"Age Of Darkness" (short story collection)

An ambitious title that got up a lot of fans' noses, the 'Age Of Darkness' refers to the period between the opening of Horus' insurrection and the Siege of Terra. Since hostilities opened at, well, the end of book 2 in the series, I guess some figured this would be an 'overview' of the Age Of Darkness, or perhaps signify the end of this period of the story so we could get ahead to THE NEXT PART OF THE STORY OMG WHY DOES BL HATE US?!?

The more HH covers with someone doing a black metal 'grimclaw of megadark' the better

I personally think that those who are soooo concerned with pushing the story forward are missing the point. We all kind of KNOW the overarching story of the Horus Heresy; you can always re-read your old WH40K rulebooks' background sections if you want to refresh your memory. I think there's still a fair amount of ground we can cover within the Age Of Darkness itself before motherfuckers start pitching up at Terra. A White Scars book is on its way, and the 'Isstvan V Survivors' threads have been picked up nicely for the last couple books... but there are still hella chapters I'd like us to check in with again: Death Guard, Sons Of Horus, "Fallen" Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Thousand Sons... but enough of that. How does this actual collection measure up...?

Rules Of Engagement: Graham McNeill takes on the Ultramarines at one of the lowest points in their history - the aftermath of the Calth atrocity. Guilliman has turned from "emotionless tactical powerhouse" to devastated and possibly foul-smelling "tee-hee, writey-witey booky-wooky!!" maniac, and the legion feel beleaguered and rudderless. They're impatient with the fact their primarch is making them stick firmly to approved tactics (seriously - Ultramarines are pissed at Guilliman - holy shit, my world is cracking). They're also stuck in a story which kind of goes fucking nowhere. Yeah, you know I like to snipe at McNeill, but this was not one of my favourite stories of his. Obviously I'm a ravening Abnett fanboy, and this story seems a little pointless with the existence of 'Know No Fear'. The main character, Remus Ventanus, is served much better in that book, as are the whole legion really. Also, the twist (ALL THOSE BATTLES YO? THEY WAS JUST TRAINING EXERCISES VS OTHER ULTRAMARINES!!) is like the "& THEN I WOKE UP, & IT WAS ALL A DREAM" of 40K fiction. The only thing that really sticks with me here is the part where they battle Salamanders - I was really expecting a payoff or an explanation here but since all the fights were just 'play' I guess the only reasonable explanation is that Guilliman hates black people...? Oh those Salamanders and their DARK paths they choose!

Ultramar wasn't built on no dang miscegenation!

There's a bit of a sting at the end of the tale. Dark hints are made that Roboute has a plan and doesn't expect his legion to like it. I am going to hazard a guess that it's going to be "Let's not try to get to Terra, instead let's try to fuck up as many Traitor Legions as possible." But it's probably way more elaborate, I'm sure. I give this 6/10, not a terrible way to start the book really, but it didn't get me PUMPED.

Liar's Due: It takes a brave writer to deal with the Alpha Legion and their cryptic machinations following the great 'Legion'. But James Swallow does a pretty good job here, mainly by presenting how a single human agent critically fucks up an entire planet's shit. No Astartes or Chaos energies here, just one guy creating maximum havoc with misdirection, lies and obfuscation (you're damn right I had to look it up right before I wrote it). It's extremely impressive in an evil way but while the character is intelligent and almost sympathetic, 'Liar's Due' doesn't do much more than hint at the fascinating moral conundrum the Alpha Legion were left in with their last novel. Also, I'm not sure about the subplot with Mendacs (what a fitting name for a deceitful spy, what are you, JK Rowling?) and his landlord's slightly fey son. I know that the story tells us the agent decides fairly rapidly "hey, this one dreamy yokel is gonna be my cultural barometer for the whole planet, let me screw around with his mind" but why the fuck would he tell him his entire awful plan/philosophy and then just leave the guy alive?? Seems contrary to the Alpha Legion's ruthless intolerance for leaving any irregularities in the mix.

You wish to know my entire plan? Very well, I'll tell you.

What's funny is that this is a fairly insignificant pissant little planet so we'll probably never hear about the cast of Liar's Due again... and that's somehow perfect for the theme of 'Age Of Darkness'. Just another example of how people who don't care THAT much about either the Imperial Truth or the Primordial Annihilator are getting their entire lives ruined just so Horus can change a blue rune to a red one next to a particular system on his galaxy chalkboard... what a dicklord. I give Liar's Due 7/10.

