"Fulgrim" by Graham McNeill

Yikes, the only HH novel (so far) solely titled after a Primarch ('Aurelian' is a novella, and 'Vulkan Lives' is a very short sentence). You'd hope it'd be an all-but-definitive capturing of that Primarch's personality, backstory, and motivations. I'm not sure 'Fulgrim' quite gets there.

The cover illustrates the problem with the HH 'let's use the right-hand 50% of a large picture as the cover drawing' format. This is Fulgrim's book, but the cover shows the Iron Hands, and the actual image of Fulgrim himself, relegated to the back of the book, is covered by a fucking text box.

The story of 'Fulgrim' begins soon after the Triumph at Ullanor, and runs parallel to the initial HH trilogy of 'Horus Rising', 'False Gods' and 'Galaxy In Flames'. 'Fulgrim' is one of the longest HH books at 500+ pages and this review was a bitch to write (I wrote like 9 A4 pages on this shit!).

When we join the 3rd, they're embroiled in an alien war on some Kevin Costner-ass Waterworld. They're fighting a creepy snake-like species who seem to take a great deal of pleasure in, well, everything. UH OH!!! We also learn that the Emperor's Children apparently suffered some unspecified tragedy near the beginning of their fucking-shit-up career, which left them dangerously below strength. While outwardly poisonously arrogant, their past has made them a tad insecure and also had the effect of giving them the urge to succeed and constantly push BEYOND their past successes. Around the time of this, their lowest point, the III Legion also fought alongside the Luna Wolves, which brought the two Legions close together and gave them an enduring mutual respect. MANY YEARS LATER THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN WOULD CLONE THE SONS' DEAD PRIMARCH JUST FOR KICKS. That's what enduring mutual respect gets you in 40k.

Going into this re-read (not one I relished the prospect of), I remembered the problems with 'Fulgrim' being in two main categories. Art, and Sex. As a pawn of Slaanesh, Fulgrim is swayed by the heady scent of sensuality and also the unknowable expanses of the mind unlocked by great art. More than in any other book, more than any other Primarch's story, it's natural that sex and art would feature heavily in 'Fulgrim'. But... I'm not sure how much Graham is really a big fan of writing about either subject. Dude does not seem to be secretly hoping for a career as an art critic or an erotic writer. (Thank fuck. 'Fifty Shades Of Warplate' is a scary concept, the world's not ready.)

I'm reliably informed this guy was never called an asshole

Maybe I'm being paranoid here, but it sometimes feels like McNeill is equating "appreciation of abstract art" with "ripe for corruption". He also seems be playing to the often-held prejudice that artists are ready to throw themselves into taboo-busting bacchanals at the drop of a hat, or indeed at the drop of some panties. It annoys me that Ferrus Manus seems to be set up as the archetypal, stolid "I don't know about this art stuff, but I know what I like: good common sense" dullard. Hey, guess what: he turns out to be hella resistant to corruption and the seductive call of Chaos! Art: Dangerous frippery which leads you to the Dark Side. Having said that, I really like the fact that one of the first 'chips' the forces of Chaos use to turn Fulgrim against his "dearest brother" Ferrus is the Gorgon's casual dismissal of Fulgrim's artwork. In fact, one of the most consistent messages of 'Fulgrim' is that you should never criticise the Phoenician's artwork. Dude is frankly the most dangerous art student since Mobb Deep.

And the problem of sex... well. McNeill's between a rock and a hard place here. The charms of Slaanesh manifest themselves commonly through PRIAPISM and LASCIVIOUSNESS so, really, he's gotta put SOME concessions to Feverish Lustfulness in there. But... yikes, man. It starts off aiight I guess, a few glossed-over sexual trysts and some guys growing big goggle-eyes with a comedy BOIIING noise when a lady in a 'tight, revealing' dress that shows 'a great deal of cleavage' walks by. The most risqué we have to get at this point is "I've always found that when sex involves all five senses it's a quite mystical experience." I dunno, when does it NOT involve all five senses? Unless one of the parties involved is wearing headphones, and also a big sack over their head. Weird. I personally prefer it when all SIX senses are involved. Yep, when Haley Joel Osment is watching me and crying. But DAMN does McNeill lose it pretty quick. I mean goddamn son. On one hand I applaud him for not shying away from depicting weird creepy daemonic orgies as, well, weird and creepy, but JESUS FUCK! I damn near wanted to tie on a chastity belt on after I read some of these.

