"The Imperial Truth" (short story collection)

Today, exclusive to PurpleHeresy, a review of the just-announced HH limited edition novella "The Purge"! I hope you're ready for a lot of anorexia jokes!

Ahh, I'm just fucking with you. Today I'm reviewing 'The Imperial Truth'.

"And over there, you can see some horrible fucking compression."

‘The Imperial Truth’ was a stand-alone, limited-edition novella available only to attendees of the 2013 Horus Heresy Weekender, and for a long time ‘TIT’ (jeez I better not use THAT acronym) was one of my primary reasons to curse Black Library for a bunch of bastards. Why were they so keen to dry-fuck the fans who weren’t able to spend £70 for admission, plus train fare, to go to Nottingham and buy a bunch of limited editions in the £20-£30 range? Ah, I guess my question answers itself. We live in a capitalist democracy, so we always have a choice of “to buy or not to buy”. I think I was angrier because of the fact people said these stories were really good. BL release schedules being what they are (and ‘exclusive’ basically being meaningless with them) I knew that we’d get these stories eventually, but I wanted them now, now, now, right now! Luckily, when the ‘last few hundred copies’ went on sale in the Black Library vault, I managed to snap one up pretty quick. It’s now sold out, which I think means we’ll either get these in e-book form in the next few months, or they’ll bring it out as a non-limited novella next year – so take heart if you didn’t get a chance to buy it. Hopefully, the 2014 Weekender anthology ‘Perdition’s Gate’ will also be added to the vault this time next year, as I hear that one’s pretty fucking good as well. Without further preamble let’s get into the stories in this collection.

Hands Of The Emperor by Rob Sanders: In the context of the HH series, Rob is seen as one of the key Alpha Legion authors, but instead of XX Legion shenanigans, here he tackles one of my favourite areas of the Heresy: Age Of Darkness-era Terra. Our main character is a Custodian Guard called Stentonox, one of Constantin Valdor’s immediate subordinates, and we follow him as he tries to get through his 24-hour shift as Master of the Watch for the Imperial Palace. We learn this position is cycled between a different member of the Custodes every day, which is a pretty cool detail I think. Anyway, shit gets pretty outta control for Stentonox fairly quickly as he attempts to fulfil his role (apparently somewhere between police chief, air traffic controller and diplomatic envoy). Before long he’s in direct conflict with a complement of Imperial Fists who are manoeuvring an airborne ‘continental plate’ into the restricted airspace above the palace, and refuse to acknowledge his authority, saying only that Dorn’s word will be carried out. These continental plates are basically Bespin’s Cloud City, so you can understand the Custodes’ concern over not being in control of their movements. So how far will each side go to assert their authority, and will the long-simmering mutual resentment between Astartes and Custodes come to the fore? Sheeeeeit, do you even have to ask?

I really like these glimpses of the Imperial Palace. Rob Sanders brilliantly evokes the galactic capital’s atmosphere of desperation, mistrust, and frantic activity, with the defenders hoping they will be able to shore up Terra before the storm comes. It shows that even warriors who would normally be seen as upstanding and forthright can be drawn into intrigue and shadowplays simply by circumstance. And I like the way that the story isn’t neatly resolved in all aspects by the time it finishes; you get the feeling that its consequences will linger, particularly in the festering grudges of the Imperial Fist captain who opposes Stentonox. For my money this is a much better Custodes story than ‘Blood Games’ – but then I never loved that story too much. I give this 9/10.

