edge-of-your-seat masterwork of storytelling like 'Know No Fear'? Is it an uncomplicated, ceramite-splintering romp that requires almost no effort to enjoy like 'Fear To Tread'? No fucking way. But it does seem a hell of a setup. With Kurze still at large on Macragge, with Vulkan... possibly... not being dead, with the three loyalist brothers here consolidating their power, and with John Grammaticus' story taking a new and strange turn, it definitely sets things up nicely for the next few books. But I'm hoping that for his next chapter in the HH saga, Abnett doesn't bite off more than he can chew.
In my ideal world, he'd return to writing about the Sons Of Horus ('Little Horus' really piqued my interest in Abnett writing about those dudes again) but if this book tells me anything, it's that it might be a good idea for Dan to be given a new Legion to write about every time he does a book, as this is the first time he's 'returned' to a Legion he's already written about and it sometimes seems like he's a little... bored. So... remnant Iron Hands, or perhaps the Death Guard, could be a nice idea... but hell, it's probably a little early for all this - I'm sure we've got several more volumes to come before we get another Dan HH novel. Since Gaunt's Ghosts and the Eisenhorn/Ravenor sagas are getting better and better, maybe he should focus on those for a while... and considering how good 'Embedded' was, non-Black Library fiction by him would be just as interesting to me.
I will give 'Unremembered Empire' 7/10 for now. 8/10 is a strong possibility the more I think about it, but we'll see. Depending on how the setup in this book is actually utilised, perhaps I'll look back on this as the foundation for something great. Or perhaps as another slightly disappointing HH book, from an author who can do much better.
New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.
"Vulkan Lives" by Nick Kyme
I'll be honest, I was actually dreading 'Vulkan Lives'. With my enthusiasm for AD-B and Abnett's new Heresy projects reaching boiling point, and the knowledge that a White Scars book is finally in the pipeline gettin' me pretty hot and bothered as well, 'Vulkan Lives' was a bit of a hump in the release schedule that I wanted to get over with. See, I hadn't really enjoyed much of the Nick Kyme stuff I'd read before - although to be fair that had only been a short story or two, I think. I thought he was one of Black Library's boring 'middle ground' writers. Not as unimaginitive as the worst ones, but also less willing to take risks than the best. So... was I right?
While short stories have been written about the Sallies in the Heresy, and they've appeared in some form in a couple novels, they haven't got much love as central characters. Apparently, though, if you're a big fan of theirs Kyme has already written a trilogy of 40K-era Salamanders novels. I'd imagine that like the great 40K-era Night Lords trilogy, this probably has some musings about the Chapter's Heresy-era past. Myself, I already knew enough about the Salamanders to know they weren't really 'my thing'. Along with the Raven Guard, the Salamanders are really the most humane and likeable of the Primogenitor Legions. I guess the fact both chapters are devastated at Isstvan is a symbol that THE TIME FOR INNOCENCE IS OVER AND SHIT. Writing your book about a likeable, humane Legion can perhaps get you pretty far when your readers have been inundated with books about slavering berserkers, pious shitheads with icebergs wedged in their assholes and straight up blind fucking idiots (and that's just the loyalists...). See the good-but-not-amazing 'Deliverance Lost', which I really enjoyed simply because it was a real novelty to be actually rooting for the 'good guys'. However, unlike Corax's chilly tactical genius with a heart of gold, Vulkan is a bit more of a bland prospect as a character. Like his Legion, he's a bit of a workhorse. Unimaginitive, plodding, and unambiguously good.
To give a brief overview of the story, there are a few major plot strands. Vulkan, presumed dead on Isstvan V, is actually in Conrad Kurze's klutches, imprisoned in a non-Euclidean dungeon onboard his flagship. Holy shit, this is the mysterious labyrinth Perturabo mentioned in 'Angel Exterminatus'! Just another reason why I loved that book, it was full of allusions (and illusions?) to plots old and new in HH. Naturally Kurze has some diabolical shit planned. To quote Clifford Smith: "torture, motherfucker, what!" Determined to physically and psychologically break his brother, Kurze puts the Nocturnean through a series of harrowing ordeals. I guess it's really for the best that Kurze has captured him: a less sick (or perhaps just a more... clever) traitor Primarch would just shorten Vulkan by a head and toss him on the corpse-heap with Ferrus Manus. OR WOULD HE? OR (for that matter) COULD HE?? Still, this leaves another Primarch alive for us to wonder about their ultimate fate (Vulkan's post-Isstvan career is quite murky in the canon, though Kyme reassures us in the afterword that GW always had it established even if it wasn't written down).
Meanwhile, on the world Traoris, Word Bearers are up to their standard fuckery, trying to uncover some holy Imperial artefact (or possibly an unholy Chaos artefact) for their own awful purposes. Standing in their way is a lone Cabal agent and a rag-tag group of Isstvan survivors. Hey, I bet you guys forgot all about the Cabal!! Both Vulkan in his prison and the Salamanders on Traoris frequently have flashbacks to the Great Crusade and the events of Isstvan V. This patchwork approach sometimes gets super fucking annoying, like Kyme is trying to make 'Chronicles Of Riddick' into 'Memento'...
OK, time to be a bit mean. A big problem with 'Vulkan Lives' is that it's haunted by spectres of other books. It's fair to say that 'Legion' is fondly remembered as an early highlight of the series by many, and some put it as the best Horus Heresy book ever (slightly depressing, as it was like the sixth one in the series). Nothing since then has really covered a similar concept and those 'Legion' fanboys are getting somewhat restless. So what would you do to appease those guys? Bring back the Cabal as a central part of the storyline, and John Grammaticus with it. However, Legion was a twisty-turny mystery as much as it was a bone-crunching shoot-em-up - you were often getting the rug pulled out from under you and spending whole scenes going "who's fugging who over, here?" 'Vulkan Lives' can't compete; the twisting chronology tries to make it seem like a headfuck, but characters, their motivations and even their ultimate fates seem pretty clear from the outset. As much as John Gramm tries to mislead his companions and by extension the reader, we kind of know what the motherfucker's all about, so it just doesn't have the shock value 'Legion' had. Bonus points for slipping a 'fugging' in there though.
Another book you may find yourself recalling is 'Angel Exterminatus', with its team of Raven Guard, Iron Hands and Salamanders who are living purely for vengeance and despairing at their lack of higher guidance. To be fair, I'd imagine this sort of thing is going to be in most of the HH novels from now on; it's really the only role those Legions can play now, unless Black Library have some surprises up their sleeve. Which they almost certainly do, especially regarding the Raven Guard.
As for the Word Bearers... fuck, I can't be the only one who is getting Word Bearers fatigue. Feels like these guys have been the antagonists for the last ten books or so. While I know without checking that can't truly be the case, it feels like Black Library are kind of wasting some great villains. Give us some forthright Death Guard brutality, some dark visions of how the Sons Of Horus are changing, some more Alpha Legion enigmatic...ness. And while I've kind of had my fill of the Iron Warriors as well, I'd like to see their 'Angel Exterminatus' co-stars the Emperor's Children get into some actual knock-down-drag-out fights (drag being the operative word, HEY-OHHH) rather than just, you know, sitting around getting high. Word Bearers, though... Athames, dark apostles and fuck-shit rituals; we kind of get it now, guys. Time to move on.
And, when it comes to the Night Lords, well... I'm not saying no one else can write them or anything but after the Night Lords trilogy, plus 'Prince Of Crows', you're gonna have to bring some fucking ruckus to top Dembski-Bowden's memorable scrolls on Conrad and his reavers. While he does make a great stab at it, Kyme doesn't even come close to the Kurze portrayals that AD-B's given us. I mean the boy Aaaron done give us jewels son. As for the torture/"tests" that Conrad K uses to break Vulkan, they're kind of... repetitive. Vulkan thinks he's about to escape - but he hasn't escaped. Vulkan is given the illusion of being able to save some captive humans - but they're already doomed. Vulkan thinks Ferrus Manus is talking to him - BUT FERRUS IS DEAD THOUGH!! Despite my sarcasm, I did really like the Vulkan sections. Kyme had some giant fucking balls to have his Primarch as not just a 'viewpoint' character but a first person character. We've certainly spent some time in Lorgar and Angron's heads but I don't think we've had any Primarch as a first person narrator before. I also found these sections really well written, something I couldn't necessarily say about the book as a whole. For example, I thought the Salamanders pre-Heresy flashbacks were a little... busy in their overdescription.
'Vulkan Lives' took me quite a long time to read - much longer than 'Mark Of Calth'. I did lose enthusiasm for it several times and in fact, I started re-reading the 'Song of Ice and Fire' books around the time I started 'Vulkan Lives' - and I'd nearly finished with George RR Martin's series again before I finally finished Kyme's book. That takes a lot of procrastination. Yet like 'Betrayer', 'Vulkan Lives' certainly picks up momentum towards the end and by the time I finished it I was PUMPED for the next HH book. Unlike 'Betrayer', though, getting to that point was a big struggle. Also unlike 'Betrayer' (where the ending was a perfect result of all the plot strands that had been taking you there, along with some delicious promise for future volumes), I found the ending of 'Vulkan Lives'... inconclusive. Vulkan's big secret reveal seemed badly handled, and I didn't fully grasp the nature of his father's 'gift' to him, since I always kind of assumed the Primarchs are nigh-invulnerable anyway. The only ones who died, seem to have died fighting their equally-powerful brothers who had the advantage of being suffused with the energies of Chaos or what have you. Certainly it wasn't a surprise a little punk like Kurze couldn't break the Blacksmiter... And that 'epilogue', I had to read a few times, and I still needed to go online to clear up what it meant. Aside from the final action sequence feeling a little rushed and unclear, John Grammaticus' motives, and by extension, those of the Cabal, continue to be very foggy grey, though his mission to the realm of Ultramar sounds promising - I'm guessing, a setup for him to appear in 'Unremembered Empire' and be written by Dan Abnett again (yayyyy!).
Despite the confusion (which I'm sure will disappear when I re-read this a few more times) the last third of the book or so is "a Rollicking Good Read" and features some excellently tense battle scenes. I'm also very keen to find out what becomes of Narek, the implacable Word Bearer huntsman who is cursed with a conscience (weird and twisted though it might be) and is full of doubts regarding his legion's new direction. Unfortunately, he's probably much too far gone to be the 17th's representative in Malcador's 'supergroup'...
