"Corax: Soulforge" by Gav Thorpe

Gav introduced the Raven Guard to the mainline Heresy series with his novel ‘Deliverance Lost’. That book was divisive; perhaps realising that demand for a sequel might not be universal, Black Library elected to make Gav’s follow-up a limited edition novella, released in 2013, then given a non-limited reprint this year.

With this and 'Tallarn: Executioner', for a while there it seemed like the Heresy novellas might fall under a dumb new naming system which over-abused colons (pause). I was looking forward to 'Fulgrim: Judgement Day' and 'Angron: 2 Swole 2 Furious' but then the colon-free 'Ravenlord' ruined everything.

It was kind of predictable that ‘Corax: Soulforge’ would be ill-received. Unlike with Nick Kyme’s ‘Scorched Earth’ (and Gav’s ‘Deliverance Lost’, for that matter), I actually kind of agree with the poor reception ‘Soulforge’ got. I’m a big fan of Gav’s full length Raven Guard novel (some would say an apologist) and when that book ended, I was eager to see what Corax and the proud remnants of his Legion got up to next. As it turns out, the answer is… not fuckin’ much.

After the fall of the Perfect Fortress on Narsis at the end of ‘Deliverance Lost’, Corax was resolved to tackle the Word Bearers at Khalgorst. It’s clear that some time has passed since then; some of the Raven Guard make brief mention of what’s happened in the intervening time, but it’s not really gone into in detail. Seems Gav isn’t willing to pander to the fans like me who get a weirdly intense joy from cataloguing exactly where stories fit in the ‘timeline’ – and that’s fair enough. Hitting a Word Bearers vessel, Corax and his troops capture the Navigator, who hates the Seventeenth Legion as much as the Raven Guard do. She advises them of a rebel Forge World the Word Bearers are ‘grooming’ for a hostile takeover. With some of his forces diverted to fight Emperor’s Children (a fight which isn’t shown here), Corax and a minor infiltration force must appeal to the Mechanicum forces on Constanix – forces whose allegiance is unknown – and hope to deny the sons of Lorgar their prize.

‘Soulforge’ starts enjoyably; the Raven Guard boarding action is a gripping, nasty sequence with some visceral combat writing. It’s also interesting to see Agapito continuing to struggle with the limitless anger that’s dogged him since Isstvan. He’s still consumed by his hate for the traitors, and it’s starting to make him reckless – sometimes he seems to revel in the fact that the Raven Guard who weren’t at Isstvan can never truly bond with him again. Meanwhile, as Branne grows apart from his comrade, he becomes more comfortable with his role as leader of the Raptors. Speaking of the Raptors, Navar Hef and the ‘mutant’ Raven Guard initiates are still on combat duty, and their presence makes some Raven Guard uncomfortable – I’m really interested to see how this subplot plays out, especially towards the Heresy’s conclusion. The glimpse of the corruption and change wrought on the Word Bearers’ mortal crew is also nicely handled.

Following its strong opening, however, it’s a slow downward spiral for ‘Soulforge’. That’s not apparent right away: while Corax’s stealth insertion to Atlas (a floating forge-city on Constanix) isn’t too interesting, his uneasy confrontation with several machine-priests of uncertain loyalty to the Imperium is a tense and engaging scene. We see the worth of Corax as an ambassador, both in his ability to be diplomatic and also his capacity to inspire sheer terror. We also get some nice glimpses into Corax’s mind – his musings on his past and present are telling, though they aren’t really anything new for someone who’s read ‘Deliverance Lost’. The battle to retake Atlas also begins promisingly, as Agapito and Corax power through brisk but slightly bland fight sequences. For those who complained that ‘Deliverance Lost’ held too few moments of Raven Guard FIGHTAN, this is your chance to see how the sons of Corax fight… though this ‘attack, feign retreat, then attack again’ style has certainly been written about better elsewhere. Even the ‘stealth Titan’ moment (yes, you heard me) is endearingly silly, but it marks the point at which the account starts really going downhill.

One thing I quite enjoyed about ‘Deliverance Lost’ was the lack of combat. That tense Alpha Legion confrontation and the Perfect Fortress battle are really the only fights in that book, the focus instead being on the effects of the Heresy on the Legion’s state of mind and the subterfuge of the Alpha Legion. ‘Corax: Soulforge’ actually has a similar format in that the real action doesn’t start until the end. However, due to poor pacing, ‘the end’ is actually half the book. I’m not just being facetious, the last fifty pages or so drag so horrendously that it feels like the book is constantly just grinding to a close. I damn near fell asleep reading these combat scenes. They are just a series of mostly unnamed Raven Guard easily defeating a bunch of lame skitarii and other Mechanicum goons, with the slightly tougher Word Bearers coming in at the end. And then you get a couple ‘final bosses’. It’s kind of videogamey, a bit like those first two Dark Angels books – or, for that matter, ‘Promethean Sun’. There were several occasions where I got to the end of a page, turned it, then realised nothing I read had made any impression and I had to read it all again. I’d rub my eyes, get up, walk around the room, wonder to myself “Am I too tired to do this now?” and “What am I going to write about this book?” and frequently “What the fuck am I doing with my life?” - but then I’d read a few pages of, say ‘A Dance With Dragons’ or ‘Harlot’s Ghost’ and nope, it wasn’t that I was too tired – it was that when I was reading ‘Soulforge’, I was reading boring writing.

If the focus is going to be on (shitty) battle scenes, I kind of wish Gav had pulled his pretty good Raven Guard ensemble cast into it and given each one a little bit of development. Instead, we get ‘Tom Clancy: Rainbow Raven’ (don’t do fan art of that, you sickos). Gav gives us dry, boring fights, and to Legion culture he only adds an ill-executed attempt to give the sons of Corax a ‘special forces’ makeover. (Corax is wearing black camo on his face! BUT… FUCKIN’… HE CAN TURN HIMSELF INVISIBLE! FURTHERMORE, HE IS FIGHTING MECHANICUM DUDES WHO CAN PROBABLY SEE IN THE DARK! WHY WOULD HE BOTHER?!?)

As a Corax book, I’d regretfully call this a failure since I don’t believe it expands on the Primarch usefully or convincingly. But as a Raven Guard book… I’d also call it a failure, since it does very little to deepen the character of the Legion or add new blood to its shrinking Heresy-era cast. This does see the introduction of the Legionary Soukhounou, though he does very little apart from remind us that Terran Raven Guard are still a thing, and will probably form the basis of a Successor Chapter when the Heresy series finishes. Navar Hef’s barely present and the ‘affliction’ of the Raptors is hardly mentioned. Valerius doesn’t factor into the story, Branne has almost nothing to do here, and Noriz, the Imperial Fist who was helping Corax in ‘Deliverance Lost’, is mysteriously absent. The tech-priests are pretty unmemorable characters (all I can remember is that one speaks… very slowly… with laboured pauses… and ellipses… signifying his heavy breathing… Basically, he’s an augmented version of Stevie from ‘Malcolm in the Middle’). Worse, as Branne, Hef and Valerius fight a completely different war in a separate system, the primary cast essentially shrinks to Corax and Agapito as soon as the first chapter ends. Agapito’s nu-metal angst gets tiresome quickly, and Corax… well, I still think he was fun to read in ‘Deliverance Lost’, but here, he just switches between either moping or easily murdering hundreds of dudes, and (on one plot-dictated occasion) kind of losing in a fight for a little bit before the camera zooms in on his eyes and he snarls “B-Baka…”

So, this was a Limited Edition novella – BL have always tried to be a little innovative with the presentation of these things (maybe not £30 innovative, but still). With its smooth black-on-black cover, the Limited Edition of ‘Soulforge’ looks amazing – really amazing. Unfortunately, the cover is, like, matt black or something. If you like to take off the dust jackets to read them, like I do, your novella’s cover will be irreparably stained with fingerprints within seconds. Even if you wipe it down, it’ll never be the same. It also shows up evidence of either tiny scuffs or a sprinkling of dust like a motherfucker. Maybe I just have inhumanly sweaty fingers, but I don’t think I’m entirely to blame. All of the LE novellas are a bit like this, but ‘Soulforge’ is without doubt the worst-looking I own at this point. I’d like less of this, and more covers like ‘Scorched Earth’ or ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ if possible, please. It does look really cool at first, though. I also applaud the innovation they showed in printing a Quick Read-length story on the inside of the dust jacket (‘The Shadowmasters’, now available as an MP3). That’s that stealth shit. It makes up for the LE edition’s colour insert being mostly useless, though that John Blanche Corax concept sketch is ILL. In conclusion – even collectors shouldn’t feel bad if they missed the first printing of ‘Soulforge’; the ‘vanilla’ Black Library unlimited novella is far better value for money.

