"Brotherhood Of The Storm" by Chris Wraight

Ahh, I guess I’m on a roll with the Chris Wraight titles. Let’s look at ‘Brotherhood Of The Storm’. I warn you guys right off the bat - this review is hella long.

I don't know why, but I never had much regard for this cover art. I just think there's something slightly off about it.

First released as a limited edition novella in 2012, normally it would have been mid-2014 before this saw wider release; however, Black Library luckily broke with that weird, restrictive rule and put ‘Brotherhood’ out in late 2013 so readers could digest it before ‘Scars’ came out. I’m really glad they did, since I really view these two books as one long, unbroken story. It would be very hard to read one without the other.

I wasn’t even close to caught up with the Heresy series when this was first released, but I’m sure that anticipation must have been high. While not one of the big-draw ‘marquee’ Legions/Chapters in 40K, the White Scars still have their loyal fans, and this was the first in-depth look we were getting of them in the Heresy universe. Furthermore, the Scars’ actions in the Heresy had been shrouded in mystery; it was known that they stood with the Imperial Fists and the Blood Angels at Terra, but there was little concept of what they did before that. Would Wraight provide a satisfactory explanation? Would he add something new to the Legion, or would the 30K Scars be just like the 40K Scars, except with their Primarch still around?

Surprise, motherfucker!! Wraight capably delivers on every level. He can’t fuck with the central tenets of the Legion (well, he could, that’s a Heresy writer’s right – but he doesn’t). The main characteristic of the Scars is that they’re virtuoso riders, both of bikes and jetbikes, and they love going fast. Rather than portraying them as inattentive speed-freaks, Chris shows their bike-fetish to be a natural extension of the constantly roaming tribes of Chogoris, and their cultural emphasis on glory, competition and exhilarating feats. I’ve always thought combat bikes, and to a lesser extent jetbikes, are one of the stupidest things in the 40K universe, which obviously is an arena crowded by over-the-top stupidity. But Chris wrote action scenes of a jetbike-vs-ork convoy engagement which totally floored me. It’s graceful, yet utterly visceral writing. He also expands this tactical doctrine into a split in the philosophy of the Legion. The shortness of their attention span, and their difficulty with ‘take and hold’ missions, provides a bit of a schism in doctrine between the Scars of isolationist Chogoris and those more… centre-facing. And of course, the Scars were always based heavily on the culture of ancient Mongolian tribal warriors, notably the army of Genghis Khan; Wraight stays true to this, yet also gives Chogoris its own, original culture. There are bits of Chinese and Japanese culture in there as well, which obviously worked for a giant weeb like myself. (Especially since one of the plots can be summed up as “Jaghatai-sempai noticed me!!” It’s just like my motherfucking Japanese animes.)

As we open the story, the White Scars have been fighting hard against the orks on Chondax for some time. The time: some years after the Triumph at Ullanor, when several combined Legions, with Horus and the Emperor at their head, broke the back of the expanding ork empire; the Scars have been working since then to finish the job. They’re led by Jaghatai Khan, or the Great Khan, who they tend to call Khagan. The Khagan doesn’t lead in the manner of Horus or Sanguinius. He is elusive, hard to pin down, decentralised, giving his soldiers a minimum of guidance and a great deal of autonomy. I guess in a way, he could be the closest Primarch to Alpharius in this willingness to let his sons resolve their own issues. Despite this distance from the rank and file of his Legion, it’s clear that the Primarch/Astartes bond is just as strong as most other Legions, certainly stronger (and healthier) than some. It ain’t all good, though. As we know – and the Scars seem not to know – the Crusade, and the galaxy, changed drastically in the years after Ullanor.

‘Brotherhood Of The Storm’ is a seven-chapter novella which, each chapter, jumps between one of three first-person narrators. Our first character is Shiban, khan of the titular Brotherhood of the Storm. Shiban’s story gives the novella most of its action sequences, and they’re excellently paced – but it’s also a character study, a vital look at the Legion’s organisation (for people who geek out over that sort of thing), and also their soul. Shiban is one of the most likeable late-series Loyalists; as the books fill with psychotic Iron Hands, dour Knights Errant and nice-but-dull Salamanders, it’s cool to have a ‘good guy’ who is having fun. Of course, part of Shiban’s character arc is the cessation of fun, but that’s – for now – in the distant future. Shiban accepts that the Khan is unknowable and inscrutable, but has faith that he will not steer the Legion wrong. This kind of outlook definitely sets the Scars up as a slam-dunk for a staunch Loyalist Legion. The frequent Traitor gripe of “THE EMPEROR DOESN’T TELL US ANYTHING ANYMORE!” seems like it’d be met by a blank stare and a shrug by the Scars. However, things aren’t as simple as they seem on that score…