Phoenician by Nick Kyme: A first-person monologue from the perspective of a mortally wounded Iron Hands Morlock Terminator on Isstvan V, this is the first of two ‘microstories’ in the collection, only lasting for a few pages. Who cares about some dying, flesh-spare bastard’s miserable last thoughts, right? Except… he’s watching the duel between Ferrus Manus and Fulgrim. Due to its length there’s not much to say about this one, except that I loved it. I feel the quality of the writing here is far above Nick Kyme’s usual standard (which I find capable, but bland). Thanks to their portrayal so far, as well as their general ‘fluff’, I don’t really like the Iron Hands at all as a Legion, but Kyme made me sympathise with his viewpoint character before I’d even finished the first paragraph. We’ve read about the Fulgrim/Manus duel in a few places before, but here it’s given a fresh lick of paint so it doesn’t feel too repetitive. And hey, the Morlock was lucky enough to die before witnessing that clumsy dumb-shit ‘What have I DDDDOOOOOONNNNEEEE’ moment Graham put in ‘Fulgrim’. Hey, you might like that moment, but I personally hate it. A lot. Overall I’d give this 8/10. I’d say Nick should be given a shot at another Iron Hands story, but ‘Feat Of Iron’ was… not my favourite. Maybe just ask him to write ‘microstories’ from now on?

By The Lion’s Command by Gav Thorpe: So I guess Corswain is now just a Gav character. I wouldn’t mind, but the drop-off in characterisation is comparable to the Torgaddon drop-off between ‘Horus Rising’ and ‘False Gods’. Ahh well. This is another Gav Thorpe Dark Angels story. I liked ‘Call Of The Lion’ a lot, but ‘The Lion’ was a little problematic for me (a few too many ‘why the fuck…’ moments). With Dan Abnett now the author associated with Lion El’Jonson for the HH storyline, Gav takes the plot strand of “what happened to the rest of the Dark Angels after the Lion went to Ultramar?” No Night Lords here (thank fuck, after that horrible bullshit in ‘The Lion’), so I guess Thramas is done. Instead, the First Legion are chasing Calas Typhon and the Death Guard from system to system; on this occasion, the two sides square off near a planet which has seceded from the Imperium, but not declared for Horus, and whose governor makes his contempt for both sides fairly clear. An interesting moral conundrum which is dealt with… fairly ambiguously by the Dark Angels.

Despite Corswain now just being a cardboard cut-out of a high-ranking Dark Angel rather than a black-humoured badass, there is little wrong with ‘By The Lion’s Command’. It moves along at a good clip and there’s a nice heel-turn by Corswain at the end. My only minor complaint was that there were absolutely no Death Guard characters here, but it was a short story and really, a lengthy Typhon scene would have served little narrative purpose. What’s most interesting is the direction hinted at in the last few pages. Corswain is splitting the Legion, with some of them most likely continuing to hunt Typhon (perhaps setting the First as the antagonists in the hopefully forthcoming Death Guard novel?) and searching for Leman Russ’ forces to combine their strength (setting up thousands of ‘culture shock’ buddy comedies with Adam Sandler as the blue-collar Space Wolf and Andy Samberg as the clean-cut Dark Angel) but others heading to… Caliban. I admit my dick twitched at that news, as I’ve been craving a Fallen Angels novel since ‘Grey Angel’. And the loyalist First will be headed up by Belath, which sets things up nicely for a possible Astelan/Belath showdown (what do you mean “no one cares”? I CARE!!). I assume Gav will tie this story strand in to the Cypher story he’s apparently writing for ‘Legacies Of Betrayal’.

In another anthology, with less impressive neighbours, my hype levels might have pushed this to a 8/10… but it’s 7/10 for me now. I still think Gav is much better suited to the Raven Guard, but maybe that’s because I think it takes a LOT to make the knightly pomposity of the Dark Angels interesting. Only Aaron and Dan have done it for me so far.

The Devine Adoratrice by Graham McNeill: As of yet, the only story in the collection which has been released as a standalone e-book. A prequel set some decades before ‘Vengeful Spirit’, this is concerned with the Devine noble house, who play a major part in that book as Knights on Molech. You don’t need to read ‘The Devine Adoratrice’ before you read ‘Vengeful Spirit’, but maybe you should, as I think it deepens the characterisation of the repulsively arrogant Devines, and adds more gravitas to their fall. Granted, none of these characters develop hugely as a result of the events which unfold here. They’re massive shits in ‘VS’, they’re massive shits here. But Graham writes smoothly and evocatively about an unusual, interesting culture that’s not quite the Imperial norm, and ALSO puts in some stuff where a big robot does the Hulk Smash.