On another sex-related note... I'm really not down with these female 'characters' at all. They're shallow illustrations of standard dumb fiction tropes. Hey, we can't avoid some of that in HH. It is Warhammer 40,000 fiction after all, and where would the Space Marines be without a bit of trope-usage? But when it's women being so clumsily characterised, shit just seems more egregious. We have Bequa, the spoiled bitch who's terrified of rejection, and by extension, terrified of ageing into someone who's not physically desirable. She actually thinks at one point - I'm paraphrasing, BARELY - about how she loves nothing more than corrupting the young and the innocent, making them used-up and bitter like her. In a way, Bequa is nothing more than a rewrite of the spoiled-ass hoe in 'False Gods', but whatever. Did McNeill get burned by a rich older women? I'm feelin' him if so, you gotta stay away from those maneaters Graham! Then we've got Serena D'Angelus and, well, Jesus Christ. Serena starts off as a beautiful but self-doubting "wounded bird" who just needs to be nursed back to health so she can flyyyyy. But she quickly becomes an unstable perfectionist who cuts herself JUST TO FEEL SOMETHING when she runs into problems with her work. ART, HOW MANY LIVES WILL YOU RUIN?! It says a lot that the self-confident, sexually aggressive female character is portrayed as venal and terrifying, and our heroic sculptor would much prefer the more vulnerable, slightly hysterical Serena. Though Ostian is happy to ogle the rapacious Bequa, he runs a mile when she's like "whip it out then". McNeill, you sly dog, you've satirised who a lot of your key reader demographics see women! We'd much rather have a startled faun who we can protect from the big bad world, right...? But - horrible to relate! - even the Good Girl is corrupted. Corruption which leads to... her bangin' hella dudes. And killing them. And using their blood and shit and (probably) cum to paint foul-smelling paintings. That's that 'outsider art' yo...

I will say that generally, the writing quality in 'Fulgrim' is much better than in 'False Gods'. Still, there are a few slip-ups... not to be too fussy, but McNeill's comma use is quite shady here. I don't like this sentence much:

"Perhaps, she had thought, a galaxy, reawakening to the manifest destiny of humanity, to rule would provide new and undreamed raptures and enchantments."

I mean, WTF is going on there?! I do like McNeill's writing in general, but for this and 'False Gods' a few scenes are ruined by mistakes which should have been spotted by a cursory proof-read. There's also the unintentionally Australian/Californian moment where Fulgrim shouts "I will not believe you?" LOOK THERE'S NO TIME FOR GRAMMAR, THE GALAXY IS IN CRISIS. Also, we're told fairly early on that Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus have the very closest relationship of all the Primarchs. I'm so fucking sick of any HH book telling me "of all the Legions, (X) was the most (Y)." Shit is mad lazy.

It sometimes feels like Graham still didn't know his strengths at this point, and was trying to be Dan; the inordinate amount of time spent with boring non-Astartes characters, or describing the dull opulence of the 3rd's surroundings... well, it detracts from what he's always been truly good at; describing intense battles and developing Astartes characters. Still, there some pretty cool parts in his scene-setting for this Legion. The Emperor's Children culture seems heavily based on that of ancient Rome. It's a good idea, and works fairly well, though it doesn't really go beyond them wearing togas, being fond of pillars, and (later on) throwing some pretty crazy orgies. There's also a real relish to their warmaking, a sadistic love of action and, well, violence as an undercurrent to their operations. Something you'd not get with the Luna Wolves at this time, or the Space Wolves.

I can't tell you how many times I've written 'Emperor's Chode' when trying to type this Legion's name.