There are scenes of worth to be found in ‘Soulforge’ beyond its strong opening pages. The lengthy scene where Corax briefs Agapito for the battle ahead gives a few opportunities to develop these important characters. (On the other hand, it feels like a bit of a space-filler, considering it’s positioned right before the actual battle, and we frankly know the stakes are not too high for Corax.) Possibly influenced by the howling of internet gibbons whenever a Primarch does something weird or inscrutable, Gav ensures that Corax begins to inform his troops of the insidious nature of Chaos and its links to the warp – information which has been hinted at but never confirmed for them. Surely his rejection of Nikea can’t be far away. And learning a little of Corax’s relationship with Guilliman is a nice bone to be thrown. My end judgement, though, is that this is a less charming ‘Promethean Sun’ – it’d read nicely as anthology filler, and may be embraced by people who are desperate to read every scrap of writing about Raven Guard or Dark Mechanicum characters, but pay £30 (or even £15) for it and you may find it hard not to be disappointed. I’m glad that only a few of the Heresy novellas have been a let-down for me, but this is definitely one of them. 5/10

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

"Promethean Sun" by Nick Kyme

As the release date of ‘Deathfire’ drew ever closer, what better way to prepare than by re-reading Nick Kyme’s Vulkan arc? So last month, that’s just what I did. The logical place to start was here: a study of Vulkan and his Legion during the days of the Great Crusade.

Promethean Sun. Beacuse it's burning and fiery, like so much about the Salamanders. Also, homophones - because Vulkan is a Promethean Son. Eh? Eh? Geddit?

This was also the first stand-alone novella published as a Limited Edition for the Horus Heresy. It’s a parallel with ‘Feat of Iron’, the Iron Hands story in ‘The Primarchs’. We find the Salamanders on Ibsen, or One-Five-Four Four, with Heka’tan (yes, of ‘Forgotten Sons’) leading a massed action against the eldar forces opposing the Imperium. Of course, Vulkan himself (he of the burning scary eyes and big sweeping hammer) makes an appearance just when things are getting really bad, turning the tide of the battle. It’s the cool-guy/saviour moment you’d expect in a Primarch story, of course, but it’s a little rote and predictable. Perhaps that’s because we’ve seen so many of those kind of moments… but damn, contrast this to the entrance of Horus in ‘Horus Rising’; that shit really made you feel the immensity of a Primarch in battle and how awesome it was just to be present for it.

While it zips along at a good pace, the beginning chapter is cliché-riddled bolter porn of the type we rarely get in the Heresy. I think Kyme has improved dramatically since he wrote this, but opening with a fairly dull action sequence is one of the quickest ways to kill my interest in a story. The language is really familiar from tens (maybe hundreds) of similar stories at this point. Naturally the Salamanders being what they are, massive overuse of both literal and metaphorical fire can be found in these pages. I wonder, is Nick Kyme’s writing frequently boring because he’s writing about dull fucking Salamanders, or are the Salamanders deeply dull because so much about their culture and method of warmaking has been set down by Nick Kyme? Sort of a chicken or the egg situation.

It’s when the combat stops, and characters are built on, that it gets a bit more interesting; Kyme’s got a certain way with dialogue which – while not sounding within a million miles of what a real human would ever say – certainly seems appropriate coming from a staid, slightly pompous Primarch like Vulkan. The Primarch’s interactions with his close Pyre Guard champion Numeon (who will play a prominent role in ‘Vulkan Lives’ and ‘Deathfire’) are a nice way to establish the strengths and weaknesses of Vulkan as a character. For example, unlike many of his brothers, Vulkan seems to freely admit his faults, most notable being a lack of the burning (heh) self-confidence some of his more wildly conceited peers have been blessed with. If – as is implied here – the Emperor is putting on his human suit to do spot-check inspections of Vulkan to check his attitudes, it says some potentially interesting things about both Vulkan and his father, as well as making one think, erm, could you maybe not have done this with some of your other sons? Or maybe this attentiveness is a marker for just how significant Vulkan will end up being (like I keep saying, I got my suspicions).

(Let me just make an aside here: the antagonists for most of this story are eldar mounted on dinosaurs. I don’t know if this is a regular thing, I admit to a lack of familiarity with eldar fluff… but that’s pretty cool. I might’ve continued to be interested in those stick-up-the-ass space elves if they’d been riding fucking dinosaurs about. Milking this scenario for all it’s worth, Kyme has some fun with some classic Jurassic Park moments. It's a nice touch in a series that can sometimes be guilty of overdosing on the Grim Darkness.)

However, this is a Nick Kyme book, and while I think homeboy has written some great stuff for Black Library, he’s also often guilty of dropping some colon-destroying howlers in his prose. ‘Promethean Sun’ is no different. I hate myself for doing this, but I’m gonna get my ‘Battle for the Abyss’ on and recount some of the more dodgy writing in this slim volume.

-“My strength is our strength, Numeon. We are one, the Legion and I.” Despite his inner feelings of estrangement, this much Vulkan knew to be true. Save perhaps Horus, who had his Mournival, all the Primarchs trod a solitary path. It was simply that the Primarch of the Salamanders felt it more acutely than his brothers.

Huh? Am I misreading, or does this start with an affirmation of Vulkan’s unity with his Legion, then go on to imply he’s actually the loneliest of all the Primarchs? It reads like Nick got bored halfway through the paragraph and lost the thread.

-In the middle of a battle, Vulkan sees a young child in danger of being crushed by a falling pillar and he rushes forward, “knowing that to even witness the death of such an innocent would forever stain his immortal soul.” Well,

1) nice ‘teaser’ allusion to his Eternal status, but it makes him sound like he’s Catholic rather than Promethean

2) the moment of “No! Save the kid!” is one of the hackiest, shallowest ways of getting a character to appear sympathetic, especially a character who is designed to straight murder dudes and does it with some frequency in the established fiction

3) furthermore, Vulkan sees another young child’s corpse earlier in the novel, killed in a battle he fought in, possibly even killed by warriors under his command – and the sight merely haunts him for “a moment”. No eternal soul-staining.

-"Lord Vulkan would see our wounded self-esteem restored in the tempering flame of the forge." Yeah, I’ve heard that forges are perhaps the best tool for repairing wounded self-esteem, next to a trip to Mardi Gras.

-"The hellish kaleidoscope of close combat was almost upon them." I did not realise the Salamanders dosed themselves with LSD before battle. That’s some hardcore shit.

-“'We should pursue them, Lord. Varrun and I can ensure they do not return’ he promised with a feral look.” A feral look? Homie, I don't play that, yo. A feral smile, maybe. Even a feral snarl. But a feral look? I picture a ‘feral look’ as the Salamander whooping, licking his lips and doing a ‘don’t you know I’m loco?’ glare with his eyes.

-Describing eldar witches who have ridden lightning (METALLICAAAA OOH YEAH) to the battleground: “They embarked to set foot on the earth as any man would step from a ship”. Splitting hairs, but that really should be disembarked, shouldn’t it – especially if you’re comparing it to stepping off a ship. Words matter. Editors know this.