Forgotten Sons: Written by that pretty motherfucker Nick Kyme AKA Dances With Salamanders, this is almost like an apology for that one scene in 'Rules Of Engagement' where McNeill trolls us and makes us think the Ultramarines spent some time in the HH era kicking Salamander butt (even more of a hideous crime post-Isstvan). Here, a Salamander and an Ultramarine both suffering from space-PTSD are given the duties of a) being ambassadors and b) pretending they give a shit about some remembrancer they're babysitting. The Ultramarine (a SHOUTMARINE) finds this... challenging, the Salamander, ehhh, not so much. As they're in currently neutral territory, and in an apparently strategically important system, both sides have consented to use non-violent methods to resolve this conflict and need to present their arguments for Horus or the Emperor to the planetary government. It's a really fascinating concept that isn't really exploited to its full potential - it doesn't help that their opponent is just a preening ambitious dickhead as well as 'merely' a human (how cold would it have been to see Arcadese and Heka'tan trying to keep their cool with a couple Word Bearers opposite them, with the loyalists knowing the extent of the horror of Calth and Isstvan but also knowing that if they lose their cool they lose everything?). I also really like the 'Nemesis' nod with the brief reference to the 'tragic assassination' of Luc Sedirae.

For those of you who reach for the lube when the bolters start 'coughing', rest assured, the diplomacy breaks down. Subsequently we get some quite memorable and cringe-inducing battle scenes; not an 'embarrassed by bad writing' cringe but an 'ouch, ouch, fuck, he ripped WHAT off?' type of cringe, with some truly brutal Astartes-on-Astartes action and a tense fight with a Foul Xenos. The best moments of the story are the most Salamander-centric; we get some tantalising images of Vulkan's disastrous experiences in the Isstvan massacre. Kyme dealt with this in greater detail in 'Vulkan Lives' and perhaps he's also spoken about it in the Salamander series he wrote, but this story made me really want to learn more about how Vulkan rolls. Once again the Salamanders seem like the Legion (along with the Raven Guard) that it would be most fun to bro down with: humanitarian, conscientious and, well, just politer than most other Astartes. I'm still not sure I want to read a whole book by ya boy, but I give Forgotten Sons 7/10 for the fun times.

The Last Remembrancer: Short but sweet, this gives us another look at how things are going on Terra. I might love these types of stories most of all, as it's always cool to juxtapose the desperate stuff on the frontiers with the growing dread at the Imperium's heart. Horus sends a skeleton-crewed battle barge into the heart of the system, featuring some quickly dead Traitor Guard and an imprisoned remembrancer. The remembrancer, Solomon Voss, has been sent to troll the defenders of Terra on some "c u soon fagots :) lolololol" shit. Through him, Rogal Dorn will get (yet more) hints on how far his brother has fallen.

I would quite like Qruze to be played by Keith Szarabajka. Dude has one brutal croak.

The Last Remembrancer shows us that shit ain't all good in the homelands. There is still tension between Dorn and Malcador on how to run things, the moon has been turned into Space Guantanamo Bay, and fear, suspicion and anger are the dominant motivators. Things are moving swiftly towards the brutal, authoritarian Imperium built on hate and oppression that we know from the 40K universe - something that seemed a long way away at the start of this series. On this subject, we get some nice 'hawks and doves' moments between Iacton Qruze and Rogal Dorn. I dunno, I'm not crazy about Dorn in general, he somehow combines a hardline, conservative arrogance with a "let's always fight fair tho bro yeah???" naievety... but in this, he begins to show signs of removing his head from his ass. Qruze continues to be a great character and I'm fascinated to see where his path ultimately takes him. Unfortunately, the actions on the last page light the way for how things are gonna be from now on in the Imperium. If information (or a person) is inconvenient, it gets Dealt With. A grim moral for a grim tale in a grim tome... I give this 8/10.

Rebirth: I'm not a ginormous fan of the book 'A Thousand Sons'. While there were some excellent scenes in it and it was well-paced (like McNeill books always seem to be), I found it lacking in memorable characters and overclogged with drab sequences - quite an accomplishment in a book starring Magnus and Ahriman and ending in the Fall of Prospero. By the time they ended up on the Planet Of The Sorcerors I didn't really feel a desperate need to find out what happened to them between then and the Rubric. (Which is pretty much 'the entire Heresy'.)

A magician, yesterday, on the Planet Of The Magicians.

