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