-There are moments in this book which are certainly… videogamey. Look, tie-in fiction for videogames might not be my thing, but I recognise those as actual books. This, however, sometimes reads like a half-crazed novelisation of a Call of Duty match. Just a mad, tactics-free rush to kill some eldar nubz; I’m not normally the kind of reader who gets hung up on “those tactics would never work” issues in these books, but at times this seems more World Eaters than Salamanders. At moments, it feels more like Dynasty Warriors (large horde of weaker enemies? Just mow them down with your AOE attacks!) or God of War (huge version of a previous enemy as an actual boss battle), but I’m not crazy about those games either.

Ahh, I’m a complete dick. I’ll stop it now – but I do genuinely find the sloppy moments of Nick’s writing quite frustrating, especially since he is capable of writing really well. Enough about that though.

There is a brio and enthusiasm to parts of ‘Promethean Sun’ which I really admire. But its overuse of cliché, its combat-heavy structure and some rather dull characterisation makes me wary to endorse it as a worthwhile purchase for any but the most dedicated Heresy fan. As time goes on, it seems like the best place to find good writing about pre-Heresy Legion culture and the highlights of the Great Crusade is in Forge World’s books. As a result, Crusade stories like this seem a little clumsy, since the authors often seem dead-set on putting in as much foreshadowing for the Age of Darkness as possible. ‘Promethean Sun’ is better than ‘Scions of the Storm’ or ‘Wolf at the Door’, but it’s still far from an essential read. It’s no ‘Battle for the Abyss’, but it’s certainly closer to that much-maligned book than most other Heresy offerings. While I hesitate to condemn a book for an ‘inconsequential’ story – some of the best Heresy fiction has focused on events far from the frontlines which may have little effect on the wider conflict – this just doesn’t seem to add much to the series. To top it off, the text here is noticeably larger and more spaced-out than any other HH novella I’ve got. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was the smallest novella yet in word count.

If you’ve not yet purchased the hardback novella or ebook, you may as well hold off until it inevitably appears in a mainline Horus Heresy story compilation. 6/10

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

"Meduson" (short story collection, Warhammer World exclusive)

A while ago – a long time, actually, it seems – there were rumours going around of an upcoming Heresy anthology called ‘The Shattered Legions’. As time wore on and nothing more was heard about it, it seemed like this was just something that the fell winds of Chaos would stop from ever happening – like Graham writing the Calth novel, or that Prospero graphic novel that Gav was doing. Yet some of us have always wondered: what happened to the stories that would have made up the anthology? Did they get drip-fed to us as Quick Reads? Did they become audio dramas and novellas or even novels, or did they just disappear into the Recycle Bin of time? As I finished ‘Meduson’, it seemed clear where those stories went; this anthology is ‘The Shattered Legions’ in all but name.

>>>>>OFFICIAL ART NOT AVAILABLE>>>>

So, if you’ve managed to pick up ‘Meduson’ (it’s only available at Warhammer World, Nottingham – more on that later) you’ll know it’s a strange beast. Like ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’ it’s not quite a novel and not quite a novella. While it’s just shy of 300 pages, ‘Meduson’ feels like a rather weighty contribution to the Heresy series. Sure, many people have a strong dislike of the anthologies at this point, and the contents of this book may not sway them. But how could you not get hyped at a release featuring all-new fiction from John French, Chris Wraight, Graham McNeill and Dan Foch’n Abnett, plus several others? Of course, we can all grumble about our dream line-ups being different, and that’s quite likely a complaint many will have, since Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Matt Farrer, Anthony Reynolds and Jim Swallow are all absent (and when will the great Joe Parrino get a shot at a Heresy story?) but let’s work with what’s here.

There are nine stories in the book, from eight different authors (Guy Haley does two). Despite its not-novel page length, that’s impressive. The first anthology novel ‘Tales of Heresy’ had seven stories, and my beloved ‘Age of Darkness’ also had nine. ‘Meduson’ feels closer to a ‘proper’ anthology than the slim volumes like ‘Blades of the Traitor’ or ‘Death and Defiance’ we’ve got recently. In fact, if my prejudice can show (well, it always does), I applaud ‘Meduson’ as a more welcome addition to the Heresy than the water-treading of ‘Legacies of Betrayal’.

Enough editorialising. Let’s get into the contents, shall we?

Meduson by Dan Abnett: Of course, of fucking course. Of course this had to happen. With so many (quite rightly) praising ‘Little Horus’ as a masterpiece, and some BL authors making overt tributes to it in their books (Graham and Chris, most notably), it was only a matter of time until Dan himself revisited that story. On top of that, Shadrak Bloody Meduson himself hasn’t actually appeared ‘onscreen’ in the Heresy yet. He was smoke and mirrors in ‘The Seventh Serpent’, alluded to in ‘Little Horus’ and may or may not have been present in ‘Vengeful Spirit’, but we haven’t met him. So it’s only fitting that his ‘creator’ be the one to actually put Shadrak onto the page. ‘Meduson’ shows the war-leader at the beginning of his meteoric rise, in the aftermath of the Dropsite Massacre, as what’s left of the Iron Hands clan-leaders squabble and beat their chests trying to decide what to do in the Primarch’s absence. Meduson is not content to make suicidal gestures or attempt to rebuild the Legion. He wants a different kind of action. You can imagine where things go – ‘Little Horus’ is significantly later in his timeline, and hopefully most of you have read it by now – but if anyone is going to make you happy at being along for the ride to a familiar destination, it’s Abnett when he’s firing on all cylinders.

So, I won’t spoil too much of it, but I will say that there is a rather memorable moment with a not-quite-bonded augmetic hand. It feels like Dan saw Aaron’s “Where’s your sword?” – “I left it in a Primarch’s spine” moment in ‘Savage Weapons’, nodded to himself, and made it a mission to quietly one-up AD-B in sheer badassitude.

In my original review of ‘Little Horus’ I expressed a hope that Dan would get to write something about Heresy-era Iron Hands. And – well, here he is, doing it. I’ve stated before that the most glaring fault with ‘Unremembered Empire’ was that it marked the first time Dan had done two Heresy novels in a row about the same Legion. While they’ve been a presence in some of his work – ‘Little Horus’, notably – this is the first thing he’s written focusing on the Hands. I feel that every time Dan hits a new Legion, he hits it with both feet: think of how he redefined the Sons of Horus, the Alpha Legion, the Space Wolves and the Ultramarines in the novels he wrote about them. The Iron Tenth here are far, far more emotional, noble and openly grief-stricken than they have been in any HH fiction so far. This – funnily enough – makes them about a billion times more likeable. Sure, Dan’s not flawless. His spin on each of those Legions is sometimes a little out of step with the other BL authors’ portrayal (well, he writes them as fantastically human, rather than herky-jerky robots, which makes this great to read but not necessarily that fluff-aligned). But… fuck, man, that guy can write. The Hands here are the flipside of the coin shown in the superb ‘Riven’ – they show that not only dark, violent shit can come out of this Legion; they can be a (comparatively) positive force as well. I know some of you Iron Hands groupies out there flip the fuck out when someone shows your Legion with anything other than a near-psychotic intolerance of emotional development, but I’m 100% in support of the choices Dan made here.

It’s not just Iron Hands crying and listening to Fall Out Boy or whatever people choose to believe about the ‘emo’ aspect of the Heresy. Dan takes the time to expand a little on the organisation’s culture and the impact Medusa had on them. There’s even a kind of awesome, nearly throwaway moment lampshading the character’s apparently lazy surname. Enough! I’ll just say ‘Meduson’ is a triumph and leave it at that. I’m pleased to give this story 10/10 with no reservations. Here’s hoping his rather crowded schedule won’t make ‘Dreadwing’ a ‘Master of Mankind’-style pipe dream.

Unforged by Guy Haley: I was a big fan of ‘Strike and Fade’, with its quartet of bitter Salamanders waging guerrilla war on Isstvan V long after the Dropsite Massacre had finished. For a while it seemed that it would be a one-off; a bleak little snapshot of the futile resistance on that dead world, fighting an unwinnable battle with no command structure or Primarch to pull them out of the fire. To my surprise, Guy returns to this ‘resistance cell’ with his story ‘Unforged’. Jo’Phor and Hae’Phast are back and this time it’s personal!! As it turns out, though, I guess I didn’t want to hear more about them, at least not like this. The story seems rather predictable and the characterisation doesn’t really seem to build on what was already established in ‘Strike and Fade’: the tortured protagonist, the angry one, the rookie, and Silent Bob. It’s certainly got its enjoyable moments, and there’s a nice tie-in with a dangling plot strand from ‘Scorched Earth’ (the more I read by him, the more it feels like Guy Haley is genuinely a huge fan of the Heresy series and loves tying things in to other authors’ work).