Fulgrim's actual introduction as a character in this book is pretty great. I'm not sure if any Primarch introduction will beat Abnett's unveiling of Horus, but McNeill certainly does his best. We see quickly how charming, intelligent and, let's not beat around the bush, beautiful Fulgrim is. We also see how he's kind of a spoiled, vain little bitch. As Horus perceived in 'Horus Rising', Fulgrim's Legion is slipping into extreme hubris. Still, that's all ultimately to Horus' benefit. The III Legion lodges are, like Erebus planned, breeding grounds for ill-feeling towards the Emperor. Under the guise of 'fraternal informality' to be sure, but it's still there. Even within the lodges, though the Children are some butt-smooching, up-the-chain-o-command motherfuckers.

One of the charms of 'Horus Rising' was ambiguity of characterisation. (Yes, I'm still singing this same sad song.) Even when you knew a character was going to end up on the side of Chaos, bitter and corrupted and trapped in the Eye Of Terror... Dan made it fun to wonder WHY and HOW they would get there. In 'Fulgrim', a lot of 'em seem to be, well, there already. Take Fabius Bile, for example. Dude is basically Josef Mengele from the first time we see him, all sinister glances and noticeable erections as he rubs his hands with glee at cutting up his fellow Astartes. There's no ambiguity at all. He starts as a sick sumbitch who likes vivisection, and, as we all know, he's still that way in the 41st Millennium. The Heresy, it would appear, had almost no effect on him. McNeill's Fabius is like McNeill's Erebus. You can't believe someone so obviously slimy and manipulative could influence a Primarch, but those supposed towering intellects/Gods Among Men totally buy into it. Fabius only takes a few words to convince Fulgrim he should be allowed to meddle around in the Legion's geneseed. I'm not denying his creepy experiments and their horrifying results lead to some of the best parts of the book. But how hard would it have been to have him start as a good guy? Even a kind of shitty, vain good guy like Lucius? Right now I'm just thinking "don't these guys have any kind of vetting procedure to their recruitment?"

Likewise, I often typed 'Fabius' as 'Fabolous'.

Obviously, Tarvitz, Lucius and Eidolon will play their important parts in the novel, but McNeill makes sure to also introduce us to "his" Emperor's Children characters - Marius Vairosean, Julius Kaesoron, Apothecary Fabius and Solomon Demeter. In fact, I'd say McNeill does his damnedest to give these characters the most 'screen time'. Only fair. He actually could have gone a bit further in this regard; Lucius and Tarvitz were pretty insignificant captains in the scheme of the Legion during the time of 'Horus Rising'. Here, it's retconned so that before the war on Murder they'd been inducted into a secret society of the highest echelons and had the ear of the Primarch. Not out and out impossible (Loken saw himself as a pretty insignificant captain at the beginning of 'Horus Rising', after all) but for Lucius and Tarvitz to not mention it (or in Tarvitz's case, even think about it) during the Murder campaign? Weird.

Naturally, the 'new' Emperor's Children are horrendously arrogant, but their arrogance and perfectionism manifest in different ways. Solomon Demeter is ultimately a pretty straightforward, aggressive bruiser with a taste for the thrill of combat, which can make him act with a cavalier disregard for his (or his command's) safety. Solomon's very impetuous and seems cheerfully polytheistic, with his talk of fates and gods of battle. Beginning the book, I was certain that Solomon would embrace the Pantheon, but he becomes a mini-Loken quite quickly in the narrative. Marius is a much more regimented and controlled Space Marine; his esteem for Fulgrim's perfection results in him being a complete kiss-ass. Julius Kaesoron (errrr... not sure who he's named after, and if he's gonna get stabbed by someone called 'Bruteus' later in the series) is a bit of a dilettante, aspiring to get his feet in both the "good at war" and "appreciative of art" categories. JUST LIKE HITLER!!!

