Since
I quite enjoyed writing the reviews for ‘Child of Night’ and ‘Daemonology’, I
decided to write about some other ‘exclusive’ short stories Black Library has
published. Usually, these are only available digitally, but with my new Kindle,
reading eBooks is going to be a lot more enjoyable than using that lame-ass Magicscroll
extension. Let’s see what I picked out this time.
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| Short Fiction Roundup: Now with 50% less skulls |
In
this story we follow Death Guard Chaplain Murnau as he leads a group of
Destroyer units on the forest moon Algonquis, seeking the remnants of an Imperial
Fists force whose ship has crashed here. An engaging setup, and an excellent
opportunity to see the 14th Legion in action. You could argue that
in the first four books we saw the Death Guard fight quite a few times, but I
always felt they were lost among the other Legions in that context. Here, it’s
all Death Guard. There are nice moments here, especially regarding the 14th’s
attitude to physical hardship and the way they fetishise endurance. The problem
is, Rob has to convincingly deepen the culture of a Legion which has remained
fairly unexplored, as well as showing hints about the Death Guard’s dark
future, and (let’s not forget) tell a story at the same time. He probably would
have been better off picking one thing and sticking to it.
So,
the Legion hasn’t fallen yet; in fact, chronologically, they are the furthest
off from their fall in the Big Four. But Rob still really goes in with the foreshadowing. In fact the signposting of the 14th
Legion’s fall to Grandfather Nurgle is awkwardly obvious at points. The Death
Guard are fighting on a noisome swamp-world which was once a lush forest? Well,
we’ve seen a Nurgle-dedicated ‘plague moon’ before, and it feels like the Death
Guard probably are quite capable of war on other terrains. It’s well-established
that the Death Guard bombard worlds with chemical weapons before they invade
them, so, sure, fine. But it really feels like Rob picked a forest-heavy
setting so he could trot out every well-established cliché about Nurgle. What
about a desert? Or an urban environment? The setting choices here give me a lot
of ‘False Gods’ and ‘Galaxy In Flames’ flashbacks and to be frank, those aren’t
flashbacks I really want.
This
story does, at least, succeed in showing an appropriate role for a Chaplain in
a Traitor Legion that’s not the Word Bearers: motivating the troops and chewing
up the scenery. Murnau is engagingly mental, but at times just seems like a
silhouette with big devil horns, not exactly a fully fleshed-out character. He
is also straight up preaching the gospel of Nurgle here, with his talk of
“seeds of doubt [blooming] into gardens of darkness and despair” and his
obvious enjoyment of the decay he witnesses in Algonquis’ ruined woods. I guess
this could be a holdover from the culture of Barbarus and its harsh
environment, but if that’s the case, I think it could have been explored much
more interestingly. As for the rest of the Death Guard… fuck em. While the
physical descriptions of the Destroyers were compelling writing, their actual
personalities made little impact, and when they all start dying my reaction was
generally “Wait, who was… was he the one with the… let me go back and check”
rather than “Oh no, I hoped that guy would stick around for the sequel”. The
narrative also starts in media res and
ends a little abruptly. This detail, along with a few details around the
Imperial actions here, makes me think that this was meant to be the beginning of
a much longer Death Guard story or even novella (including the actual crash of
the Fists vessel and more exploration of the Fists as characters) but then Rob
went ‘ahh fuck it’ or Black Library said ‘nah bro’. Of course, this is all
speculation and most likely total horseshit.
For
a while ‘Distant Echoes’ was the best story available about post-Isstvan Death
Guard action. Then those Forge World books came out and did a much better job
of portraying the beginning of this Legion’s slide into corruption and madness.
I’m not saying they’re superior in every way. ‘Distant Echoes’ is a story, not
a scholarly essay about a military action: it’s arguably much more visceral
than the Forge World material. Unfortunately,
it suffers in comparison to ‘Scars’ and the newly published ‘Daemonology’: I
feel Chris Wraight’s study of Mortarion’s prejudices and his instabilities is a
much more telling document of the Death Guard’s character than this story. There
are also moments where Rob Sanders’ writing slips into space-fantasy cliché: a
‘Battle For The Abyss’-style insistence on Murnau always “hissing” or “glaring”
at his comrades makes him even more cartoonish. I’ll give this one solid point
though: I really liked the Destroyer stuff here; while this is ostensibly a
Death Guard story, it’s more convincing to call this a Destroyer story. I did
also quite enjoy the downbeat nature of the ending. I had some feelings of
‘well, why the fuck did any of this matter then?’ but ultimately it was an
appropriate finish for the story’s tone.
It’s
funny, ‘The Serpent Beneath’ was such an efficiently-written, engaging bit of
work which was brilliant at avoiding clichés (or rather, it used clichés from a
genre other than space-fantasy/40K fiction) and I’ve found every other story by
Rob to be so lacking in every way by comparison. This is probably one of his
better efforts, but overall, it’s still a disappointment for a lot of reasons.
