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| 2 OF AMERIKKKA'S MO$T WANTED |
Burden Of Duty by James Swallow: For a long time I considered ‘Burden
Of Duty’ (or ‘Garro: Burden Of Duty’ to some) the weak link in the Garro
audiobook chain, since “NOTHING EVEN HAPPENS!!!!” Listening to it again,
though, it seems to be an excellent addition to the ‘Silent War’ arc. The
actors here are John Banks, Toby Longworth and Ramon Tikaram, and as always,
Toby Longworth is great to hear as Garro: that unhurried elegance just on the
right side of stuffiness.
James Swallow always starts his
Garro dramas with a bit of a recap/overview of the Heresy series. Welcome for
newcomers (though once again I have to state that people with no knowledge of
the HH chronology who begin the series with a Garro audio drama are smoking
crack). I’m not sure how well that will play when the rumoured prose collection
of Garro’s audio adventures is printed, though – imagine an anthology where the
first couple pages of every story is identical. Not a fun time.
The plot for this audio drama is
pretty straightforward. Using a single-person ship and a falsehood, Nathaniel
Garro infiltrates the Imperial Fists fortress-ship Phalanx and makes his way to
the meditation chamber where all the Fists Librarians have been sequestered.
The Imperial Fists apparently withdrew their psykers from combat duty entirely
once the Edict was passed. The Librarians, led by a Brother Massak, awaken from
their meditation and attack this intruder, but the fray is stopped by Rogal
Dorn, who takes Garro into custody. Despite being pressed to account for his
actions, Garro will not reveal the purpose of his mission – but it seems
obvious he was intending to recruit the unused former Librarians into
Malcador’s service. The drama ends with Garro released by Dorn, but the
Imperial Fist Librarians remaining in seclusion. Like I said, fairly simple,
but the worth of ‘Burden Of Duty’ is in the well-drawn characters, and the
exploration of the motivations of two key figures in the Heresy and the
ambiguity of their relationship.
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| Joe Budden Of Duty |
Chronologically, I always assumed
that this took place at the same time as ‘Grey Angel’ since they were packaged
together on the same CD. However, a lot of people think this is set much
earlier, long before Loken joined the Knights Errant. Since ‘Legion Of One’ was
supposed to be the last recruitment mission by Garro, this probably takes place
before that, but it really could be at any time after ‘Flight Of The
Eisenstein’, since none of the other Knights Errant are mentioned.
I’ve made my dislike of Rogal Dorn
quite clear on this site, but this drama illustrates how far a good performance
can go in changing your mind about a character. Here, Dorn is stern and
patrician, yet he has an underlying charisma where the character could have
been cold and forbidding. I’m not sure who’s playing him, but they sound
exactly like Horus in ‘Warmaster’, so it’s either Ramon Tikaram or Toby
Longworth. It’s a stark contrast to the way Magnus sounds like a burbling idiot
in ‘Thief Of Revelation’ – this is how to do a Primarch the right way.
Effective, nuanced performance, not gimmicks. His attitude to Garro seems to
have softened a little, I think there’s clear admiration there – but he also
seems to see him as little more than a catspaw of Malcador, who he obviously
has little regard for. The last lines of the drama show perhaps one of my
favourite Dorn moments in the whole series, as a decision I’d assumed was down
to his servile obedience to daddy is revealed to be something much more
ambiguous. Overall, Legion and Primarch bias may stop me from ever truly liking
this guy but if he’s handled well, he can be an interesting character at least.
Comparatively, Garro isn’t given too much to do in terms of dialogue, but his
quiet dignity is always appreciated. Brother Massak could be a promising
addition to the HH cast – I’m interested to see what else they do with this guy
– but is a bit of a blander version of Rubio at this point (down to the
slightly intense whispered delivery).
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| Joe Biden Of Duty |
‘Burden Of Duty’ is very subdued,
which is an approach that works surprisingly well with BL audiobooks,
considering the narrators usually get overexcited and start yelling if any combat is
taking place. Here, the PEW PEW PEW lasers and VRRRRRRM chainswords are at a
minimum: sound effects are mostly ambient and serve only to immerse you further
in the story. Black Library bringing out a minimalist Pinter-esque drama with
nothing but talking is very unlikely, but I vastly prefer this atmospheric
stuff to the shouting and explosions stuff. Listening to this again made me
remember how much I enjoy James Swallow’s Garro audios, and considering that I
feel they’ve been getting better and better in order of publication, I have
high hopes for ‘Garro: Shield Of Lies’. I give this a solid 8/10.
Grey Angel by John French: But wait, haven’t I already reviewed
‘Grey Angel’? Yeah, but it was one of the first reviews I did, back when the
tone of this blog was… a lot more irreverent, and I felt the need to put a few
jokes into every paragraph even when they didn’t fit. I wince a bit when I read
that review, and listening to the audio drama again recently, I thought it
might be fun to try reviewing it again.
Following his recovery from the blasted
surface of Isstvan III, Garviel Loken, the Space Marine everyone thought was
dead, IS BACK WITH A VENGEANCE! Actually he’s back with a subdued personality
and a likely case of PTSD. At the request of Rogal Dorn, Loken and fellow
loyalist Sixteenth Legion warrior Iacton Qruze have journeyed to Caliban to
feel out the allegiance of the Dark Angels posted there, and inform them of
Horus’ treachery should they prove loyal. Captured by the First Legion and
interrogated by Luther, Loken realises the loyalty of Caliban is no
clearly-defined state. The ‘Grey Angel’ of the title could be Garro, clad in
his new featureless armour – but more likely it’s Luther, standing not clearly
with the light or darkness, but rather in the spaces between. Meanwhile, Qruze
roams Aldurukh and encounters a mysterious Dark Angel whose motives are
similarly unclear. Like ‘Burden Of Duty’, the voice actors here are John Banks,
Toby Longworth and Ramon Tikaram.
