"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?

WHYYYYYYYYYY FATHERRRRRR?

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.

Vulkan's just happy to be here.

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.

Oh yall finna steal my light huh? Oh word? We'll fuggin see about that.

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'...

L-R: Qruze, Rubio, Garro, Cerberus, Varren. Controversially, Rubio is dressed as Fulgrim.

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.

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