The end reveal – Raeven and Lyx’s affair is even more taboo because THEY ARE TWINS! – was more of an eyeroll moment for me than a shock. I guess ‘Vengeful Spirit’ mentioned this plot point and I read that first, but I must have forgotten since then, since my reaction wasn’t “Oh yeah, I remember that now!” but “What? That’s weird and kind of dumb.” I guess Slaanesh loves incest, but we already knew that shit. As I’ve pointed out before it’s dumb to assume authors are reading the same books that I am, and the ‘degenerate incestuous nobles’ is kind of a common trope, but I REALLY feel like there’s a Jaime/Cersei theme with this shit. But hell, who cares? Me being a whiny little bitch isn’t enough to stop ‘TDA’ being a comfortable 8/10.

Lord Of The Red Sands by Aaron Dembski-Bowden: Remember that brief introductory vignette in ‘Betrayer’ with a few pages of Skane on Isstvan III, finding Kharn’s almost-dead body? This microstory is in a very similar vein. (Heh, vein.) A deepening of the World Eaters culture and way of war in just a few pages. Aaron writes about Angron’s mad rampage through the Loyalist survivors of the virus-bombing with panache and skill. It’s AD-B, of course he does. But it’s not all flying blood and viscera. Angron’s almost tender treatment of a dying Loyalist World Eater centurion he sees as worthy of respect shows that Aaron is the master of bringing dimension to characters who GW often treated as paper-thin before the HH series started. And our peek into Angron’s internal monologue regarding his ambitions and motivations… well, you might be surprised what we find. 8/10 for this; I think the writing quality is perfect, but it’s just too short to call it compulsory reading – though if you liked ‘Betrayer’, you need this story in your life. I believe you can buy it as part of the ‘Angron’ audio/ebook bundle from Black Library.

All That Remains by James Swallow: A story of Loyalist human soldiers, survivors of rebellions on their own worlds which led to them facing daemons. Shell-shocked (or warp-shocked) yet still unbroken, they are determined to carry on the fight against Horus… until they drop out of the Empyrean, becalmed for NO RAISIN. I’ll be brief here, because it’s not a heavily plot-focused story. The emphasis is on building the characters and this is done brilliantly. It’s not just humans in this story. Halfway through we are introduced to a Knight Errant formerly of the Thousand Sons Legion, and I am going NUTS trying to work out if we’ve seen this character before. The story is resolved nicely, with some more humans for Malcador’s ‘Silent Army’, and… what’s this… the hundreds of psychically capable young boys in the hold may be redirected to Titan and turned into Space Marines? FFFFUCK. If Jim Swallow gets to do a Grey Knights Founding novel, especially if he writes it to the standard shown here, I will BREAK OFF MY DICK with all the pounding. Having said that, sometimes I feel that Swallow is better at the short stories (‘Forgotten Sons’ was also excellently written). However, this feels like something from towards the end of the HH timeline – the soldiers here have seen Thousand Sons standing with Horus’ forces and summoning daemons, which certainly hasn’t happened ‘yet’ in the main HH timeline. Still, the fact that Titan is on the table at all at the moment is very encouraging and I hope they follow up on it – even if it’s set post-Heresy, I’ll buy that shit fo sho. This is a 9/10 story for sure.

All I can say in conclusion is “Shit yeah”! This reminds me of ‘Age Of Darkness’, back when it felt like almost every story was an awesome set-up for an exciting novel that would come further down the line. I continue to have reservations about BL pushing ‘event only’ anthologies – imagine what it’s like for HH fans in Brazil or Japan – but as long as we get them EVENTUALLY, I can’t be too mad. I give ‘The Imperial Truth’ an overall score of 9/10. It’s releases like this that remind me the Horus Heresy is probably my all-time favourite series of books.

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