I’ll just briefly reiterate what I
spent most of my original review banging on about: HOLY SHIT, THAT LUTHER THOUGH! The performance here for
the Lion’s former best buddy is really, really good. While there is arguably
even more arrogance and malice in Luther’s voice than Hakim in ‘Sword Of
Truth’, here there’s a contrasting edge of wounded pride and nobility we didn’t
see in the White Scar’s portrayal. (I mention Hakim because I swear Ramon
Tikaram is doing the voice for Luther – which is an oddly fitting redemption
for a great voice actor). Luther is obviously a more complex character than the
two First Legion novels have showed him – and actually, more complex than even
the fairly subtle creature shown here. At least we’re starting to mine the
character’s potential – I really hope there’s a lot of Luther in the upcoming
Horus Heresy Dark Angels work (and, to be honest, that a writer a bit less
‘meat and potatoes’ than Gav was writing about him). The other voice actors are
far from bad – in particular, Loken’s performance is very strong – and the
narrator is also good despite the over-excited rushing through action scenes,
but Luther is the star here.
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| luther had a dreaaaaaaam horus had a dreeeeeeam the emprah had a dreeeeeam |
‘Grey Angel’ has been criticised for
its possible deviation from the established chronology of the Dark Angels.
While Luther and the banished Dark Angels who would become the Fallen were only
part of the Great Crusade for a very small amount of time according to ‘Descent
Of Angels’, ‘Grey Angel’ asserts that they took part in many significant
actions and fought alongside many of the other Legions, notably the Luna Wolves
– and that Loken is well-acquainted with at least one of their number. I do
really like this idea and a Luther/Abaddon team-up is an awesome concept, but
I’m sure that the time Luther was at the Lion’s side in the Crusade was around
a year or less, most of which is covered near the end of ‘Descent’. Also,
Luther cracks on to know nothing about the Heresy, but at the end of ‘Fallen
Angels’ it’s established that the news of Isstvan had reached Caliban. You
could assume that Luther is just lying because he’s a deceitful character, and
that the war-damaged Loken is easily convinced because he wants to believe the
full extent of Space Marine treachery has already been revealed. You could also
assume that John French didn’t read ‘Fallen Angels’ recently (or ever, and who
would really blame the guy) and forgot that Luther was aware
of the Heresy.
I’m not one of those people who throws their toys out of the
pram when the order of events in HH is a little unclear (it’s pretty much
expected in multi-author undertaking like this) but I really think in this
incidence, the possible botch is problematic. I try to be optimistic,
especially where John French is involved, so I’d hope that Luther’s playing a
long game here rather than this just being an authorial mistake. Still, Gav
seems to have taken over the Dark Angels writing now, and Gav is pretty good at
ironing out chronology errors, so hopefully he'll write something about this. The fact that ‘Guardian Of Order’ and ‘Master Of The First’ didn’t mention the events of this drama makes me wonder if he'll just ignore it though. I’m also much less confident now that the
mysterious Dark Angel who helps the Knights Errant escape is Zahariel; his
comments about his plan to “watch and guard in silence – [the same as] those
who came before me” make me think that it’s Cypher. Since Cypher is probably
going to get a lot more character development once Gav focuses on Caliban, this
is one strand of the story I’m very confident will be picked up.
There are more pressing issues with
the plot than the ambiguity of Luther’s words. Loken’s insistence on not
disturbing the Caliban ‘balance’, and the cryptic words of the Watcher who
assists him, are not my favourite parts of this drama – they seem a little
contrived, a way of extracting these characters from this precarious situation
with nothing resolved and little of consequence happening. In fact, the
dramatic conflict near the end of the drama is probably the weakest part,
though the aftermath of this conflict sees the writing improve once again. ‘Grey Angel’ has flaws, and as a story, I’d give it 7/10,
but the performances of this audio version – particularly Luther’s theatrical
menace – really bump it up, so it’s 8/10 for me.
There are a few thematic links
between these stories: as well as honourable characters being forced to commit
subterfuge and ‘shadow actions’, the significance of dreams is emphasised few
times. Whether that’s the visions of Heresy which come to Brother Massak when
he sleeps, the flashbacks of dead comrades who haunt Loken’s scarred mind, or
Luther’s bitterness at his inability to dream since the Imperium “changed” him.
Then again, one could argue that the true link between the
stories is the feeling of “coitus interruptus”: you think it’s heading towards
a resolution, so to speak, only to stop short at the last minute, rather
frustratingly. I really wanted Massak to leave the Phalanx with Garro… but he didn’t. I really wanted Loken and Qruze
to uncover some significant and obvious treachery in Aldurukh and let Malcador
know Luther couldn’t be counted on… but they didn’t. Of course, we can’t always
get what we want - but you could argue that by virtue of these downbeat
endings, the protagonists achieve nothing in these stories. I think the common
40K messageboard meme that Malcador’s assignments are pointless wastes of time
is generally nonsense… but unlike with ‘Garro: Legion Of One’ or ‘The
Sigillite’ it seems unclear here what Malcador was really trying to achieve
with his mission – realistically, how could Garro hope to escape the Phalanx even if all the Librarians joined his cause? And Dorn’s task was just as
bad: if the Calibanites had declared for Horus, the Knights would have been
fucked, and even if they were faithful to the Emperor, why would they believe
or obey two anonymous, Legion-less warriors? Still, when the stories are this
well-presented and the performances are great, I’m not going to complain too much.
It actually worries me how well this will translate to the prose format because
Dorn and Luther are performed so well that I can’t really tell how the writing
will stand alone.
New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.
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