'Rebirth' is a nice surprise - a Thousand Sons story which features more intesting plot points than their full length novel, in my opinion (though I guess the comparison is unfair; it helps that I didn't know how 'Rebirth' ended before I started reading it). A squad of Thousand Sons Marines who for some lucky reason evaded the Space Wolf invasion, come back to their homeworld and find it dead and deserted. Trying to overcome their horror, they search for answers, their primarch or even any of their brothers. I really like the way this switches between first person and third person, though I'd imagine some will find this very annoying. I also felt more engaged by Kalliston as a character than nearly any other Thousand Son in the HH series so far (save perhaps Atharva of 'The Outcast Dead'). The 'interrogation' scenes, in particular, are extremely well done - read this and compare it to 'After Desh'ea', and you learn a lot about Kharn's fall... even if what he's up to here is kind of... elliptical for a World Eater. I'd really like to see Chris Wraight do a bit more about the Thousand Sons we meet here. This might happen, given that the ending leaves us with a glimmer of hope for the survivors' mission... I give 'Rebirth' 9/10 and I definitely look forward to reading Wraight's 'Scars' novel when it comes out in non-eBook format.

The Face Of Treachery: I hated 'The Face Of Treachery' the first time I read it; I thought it was utterly nonsensical with perhaps the stupidest 'twist' ever. But that was before I read 'Deliverance Lost'. It makes much more sense as an extended prelude to that book, in which you find out why one Traitor Legion would stop another from destroying the remnants of the Raven Guard and taking them out of the runnings for good.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. After the Isstvan betrayal (quite a while afterwards, it seems) the Traitor Legions still have a picket of ships waiting for any signs of life from the Salamanders, Raven Guard or Iron Hands, ready to jump on 'em quick with both feet. Though why you'd choose some World Eaters for this shit is very unclear. "GRRR, I DON'T HAVE TIME TO PICKET! I WANT TO REND SOMETHING AND DRINK ITS FLUIDS, RIGHT NOW!" At the edge of the system, Branne Nev (a Raven Guard commander and a prominent character in 'Deliverance Lost') has showed up with a ship and a latent psyker who's been having troubling dreams of catastrophe. They're not exactly sure what happened, they just have a feeling Corax is in danger. Now that the big 'WTF' moment at the end of this story makes more sense, I'm free to focus on the strong points. It's tightly paced, and never lets up enough to get boring. There are tense moments, and also moments of great relief (if you're a Loyalist anyhow). It perfectly sets up all of the themes of 'Deliverance Lost', to the point that it should probably have been part of that book instead. This is also one of the few HH books where the publishing order is messed up - you really need to read 'Raven's Flight' in the 'Shadows Of Treachery' collection before you read this, as it gives an excellent setup for this story. 'The Face Of Teachery' was probably poorly served by being next to 'Rebirth'; the one-dimensional shouty World Eater ship captain here and the visceral portrayal of Kharn in 'Rebirth' isn't a kind comparison. Apart from that, it's a winner in all ways. I give it 8/10.

Little Horus: Now ga-damn, this is the shit I'm talking about. Following the opening trilogy, we've certainly had glimpses of the Sons Of Horus on and off throughout the series, but they've often been relegated to silent background artists to their Primarch in various sinister war councils. I was waiting on Abnett tackling the cast of Horus Rising again and here we have a story focusing almost entirely on Little Horus. Unlike with 'Horus Rising', 'False Gods' or 'Galaxy In Flames', here we are privy to Aximand's inner monologue. As 'the melancholy humour' in the Mournival, of course he's a more measured, sombre presence in a legion that desperately needs one. As he's a Son Of Horus, of course he's also a bloodthirsty killer when he needs to be. This gives us both introspection and brutal killing; haunting dreams and hundreds of puny humans being killed so thoroughly they turn into vapour. And... well, that ending... jeez..

If you sat through 'Equilibrium', you know what it is.

One thing I particularly like is that Abnett didn't let himself be distracted from the story with cliched Chaos rituals, or how the Sons Of Horus battleships are now covered in cobwebs, creepy skeletons and weird mirrors, or give us an epilogue with Erebus laughing wildly while casting shadow puppets on a wall. Abnett just told the story, and that was it. He writes superbly, as usual. He's said before that he would love to tackle the HH-era White Scars and that comes through here. I was also surprised at how much I wanted to read an Abnett novel on the Iron Hands legion (who I usually find incredibly boring). Of course, he has a pretty good grasp of the Sons Of Horus as well... well, here's hoping that he will get to write something about all three legions in the future.