However, my expectations for Guy’s work have perhaps been raised unrealistically high following his superb ‘Twisted’ in ‘Blades of the Traitor’. In that context this was a little disappointing; sure, the settings of this and ‘Twisted’ are vastly different and these characters could hardly go in as intriguing a direction as Maloghurst, but when it comes down to it, I just didn’t have fun with this. But, well, I guess the point of stories like this is showing that a lot of Astartes’ stories in the Heresy ended in a bleak, sudden way. Point made. 7/10

Immortal Duty by Nick Kyme: World Eaters! Iron Hands! FIGHTAN! That’s an interesting thing to see, right? Especially when it’s a boarding action above Isstvan V, told in flashback? I know we’ve had a lot of Isstvan stories, but there are rather less which focus on the void war – in fact, I think ‘Veritas Ferrum’ might be the only one. More to the point, this story focuses on an interesting part of the X Legion we haven’t seen much. Since I first read about them in one of the Forge World books, I’ve found the Medusan Immortals to be a fascinating weapon in the Iron Hands’ arsenal. Made up of X Legionaries who have shamed themselves in some way, they are – even for the Tenth – heavily augmented and ‘flesh-spare’, ruthlessly focused, and committed to dying nobly in the Primarch’s service. It’s some ‘Suicide Squad’ shit, but without the awkwardly posed portraits.

‘Immortal Duty’ is brazen in its intent: it is a 40k story about phalanx fighting, the disciplined shield-bearers versus the berserk hordes, even making the Roman/Greek comparison explicit at one point. Like the best boarding action stories, it’s claustrophobic and intense. However, it’s not quite flawless. Nick Kyme always seems to have one facepalm moment per story – see the Tyler Durden reveal in ‘Scorched Earth’ – and here, that’s the way our protagonist reminisces over a particular World Eater warrior he fought beside many years ago, before the Heresy… ONLY FOR SAID WORLD EATER TO STEP OUT OF THE SHADOWS, FLICK HIS LIGHTER OPEN, AND CHALLENGE OUR HERO TO A RAP BATTLE… acgkkh. The ‘flashback’ setting up the confrontation comes just a few paragraphs before the character appears. That’s problem one – could Kyme not have put this at the beginning of the story? Did he think his readers were such idiots they wouldn’t remember something more than a few pages ago? (Maybe don’t answer that.) To me – admittedly, not a published writer, let alone a qualified editor – it feels like this moment could’ve been handled with more grace. In a Legion of hundreds of thousands, noted for its insanely huge turnover of warriors, bumping into someone you know is pretty noteworthy, but our narrator just seems to shrug and get on with it.

For all its dumbness it is, however, a really cool moment, and if you get too sniffy about unbelievable dumbness, the HH books aren’t for you anyway.

That’s my main gripe with ‘Immortal Duty’. It seems, towards the end, Kyme’s going for a ‘Riven’/ ‘The Keys of Hel’ tie-in, but it’s a little clumsily handled – in a way that doesn’t necessarily make me super-amped for the inevitable sequel. Still, the story is bookended nicely, and I really liked the moments where it was clear how uncomfortable the other Shattered Legions were with aspects of the Iron Hands’ culture. With ‘Immortal Duty’, you can add another win to Kyme’s column – Emperor’s Children and Iron Hand stories seem to energise him, so I’m a little nonplussed he’s doing another Salamanders novel. 8/10

Grey Talon by Chris Wraight: A sequel to ‘Meduson’, a sequel to ‘Scars’, a sequel of sorts to ‘Allegiance’, a parallel to ‘Brotherhood of the Moon’, a prequel to ‘Little Horus’, and possibly (hopefully?) setup for a plot strand in Chris’ in-progress ‘Scars’ sequel. Confused? Don’t be. Even if the only one of that list you’ve read is ‘Scars’, things should be pretty clear to you – Bion Henricos, lately having cheated death above Prospero, is off to tempt fate again. This time, he brings with him Hibou Khan, one of the ‘penitents’ of the V Legion who led an insurrection in Horus’ name but renounced the Warmaster when Horus’ motives became clearer. Hibou wasn’t really a major character in ‘Scars’, but this fleshes him out a bit – he’s a great addition to the cast, maintaining that enjoyable White Scar humility and poetry while also being full of shame for his actions. There’s a quite dark undercurrent to Hibou’s arc; after all, he is committed to a good death in battle with the Traitors (something that still eludes him as far as we know). This is nicely contrasted with Henricos; of course, as an Isstvan survivor, he has a burning hatred for any ally of Horus, so you can imagine how he feels about ferrying Hibou around. Chris continues to expand nicely on both of these warriors as characters; it’s funny to think that for a long time they were just peripheral figures briefly alluded to in one of Dan’s stories. There’s a wonderful poignant feeling to the end of the story as you realise you don’t want to leave Bion’s company, obstinate and hateful as he can be – but sadly, Horus Aximand looms rather large in his future…

As well as being full of character-building goodness and tense ship combat, ‘Grey Talon’ brings Shadrak himself back into the story, which is a nice touch, a step towards the anthology being a truly cohesive read. In fact, there probably could have been a bit more of this elsewhere. While I think a few more appearances of the title character could have made it even more cohesive, I suppose it would have been easy to overplay it.

‘Grey Talon’ is a fantastic story, possibly one of the best in the collection. With ‘Daemonology’ being so fucking good, and my feelings on Chris’ recent White Scar-focused short stories being a bit mixed, I was starting to wonder if I really wanted a ‘Scars’ sequel over a Mortarion book. This strengthened my confidence in ‘Scars 2’, whatever form it eventually takes, being another classic on par with the original. 10/10

The Keys of Hel by John French: ‘Riven’ was one of the all-time great Horus Heresy short stories, and – until I read ‘Meduson’ – I would have called it the best Iron Hands fiction in the Heresy series. This sequel is not as good, but “not as good as ‘Riven’” is still a pretty high fucking bar. So, what’s the deal this time? Well, Crius is back! That zombie robot motherfucker. The creeping, almost Lovecraftian horror of ‘Riven’ is not as noticeably present here, with more emphasis given to combat – which John writes very well, but I believe his true strength is in characterisation and lore-building. That’s not to say that some moments won’t make your flesh crawl, though.

If I can take a little diversion here. The title of this story made me hope that we’d see something I’ve been waiting for since I read the Forge World Heresy background for the Iron Hands – an exploration of the X Legion forces left on Medusa and their confusion as the Heresy unfolded; their debates and arguments as to which of the many unattractive courses of action they will take. While we’re on the ‘wish list’ subject, I’d also love to see something about Iron Hands aligning with Horus – they were not necessarily all fond of their Primarch and they had close links to a few Traitor Legions, so it’s far from impossible.

This is a brilliant story; it’s testament to how brilliant ‘Meduson’s batting average is that ‘The Keys of Hel’ isn’t the best one here. Furthermore, in an anthology stuffed with Iron Hand boarding actions, this manages to stand out as having some of the nastiest, razor’s-edge combat in the whole book. It’s another convincing exhibit in the ongoing ‘John French is the best Black Library author’ case (despite the slightly wince-inducing moment where Crius thinks of his old VII Legion buddy, unconsciously thinks the word “friend”, then thinks “What is a friend?” – yeah, I had a real ‘Inbetweeners’ moment at that line). It’s a visceral, bone-crunching tale which also takes some rather unexpected turns, and has a superbly spine-chilling epilogue. I’m fascinated to see where this storyline goes; John is obviously fond of it, and I hope we get some further developments in time.