Our hero is joined by a force led by Torghun, another khan, from the Brotherhood of the Moon. As they prepare to assault the final ork fortress on this world, we see the difference between the Terran-born, Luna Wolf-worshipping Torghun, and the true son of Chogoris, Shiban. Their combat doctrine is different and leads to conflict. The Scars make frequent uses of feints and hit-and-run attacks to draw the enemy out – striking then retreating. Torghun, who has been seconded to the Sixteenth, appreciates the unrelenting ‘spearhead’: the direct thrust which never stops. Their disagreement is uncomfortable simply because they are both likeable characters, and Shiban is aghast at the discord between them. It reminded me a bit of that first confrontation between Lucius and Tarvitz on Murder; I cared about both characters and wanted them to be friends, but I knew the conflict was going to pay off in some awful way, somewhere down the line. Luckily, unlike the Emperor’s Children, the squabbling White Scars are not too proud to compromise. Yet Shiban’s attempt at half-measures results in the Brotherhood of the Storm being pinned down and encircled, a poor situation for a White Scar. (Or as he himself says, “I could not imagine us ever distinguishing ourselves in warfare of that sort – under siege, fighting with our backs to the wall as the sky burned above us.” Damn, foreshadow much?) As Shiban, Torghun and the other Brotherhoods on Chondax encircle and assault the last ork stronghold, Shiban’s joy at the thrill of combat is powerful. Yet even fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with his beloved brothers doesn’t match the feeling he gets when Jaghatai himself joins the fight, and Shiban fights at his side – a lifelong ambition for the warrior. Conclusion: This whole story was nothing but great. I don’t really like reading about battles against orks, I don’t really like reading about battles involving bikes, but Wraight made me enjoy both. Fucking stellar.

Our second ‘viewpoint character’ is Ilya Ravallion, a human General in the Departmento Munitorum. While she’s got a military rank, Ilya’s task is to oversee the materiel used by the Crusade, not batallions of men or war-engines. Even though she’s climbed high, Ilya’s kind of a glorified pencil-pusher in the grand scheme of things. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that she’s one of my favourite human characters in the series – I think because I found her so relatable; after all, of all the characters in the Heresy, this is the one whose job is not a million miles from my own. I know some have raised the complaint that Chris is doing female characters no favours by putting a woman into a ‘passive’ or ‘custodial’ role, but I have to disagree with that. Firstly, I think Ilya shows great courage and intelligence in this book and ‘Scars’, even in the direst of situations. She demonstrates that the bureaucrats and clerks can influence events in a sometimes surprising way. The character would be compelling in the same way if it were male, but I like that Chris has shown the Abnett approach of “hey, the character doesn’t have to be a man, so why make them one?” I do agree it would be nice if more human military officers were portrayed this way, but that’s a charge we can’t lay solely at Chris’ door. Next, the fact that Ilya is perhaps the first female character in the series who’s not sexualised in some way is quite refreshing. She’s an aging, slightly awkward, unspectacular-looking person. Just more reasons I find her relatable.

To be honest, Ilya is really well written and that’s all I want from my Horus Heresy female characters. If someone wants to write a weird caricature of their ex-girlfriend into their 40K or 30K fiction, and make them a promiscuous, shallow idiot who inadvertently causes huge catastrophe by their stupidity, I’ll only wave my flag and say THIS IS MISOGYNISTIC BULLSHIT if I feel it’s poorly written. (Look, I’m not saying that’s actually happened, though some of Graham’s characters come a bit close to it in some ways.)

Enough about the whys and wherefores of Ilya’s gender. What’s her actual story? Well, Ilya has been sent to Ullanor to seek an audience with the Great Khan himself. There she meets the Stormseer Yesugei, who we might remember from the Nikea scene of ‘A Thousand Sons’ (yall can peep what I said about him right here). This is the first time we get Wraight writing for a Scar speaking Gothic, and he calls attention to the weirdness of Yesugei’s broken English right away, with Ilya noting it and wondering what explanation there could be for a super-intelligent super-human warrior having difficulty learning another language. While Graham’s Nikea scene is a little uncomfortable, reading like – say – a well-meaning but hugely stereotyped Native American character from an 80s action movie, Chris seems to recognise this is an odd state of affairs and makes an effort to explain it. So Yesugei muses later that the Chogorian Scars have always struggled with Gothic, that the Terran members of the Legion learn their brothers’ language in order to integrate with them rather than the other way around, that perhaps the linguistic difficulties are a symptom of the Scars’ penchant for isolation. There are times where the stilted syntax is a bit much; in all, I’d rather this was retconned completely out of existence and that the Scars all spoke ‘normally’; I mean, it could end up as a canon conflict, but the White Scar in ‘Descent Of Angels’ seems to have no linguistic issues, so where’s the canon conflict for that? (He was Terran, I guess.) However, I think Chris put forward a convincing argument for continuing Graham’s treatment of the Legion which goes beyond “LAWWWWL BUT THEY AZN THO ^_^ pc nazi faget”

