"Hunter's Moon" by Guy Haley / "Thief Of Revelations" by Graham McNeill

Black Library released these two on the same CD, so I'll review them together, though they are completely separate stories.

YOU THOUGHT IT WAS AHRIMAN BUT IT WAS ME! DIO!!

'Hunter's Moon' is by Guy Haley and concerns the ongoing conflict between the Alpha Legion and Space Wolves touched on in ‘Scars’ and ‘Wolf’s Claw’. This time, events are witnessed by three fishermen on a planet called Pelago who find a crashed Astartes vessel and get more than they bargained for when they investigate: Torbjorn, a Space Wolf, the only remnant of the Watch-Pack sent to Alpharius’ side. The cast here are Gareth Armstrong, Angus King and Toby Longworth. I felt that the three fishermen were excellently acted; you have the callow, ignorant youth, the wise elder, and the sympathetic 'mid-point' who mediates and has a nice, reassuring Scottish accent. The Space Wolf is not as subtly performed – or subtly written – as the human characters (unsurprisingly, I guess), but still he was very good.

Pelago is like many Imperial worlds: dedicated to the secular Truth, but also not completely ‘enlightened’ or up-to-date with the state of the Imperium. Talk about “star giants” and “men sailing the night in ships of steel and fire” and “monsters swimming in the sky’s night” sounds like superstitious nonsense at times, but they are obviously talking about the Great Crusade, just in more poetic terms than we might be used to. I was reminded of ‘Prospero Burns’, which for me is never a bad thing. I’m also always fond of stories which show how the galaxy-wide Heresy affects the lives of the countless billions of normal people whose worlds are being fought over.

As HH fans we can easily surmise why this Space Wolf warrior has been left stranded and alone on a crashed Alpha Legion gunship, but the way the story slowly fills in the blanks leaves it very suspenseful and worthwhile... at least until the last part of the story. The ending was disappointing and felt a little abrupt. I feel like BL authors’ increasingly frequent portrayal of the Alpha Legion as actively cruel and sadistic is odd. ‘Legion’ set them up as an unknown quantity for the Heresy time-period, motivations not entirely clear, but possessed of a lot of likeable qualities (and a lot of terrifying ones) – overall more callous and unfeeling than malevolent. While some HH stuff is running with that ambiguity, like ‘Scars’ or ‘The Serpent Beneath’, I feel like there’s been a gradual slide towards “They’re just some assholes” (ie, this story, or the slightly disappointing background for them in the Forge World book ‘Extinction’). Mind you, keep in mind that we are seeing the sons of Alpharius through the eyes of a terrified fisherman who’s befriended their adversary, so it’s not like we’re going to get a measured exploration of the character of their Legion. Also, I guess there are going to be a wide range of personalities across the XXth Legion, and some of them are going to be, well, just some assholes. I guess when it comes down to it, I’m just bitter that Dan Abnett isn’t writing every Alpha Legion book and that the ‘Legion’ approach of “What even ARE the Alpha Legion? It is a mystery, dogg!” has been ditched somewhat.

Still, this is an engagingly told story, and I have a weakness for Scottish accents, so that pushes it back to 8/10. I really hope Guy Haley has some more Horus Heresy stories coming.

'Thief Of Revelations', by Graham McNeill, is concerned with the Thousand Sons Legion. As we know, not much has been written about them since Graham’s book ‘A Thousand Sons’ which left them shattered and bitter in the Warp, licking their wounds. So it’s kind of nice to see what the survivors from the Burning Of Prospero are up to on the Planet Of The Sorcerers… but this section doesn't really add anything to their characters. Amon is still a self-important know-it-all (in fact, so is Ahriman), Sobek does fuck-all, and Hathor Maat is still vain and flippant. There is a nice scene where Ahriman is taunted by a 'flesh-changed Astartes' (he seems not to fully grasp what it is, but the way it's described just sounds like a straight-up Possessed Space Marine). Still, this whole introduction felt a little... pointless to me. They're disturbed by the Flesh-Change, and frustrated by Magnus' refusal to do anything about it. Really it didn't seem to tell us anything that the ending moments of 'A Thousand Sons' or that scene from 'Aurelian' haven't told us already. Next, Ahriman seeks an audience with Magnus. This does present one of the best moments of the story: the description of Magnus’ tower. A very important element of the Crimson King’s myth even post-Heresy and Graham gives it the respect it deserves. We also get some great little details that I love, like how the Thunderhawk Ahriman uses has been changed by warp energy so that it is actually becoming similar to a hawk. You might think that’s hecka dumb but I love that idea.