I was definitely too hard on Kyme with my previous prejudice. Yes, I guess I'd put him near the middle of the Black Library pile still, but he's no Ben Counter. (Sorry Ben, but I'm still gonna use you as a watchword for all that is wack). This book is certainly equal with some of McNeill's books. In fact I think it's better than 'Thousand Sons' and 'False Gods'... I'd give this 7/10, for now. I'm glad to say this, since I was steering towards 6/10 for a lot of the book, but the last sections really turned me around.
New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.
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| WHYYYYYYYYYY FATHERRRRRR? |
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| Vulkan's just happy to be here. |
Meanwhile, on the world Traoris, Word Bearers are up to their standard fuckery, trying to uncover some holy Imperial artefact (or possibly an unholy Chaos artefact) for their own awful purposes. Standing in their way is a lone Cabal agent and a rag-tag group of Isstvan survivors. Hey, I bet you guys forgot all about the Cabal!! Both Vulkan in his prison and the Salamanders on Traoris frequently have flashbacks to the Great Crusade and the events of Isstvan V. This patchwork approach sometimes gets super fucking annoying, like Kyme is trying to make 'Chronicles Of Riddick' into 'Memento'...
OK, time to be a bit mean. A big problem with 'Vulkan Lives' is that it's haunted by spectres of other books. It's fair to say that 'Legion' is fondly remembered as an early highlight of the series by many, and some put it as the best Horus Heresy book ever (slightly depressing, as it was like the sixth one in the series). Nothing since then has really covered a similar concept and those 'Legion' fanboys are getting somewhat restless. So what would you do to appease those guys? Bring back the Cabal as a central part of the storyline, and John Grammaticus with it. However, Legion was a twisty-turny mystery as much as it was a bone-crunching shoot-em-up - you were often getting the rug pulled out from under you and spending whole scenes going "who's fugging who over, here?" 'Vulkan Lives' can't compete; the twisting chronology tries to make it seem like a headfuck, but characters, their motivations and even their ultimate fates seem pretty clear from the outset. As much as John Gramm tries to mislead his companions and by extension the reader, we kind of know what the motherfucker's all about, so it just doesn't have the shock value 'Legion' had. Bonus points for slipping a 'fugging' in there though.
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| Oh yall finna steal my light huh? Oh word? We'll fuggin see about that. |
As for the Word Bearers... fuck, I can't be the only one who is getting Word Bearers fatigue. Feels like these guys have been the antagonists for the last ten books or so. While I know without checking that can't truly be the case, it feels like Black Library are kind of wasting some great villains. Give us some forthright Death Guard brutality, some dark visions of how the Sons Of Horus are changing, some more Alpha Legion enigmatic...ness. And while I've kind of had my fill of the Iron Warriors as well, I'd like to see their 'Angel Exterminatus' co-stars the Emperor's Children get into some actual knock-down-drag-out fights (drag being the operative word, HEY-OHHH) rather than just, you know, sitting around getting high. Word Bearers, though... Athames, dark apostles and fuck-shit rituals; we kind of get it now, guys. Time to move on.
And, when it comes to the Night Lords, well... I'm not saying no one else can write them or anything but after the Night Lords trilogy, plus 'Prince Of Crows', you're gonna have to bring some fucking ruckus to top Dembski-Bowden's memorable scrolls on Conrad and his reavers. While he does make a great stab at it, Kyme doesn't even come close to the Kurze portrayals that AD-B's given us. I mean the boy Aaaron done give us jewels son. As for the torture/"tests" that Conrad K uses to break Vulkan, they're kind of... repetitive. Vulkan thinks he's about to escape - but he hasn't escaped. Vulkan is given the illusion of being able to save some captive humans - but they're already doomed. Vulkan thinks Ferrus Manus is talking to him - BUT FERRUS IS DEAD THOUGH!! Despite my sarcasm, I did really like the Vulkan sections. Kyme had some giant fucking balls to have his Primarch as not just a 'viewpoint' character but a first person character. We've certainly spent some time in Lorgar and Angron's heads but I don't think we've had any Primarch as a first person narrator before. I also found these sections really well written, something I couldn't necessarily say about the book as a whole. For example, I thought the Salamanders pre-Heresy flashbacks were a little... busy in their overdescription.
'Vulkan Lives' took me quite a long time to read - much longer than 'Mark Of Calth'. I did lose enthusiasm for it several times and in fact, I started re-reading the 'Song of Ice and Fire' books around the time I started 'Vulkan Lives' - and I'd nearly finished with George RR Martin's series again before I finally finished Kyme's book. That takes a lot of procrastination. Yet like 'Betrayer', 'Vulkan Lives' certainly picks up momentum towards the end and by the time I finished it I was PUMPED for the next HH book. Unlike 'Betrayer', though, getting to that point was a big struggle. Also unlike 'Betrayer' (where the ending was a perfect result of all the plot strands that had been taking you there, along with some delicious promise for future volumes), I found the ending of 'Vulkan Lives'... inconclusive. Vulkan's big secret reveal seemed badly handled, and I didn't fully grasp the nature of his father's 'gift' to him, since I always kind of assumed the Primarchs are nigh-invulnerable anyway. The only ones who died, seem to have died fighting their equally-powerful brothers who had the advantage of being suffused with the energies of Chaos or what have you. Certainly it wasn't a surprise a little punk like Kurze couldn't break the Blacksmiter... And that 'epilogue', I had to read a few times, and I still needed to go online to clear up what it meant. Aside from the final action sequence feeling a little rushed and unclear, John Grammaticus' motives, and by extension, those of the Cabal, continue to be very foggy grey, though his mission to the realm of Ultramar sounds promising - I'm guessing, a setup for him to appear in 'Unremembered Empire' and be written by Dan Abnett again (yayyyy!).
Despite the confusion (which I'm sure will disappear when I re-read this a few more times) the last third of the book or so is "a Rollicking Good Read" and features some excellently tense battle scenes. I'm also very keen to find out what becomes of Narek, the implacable Word Bearer huntsman who is cursed with a conscience (weird and twisted though it might be) and is full of doubts regarding his legion's new direction. Unfortunately, he's probably much too far gone to be the 17th's representative in Malcador's 'supergroup'...
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| L-R: Qruze, Rubio, Garro, Cerberus, Varren. Controversially, Rubio is dressed as Fulgrim. |
New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.
"Mark Of Calth" (short story collection)
Time for another story collection! These do seem to be published with growing frequency in the HH line. I ain't complaining, as I've previously stated my love for them. This one is kind of unique, as it centres entirely around the ongoing war on Calth.
We've had 'themed' collections before, but never around a single planetary conflict. Mind you, Calth is of such vast significance, it makes sense. I'm assuming this will mean the only Legions to appear will be Ultramarines and Word Bearers, but with the cultists, Imperial Army, Mechanicum, Titan Legions, and whatever ships remain in Calth's orbit, we're hardly going to be restricted to 8 stories of "blue and red team" marines slugging it out. This also could be seen as a companion piece to Know No Fear, which is one of my favourite books so far in the HH series, and certainly left a good amount of plot and character strands tantalisingly unresolved. So... I'm excited!
Shards Of Erebus: This is something of a 'prequel' to the action of Know No Fear. It's split between Erebus learning how to jack Philip Pullman and get his Subtle Knife on, and the gearing-up for war for the eight anointed commanders who were chosen for the great honour of leading the Word Bearers at Calth. With what we've learned from the last few HH books, we know that most of these lucky winners were in fact the high commanders of the XVII who had been found wanting in ability by Lorgar and could be... expended. So we get commanders like Foedral Fell and Hol Beloth as well as some who haven't made an appearance before. I was cursing myself trying to remember which of the commanders actually made it through the meatgrinder of Know No Fear, but I'm sure the rest of the stories in this volume will tell me soon enough...
I really liked both strands of the story. Erebus' arrogance and basic, well, evilness is explored on his dark pilgrimage, but we also get a sense of how paranoid and insecure he is becoming. He can't let himself believe that his dark patrons are using him, but he's happy to embrace mistrust of his brothers on the physical plane. A real theme of the last couple years of HH books is "Who's fucking who?" when it comes to Erebus and his schemes. This is build on nicely in Shards Of Erebus. Is he holding all the strings, or is he just a power-armoured puppet? I'm tending more and more to the second case...
From the sections where the Word Bearer host are preparing for war, we get a sense of how much the Legion has fallen. Remember 'The First Heretic' when they were united in brotherhood for a new cause? Now that the Primarch's attention is occupied elsewhere, it seems they've fallen into petty power struggles and backstabbing. Part of this is probably due to the incredibly poisonous influence of the Dark Cardinal. Kor Phaeron continues to be a real evil piece of shit, an arrogant, entitled bully. Knowing about the power-fisted whuppin' he's down to recieve on Calth just isn't enough. I want him dead! I want his family dead! I want to drive to the ruins of his house in the middle of the night and piss on his ashes! Sadly, I'm pretty sure we won't ever see this happen in BL fiction... but despite the Kordelia's dickishness, I give 'Shards Of Erebus' 8/10 - it's well written and an excellent showstarter.
Calth That Was: After the 'prequel' action of 'Shards Of Erebus', we get some shit picking up after the Atrocity at Calth. A few weeks after, to be more exact. This novella picks up on some major players from that book, including Ventanus and Tawren for the Loyalists, and Foedral Fell and Hol Beloth from the Word Bearers. Some new faces are introduced as well.
'Calth That Was' seems a tribute to Abnett's masterpiece in a lot of ways: it's strictly third person present tense throughout, and takes that novel's brusque, declarative tone. It also has that feeling of vertigo in the beginning, of events rushing towards an awful confusion, and when the tide of violence breaks, the action is just unceasing. I still don't think McNeill is as good at dialogue and characterisation as Abnett, BUT, this actually gives him an advantage when dealing with Ultramarines. The XIII Legion characters here are much more Ultramariney than they were in Know No Fear: humourless, one-track, and occasionally pompous. TOTALLY IN CHARACTER! And of course, while Foedral Fell and Hol Beloth were huge 'players' in the action of 'Know No Fear', we didn't get much 'face time' with them. (Well, nor here for that matter, but there's a good reason for that.) To top this off, Maloq is a truly repulsive antagonist, and he would have succeeded in his plan if it warn't for that pesky landspeeder - garn!
I won't give away much of the story. But with the hatred and despair of Ventanus and the Ultramarines growing, and the Word Bearers falling to ever more debased, desperate acts as they realise they've been discarded, both sides are in a fairly bad way. Full of twists and turns and great battle sequences, Calth That Was is a fitting continuation of 'Know No Fear'. I give it 9/10. At first I docked a point for the slightly disappointing abruptness of its ending, but fuck that. This is a short story after all.