9/10

Deeds Endure by Gav Thorpe: Above a World Eaters training facility, a small force of Salamanders debates with much larger force of Iron Hands on their best course of action to destroy this target. The Salamanders want to minimise damage to the civilian population (of course) while the Iron Hands want to bombard the facility from orbit and to hell with collateral damage (of course). The bitter arguments reveal the key philosophical differences in these Legions (of course) and give way to accusatory statements about Isstvan V (of course). Could these two Legions, supposedly on the same side, actually come to blows (of course)?

I can’t pretend I wouldn’t have preferred a continuation of the Corax story, or further setup for the Dark Angels characters Gav’s tackling in his next novel – but I suppose that would not have been thematically appropriate for this anthology. Yet what we got is so rote and inconsequential, it’s almost tempting to say “I’D RATHER HAVE NOTHING” – ‘Deeds Endure’ does seem to sap the anthology of some of its impact and momentum. In fact, it’s tempting to believe that ‘Deeds Endure’ exists only to float the existence of an alternative pattern of Tactical Dreadnought armour, something Forge World will probably release eventually.

The Iron Hand Kratoz is our protagonist, and like his God Of War namesake, he’s a thundering shitehound who looooooves pretending to justify wholesale murder. Yet compared with the same-old-bland-story Salamanders he finds himself in opposition with, he’s a charismatic powerhouse. At one point, he is told quite solemnly that “vengeance” is “just another word for revenge”. One starts to wish the response would be “Yeah, no shit, Sherlo’okh!” rather than the po-faced Iron Hands v Salamander arguments we’ve read – it seems – a thousand times. I was desperately hoping, right up until the end, that a single Raven Guard could show up so there’d be a bit more chance of Gav writing a decent character, but no luck.

While occasionally dull, it’s a long way from actively bad; Gav’s certainly written worse (I remain unconvinced that ‘Cypher: Guardian of Order’ needs to exist, though hopefully ‘Angels of Caliban’ will prove me wrong). There’s a nice moment where the Salamanders unpack the Iron Hands motto “The flesh is weak” and give another spin on it – perhaps this was a retort to the unfair internet hate David Annandale got for re-using that phrase frequently in ‘The Damnation of Pythos’. As I finished it, though, I hoped sincerely that Gav focuses his Heresy writing on the I Legion or, better yet, Corax’s remnants for the near future. 6/10

The Noose by David Annandale: An obvious high point of ‘The Damnation of Pythos’ – one that even that book’s detractors seemed to enjoy – was the naval confrontation between the Iron Hands and the Emperor’s Children. A big help to that sequence was that Annandale really nailed the disturbing body-horror menace of the III Legion’s slide into madness, in a way that even Graham McNeill has only hit sporadically. And here, showing the III Legion in repose as well as in the thick of the fighting, he makes it even more sinister. While I’m not sure he knocked it out of the park – the main antagonist repeats ‘perfect’ and ‘perfection’ in his inner monologue so much it honestly becomes nearly parodic – this is an excellent story.

When I realised this was a sequel to ‘Pythos’, I wondered at the logic; if any storyline seemed ‘one and done’, it was that book. But by taking up some of the strands that were left dangling, Annandale has done a credible job of crafting a ‘Pythos’ sequel which merits being told. Annandale writes Iron Hands as awkward and slightly one-dimensional – but unlike with many other BL writers, this seems like a conscious choice rather than bad or lazy writing. When you look at how unctuous and twisted his Emperor’s Children are, you can’t disregard the guy's skill as a writer. Given my preference, I’d take Dan Abnett or John French’s Iron Hands over these. But given my preference I’d also see Annandale take a far more prominent role in the HH series, and write about a very different Legion rather than the Tenth. It feels like Night Lords, Emperor’s Children or Thousand Sons would be the ideal area for his nearly Lovecraftian creep-outs, but honestly I just want another Heresy novel from him, hopefully one which gives him a more rewarding scenario to work with than a joyless trudge into, well, damnation. Hopefully he’ll hit M31 again between Yarrick books. 8/10

Unspoken by Guy Haley: And we’re back to Isstvan V, with a story which ties in to Guy’s other story here, ‘Unforged’ – but other stories too, with important roles going to Tarkan and Sulnar, key Iron Hands characters from Nick Kyme’s novella ‘Scorched Earth’. Our main character, though, is the Salamander Donak, or ‘Silent Bob’ as I’ve tended to call him, as we learn what happened to him following the curiously downbeat ending of ‘Unforged’. As I read this story, I felt bad for my dismissal of him as a one-note archetype. By showing us the Shattered Legions through Donak’s eyes, Guy makes him into a credible and memorable character; it’s nice to see a slightly darker Salamander explored here, amongst all the ‘nice but dull’ ones we’ve had in the series. In fact, ‘Unspoken’ is all-round great; this might be Guy Haley’s best story yet. It’s certainly just as good as ‘Twisted’, and shows he’s one of the Heresy team’s ‘secret weapons’, apparently able to write smooth, enjoyable fiction about Traitor and Loyalist alike. 

Like ‘The Crimson Fist’, ‘Unspoken’ switches between a few viewpoint characters, one of which is first-person, the others being third-person. In my opinion, it seems better integrated in ‘Unspoken’ than it was in the Phall novella. ‘Unspoken’ also brings Meduson back into the story – not appearing as such, but making power moves behind the scenes. To top it off, we have a face-crunchingly brutal Iron Hands/Salamanders assault on an Alpha Legion facility. Yeah, you might get a few moments of déjà vu for ‘The Seventh Serpent’ during this sequence, but why not? Once again, Haley excels as the janitor brought in to tie other authors’ bastard children into the primary storyline. That sounds dismissive and insulting but I really don’t mean it that way – his clear enthusiasm for his colleagues’ material always comes through. Considering that Aaron, Dan and even Graham seem to have left projects and storylines hanging in ways they are unable (or unwilling) to address, I certainly hope Guy is called upon in future to deal with some more unresolved Heresy issues.

9/10

The Either by Graham McNeill: When I saw the title, I got to admit I got a little bit hard. As time goes by, it seems that Graham is closer and closer to saying “OK, maybe I got the Sons of Horus kind of wrong in ‘False Gods’, but I read ‘Little Horus’ and I get it now. I’m going to do them justice.” Perhaps that’s a very creative interpretation, or more likely, a biased one by someone who’s bitter than ‘Angel Exterminatus’ is widely hated and ‘False Gods’ is widely loved. While I didn’t relish what Graham did with Dan’s characters in his sequel to ‘Horus Rising’, I’ve been a big fan of the way he’s portrayed the Legion in ‘Vengeful Spirit’, and as I’ve said before, I think he’s somewhat unique in the Heresy authorial staff in that his last few additions to the series have been his best.

So, I love the Sixteenth Legion, and I love Graham’s modern work; I was already halfway erect. But a new short story about them? Focusing on Tybalt Marr of all people? That really gave me a chubby.

‘The Either’ unfolds in parallel to the events that begin ‘Vengeful Spirit’, starting with Marr arriving on Dwell after the failed assassination on Lupercal and Mortarion, ending with Horus about to depart for Molech. It's best to have some familiarity with 'Vengeful Spirit' before you tackle this, but it could also stand alone pretty well, since Marr has played little part in the series until now. He’s been relegated to a peripheral character, mostly - but here, Marr is revealed as a bitter, glory-hungry and vain warrior... yet an oddly likable one. These character-focused pieces certainly have their detractors, mostly the fans who think the series is just treading water now, but I think without building up characters we care about, BL can’t make us care when most of them die all horrible-like in the course of the war. And Graham’s not just building on a Traitor officer; he’s building on the character of the Legion. As with most of the recent Heresy offerings by Graham, it seems he’s one of the most openly influenced by the Forge World Heresy books, dropping little tidbits alluding to the deep Sons of Horus lore in those weighty tomes.