6/10
‘Lost
Sons’ by James Swallow: Not to be confused with ‘Forgotten Sons’, this was a
short story which followed on the heels of the controversial Blood Angels Horus
Heresy novel ‘Fear to Tread’. It was published in the Black Library Weekender
2012 collection, and became available as an eBook in 2013.
Just
because Jim is most associated with the Garro dramas in the Horus Heresy
series, doesn’t mean that Nathaniel is the only Knight Errant he’ll focus on.
Here, we get a Rubio story! Well, still more of a Blood Angels story, but Rubio
is in it. Our main character is the IX Legionary Warden Arkad, who is
frustrated with his duties; the stewardship of Baal is a wearisome duty for
someone who would rather be out in the cosmos winning glory with his Legion.
But it’s more than boredom Arkad has to contend with. He and nineteen of his
brothers have watched over the Blood Angels’ homeworld for the past five years,
since Sanguinius departed for the Signus Cluster. Three years ago, word reached
them of Horus’ rebellion. No word has yet reached them from Sanguinius or any
of their brothers, cut off from them by the Ruinstorm. They know the spirit of
their orders was false, but they don’t want to disobey the last command from
their Primarch. So they wait, slowly going mad with frustration. Until finally,
a starship approaches, and a warrior with grey, unadorned armour lands on Baal,
claiming to bring orders from the Regent of Terra. The Knight Errant, Librarian
Tylos Rubio, carries a black scroll, the sign of the disbanding of a Legion
(something which “twice before [has been] delivered to the homeworld of a
Legiones Astartes” – damn!). Malcador’s reasoning for this is brutal, but
sound. Yet there’s no way these proud Blood Angels will accept being sidelined again
– will their continuing loyalty to their Primarch drive them to take up arms
against a loyal agent of the Imperium?
I’ve
kind of spoiled 95% of the story there, so why stop? ‘Lost Sons’ ends its tense
standoff with word from Raldoron reaching Baal: Sanguinius is alive, and the
Legion is battered but intact. The Blood Angels rejoice, and send Rubio on his
way with no bloodshed.
The
format of ‘Lost Sons’ – monologues committed to tape by Arkad as his
frustration grows – really seems suited to an audio drama; I’d love to hear
what Ramon Tikaram could do with this as a script. Adding to its ‘documentary’
feeling, we also get the text of the fateful order from Horus which sent
Sanguinius to the Signus cluster. But don’t let me imply it’s bad as a written
short story, because I really think it’s one of the best in the series. Jim
really does well at capturing the anguish and annoyance of Arkad and his
brothers at their situation, but also the nobility and humanity of the IX. There
are a few sly nods towards the future of the Legion, too: It’s shown that
Baal’s guardians have had visions of the horrific mauling of their Legion and
Primarch by Ka’bandha and his daemonic horde – the Blood Angels’ psychic bond
to their Primarch, especially in his darkest moments, will ultimately be their
doom, so it’s kind of chilling to have that signposted here. The Death Company
foreshadowing is a little heavy-handed, but it’s also really effective (you can
almost hear the dramatic music swell as the black-armoured Blood Angels face
down Rubio). This also has a small teaser for ‘Garro: Shield of Lies’ which I
didn’t catch on my first reading. Overall, proof that Jim Swallow has a good
grasp on the wider context of the Heresy series and isn’t just blindly churning
stuff out. So what about Jim’s ‘other’ flagship storyline, the Knights Errant? As
a character, Rubio continues to not really grab my imagination so much as Garro
or Varren do – the reason I like him in the audios is that I dig his whispery emo
performances. Yet he’s nicely built upon here; there’s a steel to him we
sometimes don’t see when Garro is overshadowing him. I have faith he will
continue to become an interesting character, if given the space to spread his
wings.
At
the risk of repeating myself I’m feeling more and more that short stories are
the best use of Jim’s talents – though his audio work is great, ‘All That
Remains’, ‘Gunsight’ and ‘Lost Sons’ are some of the very best Heresy material
of the last few years. It’s a bit of a shame he may not do another Heresy novel
but as long as he’s doing short stories I can’t complain. Here’s hoping that
Swallow gives Rubio some more shine in the next Knight Errant story – though I’d
actually prefer if Varren got a ‘solo’ mission (he’s the only ‘main’ Knight who
hasn’t got any short story love). And if he cedes the Blood Angels Heresy stuff
to Andy Smillie, well, that’ll probably mean more love for the Garro storyline,
so it’s all good.
‘Lost
Sons’ takes a little vignette which on the surface seems to be of little
import, and masterfully turns it into a meditation on the Blood Angels as good
as any published in the Heresy series. I know Swallow gets a fair bit of hate
from Blood Angels fans, not least for ‘Fear to Tread’, but haters could do
worse than giving this story a chance – I think it’s a very distinctive
offering, higher-quality writing than ‘Fear to Tread’ which I did enjoy but
which was quite straightforward. Here, Jim has addressed my main issue with
‘Fear to Tread’: that the Blood Angels’ personality often didn’t come through.
This is different; this is IX Legion to the very core. 9/10
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| Boo-hoo, my Primarch died, waaah waaaah |
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