Dark Heart: Some might know Anthony Reynolds from his 2 omnibuses (omnibii?) worth of Word Bearer novels set in the 40K universe. I haven't read them, but it makes sense that the hero, Marduk, would show up at some point in the HH timeline. And what better place than Calth? When we meet Marduk, he's been singled out for censure and hauled before Kor Phaeron - the story then becomes a flashback of him explaining the reason for his transgression, which impresses Kor Phaeron enough to keep Marduk alive.
At this point a much more lowly grunt than the powerful warlord he would become, Marduk broods, listens to groove metal (don't think I didn't catch that Pantera reference, Reynolds...) and plots his ascension throughout the ranks of the 17th Legion. He's an interesting character, and the story is quite well written. Though I'm not instantly going to rush out and buy the Word Bearers novels, I am quite interested to find out what the arrogant, lethal young Marduk ultimately made of himself. Furthermore, this is a useful addition to the Calth background as it includes another perspective of a fantastically memorable scene in 'Know No Fear' (Kor Phaeron's heart? Meet Guilliman's fingers!) this time from a Word Bearer viewpoint. I give this 7/10, again, only missing out on a higher grade through the slightly sudden, cut-off ending (yep, I know I'm contradicting myself now).
The Traveller: Humans trapped in the arcology system get a raw deal in this story collection, don't they? In 'The Traveller', terrified Imperial citizens beneath Calth unwittingly feel the influence of dark powers they cannot hope to comprehend. They quickly fall back on their worst instincts and begin killing the funny-looking or creepy refugees who they suspect might be up to something. Surely a sign of the direction the Imperium will take... though it says a lot that the clearer-headed influence of the Astartes wasn't present at all for this story.
It's not exactly an original concept, and it doesn't progress the story of any of the key players in 'Fear To Tread', but 'The Traveller' drives home the awfulness of being an 'ordinary' person on Calth following the Betrayal. It also carries on with the story concerning the dark force which took the Campanile (the vessel whose death kicks off the massacre at Calth). Actually, therein lies the only thing I dislike in this story. In Know No Fear the italicised creepy daemon voice interruption of action was used sparingly and was absolutely terrifying. Here it's used horrormuch redblood spasms frequently awful cries way too much and shortly becomes bad goth poetry. A shame, because without OOH WAHH-AH-AH down with the sickness the story is great. Again, a story that is only just short of excellent. 7/10.
A Deeper Darkness: In this slightly predictable but solid story, Ultramarines find themselves stalked through the arcology by something those horrid Word Bearers have brought forth without truly comprehending its power. We have a slightly predictable scenario of Ultramarines and soldiers separating into teams and slowly losing contact with each other, one by one. Hmmm, d'you think there might just end up being one or two left?
Tetrarch Nicodemus makes another appearance, mainly to let us know he's still alive. But really, no major players make themselves known here apart from that, and unlike saving or killing thousands of enemies or innocents, the stakes are somewhat smaller here. There are only a few soldiers going into peril here and they're a minor element of a much larger force. But after so many stories where whole armies are in the balance, somehow smaller seems to work just as well, and be just as dramatic. The ambiguity and suddenness of the ending, something I've been complaining about a lot in this collection, is actually used very well here. Despite all this, there's something about Rob Sanders stories that means I just don't really get pumped for them. Same as for 'The Crimson Fist' and 'The Iron Within'. Well written and engaging enough to not get mad at, but missing that certain something that would put them up with the best stories in this collection. Again, it'll have to be 7/10.
The Underworld War: Beginning to read The Underworld War, I'll be honest, I got feelings of dread. It's taken me around half a year of pretty solid reading, but I'm nearly up to the end of the published HH series. I know 'Vulkan Lives' is just around the corner, and there are (I'll be honest) more exciting books than that on the way that are makin' my claws flex in anticipation. But... for the first time, I'll be finishing an HH book without saying "Welp, time to start the next one". All I can do is... start all over again. Or maybe... read some non BL books. Yikes. Luckily, there are short stories by Dan Abnett and, yes, Aaron Dembski-Bowden still between me and that dark, curséd point.
So here we are in the Underworld War, back to the Word Bearers perspective. At this point, these chaps have been fighting the Ultramarines for... wait, seven years?! That means the Age Of Darkness is pretty much done. For you, Word Bearer, zee war iss over! And these poor schmucks don't have a clue. At this point, I'm there, "I knew the Ultramarines were a long time bringing relief to Calth, but I didn't realise the shit dragged on this long."
This story focuses on a single Gal Vorbak warrior who decides to leave the arcology behind and travel the surface of Calth. It's great seeing the long-term ruin that was made of Calth firsthand. Our hero, Kartaul, gives himself a mission is to gather artefacts of each destroyed Word Bearer Chapter that Lorgar sacrificed at Calth. I don't know what he plans to achieve in attempting to shame his Primarch - does he think Lorgar's just going to start weeping or something? But it's an oddly noble goal, and it's well told. And of course, Aaron is the guy who's handled the Word Bearers story for much of the Heresy, so naturally he's not content to just do a simple battle story - he wants to progress the character of the Legion.
'The Underworld War' has a nasty sting in its tale, nasty for the reader more than the characters, something that is in some ways the equivalent of ending a lengthy story with "...but then I woke up". But it's not quite that awful and hacky a device; split between prophecy and alternate reality, I'll admit it fucking pissed me off at first, but I got to like it. Somehow, it's all the more poignant for never really having happened. And of course, being an Aaron story, this is one of the better-written stories in the whole collection, which counts for a lot. All in all I'd give this 8/10.
Athame: A bit of a curveball this. Of course, the athames are quite an important part of the Horus Heresy and Word Bearer cultures. But I'm not sure they're as 'Calth-specific' as merits a solo story in 'Mark Of Calth'. Accordingly, this is the least Calth-centric story in the collection. Athame takes it back... WAY back. What I love about the HH line is it's unafraid to fuck around with allusions to modern day myth or events, something that 'modern day' 40K tends to blanket with "oooh nobody in the Imperium REALLY knows about what happened 100 years ago, let alone 38,000 years ago!" type shit. So Athame takes us from pre-historic/mythical Earth through ages of darkness into the 'modern day' of Word Bearers sticking their dicks into the immaterium and finally, whaddya know it, the damn thing ends up on Calth (with a bonus little allusion to 'Prospero Burns', as well). This facetious review makes it sounds like a mere diversion but I don't think Athame could have been any more masterfully done. This almost makes me want to pick up Ahriman: Exile as soon as it drops (though I'll probably wait for the paperback tbh). I give Athame 9/10. Oh yeah, and ultimately this athame is picked up by Oll Persson (at the end of 'Know No Fear'), which leads us nicely to...
Unmarked: He's an odd bird is Oll Persson. At first, I figured his name to just be a clumsy pun on 'Old Person', since he seems to have been around since the beginning of Earth's history. A reincarnating, forever-living 'everyman' isn't really a new concept. Perhaps he's an Eternal Champion riff. Perhaps he's the ultimate form of Orlando. But we do know he's not the only one of his kind. It's heavily implied the Emperor himself is one. We know John Grammaticus was one (and I'm sure we haven't seen the last of him) and we know that creepy/rapey dude who snatched up Cyrene at the end of Betrayer is one. And fuck knows what that guy has planned. But Oll Persson might be more than just some reincarnating hosejockey. He's special in his own special way. There's a throwaway line in this story where we find out he used to be known as 'Pious' for his adherence to the old Catheric faith (which I guess is Catholicism for offensive oriental stereotypes). Hmm, I thought, remembering a video where Dan Abnett talks about adding the myth of Ollanius Pius AKA the Patron Saint of the Imperial Guard who fought (and died) at the side of the Emperor during The Ceremonial Blazin' Of Terra. Doing a bit of research on Pius, I found out he was just a normal Imperial Guard dogshit trooper (with 2 days til retirement) who leaped in front of a psychic blast from Horus meant for the Emperor. It would appear that he took the brunt of the blast and shielded the Emperor (which makes no sense anyway. If this blast can't just go through a human like wet paper and in fact a human body robs it of its deadly force... what's it gonna do against the King of Kings?). Apparently his last words were "My one regret... is... being flayed alive hideously... ow."
As you might have realised, taking this fruity-ass story and turning it on its head is probably the worst thing that GW have ever done. Quite frankly, the chatty rooms are going nuts over this shit. You would think that Dan had applied spicy BBQ sauce direct to the rectums of every IG player. "Dan Abnett is just a bad writer, period" and "The Horus Heresy series is the worst thing to ever happen to 40K" and "How did this clown get anywhere near Pius? I may just smash up my whole Guard army - FOR SHAAAAAAAAME!" are just some of the nicer stuff that's being said.
I've been butthurt about this kind of stuff before, granted. 'Butthurt For The Abyss', for one thing. But ultimately, the thing I feel is kind of cool about the Games Workshop fandom is the way it's frequently willing to pull the rug from under you. And that's been the watchword for HH all this time. Horus and Lorgar were a couple of assholes? The Loyalist Primarchs were all flawless dudes? The Emperor was always the God-King of Mankind and revered as its galactic saviour? This is some shit that we don't take for granted anymore. Ignore for a second that you feel it's all a gigantic conspiracy to sell more GW models. What do you think they gain by changing this fluff? Do you think they believe by stopping this minor character from being some random chode who yells "NOOOOOOO" and dives across a corridor in slow motion, and changing the guy into Elric van Jesus, they're going to increase revenue by 200%?
Besides, Abnett doesn't exist in a vacuum. Any 'fluff-fucking' he wants to get into, you know, he has to put past the other HH writers and the Black Library (and Games Workshop) head honchos. And sure, they can all say they hate it and shoot it down and he can be forbidden to write it, and then write it anyway while cackling and masturbating cause he's Dan foch'n Abnett ye ken but that's probably not what happens, is it? It probably wasn't even his idea to write it like that. So maybe let's try stop being such utter cunts to Dan, shall we?
Anyway, 'Unmarked' carries on the story where 'Know No Fear' left off. Oll and his rag-tag group of adventurers are on some Philip Pullman shit, cutting through realities, falling into different worlds and different times, desperately trying to reach Terra in M31 in time for their graduation speech. I've ranted too long so I don't really want to give much away about 'Unmarked', but it's pretty fucking mental. There are dark hints about John Grammaticus (motherfucker is definitely Into Some Shit), dark hints about Maloq Kartho or what he may come to be known as, and of course, dark hints that Oll's death may be coming (well, we already knew that). If you're already an Oll hater, then this isn't gonna help you out much, since there's some more stuff about him being one of Jason's original Argonauts (which seems to be one of the primary causes of anal fissures among "PIUS WAS JUST A NORMAL DUDE" shippers). For those who are already down for The Pius Cause, the shit will just about make you weep boy. Oh boy, I can't wait for these crazy kids to continue their adventures!!! Naturally, I give Unmarked 9/10.