So how do things stand as this one draws to a close? The setup seems to be for a bloody showdown between Marr and Meduson, and to be honest, I can’t imagine either one walking away (maybe that’s just the fatalist in me) as they have both sworn to take the other’s head. While part of me thinks a simultaneous kill is a dumb and simplistic way for this story to close off, I could really go for, say, a novella following the two commanders as they circle the drain… and Graham certainly seems more prolific of late. Though his recently announced move to the States means it seems less likely he’ll be the one who gets to tie this strand off – perhaps Guy Haley could fill in…

But that’s probably a long way off. Even if this goes nowhere for a while, ‘The Either’ is a great story, and it’s the perfect way to close off this collection. 9/10

As a standalone product, ‘Meduson’ is a triumph. Even the obligatory duff story (sorry Gav) isn’t too bad. However, I’d love to dock it most of its positive score because of the way it’s being marketed. ‘Meduson’ is a cracking read, and a tribute to the Black Library authors’ ability to pull together and bring us a great, unified anthology by sticking to a few themes (arguably ‘Meduson’ is an even better example of this than ‘Mark of Calth’). So it’s kind of fucked that so few people can actually read it. If you’re a Horus Heresy fan, and you don’t feel your Shattered Legion threshold has been reached, you really should try to get your hands on a copy of this. Go on eBay, or get a friend who lives in or near Nottingham to pick you up a copy. For those who don’t have those options, a darker path might need to be considered. I dislike the idea of anyone torrenting these authors’ hard work (which they absolutely deserve financial restitution for), but considering the insanely restrictive walls Black Library have put around procuring ‘Meduson’, this is probably the only product in the Heresy you could illegally download without being a complete dirtbag. At least, in my eyes you’re not a dirtbag; BL’s legal team would no doubt have a different view.

Remember, though, BL have shown over time that their deployment of the word ‘exclusive’ is creative at best. You can take solace from the fact these stories may be added to a novella (‘The Seventh Serpent’ would be an obvious choice) and marketed as an all-new Heresy hardback in a couple years. As long as that’s not guaranteed, though… torrent away.

Kind of a bummer way to end the review, eh?

9/10

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

"Censure" by Nick Kyme

It is almost two years since the events of ‘Know No Fear’, and the Underworld War still rages on Calth between the remnants of the XIII and XVII Legion left to fight it out by their Primarchs. The surface of Calth is a rad-soaked wasteland and even Space Marines can’t stay out there too long – not that Aeonid Thiel is one to accept what ‘can’t’ be done. When their underground base is overrun by Chaos forces, Thiel’s commanding officer commands him to escape and plan a rescue for his comrades. But how effective can a lone Space Marine really be? And is the lone mortal soldier accompanying Thiel going to be a help, or a hindrance?

NEVER LOOK AT THE CAMERA

‘Censure’ is written in third person present tense, much like ‘Know No Fear’. While I found ‘Honour To The Dead’ annoyingly transparent in its attempt to be just like Dan Abnett’s Calth masterpiece, ‘Censure’ feels like its own beast – the setting and plot would have fit nicely in the ‘Mark of Calth’ anthology, and probably would have made that compilation seem a bit more varied.

After some short stories I was indifferent about and a novel I really struggled to get through, ‘Censure’ was the release that convinced me Nick Kyme had something important to offer to the Heresy series. He writes Thiel to a standard arguably equal to Dan, though I suppose it’s an unfair comparison. While Thiel was an interesting character in ‘Know No Fear’, he was just one man in a rather large cast. Here, Nick is able to focus on him almost exclusively, and the ways his character grows are sometimes unexpected, but always welcome. An important part of Nick’s writing is that Thiel in ‘Censure’ seems to be the same person as the forward-thinking, insubordinate hero we liked in ‘Know No Fear’. It’s not a complete copy of course – that would mean there was no character growth at all – but inconsistency of characters when an authorial switch happens has been one of my main annoyances in the Heresy series, so this was a nice surprise.

The drama begins with Aeonid Thiel outwitting two invader militia troopers in a deadly ambush using rather unconventional means. In fact, Aeonid is breaking convention all over the place here: out above ground in Calth’s wasteland operating solo is not exactly the kind of thing Ultramarines are renowned for being cool with anyway, and to spice the pot he’s kind of going a bit nuts here, almost daring his superiors to slap him down with his defiance of ‘standard’ protocols. Yet with the Shadow Crusade rampaging away elsewhere, Thiel knows the pressing threat of complete annihilation has passed for the Ultramarines. As he states, “There are no true daemons left on Calth anymore… just the Unburdened”. But the possessed are danger enough, as we will come to see.

Our lead antagonist is Kurtha Sedd, “Apostle of the Third Hand”, a Word Bearer waging the Underground War with a small cadre of other Legionaries who were also left behind. If there’s any dominant theme that disappoints me about ‘Censure’, it’s that Sedd and his homies are just A. N. Other group of Seventeenth Legion loonies – their attitudes to being left on Calth aren’t really explored, beyond a brief hand-wave that they went a bit crazy in their denial of Lorgar’s betrayal. (A bit? Well, for Word Bearers, this level of insanity probably is just “a bit”.) Nick writes evil bastards well, and if any portrayal of a monomaniacal zealot was going to be justified, it’d be the Word Bearers – but this could have been handled a little better.

As an audio drama, ‘Censure’ is certainly a neater package than some of BL’s Heresy offerings. The Gal Vorbak effect of Astartes and daemon voices speaking simultaneously works much better here than in ‘Butcher’s Nails’. And the cast do good work. Gareth Armstrong, I believe, plays Thiel here, and does a good job – though I get the feeling Armstrong was told that Thiel was something of an anti-establishment rebel but didn’t really grasp the nature of how mentally focused and physically strong an Ultramarine is. He comes across as an insouciant smart-ass and it’s fun to listen to, but he sometimes sounds a little effete to be a giant hulking superman. I think Chris Fairbank – famously the portrayer of Kharn in such dramas as ‘Chosen of Khorne’ and ‘Butcher’s Nails’ – is Sedd. He’s somehow at once gravelly and slimy; a great performance, but you do wish for slightly better writing for the character – Fairbank certainly deserves it. I'm not sure who plays him, but Raud is the other primary lead. In an occasionally homogenous voice cast, Raud has a strong West Country accent (I think!) and is well played as an honourable, earnest and brave warrior. It could have easily been a caricature but good writing and a great performance make him an interesting presence, not just a human to throw Thiel’s ultra-brilliance into relief. The exploration of his origins is nicely handled as well – brief enough not to seem drawn out, but powerful enough that you get a sense of who is he is, beyond just another gun. Lastly, Voltius is excellently played, the embodiment of the Ultramarines’ devotion to order and regulation – as well as their arrogance. Raud is a good foil for Thiel, but I can’t help but wish Voltius got more of an opportunity to bounce off his rebellious subordinate. Heavy Entertainment are the production studio behind this, and they bring out some of their better atmospherics. The ominous but proud fanfares as Thiel travels into the Arcology are particularly good, and the deafening after-effects of a stun grenade are nicely reproduced.

‘Censure’ is not perfect by any means. There are a few holes in the more slapdash actions scenes. Thiel getting trapped under a load of rubble with Raud, as well as the method used to escape, really feels like it stretches the suspension of disbelief a little too much and it’s hard to shake the feeling that this would have left Raud dead twice over. Later in the story, our heroes commandeer a wrecked Rhino. Nick needs Raud to see something sinister in the rearview mirror, so never mind the fact a Rhino probably doesn’t need anything like that – we’ll put a ‘rearview reflector’ in. And of course there seems to be one fairly massive oversight at the end of ‘Censure’ – so Ultramarines can apparently now travel to and from Calth and Macragge with little issue? Then why aren’t the Word Bearers trying to escape?

And that’s not quite all. Just like in most stories set in an environment like this, as soon as a character (Raud, in this case) starts coughing, you know he’s a goner, because BL and Heavy Entertainment have very little regard for subtlety. Fair enough, I suppose, but it kind of ruins any dramatic tension this storyline could’ve had. A slow death from radiation poisoning is hopefully something I’ll never experience and I don’t know much about the realities of it – but would you still be able to walk (and fight) mere minutes before it suddenly became fatal? I kind of wish they’d gone in another direction with the poignancy and bleakness that massive rad-poisoning is given in, say, ‘Edge of Darkness’, but whatever.