The final assault on the alien Laeran is a bit of a disaster. First, all the warriors inhale a weird vapour that makes the colours, sounds and sensation of battle so much more VIVID. Four twenty, bro!! Then they stumble across a giant alien orgy (seriously) and get, understandably, a little creeped out. Then Fulgrim sees a beautiful sword right in the middle of the alien orgy-temple, and he's like "takin THAT shit lololol". This last bit leads me to believe that Fulgrim is deeply idiotic. When you come across a creepy sword which seems to be worshipped by an alien civilisation, and which seems to have driven said civilisation to wild excess, and shortly after picking the sword up, YOU START HEARING CREEPY FUCKING WHISPERS IN YOUR MIND, what would stop you from throwing that shit away? Er, if it was real purty-like apparently. Ugh.

By the end of part II, we're on a dark path with the Legion. Marius' (fairly minor and understandable) failure in the Laeran endgame leaves him with a burning need to redeem himself - we can see how easily manipulated this trait could be, so I could have done without the "pointing out the obvious" bit where he baldly states that in future, he will carry out Fulgrim's orders without question WHATEVER THEY MAY BE. Meanwhile, Julius' drug trip in the Laeran temple has driven him to seek out similarly intense sensations to recreate that first high. And hey, Fabius just straight up gives the whole Legion combat drugs rendered from the bodies of the fucking Laer. That's gotta cross one or two lines, right? Meanwhile, Fulgrim is having actual arguments with himself in front of his soldiers. Surely some alarm bells are ringing by now... I'd forgotten that after the Laeran war, we're given a section heavily involving Ferrus Manus and the Iron Hands. Certainly a much more straightforward, unimaginitive Legion than the 3rd. You wouldn't find the 10th jerkin' around with no xenos artefacts... Honestly, I'd always remembered Ferrus and the pre-Isstvan Iron Hands as incredibly boring (aside from Ferrus' brief flashback cameo in 'The First Heretic'). But I gotta admit, McNeill's portrayal of Ferrus Manus is pretty great, and really gives you a feel for the character in only a few short descriptions.

As the book goes on, Fulgrim's appearance becomes more and more ornate..

Part III of 'Fulgrim' sees the introduction of Eldrad into the HH series, with his annoyingly circuitous schemes to SAVE ALL THE HUMANS but certainly not by keeping them well-informed on the dangers of Chaos or helping them out in any demonstrable way. It also presents a useful get-out clause for why the Eldar didn't just predict the Heresy and have Horus bumped off: apparently, the warpcraft involved in the Primarchs' creation makes it impossible to see their futures. All in all though, the 'Eldrad parley' sequence always seemed a bit superfluous to me, just a way to make explicit what was already pretty clear - Fulgrim's new sword houses a daemon. Still, it IS really cool to see Fulgrim in an all-out crazy Primarch v Wraithlord "who has the most ridiculous warp strength" contest. And if you think THAT's crazy, wait until Fulgrim goes gorillas and punches an Avatar's brainz out!! This is also the part where the sword lures Fulgrim with the actual name of its patron... Slaanesh. If you hadn't guessed. But Fulgrim embracing that name marks the point at which he can't turn back... Fuck it, writing about this sequence has convinced me that it's actually really awesome. Definitely one of the highlights of the book's often treacle-slow first half.

Meanwhile, Kaesoron is being corrupted slowly by the poetry of Cornelius Blayke and his insistence that sensual desires must be yielded to. I actually found the break in the action for Julius' extensive Ancient Poetry Criticism Corner pretty interesting and a worthwhile fleshing out of the story. Part III also sees the chronology catch up with 'Horus Rising', as Tarvitz, Eidolon and Lucius rejoin us fresh from Murder. This helpfully reinforces what a slippery shit Eidolon is; dude be str8 LYIN about his alien adventures. Not everything in Part III is good or even logical. When they make planetfall on one alien world, Solomon Demeter is obviously extremely moved by the beauty of the place and wishes - however briefly - that it could remain untouched. Then, when Fulgrim has the same reaction - except with more tears - Demeter's all "What's HER problem?"