In conclusions... I've already gone on for waaaaaaay, way too long. But I give 'Mark Of Calth' a 7/10. It probably could be an 8/10, but I was a little disappointed by some of the stories I had, perhaps, unrealistic hopes for. This was balanced out by some stories I was expecting to be trash, being kind of fun. I certainly don't think this is proof the Heresy series has irrevocably stalled, and I'm glad that it looks like the story collections will be published with increasing frequency ('The Shadow War' and 'The Shattered Legions' are the next pencilled-in releases for the series). I hope we can start to move away from Calth now, though. Getting mighty sick of that planet.
New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.
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| IT'S SERIOUS TIME GUYS. |
Shards Of Erebus: This is something of a 'prequel' to the action of Know No Fear. It's split between Erebus learning how to jack Philip Pullman and get his Subtle Knife on, and the gearing-up for war for the eight anointed commanders who were chosen for the great honour of leading the Word Bearers at Calth. With what we've learned from the last few HH books, we know that most of these lucky winners were in fact the high commanders of the XVII who had been found wanting in ability by Lorgar and could be... expended. So we get commanders like Foedral Fell and Hol Beloth as well as some who haven't made an appearance before. I was cursing myself trying to remember which of the commanders actually made it through the meatgrinder of Know No Fear, but I'm sure the rest of the stories in this volume will tell me soon enough...
I really liked both strands of the story. Erebus' arrogance and basic, well, evilness is explored on his dark pilgrimage, but we also get a sense of how paranoid and insecure he is becoming. He can't let himself believe that his dark patrons are using him, but he's happy to embrace mistrust of his brothers on the physical plane. A real theme of the last couple years of HH books is "Who's fucking who?" when it comes to Erebus and his schemes. This is build on nicely in Shards Of Erebus. Is he holding all the strings, or is he just a power-armoured puppet? I'm tending more and more to the second case...
From the sections where the Word Bearer host are preparing for war, we get a sense of how much the Legion has fallen. Remember 'The First Heretic' when they were united in brotherhood for a new cause? Now that the Primarch's attention is occupied elsewhere, it seems they've fallen into petty power struggles and backstabbing. Part of this is probably due to the incredibly poisonous influence of the Dark Cardinal. Kor Phaeron continues to be a real evil piece of shit, an arrogant, entitled bully. Knowing about the power-fisted whuppin' he's down to recieve on Calth just isn't enough. I want him dead! I want his family dead! I want to drive to the ruins of his house in the middle of the night and piss on his ashes! Sadly, I'm pretty sure we won't ever see this happen in BL fiction... but despite the Kordelia's dickishness, I give 'Shards Of Erebus' 8/10 - it's well written and an excellent showstarter.
Calth That Was: After the 'prequel' action of 'Shards Of Erebus', we get some shit picking up after the Atrocity at Calth. A few weeks after, to be more exact. This novella picks up on some major players from that book, including Ventanus and Tawren for the Loyalists, and Foedral Fell and Hol Beloth from the Word Bearers. Some new faces are introduced as well.
'Calth That Was' seems a tribute to Abnett's masterpiece in a lot of ways: it's strictly third person present tense throughout, and takes that novel's brusque, declarative tone. It also has that feeling of vertigo in the beginning, of events rushing towards an awful confusion, and when the tide of violence breaks, the action is just unceasing. I still don't think McNeill is as good at dialogue and characterisation as Abnett, BUT, this actually gives him an advantage when dealing with Ultramarines. The XIII Legion characters here are much more Ultramariney than they were in Know No Fear: humourless, one-track, and occasionally pompous. TOTALLY IN CHARACTER! And of course, while Foedral Fell and Hol Beloth were huge 'players' in the action of 'Know No Fear', we didn't get much 'face time' with them. (Well, nor here for that matter, but there's a good reason for that.) To top this off, Maloq is a truly repulsive antagonist, and he would have succeeded in his plan if it warn't for that pesky landspeeder - garn!
I won't give away much of the story. But with the hatred and despair of Ventanus and the Ultramarines growing, and the Word Bearers falling to ever more debased, desperate acts as they realise they've been discarded, both sides are in a fairly bad way. Full of twists and turns and great battle sequences, Calth That Was is a fitting continuation of 'Know No Fear'. I give it 9/10. At first I docked a point for the slightly disappointing abruptness of its ending, but fuck that. This is a short story after all.
Dark Heart: Some might know Anthony Reynolds from his 2 omnibuses (omnibii?) worth of Word Bearer novels set in the 40K universe. I haven't read them, but it makes sense that the hero, Marduk, would show up at some point in the HH timeline. And what better place than Calth? When we meet Marduk, he's been singled out for censure and hauled before Kor Phaeron - the story then becomes a flashback of him explaining the reason for his transgression, which impresses Kor Phaeron enough to keep Marduk alive.
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| And then later, the spiky red caterpillar became... a beautiful spiky red butterfly. |
The Traveller: Humans trapped in the arcology system get a raw deal in this story collection, don't they? In 'The Traveller', terrified Imperial citizens beneath Calth unwittingly feel the influence of dark powers they cannot hope to comprehend. They quickly fall back on their worst instincts and begin killing the funny-looking or creepy refugees who they suspect might be up to something. Surely a sign of the direction the Imperium will take... though it says a lot that the clearer-headed influence of the Astartes wasn't present at all for this story.
It's not exactly an original concept, and it doesn't progress the story of any of the key players in 'Fear To Tread', but 'The Traveller' drives home the awfulness of being an 'ordinary' person on Calth following the Betrayal. It also carries on with the story concerning the dark force which took the Campanile (the vessel whose death kicks off the massacre at Calth). Actually, therein lies the only thing I dislike in this story. In Know No Fear the italicised creepy daemon voice interruption of action was used sparingly and was absolutely terrifying. Here it's used horrormuch redblood spasms frequently awful cries way too much and shortly becomes bad goth poetry. A shame, because without OOH WAHH-AH-AH down with the sickness the story is great. Again, a story that is only just short of excellent. 7/10.
A Deeper Darkness: In this slightly predictable but solid story, Ultramarines find themselves stalked through the arcology by something those horrid Word Bearers have brought forth without truly comprehending its power. We have a slightly predictable scenario of Ultramarines and soldiers separating into teams and slowly losing contact with each other, one by one. Hmmm, d'you think there might just end up being one or two left?
Tetrarch Nicodemus makes another appearance, mainly to let us know he's still alive. But really, no major players make themselves known here apart from that, and unlike saving or killing thousands of enemies or innocents, the stakes are somewhat smaller here. There are only a few soldiers going into peril here and they're a minor element of a much larger force. But after so many stories where whole armies are in the balance, somehow smaller seems to work just as well, and be just as dramatic. The ambiguity and suddenness of the ending, something I've been complaining about a lot in this collection, is actually used very well here. Despite all this, there's something about Rob Sanders stories that means I just don't really get pumped for them. Same as for 'The Crimson Fist' and 'The Iron Within'. Well written and engaging enough to not get mad at, but missing that certain something that would put them up with the best stories in this collection. Again, it'll have to be 7/10.
The Underworld War: Beginning to read The Underworld War, I'll be honest, I got feelings of dread. It's taken me around half a year of pretty solid reading, but I'm nearly up to the end of the published HH series. I know 'Vulkan Lives' is just around the corner, and there are (I'll be honest) more exciting books than that on the way that are makin' my claws flex in anticipation. But... for the first time, I'll be finishing an HH book without saying "Welp, time to start the next one". All I can do is... start all over again. Or maybe... read some non BL books. Yikes. Luckily, there are short stories by Dan Abnett and, yes, Aaron Dembski-Bowden still between me and that dark, curséd point.
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| Hoping to illustrate how empty my life will be without new HH books, I googled 'sadness'. This was one of the first images to come up. Yeah, Sanguinius is a little more voluptuous than I pictured him... |
This story focuses on a single Gal Vorbak warrior who decides to leave the arcology behind and travel the surface of Calth. It's great seeing the long-term ruin that was made of Calth firsthand. Our hero, Kartaul, gives himself a mission is to gather artefacts of each destroyed Word Bearer Chapter that Lorgar sacrificed at Calth. I don't know what he plans to achieve in attempting to shame his Primarch - does he think Lorgar's just going to start weeping or something? But it's an oddly noble goal, and it's well told. And of course, Aaron is the guy who's handled the Word Bearers story for much of the Heresy, so naturally he's not content to just do a simple battle story - he wants to progress the character of the Legion.
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| I used to read White Dwarf magazine. |
Athame: A bit of a curveball this. Of course, the athames are quite an important part of the Horus Heresy and Word Bearer cultures. But I'm not sure they're as 'Calth-specific' as merits a solo story in 'Mark Of Calth'. Accordingly, this is the least Calth-centric story in the collection. Athame takes it back... WAY back. What I love about the HH line is it's unafraid to fuck around with allusions to modern day myth or events, something that 'modern day' 40K tends to blanket with "oooh nobody in the Imperium REALLY knows about what happened 100 years ago, let alone 38,000 years ago!" type shit. So Athame takes us from pre-historic/mythical Earth through ages of darkness into the 'modern day' of Word Bearers sticking their dicks into the immaterium and finally, whaddya know it, the damn thing ends up on Calth (with a bonus little allusion to 'Prospero Burns', as well). This facetious review makes it sounds like a mere diversion but I don't think Athame could have been any more masterfully done. This almost makes me want to pick up Ahriman: Exile as soon as it drops (though I'll probably wait for the paperback tbh). I give Athame 9/10. Oh yeah, and ultimately this athame is picked up by Oll Persson (at the end of 'Know No Fear'), which leads us nicely to...