While some of the fights are a little interminable, the final confrontation between Word Bearers and Ultramarines in the contested underground base is a great one. Sure it ends pretty predictably – Sedd gets Spawn’d, Thiel is triumphant, Raud dies a hero’s death – but the writing is up to a good standard. Thiel’s tearful eulogy for Raud is the only time ‘Censure’ approaches the creamed corn of ‘Honour To The Dead’, so that’s a triumph. And that one weak moment is followed immediately by Thiel’s incisive observations on the continuing war for Calth, a high point in the drama, and a high point for the character in general.

The ideal time for you to listen to this (or, nowadays, read this – it’s in the ‘Legacies of Betrayal’ collection in print format) is before you read ‘The Unremembered Empire’, since the teaser ending will make a certain scene in ‘TUE’ that little bit more shocking. If you’ve already read ‘Unremembered Empire’ and spoiled the surprise, I beseech you to seek out ‘Stratagem’, the twenty-minute audio drama which sets up where Thiel’s character arc might go in the next few years of the Heresy.

Would I like Dan Abnett to take sole custody of damn near everything in the Heresy series? Kind of, but that’s not going to happen. If Kyme takes stewardship of Thiel for the rest of the Imperium Secundus arc – or if he does what I hope he does, and makes him a prominent part of ‘Deathfire’ – then I’ll be far from dissatisfied. 8/10

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

Yo, that Vulkan be spittin' that hot fire, son.

So after months of fucking nothing (beyond a fairly vague tweet from Nick Kyme), Heresy fans were given a treat yesterday...

Yes, book 32, the sequel to 'Vulkan Lives' and 'Unremembered Empire' is coming, in, like, two fuckin' months. AGES away! (Remember when we were told "Hey, by the way, we didn't mention it before but 'Unremembered Empire' is out this week!"? That seems a loooooong time ago now.) Ahh well, I guess it gives me time to read all Kyme's Heresy work again in preparation.

£25 is the price tag floated, so we can probably expect the hefty 500+ page count of 'A Thousand Sons', 'Vengeful Spirit' or 'Fear To Tread'. This could be a mixed blessing. 'Vulkan Lives' was average length but it felt drastically overlong and I really struggled to read it. But that was a book I read fresh off of reading the whole Heresy series for the first time. After the famine of 2015, I might be hungry enough for Nick's rather dry prose to seem a feast...

So, what will 'Deathfire' actually be about? From BL's website:

Vulkan lies in state beneath the Fortress of Hera, and yet many of his sons still refuse to believe that he is truly dead. After a seemingly miraculous rescue by the Ultramarines, Artellus Numeon, once captain of the Pyre Guard, urges the other Salamanders on Macragge to leave Imperium Secundus and return their primarch’s body to the home world of Nocturne – there to be reborn in the flames of Mount Deathfire. But Numeon grapples endlessly with his doubts and fears for the future of the Legion, while their foes seek to carve out new destinies of their own...

And from an email sent out from BL, with a slightly different synopsis:

In the wake of the cataclysmic events in The Unremembered Empire, Captain Numeon of the Pyre Guard experiences visions of Vulkan born anew in the furnaces of Mount Deathfire. An epic odyssey to Nocturne ensues. Beset by the Death Guard and Magnus the Red, can the Salamanders make it home through the Ruinstorm?

So we have a pretty good idea of what the setup will be, and I'm kind of confident that neither BL or Nick will throw us a curveball and have this be Vulkan's last voyage. No, this will most likely be a setup for his eventual return to Terra - well, if that's what they end up doing with the character (I got my suspicions). A corpse-carrying road-trip isn't necessarily a bad idea, and a small group of Salamanders defying Guilliman and going on a Viking-style quest for a borderline-impossible goal could be the framework for an excellent novel.

I anticipate that Vulkan will spend most (or all?) of the book as an inert corpse in a box, making Numeon our primary character. He wasn't always a character I felt massively engaged by, but the way his storyline was left hanging at the end of 'Vulkan Lives' always nagged at me, and now I guess we'll get closure, or as close as we can get in these books.

As for the Ultramarines... my bet is that Aeonid Thiel rescues Numeon - in fact, this would make a lot of sense as a topic for the apparently upcoming audio drama 'The Red-Marked', named for Thiel's unconventional group of Ultramarine guerrillas. That would be great, as I really like how Kyme writes him. And then, the return to Imperium Secundus; that'll give us some hints about how that story will progress, I hope, maybe even answer some of the annoying questions the last few stories set there have raised.

The Death Guard and Thousand Sons being the antagonists could be interesting, not least because I'd imagine they are almost as likely to kill each other as to kill some Salamander leftovers. I'm always keen on the Death Guard taking a prominent role in a Heresy novel, and Nick hasn't written them yet as far as I recall - so I'm quite intrigued to discover what his spin on them might be. As for the Sons, it'd be interesting to see what Nick would bring to that Legion too, and considering 'Crimson King' is probably up next, it could give some nice opportunities for some 'Prospero Burns' / 'Thousand Sons' split scenes, with the action playing out differently depending on the viewpoint character. Of course, the two factions may never interact, in fact, Magnus might just show up in magic ghost form and scream "NEW MIXTAPE DROPS 2015!" then disappear as everyone shits blood.

Concerns? Well, I don't know if more stories about Shattered Legion warriors "[grappling] endlessly with [their] doubts and fears" is really what the Heresy needs. In fact, we probably need a break from it. Salamanders doing it is probably going to be a bit more readable than yet more Iron Hands grinding their teeth about their moribund Legion, but... I dunno. I guess it could be an OK theme, if it's not one that 'Deathfire' doesn't lean on too much; the problem is I have little faith that Nick won't just run it into the ground.

And also... Numeon experiencing visions? I mean... is this going to be another 'awakened psyker' story? While I don't hate them as much as some Heresy fans seem to, I think we've maybe had enough of them for now - yet the idea of another character being granted visions by the Emperor also seems depressingly likely, as well.

I'm not sure I can really express how disappointed I am with this year's Heresy release schedule without coming across as a real whiner, but this goes some way to redressing the balance. Still, it does make me worry we might see only two Heresy novel releases this year - maybe just one, if Graham doesn't finish 'The Crimson King' in the next few months. I suppose it's unfair to complain - Black Library seem to be concerned with pushing the End Times series at the moment, and gods know those poor Warhammer Fantasy fans do need some attention, so it's good they're getting their due. I do feel a bit hard done by, though, especially when you consider the sheer volume of Heresy stuff that came out last year.

Ah well, the Warhammer World opening will probably give us a bit of a preview for the release schedule. I'm optimistic that 'The Red-Marked' is a likely audio release before 'Deathfire', and hopefully at least one HH novella to come out this summer... if nothing else, that Battle for Calth Forge World book is gonna be here soon.

AND WE OUT LIKE FULGRIM

"Tallarn: Executioner" by John French

Prompted by the wide-scale re-release of this previously limited-edition novella, and the announcement of a full-length Tallarn novel coming soon (released before I finished the review), I decided to jump back in time and review this – absolutely one of the best Horus Heresy novellas so far. Better even than ‘Aurelian’ or ‘Prince Of Crows’? It’s not a competition… but yes, I think so. Let’s look at why.

PEW PEW PEWWWW

In 40K, Tallarn is a desert wasteland, homeworld of the Tallarn Desert Raiders, its surface near-uninhabitable. In 30K, despite Graham’s ‘False Gods’ line “My mouth’s as dry as a Tallarn’s sandal”, Tallarn is a temperate ‘jewel world’, prosperous and thriving in its economy and environment. All that will soon change. At the novella’s beginning, (which, thanks to ‘Black Oculus’, we pretty much know follows on from the events of ‘Angel Exterminatus’) we see the Iron Warriors fleet burst into existence, jumping from… elsewhere. They translate in disarray; Perturabo’s flagship, the Iron Blood, even smashes a lesser vessel out of the way, leaving it to die. It’s implied here that the Iron Warriors turn their deadly attention to Tallarn simply because it is the closest system to where they’ve ended up – yet there have been hints elsewhere that there is a deeper motivation to the actions of the IV in their stubborn persecution of the world. I suppose we’ll need to wait and find out. Once there, they virus-bomb the planet, leaving millions upon millions dead – but not managing to extinguish all life on the world, due to Tallarn’s extensive subterranean network of tunnels and installations.

