"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.

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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

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