Unmarked: He's an odd bird is Oll Persson. At first, I figured his name to just be a clumsy pun on 'Old Person', since he seems to have been around since the beginning of Earth's history. A reincarnating, forever-living 'everyman' isn't really a new concept. Perhaps he's an Eternal Champion riff. Perhaps he's the ultimate form of Orlando. But we do know he's not the only one of his kind. It's heavily implied the Emperor himself is one. We know John Grammaticus was one (and I'm sure we haven't seen the last of him) and we know that creepy/rapey dude who snatched up Cyrene at the end of Betrayer is one. And fuck knows what that guy has planned. But Oll Persson might be more than just some reincarnating hosejockey. He's special in his own special way. There's a throwaway line in this story where we find out he used to be known as 'Pious' for his adherence to the old Catheric faith (which I guess is Catholicism for offensive oriental stereotypes). Hmm, I thought, remembering a video where Dan Abnett talks about adding the myth of Ollanius Pius AKA the Patron Saint of the Imperial Guard who fought (and died) at the side of the Emperor during The Ceremonial Blazin' Of Terra. Doing a bit of research on Pius, I found out he was just a normal Imperial Guard dogshit trooper (with 2 days til retirement) who leaped in front of a psychic blast from Horus meant for the Emperor. It would appear that he took the brunt of the blast and shielded the Emperor (which makes no sense anyway. If this blast can't just go through a human like wet paper and in fact a human body robs it of its deadly force... what's it gonna do against the King of Kings?). Apparently his last words were "My one regret... is... being flayed alive hideously... ow."
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| He had just two days until retirement. |
I've been butthurt about this kind of stuff before, granted. 'Butthurt For The Abyss', for one thing. But ultimately, the thing I feel is kind of cool about the Games Workshop fandom is the way it's frequently willing to pull the rug from under you. And that's been the watchword for HH all this time. Horus and Lorgar were a couple of assholes? The Loyalist Primarchs were all flawless dudes? The Emperor was always the God-King of Mankind and revered as its galactic saviour? This is some shit that we don't take for granted anymore. Ignore for a second that you feel it's all a gigantic conspiracy to sell more GW models. What do you think they gain by changing this fluff? Do you think they believe by stopping this minor character from being some random chode who yells "NOOOOOOO" and dives across a corridor in slow motion, and changing the guy into Elric van Jesus, they're going to increase revenue by 200%?
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| The face of the devil, apparently. |
Anyway, 'Unmarked' carries on the story where 'Know No Fear' left off. Oll and his rag-tag group of adventurers are on some Philip Pullman shit, cutting through realities, falling into different worlds and different times, desperately trying to reach Terra in M31 in time for their graduation speech. I've ranted too long so I don't really want to give much away about 'Unmarked', but it's pretty fucking mental. There are dark hints about John Grammaticus (motherfucker is definitely Into Some Shit), dark hints about Maloq Kartho or what he may come to be known as, and of course, dark hints that Oll's death may be coming (well, we already knew that). If you're already an Oll hater, then this isn't gonna help you out much, since there's some more stuff about him being one of Jason's original Argonauts (which seems to be one of the primary causes of anal fissures among "PIUS WAS JUST A NORMAL DUDE" shippers). For those who are already down for The Pius Cause, the shit will just about make you weep boy. Oh boy, I can't wait for these crazy kids to continue their adventures!!! Naturally, I give Unmarked 9/10.
In conclusions... I've already gone on for waaaaaaay, way too long. But I give 'Mark Of Calth' a 7/10. It probably could be an 8/10, but I was a little disappointed by some of the stories I had, perhaps, unrealistic hopes for. This was balanced out by some stories I was expecting to be trash, being kind of fun. I certainly don't think this is proof the Heresy series has irrevocably stalled, and I'm glad that it looks like the story collections will be published with increasing frequency ('The Shadow War' and 'The Shattered Legions' are the next pencilled-in releases for the series). I hope we can start to move away from Calth now, though. Getting mighty sick of that planet.
New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.
Thursday 10 October 2013
"Betrayer" by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
'Betrayer' takes place fairly soon after the events of 'Know No Fear' and probably unfolds around the same time as 'Fear To Tread'. The Dembski-Bowden audiobook 'Butcher's Nails' is also a nice context-setting prelude to this action and can only increase your enjoyment of 'Betrayer'. This is another novel where Lorgar's machinations are behind the thrust of the action. Well, isn't that the case in all Horus Heresy books? But this is another novel where you actually see him machinatin'. It's also the first HH novel where Angron, The Red Angel, 12th Primarch, Father Of The World Eaters, takes centre stage.
We've seen Legions before whose Primarchs seem to dislike their own sons, like Kurze or Perturabo. But I don't think we've seen a Legion where there's this antipathy from both sides. The World Eaters worship Angron in many ways, but they also know that he has damned them utterly. Like their Primarch, they are aware that there are ways to fight battles other than a frontal assault but aren't particularly interested; the Nails drive them forward to unsubtle close combats with their enemies, whatever the tactical layout. This means that even in straightforward, easily-winnable conflicts, they lose masses of troops. Long-term effects of the Butcher's Nails - hardly suited to a Primarch, let alone an Astartes - are robbing the Legion of their sanity, having already done away with their versatility and their compassion. They seem to accept this, but that doesn't mean they don't hate Angron a little bit for it.
Kharn is interesting, or rather, Kharn is a fundamentally uninteresting character handled in an interesting way here. As I've said, 'After Desh'ea' is one of my favourite HH short stories, partially because we see Kharn as he used to be: noble, capable, and in control of himself. In 'Betrayer', that Kharn is long gone. Glimpses of him remain, but his personality is quite comprehensively shattered by the constant pain in his skull, and any tactical nous he begins to display is generally dashed quite quickly. I can't pretend that I find much interest in a character who is constantly howling for blood and running towards the enemy, but luckily Dembski-Bowden is too good a writer to make him into a cardboard cut-out like the 41st Millennium Kharn pretty much is. The interesting moments come from the times where Kharn fights against the slow lobotomy taking place inside him and shows sparks of his old nature, even defying Angron a few times.
Even in the full grip of the Nails, Kharn is given a few moments to ponder on the nature of the Legion and the Primarch without it seeming shoved-in and clumsy. His gallows humour is also welcome. Apart from Kharn, though, the most interesting characters are the naysayers to Angron's path. Sure, all the World Eaters know deep down their Primarch is a broken, unworthy thing, but Esca (a doomed Librarian) and Lhorke (a Dreadnought entombed long before Angron joined the Legion) are much more... direct in their disapproval. It's a bit of a shame we couldn't spend more time with them.
Dembski-Bowden also seizes the opportunity to build on his characterisation of Lorgar here. His scenes really are priceless, and all the more effective when his quiet self-confidence and capable intellect are juxtaposed with Angron's twitching, snarling rages. These two really, really have an odd dynamic to their relationship: competitive, suspicious, but somehow affectionate... well, brotherly. (Oh, and speaking of the Urizen: there are juicy hints that follow on from what (I think) was implied in Abnett's divisive 'Pariah': Lorgar is the originator of Enuncia, or at least he's the one who's brought it into the 31st milennium.) Additionally, we get to see more of Argel Tal, who is... different from the last time we saw him. He seems more comfortable with his possessed state, but he is also haunted by the events near the end of 'The First Heretic'. He and Kharn have an oddly touching friendship. They are probably two of the most noble soldiers in the Traitor Legions we've spent time with thus far. Quite an accomplishment considering the atrocities they're responsible for... To this, add even more exploration of the split within the Word Bearers (Lorgar grows ever more tired of Erebus and Kor Phaeron's frolicking about) and their fallout for Argel Tal, and it's fair to say this is about the 17th Legion just as much as it is the 12th.
Despite it being very heavy on close combat, the book's not all chainblades and disembowelments. Other elements of 31st millennium combat come to the fore at various points of Betrayer. Titans, and void war. To be brutally frank, I've never liked reading Titan battles. I don't know why, but something about them just rubs me wrong. The Titan parts in 'Betrayer' aren't much of an exception. Aaron is great at the human element in colossal battles, and the crews are very engaging, but... I can't explain it, I just don't dig Titan action. Best to put this down as personal preference and move on.
Void war, on the other hand, is something else. I grew up loving Star Wars and devouring whichever of the spin-off novels I could find in my local library. The colossal space battles, and the incredibly diverse ship types darting through the action, were one of the main reasons it made such an impact on me. I can't say I'm a Star Wars fan still. (Maybe it was Episode III. Maybe it was slowly realising how fucking racist George Lucas is. Maybe it was something else.) But that shit has stayed with me. It's clear to me Dembski-Bowden shares that aspect of Star Wars space-battle love. Maybe he's a Rogue Squadron fan too? Whatever the case, the celestial slugfests of 'Betrayer' are superb - perhaps even better than the ones in his Night Lords books, which is really saying something. They're edge-of-the-seat tense, they drive the plot forward, and they're also very, very readable; not dumbed-down, but also not getting lost in dreary litanies of tech-specs. And yeah, I'd say this is an area where AD-B is (whisper it) Better Than Abnett. SHIT!!! I've said it, and I can't take it back.
And while I'm assuming that the author is part of the same fandoms as me - this is probably totally wrong, but I feel like there's a tiny grain of George RR Martin in here. In the mad, pre-teen boy-king who now rules over Angron's old enemies in Desh'ea... and also in the way Aaron is willing to kill off major characters without much preamble or warning. (Erebus, you shit!) And some Varys-worthy behind-the-scenes scheming, too. Looks like Lorgar's honeyed tongue (no homo) might be starting to sway exiled Magnus The Red into acceptance of Horus' cause, if not full-blown alliance... stay tuned...
What's the last word on 'Betrayer'? I'll be honest. I didn't love this book to start with, or at least, I didn't love it as much as I wanted to. After the last two novels in HH being so brilliant - pardon me, masters McNeill and Swallow, for saying unexpectedly brilliant - I was fiendin' for the newest AD-B masterwork. For the first hundred or so pages... I couldn't get into it. There is a lot of throat-clearing and character development, and sometimes you'll think "Get to the interesting stuff!" But hell, when the plot really starts moving, you'll forget all about any initial misgivings and get into the bloody, twisty and (unexpectedly) heart-wrenching story. Perhaps I'm a gay nerd, but I swear I had actual tears in my eyes when Angron tripped down memory lane and poured a 40 of blood for his dead homies. And by the time 'Betrayer' ended, I honestly felt emotionally scarred... And for that, I give it 9/10. I can't wait for the saga of Lorgar to continue.
New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.
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| Brotherly love. |
Kharn is interesting, or rather, Kharn is a fundamentally uninteresting character handled in an interesting way here. As I've said, 'After Desh'ea' is one of my favourite HH short stories, partially because we see Kharn as he used to be: noble, capable, and in control of himself. In 'Betrayer', that Kharn is long gone. Glimpses of him remain, but his personality is quite comprehensively shattered by the constant pain in his skull, and any tactical nous he begins to display is generally dashed quite quickly. I can't pretend that I find much interest in a character who is constantly howling for blood and running towards the enemy, but luckily Dembski-Bowden is too good a writer to make him into a cardboard cut-out like the 41st Millennium Kharn pretty much is. The interesting moments come from the times where Kharn fights against the slow lobotomy taking place inside him and shows sparks of his old nature, even defying Angron a few times.