While the description of Magus himself is also excellently done, I’m frustrated and unimpressed by a lot of the dialogue between Magnus and his wayward son. There’s a bunch more cryptic dick-waving about how Ahriman should definitely stop trying to find a way to stop the hideous mutations that are slowly destroying more and more Legionaries... but also a refusal to fully explain why Ahriman should stop, or what Magnus will do to remedy the shit situation they’re in. "No just do what I say though, powerful psyker who has shown clearly that he distrusts me and has a dangerous propensity for rebellion and free-thinking. DO IT THOUGH! SHUT UP!!!" Man, some of the Primarchs are complete assholes (or perhaps... slightly poorly written).

The ending of the drama is very entertaining, though, with Magnus showing Ahriman where some of the Primarchs are, and dropping dark hints about the roles they may play in the future. The conclusion of the Thramas Crusade between the Night Lords and Dark Angels is shown, as well as the dark fate of the Blood Angels at Signus Prime, and the sack of Guilliman's Five Hundred Worlds by Lorgar. Nice to get another dimension to these significant events… but while this seems intended to give a cryptic snapshot of Magnus' intentions and current mindset, it seems very clear which way the Thousand Sons’ Primarch is leaning. Despite an extremely confusing closing line which I still can’t really make sense of, it really feels like Magnus is 90% decided on throwing in with Horus. I’m a bit unsure on how, exactly, a novel’s worth of drama can be spun between this point and the point at which the Thousand Sons turn. But hell, Graham can often turn stuff that seems insignificant into a great story, IMO (see ‘Angel Exterminatus’ and ‘Vengeful Spirit’).

The actors for this drama are Gareth Armstrong, Martyn Ellis, Jonathan Keeble and Toby Longworth. It’s hard to portray a Primarch in an audio drama, since they are beings almost beyond human comprehension – Legionaries are hard enough. So I know that this was a real challenge to pull off – but in my opinion, the way they did Magnus’ voice sounds like SHIT. And Ahriman also sounds ancient and querulous where (I feel) he should sound strong and authoritative. The bitter musing of “Was it worth it, Russ?” is spoken in a tone more suited to “Get off my lawn you dang kids!” The narrator is very good, though - I'm pretty sure it's Toby Longworth. If it is Toby, he’s delivering a more restrained performance than he often does. The other Thousand Sons only appear relatively briefly, and their performances aren’t really worth discussing too much – not bad, not notably excellent.

I honestly question the wisdom of making this an audio drama. It feels like most of this would have served excellently as the first chapter of 'The Crimson King', the full-length Thousand Sons novel Graham is doubtless working on now. However, I bet 'Crimson King' isn't out for another year or two so I guess it's fair play that BL want to ensure the Thousand Sons are kept in our minds. Due to the issues I’ve outlined, this just misses being an 8, so I’ll give it 7/10. That Ahriman voice just puts me on edge.

This marks (probably) the last time I’ll buy a Black Library audio drama on CD. I was just doing it from some weird stubborn sense of obligation, but I never actually put any of them in a CD player – just ripped them to my PC and listened to them on that, since I find headphones the only way to go with this form of media. From ‘Templar’ onwards, I’m all about the MP3. Still not crazy about ebooks, though…

One thing I really feel is necessary to state is that the musical score is superb for both audio dramas. Generally an exercise in understated ambience... but there were moments where the musical accompaniment to the reading was so perfect, it gave me chills. The piano-heavy horror movie atmospherics in the last segment of ‘Thief Of Revelations’, in particular, seem like they might be the best soundtrack for a Horus Heresy audio drama so far. The sound effects are excellent as well. I really love the constant lapping of water in 'Hunter's Moon', and the howling winds on ‘Thief Of Revelations’. Christian Dunn produced both of these. I don’t know whether that means he helped with the soundtrack (probably not, this ain’t hip-hop) but simply from the excellent performances of most of the voice actors (especially in ‘Hunter’s Moon’) makes me hope he can produce more BL audio to this standard. If it takes him away from writing, it can only be a good thing...

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