"Censure" by Nick Kyme

It is almost two years since the events of ‘Know No Fear’, and the Underworld War still rages on Calth between the remnants of the XIII and XVII Legion left to fight it out by their Primarchs. The surface of Calth is a rad-soaked wasteland and even Space Marines can’t stay out there too long – not that Aeonid Thiel is one to accept what ‘can’t’ be done. When their underground base is overrun by Chaos forces, Thiel’s commanding officer commands him to escape and plan a rescue for his comrades. But how effective can a lone Space Marine really be? And is the lone mortal soldier accompanying Thiel going to be a help, or a hindrance?

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‘Censure’ is written in third person present tense, much like ‘Know No Fear’. While I found ‘Honour To The Dead’ annoyingly transparent in its attempt to be just like Dan Abnett’s Calth masterpiece, ‘Censure’ feels like its own beast – the setting and plot would have fit nicely in the ‘Mark of Calth’ anthology, and probably would have made that compilation seem a bit more varied.

After some short stories I was indifferent about and a novel I really struggled to get through, ‘Censure’ was the release that convinced me Nick Kyme had something important to offer to the Heresy series. He writes Thiel to a standard arguably equal to Dan, though I suppose it’s an unfair comparison. While Thiel was an interesting character in ‘Know No Fear’, he was just one man in a rather large cast. Here, Nick is able to focus on him almost exclusively, and the ways his character grows are sometimes unexpected, but always welcome. An important part of Nick’s writing is that Thiel in ‘Censure’ seems to be the same person as the forward-thinking, insubordinate hero we liked in ‘Know No Fear’. It’s not a complete copy of course – that would mean there was no character growth at all – but inconsistency of characters when an authorial switch happens has been one of my main annoyances in the Heresy series, so this was a nice surprise.

The drama begins with Aeonid Thiel outwitting two invader militia troopers in a deadly ambush using rather unconventional means. In fact, Aeonid is breaking convention all over the place here: out above ground in Calth’s wasteland operating solo is not exactly the kind of thing Ultramarines are renowned for being cool with anyway, and to spice the pot he’s kind of going a bit nuts here, almost daring his superiors to slap him down with his defiance of ‘standard’ protocols. Yet with the Shadow Crusade rampaging away elsewhere, Thiel knows the pressing threat of complete annihilation has passed for the Ultramarines. As he states, “There are no true daemons left on Calth anymore… just the Unburdened”. But the possessed are danger enough, as we will come to see.

Our lead antagonist is Kurtha Sedd, “Apostle of the Third Hand”, a Word Bearer waging the Underground War with a small cadre of other Legionaries who were also left behind. If there’s any dominant theme that disappoints me about ‘Censure’, it’s that Sedd and his homies are just A. N. Other group of Seventeenth Legion loonies – their attitudes to being left on Calth aren’t really explored, beyond a brief hand-wave that they went a bit crazy in their denial of Lorgar’s betrayal. (A bit? Well, for Word Bearers, this level of insanity probably is just “a bit”.) Nick writes evil bastards well, and if any portrayal of a monomaniacal zealot was going to be justified, it’d be the Word Bearers – but this could have been handled a little better.

As an audio drama, ‘Censure’ is certainly a neater package than some of BL’s Heresy offerings. The Gal Vorbak effect of Astartes and daemon voices speaking simultaneously works much better here than in ‘Butcher’s Nails’. And the cast do good work. Gareth Armstrong, I believe, plays Thiel here, and does a good job – though I get the feeling Armstrong was told that Thiel was something of an anti-establishment rebel but didn’t really grasp the nature of how mentally focused and physically strong an Ultramarine is. He comes across as an insouciant smart-ass and it’s fun to listen to, but he sometimes sounds a little effete to be a giant hulking superman. I think Chris Fairbank – famously the portrayer of Kharn in such dramas as ‘Chosen of Khorne’ and ‘Butcher’s Nails’ – is Sedd. He’s somehow at once gravelly and slimy; a great performance, but you do wish for slightly better writing for the character – Fairbank certainly deserves it. I'm not sure who plays him, but Raud is the other primary lead. In an occasionally homogenous voice cast, Raud has a strong West Country accent (I think!) and is well played as an honourable, earnest and brave warrior. It could have easily been a caricature but good writing and a great performance make him an interesting presence, not just a human to throw Thiel’s ultra-brilliance into relief. The exploration of his origins is nicely handled as well – brief enough not to seem drawn out, but powerful enough that you get a sense of who is he is, beyond just another gun. Lastly, Voltius is excellently played, the embodiment of the Ultramarines’ devotion to order and regulation – as well as their arrogance. Raud is a good foil for Thiel, but I can’t help but wish Voltius got more of an opportunity to bounce off his rebellious subordinate. Heavy Entertainment are the production studio behind this, and they bring out some of their better atmospherics. The ominous but proud fanfares as Thiel travels into the Arcology are particularly good, and the deafening after-effects of a stun grenade are nicely reproduced.

‘Censure’ is not perfect by any means. There are a few holes in the more slapdash actions scenes. Thiel getting trapped under a load of rubble with Raud, as well as the method used to escape, really feels like it stretches the suspension of disbelief a little too much and it’s hard to shake the feeling that this would have left Raud dead twice over. Later in the story, our heroes commandeer a wrecked Rhino. Nick needs Raud to see something sinister in the rearview mirror, so never mind the fact a Rhino probably doesn’t need anything like that – we’ll put a ‘rearview reflector’ in. And of course there seems to be one fairly massive oversight at the end of ‘Censure’ – so Ultramarines can apparently now travel to and from Calth and Macragge with little issue? Then why aren’t the Word Bearers trying to escape?

And that’s not quite all. Just like in most stories set in an environment like this, as soon as a character (Raud, in this case) starts coughing, you know he’s a goner, because BL and Heavy Entertainment have very little regard for subtlety. Fair enough, I suppose, but it kind of ruins any dramatic tension this storyline could’ve had. A slow death from radiation poisoning is hopefully something I’ll never experience and I don’t know much about the realities of it – but would you still be able to walk (and fight) mere minutes before it suddenly became fatal? I kind of wish they’d gone in another direction with the poignancy and bleakness that massive rad-poisoning is given in, say, ‘Edge of Darkness’, but whatever.

While some of the fights are a little interminable, the final confrontation between Word Bearers and Ultramarines in the contested underground base is a great one. Sure it ends pretty predictably – Sedd gets Spawn’d, Thiel is triumphant, Raud dies a hero’s death – but the writing is up to a good standard. Thiel’s tearful eulogy for Raud is the only time ‘Censure’ approaches the creamed corn of ‘Honour To The Dead’, so that’s a triumph. And that one weak moment is followed immediately by Thiel’s incisive observations on the continuing war for Calth, a high point in the drama, and a high point for the character in general.

The ideal time for you to listen to this (or, nowadays, read this – it’s in the ‘Legacies of Betrayal’ collection in print format) is before you read ‘The Unremembered Empire’, since the teaser ending will make a certain scene in ‘TUE’ that little bit more shocking. If you’ve already read ‘Unremembered Empire’ and spoiled the surprise, I beseech you to seek out ‘Stratagem’, the twenty-minute audio drama which sets up where Thiel’s character arc might go in the next few years of the Heresy.

Would I like Dan Abnett to take sole custody of damn near everything in the Heresy series? Kind of, but that’s not going to happen. If Kyme takes stewardship of Thiel for the rest of the Imperium Secundus arc – or if he does what I hope he does, and makes him a prominent part of ‘Deathfire’ – then I’ll be far from dissatisfied. 8/10

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