Even in the full grip of the Nails, Kharn is given a few moments to ponder on the nature of the Legion and the Primarch without it seeming shoved-in and clumsy. His gallows humour is also welcome. Apart from Kharn, though, the most interesting characters are the naysayers to Angron's path. Sure, all the World Eaters know deep down their Primarch is a broken, unworthy thing, but Esca (a doomed Librarian) and Lhorke (a Dreadnought entombed long before Angron joined the Legion) are much more... direct in their disapproval. It's a bit of a shame we couldn't spend more time with them.
Dembski-Bowden also seizes the opportunity to build on his characterisation of Lorgar here. His scenes really are priceless, and all the more effective when his quiet self-confidence and capable intellect are juxtaposed with Angron's twitching, snarling rages. These two really, really have an odd dynamic to their relationship: competitive, suspicious, but somehow affectionate... well, brotherly. (Oh, and speaking of the Urizen: there are juicy hints that follow on from what (I think) was implied in Abnett's divisive 'Pariah': Lorgar is the originator of Enuncia, or at least he's the one who's brought it into the 31st milennium.) Additionally, we get to see more of Argel Tal, who is... different from the last time we saw him. He seems more comfortable with his possessed state, but he is also haunted by the events near the end of 'The First Heretic'. He and Kharn have an oddly touching friendship. They are probably two of the most noble soldiers in the Traitor Legions we've spent time with thus far. Quite an accomplishment considering the atrocities they're responsible for... To this, add even more exploration of the split within the Word Bearers (Lorgar grows ever more tired of Erebus and Kor Phaeron's frolicking about) and their fallout for Argel Tal, and it's fair to say this is about the 17th Legion just as much as it is the 12th.
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| If you're expecting 350 pages of the above, you're shit outta luck. |
Void war, on the other hand, is something else. I grew up loving Star Wars and devouring whichever of the spin-off novels I could find in my local library. The colossal space battles, and the incredibly diverse ship types darting through the action, were one of the main reasons it made such an impact on me. I can't say I'm a Star Wars fan still. (Maybe it was Episode III. Maybe it was slowly realising how fucking racist George Lucas is. Maybe it was something else.) But that shit has stayed with me. It's clear to me Dembski-Bowden shares that aspect of Star Wars space-battle love. Maybe he's a Rogue Squadron fan too? Whatever the case, the celestial slugfests of 'Betrayer' are superb - perhaps even better than the ones in his Night Lords books, which is really saying something. They're edge-of-the-seat tense, they drive the plot forward, and they're also very, very readable; not dumbed-down, but also not getting lost in dreary litanies of tech-specs. And yeah, I'd say this is an area where AD-B is (whisper it) Better Than Abnett. SHIT!!! I've said it, and I can't take it back.
 |
| While I wouldn't call it "good" as such, I'm still fond of this series. |
What's the last word on 'Betrayer'? I'll be honest. I didn't love this book to start with, or at least, I didn't love it as much as I wanted to. After the last two novels in HH being so brilliant - pardon me, masters McNeill and Swallow, for saying unexpectedly brilliant - I was fiendin' for the newest AD-B masterwork. For the first hundred or so pages... I couldn't get into it. There is a lot of throat-clearing and character development, and sometimes you'll think "Get to the interesting stuff!" But hell, when the plot really starts moving, you'll forget all about any initial misgivings and get into the bloody, twisty and (unexpectedly) heart-wrenching story. Perhaps I'm a gay nerd, but I swear I had actual tears in my eyes when Angron tripped down memory lane and poured a 40 of blood for his dead homies. And by the time 'Betrayer' ended, I honestly felt emotionally scarred... And for that, I give it 9/10. I can't wait for the saga of Lorgar to continue.
New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.
"Butcher's Nails" (audio drama) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Face-offs between the Aurelian and the Red Angel!!! Dark hints at hidden agendas and schisms between the 12th and 17th!!! Void war against foul xenos scum!!! TWO TRAITOR LEGIONS ON THE VERGE OF ARMED CONFLICT!!! And the (heretical!!!!) revelation that the Black Templars custom of chaining their weapons to their armour, comes from Sigismund's time in the World Eaters fighting pits!!! 'Butcher's Nails' is everything you want from an HH audiobook. While it builds on characters established in the HH series before, it also gives you a tonne of bolter-blasting, chainsword-revving action.
Except. Except that it's an audiobook. So it's not on the page. So for a dude like myself who's used to writing, directing, and scoring a movie in his head as he reads a story, we've got proooooooblems. Egomaniacal as that may sound... But more on that later.
The actual story is fairly simple, and while it sets the scene nicely for 'Betrayer', you don't really have to listen to 'Butcher's Nails' to understand the full length novel. Though a few things from 'Betrayer' made more sense to me after listening to this. In fact, since I found 'Betrayer' seemed a bit... short (well, same length in pages as 'Angel Exterminatus', but it had like 20 words per page... damn font wizards), I find myself wishing the 'Butcher's Nails' had been a sort of self-contained frontispiece to that book. Cut out the exposition that was in both 'Butcher's Nails' and 'Betrayer', and it could have been an excellent way to ease in to the action. But... that won't happen. Maybe in a few years we'll get a 'director's cut'...
Let's talk now about the actual presentation. This was only my second Black Library audiobook, the first being 'Garro: Legion Of One'. What I quickly learned was that Black Library (or the varied studios that produce their audibooks) like sound effects. A LOT. They like battle sound effects particularly. And, well, the majority of 'Butcher's Nails' takes place in battle. Whaddya want? It's Angron. This does mean the narrator is often straining to be heard over plasma bolts, gunfire, clashing swords, and naturally, snarling chainblades (Angron cares not from whence the blood flows...). You know what? I don't want to be negative, but I found the whole thing incredibly tiresome. Mainly because some of AD-B's best writing will come out in the thick of a battle sequences, and this kind of drowns it in overdramatic audio treacle. The actual score itself can be quite intrusive as well.
Perhaps I'm just being unfair on the medium. I haven't been too into them for the last couple decades but I listened to audiobooks way more as a kid. OK, I was spoiled, on some 'Winnie The Pooh' shit. While I know it's probably too much to get Alan Bennett to read my HH audiobooks ("Oooh Erebus, I said, dropping the cracker into my disappointingly cold tea, you really must meet Dudley and Peter, they probably would get on well with this Slaanesh fellow you talk so much about") can a motherfucker get a little pause for effect once in a while? Damn.
Now on to the voice acting.
First off, I really liked the voice of Kharn. I never thought of Kharn as Russian, but it works very well. I also like how calm and almost morose he sounds, it makes the 'GRRRRRR' stuff when he really cuts loose all the more effective... something most of the other actors on this could have stood to learn.
Captain Lotara is a great character and shows that AD-B might be one of the only HH writers who can convincingly write tough-as-nails female characters who can stand shoulder to shoulder with Primarchs and give as good as they get (OK, Cyrene is not a GREAT example...) The voice actor here is... hmm, I'm not sure, perhaps not hard-bitten enough. There were a few moments where she got a bit whiny, and the sing-song 'smack talking' to the eldar captain was a bit... too... Whedon for my tastes. There's good Whedon and bad Whedon, and her reading was bad Whedon. Had it been delivered utterly deadpan, it could have been the *fist pounds into open palm* YEAAHHHHHH moment of the whole audiobook. Anyway she was still pretty great, it's just a few direction choices which I think could have gone better.
Lorgar... well, he seems a bit fucking moribund, really. In my mind, Lorgar should sound charismatic, smooth, perhaps a little slimy a times, but incredibly self-assured. Roger Allam or Alan Rickman would be my first choices (sadly, James Mason is not available for this role). Instead, the Lorgar in Butcher's Nails sounds like he's taking the 'priest' aspect of the character as the primary trait. It's all solemnity and chiding. When he talks, I just hear Christopher Lee sitting in an abandoned vestry weeping at the death of his only friend (a palsied crow). I guess this is just down to my personal interpretation of Lorgar, and this guy's voice acting is objectively pretty damn good, so... haters gon' hate.
Angron, O, Angron, my prince! Angron is arguably the centrepiece of Butcher's Nails, so he's on-mic a lot. Well, how WOULD Angron sound? We can't know of course. Many think of him as a roided-out ripoff of Spartacus, so perhaps an incoherent Kirk Douglas imitation would be apt. Maybe a Ron Perlman vibe, since he is one of the most brutish/badass of all the Primarchs. Or maybe going RRRRRooshan, like Kharn was. But I don't know how many people would think of him as a fruity-voiced Brit character actor pretending to be high on speed and QUITE MIFFED. Shit bro, I guess this is ultimately a matter of directorial choice again, but I found it to be pretty fucking awful.
How would I have preferred him to sound? I guess the compromise would be a little like Vin Diesel in Pitch Black: animalistic, almost suave growls when in repose, rising to a feral shout when roused. But the secret truth? Ever since After Desh'ea, when I'm thinking Angron, I'm thinking... DMX.
The inability to follow a conversational thread for more than a few seconds. The psychotic appetite for violence. The guttural growls and shouts that seem to involuntarily derail his own sentences. The pain machine beating a hole in his psyche. Yeah, Angron is everyone's favourite Ruff Ryder. Would it have been too much to ask to have Earl Simmons come out of crack-smoking retirement to throw down a few barks? WHAAAAAAT!!!!!!
Argel Tal, luckily, doesn't show up much. I dunno, I guess I thought of his voice as having more subtlety than this... also, maybe racism on my part, but since Colchis was a 'desert world' and the Colchisians 'dusky-skinned' I thought, perhaps, he'd sound like a slightly sullen Middle Eastern prince or cleric or something. Perhaps that would be too obvious, but THIS... And the voice of Raum just sounds like the generic 'demon voice' from any videogame or horror movie. Two voices speaking in unison is tough to do, especially when chainblades are howling and crashing all the time in the background, but 'cackling twat' and 'vocal equivalent of a bowel spasm' don't really go too awesome together. Unless you're a black metal frontman.
Finally, well shit, guess I never thought about how eldar should sound, but... it wasn't the way this dude sounded, that's for sure. I guess in my head they were more... French.
Of course, this shit is all just my opinion, and that's the beauty of audiobooks - it doesn't fit with my personal views on the characters' voices, but you might have imagined them sounding exactly like this. Despite my whining about the voice acting, this definitely grew on me after several listens - and I never had any complaints regarding the story. I think it's dope AD-B's writing is being given more attention by moving into audiobook form.