The book has a rather interesting format. It’s split into six chapters, each one of which follows our group of characters for a short time period during the beginning of the Tallarn war. These chapters are very ‘ground level’, focusing on these soldiers’ experiences and rather narrow view of the planet-wide war. Between each chapter, there’s a page of wider context, telling you what happened in the weeks or months between these little moments. (This concept – personal narrative, then some macro-view inserts – is also used by John to great effect in his Tallarn audio drama ‘The Eagle’s Talon’.) In the Limited Edition novella there’s a helpful timeline insert to show you the exact timeframe of how long the war dragged on – but those of you buying the standard edition should have no difficulties following the chronology.

Our heroes here are a mix of people who, through various means, have avoided the terrible but quick death caused by virus-bombing. They have survived to become soldiers, whether they wanted to or not. Actually, Lieutenant Tahirah is already a soldier, an officer in the armoured formation the Jurnian 701^st. She drives a Leman Russ Executioner (hence the novella’s name) called Lantern. When disaster comes, they are working far below the Sapphire City. Stranded on the world awaiting deployment for twenty-seven months, she and her unit are getting jumpy, bored and frustrated. They are about to get more than they bargained for. Sharing the underground complex are the Chalcisorian 1002^nd, whose sergeant Brel is another primary character. Plagued by old war injuries which left him with debilitating headaches, Brel is a real piece of shit, sort of a cross between Joaquin Phoenix in ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ and the venal Meryn from Gaunt’s Ghosts, yet somehow surpassing them both in roguish scumbaggery (he makes quite a dramatic first impression). Lastly, Akil is a wealthy merchant prince who trades in the Sapphire City, whose most pressing concerns are that the end of the Great Crusade will impact negatively on Tallarn’s economy. Journeying home through a more proletarian area of the city, he intervenes in a brutal mugging, saving an (apparently) helpless old man from two thugs. Akil’s kindness will have a profound effect on Tallarn’s fate. While there are other significant characters, these three are the ones we spend the most time with, and John works excellently within this small cast at contrasting their character traits. Outside of his extra-legal shenanigans, Brel is like a hunter, relying on instinct and feeling out the battlefield to get the drop on his prey. The moment where he cuts his machines’ systems and lies in wait, using the other tanks in his squadron as bait, shows us just how cold a bastard he can be. Tahirah is more by-the-book, a promising soldier now doomed to an ugly, unwinnable war, and her frustration at this is a powerful motivator – not always in a good way Akil is a bit of an audience substitute, in that he is no solider: relatable reactions to the situation, like fear, guilt and anger, are mostly supplied by him. However, there is more to him than we can see at first glance.

Due to my misreading of key factors of the story background, and the way the timeline insert is laid out, I thought ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ took us through most of the battle for Tallarn. The novella actually finishes about a month after the hostilities commence; we have around a year of war left before the Iron Warriors withdraw. Chronologically, your next trip into Tallarn should be ‘Eagle’s Talon’ and ‘Iron Corpses’, in that order, followed by ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’ which deals with the last half of the war. ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ may be little use as an overview of the largest tank battle in galactic history, but it’s a superb introduction to the Tallarn arc – I’ll need to go back to the other stuff before I review it, but my feeling at this time is that it’s the best Tallarn fiction by a long, long way.

There are similarities here to ‘Know No Fear’ and ‘Legion’ – two fairly lofty comparison points. ‘Know No Fear’ in the brilliantly tense writing of the action sequences; while much more ‘low-stakes’ than the planet-spanning dust-up of Calth, the tank battles here are just as capable at keeping you on the edge of your seat. As for my beloved ‘Legion’, the similarity is in the book’s almost exclusive reliance on unaugmented human personnel. The Iron Warrior antagonists and the loyalist Space Marines who flock to Tallarn later in the conflict are not shown as characters. The Traitors are just represented by their sealed war machines. While the spectacular cover image of burning Terminators disembarking from a damaged Land Raider certainly happens, it’s not really a fair representation of the majority of the action. Notably, no Space Marine is given a single line of dialogue.

The Black Library book other than this I remember having great tank combat was Dan Abnett’s ‘Necropolis’, and Dan’s a pretty high benchmark for a Black Library author wanting to write a compelling action sequence which also builds on characters. To be honest, I don’t read much non-Black Library combat-heavy stuff, so there’s likely more mind-blowing sci-fi tank battles out there – but ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ certainly did it for me. However, the action almost feels more like submarine combat – tanks in thick fog, unable to see their opponents until they’re on top of them. The fact that these skirmishes are rather small scale (barring a slightly out-of-place, but utterly visceral, confrontation with a Titan) gives them a desperate intimacy we don’t see a lot in books from this publisher. I guess this leads to the only concern I had about ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’ once I’d finished ‘Executioner’: that if, as John had stated, it was going to take a much more ‘widescreen’ view of the Tallarn war, with a larger cast and larger battles, perhaps this intimacy would be lost. ‘Ironclad’ is fantastic, I’ll say that now – but it’s no ‘Executioner’.

The plot here is intriguing and well-layered considering the relatively sparse page count. The tension of that last denouement is handled masterfully, and to cap it all, there’s even a ‘post-credits scene’ to rival any Metal Gear Solid game. The fact it’s called ‘The Hydra’s Dream’ would seem to prove that the shadowy organisation operating from within the Imperial survivors’ camp is made up of operatives from the Alpha Legion – an assumption that John’s subsequent Tallarn work has borne out.

‘Tallarn: Executioner’ is beautifully written. I’d enjoyed ‘The Last Remembrancer’ quite a bit, but this was what convinced me John French was a top-tier Black Library writer to watch. He does not have the bleak humour of AD-B, but nor does he have that writer’s occasionally embarrassing fits of over-emoting. I doubt that, for example, Aaron could have handled the tragic-heroic ‘face turn’ of Brel without making it much more melodramatic. (Christ, I’m using wrestling terms to denote plot points. I listen to the Giant Bombcast too much.) John’s work is cold and clinical when it needs to be yet can also bring some poetic beauty to things. Whether it’s the description of the virus-bombing of Tallarn – in some ways, a more disturbing one than the ‘Galaxy In Flames’ murder of Isstvan, due to its matter-of fact brevity – or the relationship between the survivors, or the bittersweet moment of the poison fog clearing enough for Akil to see the moonlight over his dead world… Well, John’s got that quality that I will – while hating myself to use such a cliché – call cinematic. It certainly doesn’t pull its punches; many of the non-combat scenes leave you just as shaken as the high-stakes tank fights. By showing us the quality of the Sapphire City – not sci-fi beauty, but conceivable modern beauty – John gives its desolation that much more of an impact. When we were told that Isstvan III and the Choral City were once beautiful, did it really sink in? We only ever saw them as the backdrop to a war.

Finally, Silence and Lantern, the names of the two primary engines in the squadron for most of the book, correspond, oddly enough, to the weaponry of Mortarion: his huge scythe is called Silence, and he wields a large unidentified pistol called the Lantern. I’m not sure of the significance of this allusion, but since John French helped to write ‘The Horus Heresy: Betrayal’ where Mortarion’s wargear was named, I’m pretty confident it was intentional. The scout vehicle, Talon, might be a nod to John French’s buddy AD-B’s ‘Talon Of Horus’ book.

As I originally asserted, ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ is one of the very best Horus Heresy novellas so far. ‘Aurelian’ and ‘Brotherhood of the Storm’ are certainly on its level, but cut from their associated novels, could they stand alone? I strongly doubt it. And as much as I enjoy all the other novellas Black Library has produced for the Heresy, none of those come close. ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ is the complete package – ‘Ironclad’ is a great sequel, but ‘Executioner’ almost needs no continuation. 10/10

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