There’s a fairly excellent resolution to Ilya’s story here, as she eventually meets Jaghatai, which prompts one of the better scenes showing how difficult it is for mortals to interact with Primarchs. Even as a dissection of the Legion’s relationship with the Munitorum, with the Imperium as a whole, it’s great – but then Horus arrives, and Ilya is privy to a deeply significant moment which will resound in the White Scars’ history forever. Conclusion: While Shiban’s storyline is the meat of ‘Brotherhood Of The Storm’, Ilya gives the book its soul, and some of the best human-centred moments in the whole series.

Our last ‘viewpoint’ storyteller is Yesugei himself, who gives us a flashback to his childhood on Chogoris, back when the Khan was still fighting against his enemy, the Palatine. Yesugei has gone up into the mountains to undergo the “test of heaven”, a tribal rite for those who show signs of psychic power. Those who experience the visions of heaven will live the life of a zadyin arga, a tribal shaman of a kind. There’s a poetry to him as he discusses the nature of fate, the universe, and his love for the planet that was his home. Yet also we learn some things which may not set him in the best stead in the Imperium; he describes Imperials as ‘them’ and makes it clear he sees the people of Chogoris as outside the Imperium. He also describes, with an odd dispassion, the ‘visions of heaven’ – avatars of what are clearly the four Chaos gods and the Emperor himself appear to him. Conclusion: Yesugei’s story is light on actual ‘events’ – it’s more philosophical, a meditation on the nature of Chogoris and how significant it still is to the Scars – but that doesn’t mean the writing dips in quality or the chapters become less interesting. It stands toe-to-toe with the other strands; to know the Scars, you must know their homeworld.

At first, I was put off by the jumping narrative viewpoints for this book. What is Wraight trying to do, be all George RR Martin and shit? I may have thought. I was worried that including three distinct story strands would dilute the impact of all of them and leave no room for any plot to breathe. I needn’t have worried – Wraight knocked it out of the park, plotting the novella tightly and economically, while introducing three incredibly rewarding characters. Perhaps it’s even more developed than that – all our narrators, and their stories, present a different aspect to the White Scars. Yesugei shows the Legion’s past. Shiban shows the Legion’s present. Ilya shows the Legion’s future.

I really like the fact that each character’s narrative ends with them glimpsing the Khan, and that’s what unifies these story threads. To each, he comes across as a restrained yet deeply intimidating presence; a being whose nature is indefinable, and whose powers are unmeasured. One thing seems clear. Whether it’s in the midst of combat in a colossal ork fortress, in conference on his flagship regarding the Legion’s contact with the Imperium, or in his tent on Chogoris during a time when he hasn’t yet even conquered the whole planet, the Khagan is in control, always. In Gothic, Yesugei isn’t all halting sentences. He also drops this very perceptive gem about the Fifth Primarch:

“He is not elusive, he is at the centre. Wherever he is, that is the centre. He will seem to have broken the circle, drifted to the edge, right until the end, and then you will see that the world has come to him, and he has been waiting for it all along.”

Line of the book? It could very well be.

One repeated aphorism of the Khagan is “Laugh when you are killing”. A phrase that Shiban, and many other V Legion warriors hold close to their hearts. At first reading, that could make them seem sadistic or filled with love for violence, but it really underlines that unlike so many other Legions, their nature is not melancholy. They are cheerful, quick to see the humour and joy in a situation, even in the most desperate and awful situations. It’s not the bleak humour of the Sons of Horus or the Night Lords, either. Chris’ work at establishing this is what makes their descent into rage and sadness in ‘Scars’ so devastating.

Call me a wanker if you like, but as I finished ‘Brotherhood Of The Storm’, as Shiban’s elegy for now-lost times of laughter and joy brings the book to a close with a rueful glance to the future, I actually started to well up a bit. I didn’t actually cry, but I had a strong emotional reaction to, well, a piece of art. And that’s what I’m gonna call it. There are Black Library books which are pure commerce, and books which are good but flirt heavily with fan service laziness. This is not like those books. This is next to ‘The Emperor’s Gift’ or ‘Ahriman: Sorcerer’ or ‘Ravenor Returned’. It’s a goddamn beautiful masterpiece. This is all that’s needed to cement Chris Wraight in the ‘great BL writers’ canon, but luckily, he’s dropped quite a few gems since this came out. If it wasn’t for ‘Scars’ being even better, I’d call it perfect… as it is… 9/10

"Mechanicum" by Graham McNeill

It’s weird to think that this book is six years old already, appearing a year after prequel ‘The Kaban Project’ showed up in a Games Day chapbook. I re-read that story as a palate-cleanser before leaping into ‘Mechanicum’, and I’m still not really sold on it… but my memory of ‘Mechanicum’ is mostly positive, perhaps even "the point at which Graham got good". Let’s see how my second read-through of this book (first read-through in a few years), leaves me feeling.