For writing, 8/10. For production and sound, 6/10. Splitting the difference, I'm gonna hit it with a 7/10...
New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.
 |
| Even back then, chain-axes had helpful arrows on them, like "this is the direction you want to swing it". |
The actual story is fairly simple, and while it sets the scene nicely for 'Betrayer', you don't really have to listen to 'Butcher's Nails' to understand the full length novel. Though a few things from 'Betrayer' made more sense to me after listening to this. In fact, since I found 'Betrayer' seemed a bit... short (well, same length in pages as 'Angel Exterminatus', but it had like 20 words per page... damn font wizards), I find myself wishing the 'Butcher's Nails' had been a sort of self-contained frontispiece to that book. Cut out the exposition that was in both 'Butcher's Nails' and 'Betrayer', and it could have been an excellent way to ease in to the action. But... that won't happen. Maybe in a few years we'll get a 'director's cut'...
Let's talk now about the actual presentation. This was only my second Black Library audiobook, the first being 'Garro: Legion Of One'. What I quickly learned was that Black Library (or the varied studios that produce their audibooks) like sound effects. A LOT. They like battle sound effects particularly. And, well, the majority of 'Butcher's Nails' takes place in battle. Whaddya want? It's Angron. This does mean the narrator is often straining to be heard over plasma bolts, gunfire, clashing swords, and naturally, snarling chainblades (Angron cares not from whence the blood flows...). You know what? I don't want to be negative, but I found the whole thing incredibly tiresome. Mainly because some of AD-B's best writing will come out in the thick of a battle sequences, and this kind of drowns it in overdramatic audio treacle. The actual score itself can be quite intrusive as well.
Perhaps I'm just being unfair on the medium. I haven't been too into them for the last couple decades but I listened to audiobooks way more as a kid. OK, I was spoiled, on some 'Winnie The Pooh' shit. While I know it's probably too much to get Alan Bennett to read my HH audiobooks ("Oooh Erebus, I said, dropping the cracker into my disappointingly cold tea, you really must meet Dudley and Peter, they probably would get on well with this Slaanesh fellow you talk so much about") can a motherfucker get a little pause for effect once in a while? Damn.
 |
| The 5-year-old me listened to this ALL THE TIME... |
First off, I really liked the voice of Kharn. I never thought of Kharn as Russian, but it works very well. I also like how calm and almost morose he sounds, it makes the 'GRRRRRR' stuff when he really cuts loose all the more effective... something most of the other actors on this could have stood to learn.
 |
| Can you picture this guy as 'melancholic'? |
Lorgar... well, he seems a bit fucking moribund, really. In my mind, Lorgar should sound charismatic, smooth, perhaps a little slimy a times, but incredibly self-assured. Roger Allam or Alan Rickman would be my first choices (sadly, James Mason is not available for this role). Instead, the Lorgar in Butcher's Nails sounds like he's taking the 'priest' aspect of the character as the primary trait. It's all solemnity and chiding. When he talks, I just hear Christopher Lee sitting in an abandoned vestry weeping at the death of his only friend (a palsied crow). I guess this is just down to my personal interpretation of Lorgar, and this guy's voice acting is objectively pretty damn good, so... haters gon' hate.
Lorgar loves a twix.
Angron, O, Angron, my prince! Angron is arguably the centrepiece of Butcher's Nails, so he's on-mic a lot. Well, how WOULD Angron sound? We can't know of course. Many think of him as a roided-out ripoff of Spartacus, so perhaps an incoherent Kirk Douglas imitation would be apt. Maybe a Ron Perlman vibe, since he is one of the most brutish/badass of all the Primarchs. Or maybe going RRRRRooshan, like Kharn was. But I don't know how many people would think of him as a fruity-voiced Brit character actor pretending to be high on speed and QUITE MIFFED. Shit bro, I guess this is ultimately a matter of directorial choice again, but I found it to be pretty fucking awful.
How would I have preferred him to sound? I guess the compromise would be a little like Vin Diesel in Pitch Black: animalistic, almost suave growls when in repose, rising to a feral shout when roused. But the secret truth? Ever since After Desh'ea, when I'm thinking Angron, I'm thinking... DMX.
The inability to follow a conversational thread for more than a few seconds. The psychotic appetite for violence. The guttural growls and shouts that seem to involuntarily derail his own sentences. The pain machine beating a hole in his psyche. Yeah, Angron is everyone's favourite Ruff Ryder. Would it have been too much to ask to have Earl Simmons come out of crack-smoking retirement to throw down a few barks? WHAAAAAAT!!!!!!
Argel Tal, luckily, doesn't show up much. I dunno, I guess I thought of his voice as having more subtlety than this... also, maybe racism on my part, but since Colchis was a 'desert world' and the Colchisians 'dusky-skinned' I thought, perhaps, he'd sound like a slightly sullen Middle Eastern prince or cleric or something. Perhaps that would be too obvious, but THIS... And the voice of Raum just sounds like the generic 'demon voice' from any videogame or horror movie. Two voices speaking in unison is tough to do, especially when chainblades are howling and crashing all the time in the background, but 'cackling twat' and 'vocal equivalent of a bowel spasm' don't really go too awesome together. Unless you're a black metal frontman.
Finally, well shit, guess I never thought about how eldar should sound, but... it wasn't the way this dude sounded, that's for sure. I guess in my head they were more... French.
Of course, this shit is all just my opinion, and that's the beauty of audiobooks - it doesn't fit with my personal views on the characters' voices, but you might have imagined them sounding exactly like this. Despite my whining about the voice acting, this definitely grew on me after several listens - and I never had any complaints regarding the story. I think it's dope AD-B's writing is being given more attention by moving into audiobook form.
For writing, 8/10. For production and sound, 6/10. Splitting the difference, I'm gonna hit it with a 7/10...
New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.
Sunday 6 October 2013
"Angel Exterminatus" by Graham McNeill
Going into this, I was very cynical. The Iron Warriors and Perturabo are tied with the Iron Hands and Ferrus Manus for the place of "Legion and Primarch I give the least amount of fucks about". Dude just has no charisma at all and I'm unsure if that's sloppy writing or a conscious choice on the part of the HH team. I know Fulgrim plays a part in this as well, and while I liked 'The Reflection Crack'd', I'm not crazy about the HH book that bears his name. To top this off this is written by Graham McNeill, who has written a few of my favourite HH books, but also a couple of my least favourite.
I needn't have worried. Angel Exterminatus is a masterpiece of breathless plotting which keeps you invested right to the last page, and hooks you from the very beginning. Ahh, that beginning. I like the fact that shortly after the book gets underway, we get allusions to Iron Warriors from previous HH stories: Dantioch from 'Iron Within' whose name is now synonymous with failure and disgrace, and the poor schmucks from 'The Crimson Fist' who fumbled the executioner's blow at Phall. A lot of these Iron Warrior characters apparently show up later in the 41st-millennium setting for Graham's 'Iron Warrior' and 'Ultramarines' novels and stories, so fans of those books will probably welcome a chance to see the origins of those old, villainous bastards as... middle-aged villainous bastards.
In fact, the beginning of this story is excellently paced: by the beginning of the third chapter, we've had the violent breaking of a siege, some musings on the nature of the 4th Legion, some battlefield promotions and a very humiliating battlefield demotion, a dude waking up as a dreadnought, the revelation that Perturabo made Conrad Kurze a special semi-magical labyrinth to hold a mysterious but unnamed 'uniquely capable prisoner', and FUCKING EIDOLON COMING BACK FROM THE DEAD. (I really hope that last one doesn't cause too many problems for y'all, since he's listed on like page 2 of the Dramatis Personae as 'The Risen'.) It also gave me a geniune LOL moment when Perturabo sneeringly describes the 3rd Legion's ships as 'capering in orbit'. I dunno, but when I read that, I just imagined a bunch of battle-barges zipping around broadcasting Wiz Khalifa's laugh to each other.
Soon after the action begins, we're seeing the true horror of the Emperor's Children, as described from an outsider's perspective: I have to give McNeill credit, his description of the orgiastic horde of supplicants that precede the III Legion's approach is geniuinely gruesome. Unlike Astartes, Slaaneshi cultists DO be fuckin'... And of course it's great to see the Phoenix Guard again. Those cads.
An extremely brief overview of the plot: Using the promise of unimaginably powerful weapons of unknowable antiquity, Fulgrim ropes Perturabo into a mission deep within the Eye Of Terror, guided by a mysterious Eldar. Little do they know that some Loyalists - with similar xenos guidance - are determined to stop them at any cost. The thrust of 'Angel Exterminatus' involves three Legions: the sullen Iron Warriors, the Emperor's Children (now in the full grip of Slaanesh's corruption) and a 'terror cell' of Iron Hands who have been through the crucible of Isstvan V.
Each Legion has its own distinct character which McNeill handles with ease; unsurprising for Iron Warriors and Emperor's Children, as he's written books for them before, but I was surprised at how much I liked his Iron Hand characters. The 10th always seemed to me the most humourless, dour and self-righteous legion (tied with the Iron Warriors, perhaps) but while they're still not exactly a barrel of laughs, I genuinely cared about these guys and their internal struggle to decide the best course of action. Should they attempt to regroup at Terra or should they continue to harass Horus as best they can? What's more, every one of their number who dies is like a kick in the ribs to Ferrus' corpse, and I winced at some of the battle scenes here. The culture of the Legion, or what remains of it, is also very well handled; at this point, these are the only guys in the HH fight utterly without higher direction or any hope of it coming to them, and the opposing factions are beginning to clash without any higher adjudicator to stop them. The Iron Hands characters are great, although there is one eccentric Techmarine who verges on comic relief, who is sometimes a bit much, but it's worth it for the exasperation he creates in his fellows (at one point he's ordered "Come in here so I can beat you to death"). They are joined by a Salamanders apothecary and a badass (though perhaps a little unbelieveable) stealthy Raven Guard. How stealthy can a gene-bulked Astartes be in power armour? But the way McNeill describes it really works.