And how are the Remembrancers/artists doing? Ahhh, Serena. She used to be a good girl, now she's slutting it up. It doesn't seem to take long (after she's cut herself up a bunch and thought about her low self esteem) before she hoe-traps some random shithead from La Fenice, fucks him and then cuts his throad while totally coming her brains out. Hey, that's what it takes for a woman to have an orgasm. Someone's got to die. Right, HH fans? Anyone? No? Oh well. It was kind of funny to me that - while way more graphic than expected - the sex scene was extremely coy compared to the horrific bloodbath that followed. Y'know, those kids, we can give them the most horrifying violence ever, but we can't have 'em learnin' about the sexin' from a Black Library novel! I hate to say it, but this horrifying development is one of the only 'corruption' plots here that actually makes sense. Serena is corrupted by alien substances and possible witchcraft on Laer, and her motivation becomes capturing the strange beauty of that planet in her paintings. Her inability to do this drives her to murder and turns her paintings into ritualistic things. The resulting magickal/warp-touched painting of Fulgrim becomes significant at the end. One of the few times that everything comes together in the book. Shame it's the result of such a misogynistic plot.

Yikes, we're on to... part four?! Most of these novels don't go beyond three parts. This is where you start to suspect 'Fulgrim' is two books smooshed together (or maybe three or four novellas of varying quality). This is where we first see That Fucking Painting. Fulgrim seems pretty stoked about it. Now that the guy's so heavily corrupted, he does become oddly paranoid in his vanity - believing he's so perfect that everyone is jealous of him. Hmm, could Kanye have become a servant of Slaanesh at some point? Shit, do I even have to ask? This is where shit starts heating up in terms of the overarcing Heresy storyline. Horus' slow 'feeling out' of Fulgrim for possible inclusion in his Heresy starting line-up is masterfully handled.

The controntation between Ferrus and Fulgrim is excellent, and makes their first meeting seem more bland and pointless. That's one of the main problems with this book; too often you're left feeling something is boring, pointless and artlessly handled, but it turns out to be necessary backstory which is needed for the second half of the book to be so good. During the confrontation, Fulgrim flaps his trap a little too much, letting Ferrus know that Angron and Lorgar have already turned, and Mortarion will be with them soon. This just reminds me that there's still so much mystery around Morty and his character. I mean, there's those bits in 'Eisenstein' or 'Thousand Sons' - but they're little more than cameos. Dude needs to get his due one of these days! I'd love there to be an equivalent to 'Fulgrim' covering this time period for the Death Guard and shadowing their Primarch closely. It does seem unnecessary that Fulgrim tells Ferrus all of his evil plans while trying to sway him to Horus' banner - but if you think about it, it's also one of his cleverest moves. The attempted corruption led to Ferrus' all-encompassing rage and total abandon of tactics on Isstvan, which you could say is one of the main factors in the doom of the Loyalist army. If Horus could have got under the skin of Corax or Vulkan in this way, we'd be looking at zero Shattered Legion survivors, probably.

Further to this little conversation though, once Ferrus got word that Fulgrim was telling the truth about Horus, and that Mortarion and Angron had joined the cause... might he not have also surmised that the stuff about Lorgar wasn't just Fulgrim bullshitting? And MAYBE got a little bit wary when he heard the Word Bearers would be reinforcing the Loyalists at Isstvan V? Ehhh, even a brief moment where he acknowledged the earlier conversation and then dismissed the idea that Lorgar would ever turn from the Emperor would have been good enough... it seems like an unnecessary plot hole to me.

Vespasian is a pretty boring character at the best of times, but his final scene is incredibly dumb: Fulgrim is just openly musing on how he's going to betray the Emperor soon and join with Horus... once he's purged his ranks of the pesky loyalists, which is happening soon, very soon. Vespasian's response: UHH MY LORD I CAN'T UNDERSTAND THE THINGS YOU'RE SAYING RIGHT NOW, COULD YOU EXPLAIN THAT SHIT AGAIN??? YOU SAY YOU'RE GONNA CLEANSE THE LEGION'S RANKS? CAN YOU BE MORE SPECIFIC ON WHAT THAT ENTAILS? Basically acting like he's wearing a wire. Ahh well, he's dead soon. I'm still not too sure why Fulgrim was given the anathame by Horus, I don't recall if there was a 'payoff' for that in 'Angel Exterminatus'... And oh shit! Ostian's still alive! I bet you forgot about that dude! He does contribute to one last bit of wackness though. Serena's suicide once she sees his desiccated corpse. She seems to think she killed him. HOW WOULD SHE THINK SHE USED A GIANT, PRIMARCH-TAILORED SWORD TO IMPALE A FULLY GROWN MAN, PINNING HIM, SUSPENDED, TO A STATUE OF SOLID MARBLE?? So fucking stupid.