The message here is pretty much the message of any Abnett review I write... it's awesome and you should read it right away. Recapturing the spirit of 'Horus Rising' so perfectly in a short story is quite an accomplishment. 10/10.

The Iron Within: A group of loyalist Iron Warriors defend an Iron Warriors fortress from some Traitor Iron Warriors in an iron war to the iron death while thinking about the nature of iron a fair amount. 'The Iron Within' is the closest 'Age Of Darkness' gets to a yawnfest like 'Scions Of The Storm'. Even so, there are some nice moments here - often the Iron Warriors seem nigh-invulnerable to physical atrophy, so it's cool that the force commander here is dying from previously suffered wounds. However, the characters are fairly colourless and, well, grey - as well as which, I didn't feel like I learned much about the nature of the legion, its culture, or its background. I know, I should just go read Index Astartes if that's what I want... but these factors make it tough going at times, though (and this is something I feel almost all of my negative reivews include) the battle scenes are great and show a compelling argument for Iron Warriors being extremely good defense troops rather than just saying "they're real tough and stubborn and won't die". It's funny, this story does have a few unexpected twists and turns, which I usually feel is an ingredient missing in HH fiction, but none of the twists and turns really impress me. Though the fact our tragic heroes actually don't die is a nice touch, and I'm assuming they will become part of Malcador's ambition to have one loyalist member of every Traitor legion for his own 'dirty dozen' style suicide squad... good fucking luck with the Night Lords, buddy. I give this 6/10. Perhaps being between 2 stories by my favourite HH authors meant it was doomed from the start...

Savage Weapons: Throughout 'Age Of Darkness' we've come across a few Traitor instruments who, on some level, feel regret for some of their actions since the Heresy started. For example, Kharn, Aximand, and I guess Mendacs (though that's a stretch, but I bet Alpharius feels it). Poignant stuff, as we all already know there can be no forgiveness in the aftermath of the Heresy, only grudges and bitterness. And that's just among your own legion. Anyone with different-coloured warplate to you is almost guaranteed to want to smack fire out of ya.

So it's nice that we get to some dudes with No Regrets. The fucking Night Lords. Dembski-Bowden pulls off a double-feat in this story, he writes some Dark Angel characters with a sense of humour without making the world explode, and he gives us three of the baddest motherfuckers ever to stand in midnight clad: Sevatar, Sheng and Conrad Kurze. Sure one could claim that on some basic level, they're just archetypes: Conrad the tortured, morose genius, Sevatar the acid-tongued 'laughing killer', Sheng the laconic brute. But goddamn I love spending time with these characters. We AD-B fans have heard plenty about them (well, Sheng aside) from a Night Lord perspective, but it's really cool seeing them from an 'outsider' view and having it confirmed, yes, they are that bad-ass and that vile. (And to digress for a moment - the way he sets a lot of this among the foundations of the Night Lords' Tsagualsa fortress just makes you want to do a dance of joy.) As for Kurze (that INsane Primarch from the psycho ward) he manages to make that inscrutable, scheming dickmerchant The Lion actually lose his cool, so bonus points for that. In fact, the juxtaposition with the much more 'straight-man' Dark Angels is a nice touch.

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot, Dembski-Bowden made the Dark Angels actually fucking interesting here. Shudder to think... The "knightly orders in power armour" concept can either go really well or be incredibly boring, obvious bullshit. I won't comment on where you can find some boring, obvious bullshit written about these guys, but 'Savage Weapons' is a consummate example of this going really well. I get a real kick out of the descriptions of the Lion (though I guess I never pictured him as a blond - it works, though) and our hero Corswain has a dry sense of humour to him, which helps. And of the possible responses to "lol where's ur sword bro", well, "I left it in a Primarch's spine" has got to be one of badassest ones.

I give this 10/10, ain't even trippin'.

'Age Of Darkness' is a great collection of stories about a huge, fascinating time period; unfortunately the 'fluff' is quite clear that there is just WAY too much going during this time for it to be covered in a single volume. With that said, it's a high 8/10. There are undeniably a few stories here I could live without (probably just legion and author bias) but even with those weighing it down, around half of it is an excellent example of HH writing, describing key events and deepening the character of a legion or hero. Another reason why I don't get the 'short story collection' hate amongst HH fans.

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