The Iron Warriors are arguably the main characters of the book. They are the ones we spend the most time with as viewpoint characters and it's their Primarch whose thoughts we most often are shown. Perturabo is no fool. He is eternally suspicious and vigilant for the slightest sign someone might have a secret agenda or is being snide or false. While this alerts him to no small number of slights (either real or imagined) from his father, brothers or even his own sons, it also seems to leave him blind to very obvious manipulation and traps; Horus' 'forgiveness' for his atrocities on Olympia, for example, or, well, all the ways Fulgrim fucks him over in this book (the list is just too long). This can leave him seeming quite naive; at the same time, his colossal arrogance makes him hard to sympathise with or love. We also find that of the Traitor Legion Primarchs we've dealt with so far, Perturabo seems to have the least amount of axe-grinding for the Emperor. He joined the rebellion more from a loyalty and respect for Horus than from festering resentment for his father, and there are several moments where he thinks back on his conversations with the Emperor with something approaching fondness. He certainly does have resentment for many of his brothers though - on both sides of the Heresy (though he does seem to think highly of Guilliman). Perturabo is a complex character and, since he's a Primarch, that's as it should be.
His Legion may suffer from its father's chilliness. Not for them the bonds shared between Primarch and Legion that the sons of Lorgar, or Horus, or Sanguinius have. Their Primarch is forbidding and cold, as likely to mete out brutal punishments as he is to give them some understated praise. He's not quite Conrad Kurze with nothing but contempt for his own Legion, but nor is he Lorgar. This perhaps pushes them on to more and more heroic (or reckless) deeds in hopes of gaining approval, as well as fuelling their brutal, cynic personalities.
This is the first time the Iron Warriors come into contact with Chaos and witness its corrupting nature; to their credit, their reaction (mostly) is "Fuck off". Still, regardless of their overt attitudes, the rot doesn't need to be obvious before it fully sets in and I would be surprised if certain elements of the Legion haven't embraced Chaos by the next time we encounter them. The only question mark / complaint here I have is the treatment of Olympia. Or rather, the lack of treatment. Are they just not going to describe this in HH and go instead for the approach of darkly alluding to it? Has it been done elsewhere? Is it in an audiobook? I know McNeill's done a few Iron Warriors books, maybe he's covered it in those? For an event which clearly cast Perturabo further into gloom and morbidity, it's certainly given very little attention in 'Angel Exterminatus'. But whatever, I suppose that's not really a big deal as you're rarely given much room to think about it!
There are some very nice moments of conflict between each legion involved in 'Angel Exterminatus', sometimes overt, sometimes not. For example, the repressed, introverted Perturabo has far more respect for the Iron Hands than he does for the flamboyance and needless drama of the Emperor's Children. And that's before he sees some of Fabius' projects in action. The moment where the Fourth Primarch has finally had enough of the Phoenician and cuts himself a switch for a whippin' of Fulgrim's hide, is truly cathartic. But who will have the last laugh...?
Fulgrim himself has become a great character too. I think his titular novel is best thought of as a scene-setting warmup. I still don't think of the events of that book with any real fondness, but without them, the current state of the Legion wouldn't have its gravitas. His Legion is really slipping into irredeemable madness at this point, and the descriptions of the Pride Of The Emperor make it sound like a gigantic crackhouse with a warp drive.
All in all, Graham McNeill has crafted a book which I feel is hands down the best he has ever contributed to the Horus Heresy line, and quite possibly one of the best in the series by any author. Perhaps in 'A Thousand Sons' and 'False Gods' he was just writing for Legions he didn't really have a - for lack of a better term - kinship with. Perhaps he, like some of the other HH writers, has just got more comfortable with the era as the series has gone on. Or perhaps it's because this novel doesn't have any fucking Remembrancers... those guys are the worst! I completely disagree with the notion that you need to have read his 40K-era Iron Warrior books to enjoy and understand this. The characters who later appear in those books are perfectly-rounded characters here and, having seen their origins, I'm eager to see what those crazy cats got up to next! (Obviously, the trade-off is that no matter what peril those characters may face in subsequent books, you know they're not gonna croak at Terra, which could rob them of a bit of dramatic capability.)
This review, like my review of 'Fear To Tread', is probably kind of insulting. "Oh, Graham, didn't you do well, considering I don't like your writing much!" But like 'Fear To Tread', it's a great, 'first tier' HH novel from an author I'd often thought of as 'second tier' to Black Library. And like 'Fear To Tread', it's very long, but so action packed it never feels overstuffed. It's also packed with allusions to characters and events from the last few HH books (and the upcoming ones as well), some of which made me drop the book and hoot "NO FUCKING WAY!" I give this 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.
 |
| "You fist 'em, I'll hammer 'em!" |
In fact, the beginning of this story is excellently paced: by the beginning of the third chapter, we've had the violent breaking of a siege, some musings on the nature of the 4th Legion, some battlefield promotions and a very humiliating battlefield demotion, a dude waking up as a dreadnought, the revelation that Perturabo made Conrad Kurze a special semi-magical labyrinth to hold a mysterious but unnamed 'uniquely capable prisoner', and FUCKING EIDOLON COMING BACK FROM THE DEAD. (I really hope that last one doesn't cause too many problems for y'all, since he's listed on like page 2 of the Dramatis Personae as 'The Risen'.) It also gave me a geniune LOL moment when Perturabo sneeringly describes the 3rd Legion's ships as 'capering in orbit'. I dunno, but when I read that, I just imagined a bunch of battle-barges zipping around broadcasting Wiz Khalifa's laugh to each other.
Soon after the action begins, we're seeing the true horror of the Emperor's Children, as described from an outsider's perspective: I have to give McNeill credit, his description of the orgiastic horde of supplicants that precede the III Legion's approach is geniuinely gruesome. Unlike Astartes, Slaaneshi cultists DO be fuckin'... And of course it's great to see the Phoenix Guard again. Those cads.
An extremely brief overview of the plot: Using the promise of unimaginably powerful weapons of unknowable antiquity, Fulgrim ropes Perturabo into a mission deep within the Eye Of Terror, guided by a mysterious Eldar. Little do they know that some Loyalists - with similar xenos guidance - are determined to stop them at any cost. The thrust of 'Angel Exterminatus' involves three Legions: the sullen Iron Warriors, the Emperor's Children (now in the full grip of Slaanesh's corruption) and a 'terror cell' of Iron Hands who have been through the crucible of Isstvan V.
Each Legion has its own distinct character which McNeill handles with ease; unsurprising for Iron Warriors and Emperor's Children, as he's written books for them before, but I was surprised at how much I liked his Iron Hand characters. The 10th always seemed to me the most humourless, dour and self-righteous legion (tied with the Iron Warriors, perhaps) but while they're still not exactly a barrel of laughs, I genuinely cared about these guys and their internal struggle to decide the best course of action. Should they attempt to regroup at Terra or should they continue to harass Horus as best they can? What's more, every one of their number who dies is like a kick in the ribs to Ferrus' corpse, and I winced at some of the battle scenes here. The culture of the Legion, or what remains of it, is also very well handled; at this point, these are the only guys in the HH fight utterly without higher direction or any hope of it coming to them, and the opposing factions are beginning to clash without any higher adjudicator to stop them. The Iron Hands characters are great, although there is one eccentric Techmarine who verges on comic relief, who is sometimes a bit much, but it's worth it for the exasperation he creates in his fellows (at one point he's ordered "Come in here so I can beat you to death"). They are joined by a Salamanders apothecary and a badass (though perhaps a little unbelieveable) stealthy Raven Guard. How stealthy can a gene-bulked Astartes be in power armour? But the way McNeill describes it really works.
 |
| STEALTHY AS FUCK |
His Legion may suffer from its father's chilliness. Not for them the bonds shared between Primarch and Legion that the sons of Lorgar, or Horus, or Sanguinius have. Their Primarch is forbidding and cold, as likely to mete out brutal punishments as he is to give them some understated praise. He's not quite Conrad Kurze with nothing but contempt for his own Legion, but nor is he Lorgar. This perhaps pushes them on to more and more heroic (or reckless) deeds in hopes of gaining approval, as well as fuelling their brutal, cynic personalities.
This is the first time the Iron Warriors come into contact with Chaos and witness its corrupting nature; to their credit, their reaction (mostly) is "Fuck off". Still, regardless of their overt attitudes, the rot doesn't need to be obvious before it fully sets in and I would be surprised if certain elements of the Legion haven't embraced Chaos by the next time we encounter them. The only question mark / complaint here I have is the treatment of Olympia. Or rather, the lack of treatment. Are they just not going to describe this in HH and go instead for the approach of darkly alluding to it? Has it been done elsewhere? Is it in an audiobook? I know McNeill's done a few Iron Warriors books, maybe he's covered it in those? For an event which clearly cast Perturabo further into gloom and morbidity, it's certainly given very little attention in 'Angel Exterminatus'. But whatever, I suppose that's not really a big deal as you're rarely given much room to think about it!
There are some very nice moments of conflict between each legion involved in 'Angel Exterminatus', sometimes overt, sometimes not. For example, the repressed, introverted Perturabo has far more respect for the Iron Hands than he does for the flamboyance and needless drama of the Emperor's Children. And that's before he sees some of Fabius' projects in action. The moment where the Fourth Primarch has finally had enough of the Phoenician and cuts himself a switch for a whippin' of Fulgrim's hide, is truly cathartic. But who will have the last laugh...?
Fulgrim himself has become a great character too. I think his titular novel is best thought of as a scene-setting warmup. I still don't think of the events of that book with any real fondness, but without them, the current state of the Legion wouldn't have its gravitas. His Legion is really slipping into irredeemable madness at this point, and the descriptions of the Pride Of The Emperor make it sound like a gigantic crackhouse with a warp drive.
All in all, Graham McNeill has crafted a book which I feel is hands down the best he has ever contributed to the Horus Heresy line, and quite possibly one of the best in the series by any author. Perhaps in 'A Thousand Sons' and 'False Gods' he was just writing for Legions he didn't really have a - for lack of a better term - kinship with. Perhaps he, like some of the other HH writers, has just got more comfortable with the era as the series has gone on. Or perhaps it's because this novel doesn't have any fucking Remembrancers... those guys are the worst! I completely disagree with the notion that you need to have read his 40K-era Iron Warrior books to enjoy and understand this. The characters who later appear in those books are perfectly-rounded characters here and, having seen their origins, I'm eager to see what those crazy cats got up to next! (Obviously, the trade-off is that no matter what peril those characters may face in subsequent books, you know they're not gonna croak at Terra, which could rob them of a bit of dramatic capability.)
This review, like my review of 'Fear To Tread', is probably kind of insulting. "Oh, Graham, didn't you do well, considering I don't like your writing much!" But like 'Fear To Tread', it's a great, 'first tier' HH novel from an author I'd often thought of as 'second tier' to Black Library. And like 'Fear To Tread', it's very long, but so action packed it never feels overstuffed. It's also packed with allusions to characters and events from the last few HH books (and the upcoming ones as well), some of which made me drop the book and hoot "NO FUCKING WAY!" I give this 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.
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