Lucius' final betrayal of Solomon Demeter is another win in the "Lucius is awesomely horrible" column. It also gives even more sting to the Lucius vs Tarvitz final confrontation in 'Galaxy In Flames'. It is a bit of a shame that McNeill has Solomon slowly collapsing in death while a single tear rolls down his face and 'Adagio For Strings' plays in the background as he slowly whispers "Forgive them... they are... so lost..." But you can't have it all. Another 'You Can't Have It All' moment is the last duel between Fulgrim and Ferrus. Superbly written, and then once the thing's over, we just get yet another cliched "WHAT HAAAAVE I DOOOOOOOONE!" moment.

Ahh, then we get to the shitstorm at La Fenice. First. Julius Kaesoron finds himself physically aroused by Bequa Kynska's appearance, which raises... unpleasant questions. And then, a hideous, reality-destroying musical spectacle begins, something that breaks the very mind of the audience to witness it - no, not 'Phantom Of The Opera'. Something worse. Considering that this is the birthplace of one of the goofiest, retarded-est units in 40K (Noisemarines, a deadly daemonic rock band with guitar guns) it's handled with aplomb, despite going prrrretty close to unreadably unpleasant at times. After that shit stops, the post-Isstvan V worldbuilding FINALLY rolls around in the last few pages. It's great, but it confuses me a bit. It sets up the Night Lords for the Thramas Crusade, sets the Alpha Legion up for trolling the White Scars, sets the Iron Warriors up for Phall... all well and good, but the 'Core Four' plus Lorgar all rendezvousing at Mars, I don't remember that at all. Maybe I need to read 'Mechanicum' again... but yeah, what a great scene.

As soon as I saw Harry Lloyd as Viserys in Gamer Frones, I was like "That's Fulgrim". No contest.

So now we finally return to La Fenice for the great epilogue which is a perfect introduction to 'The Reflection Crack'd'. Though if you hadn't got the Dorian Gray parallels yet, it's made painfully apparent in this part... "Nooo it's nothing like Dorian Gray! That's about a picture which starts off beautiful and becomes horrifying as its subject is more and more corrupted; this is a picture that starts off horrible and ugly and becomes beautiful when its subject's soul is trapped within!" Yeah, totally different. So, ultimately this ends up as kind of a shitty rewrite of 'The Picture Of Dorian Gray' which is a pretty shitty book anyhow I feel. (Yeah, HERESY, but I don't think Wilde was suited to prose.) Except that book would have been WAY shittier if Dorian had several thousand adoring, much smaller versions of him who followed his every move and he still somehow managed to keep his extensive corruption a secret from his various puritanical, apparently super-perceptive brothers and a stern, all-knowing father figure. Right after I finished 'Fulgrim', I dove right into 'The Reflection Crack'd'. My memories were right: this novella is way better. Yet it feels like the 'twist' of 'Reflection' - while excellent and surprising - might have needed a bit more explanation, or maybe the end of 'Fulgrim' being a bit more ambiguous instead of deliberately misleading... but hell, that's just another example of how 'Fulgrim' seems a little rushed.

I don't think I can dismiss this book as easily as I could before. It's still deeply flawed, overlong, padded, and frequently seems drop-dead repetitive. Then again, it's also got some wonderful scenes, and sets up one of my favourite HH mini-arcs so far ('Reflection' / 'Angel Exterminatus'). Were I an editor, I'd have cut the whole 'daemon painting' angle, and left all the non-Astartes characters on the cutting room floor. But they're in there, and we've just gotta work with it. I'm going to hedge my bets and give it 7/10.

Fuck, I hope I never write a review this long again.

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