"Hah! Now I'll never lose my assault cannon again... Oh, fuck. I've only gone and glued my hand to my chest!"

The Mechanicum, then. A very different organisation to the Adeptus Mechanicus of ‘modern’ times. Early on in the book, it's described as “competitive, uncooperative, suspicious and insular”. It’s a bit of a mystery, and as you might have gathered from the title, this book features the organisation heavily. So how does it do at presenting this force (in some ways as significant in the Heresy as the Legiones Astartes)? Wellllllll…

I’d forgotten that the ostensible main character is a woman, Dalia Cythera. Considering how female characters have tended to fare in Graham’s HH novels, this might be a bad sign. Right off the bat, we learn that she’s a teenage prodigy with a photographic memory. Awful visions of a Graham-penned Lisbeth Salander occurred me, but that’s not something that happens here luckily (though she does have the Repressed Psyker trait, long before it became a ridiculously common plot device in HH). However, we do start with a bit of a howler: Mistress Zeth, our heroine’s apparent benefactor, is based in a forge complex built on a lake of magma. I mean, even in the frequently nonsensical universe of 40K, this seems like a stupid thing to do. Graham can try to cover that one with pseudo-science but amongst all the robots built using human corpses and spaceships that look like city-sized cathedrals, this really stands out as a bad idea. I’m sure it won’t be used as a convenient plot device in the shocking finale.

Simultaneous to the introduction of Dalia, a group of three patrolling Knight Paladins encounter the Kaban Machine as it attacks a facility they are defending. This section reminds me that Graham is great at writing mechanised combat sequences and also gives us some background: political and ideological tensions have been growing on Mars, but not to the point that armed conflict between two elements of the Mechanicum isn’t a huge shock to these Knights. In the aftermath of the Kaban Machine conflict, we see a council of Titan Legio commanders assemble in the hopes of averting a disaster. This is another great scene that gives us further insight into the culture of the rival Titan factions, particularly the arrogant, sinister Legio Mortis. I know I often complain when a HH character is unambiguously villainous from the beginning, sapping their betrayal of any dramatic weight, but goddamn, Graham has made a satisfyingly evil antagonist here.

With that, Graham’s set up the two narratives he’s going to flick between for the rest of the book. The growing hostility between the Martian factions, and Dalia’s quest to DO A THING with the help of her plucky team of misfits. Dalia’s colleagues are nowhere near as engaging as I’d remembered, and they’re all fairly shallow and archetypal. For example, Zouche is an example of the fantasy Dwarf, going beyond his diminutive height; bellicose, bluff, tactless. I chose him as an example because he’s the only one whose backstory and motivations are interesting (actually, it provides a really useful insight to pre-Unity Terra). The rest of them are just pretty boring. Dalia herself quickly becomes a bit of a damsel. For example, when she’s motivated by empathy to save a psyker caught in an experiment gone wrong, she just makes the situation worse. Her intent is admirable but her actions are truly fucking stupid and all the screaming and crying just makes me think of that dreadful character in ‘Honour to the Dead’. That dumb incident, though, does set the narrative lurching forward. Given a terrifying glimpse of forbidden knowledge, Dalia now develops her own agenda.

Scrapcode plays an important part in ‘Mechanicum’, though the way it shows Kelbor-Hal’s corruption through AN EVUL CHAOS COMPUTAR VIRAS is pretty dumb. But the spread of devastation across Mars caused by the code is nicely done. There’s a great, tense scene showing a Titan confrontation with the first combat use of the corrupted scrapcode. Abnett did write this better in ‘Know No Fear’ – but still, the High Noon-style standoff between Legio Tempestus and Legio Mortis is a great moment.

I’ve used the ‘d’ word earlier in the review. Let me just take an overly long detour to elaborate on this ‘damsel’ thing. Like many of Graham’s female characters, Dalia just wants a big strong man to hold her and tell her it’s all OK. Am I exaggerating? A little bit, but not much. On reading Dalia’s sections of the book, my main feeling was “I really don’t remember it being this bad”. (Then again, I also remember the techno-friends’ dragonquest road trip being most of the book, while it actually doesn’t even start until over halfway through, so my memory is clearly unreliable.) She’s mostly capable and useful in a support capacity… but when there IS a combat situation, Dalia loses her shit. I’m torn on whether to condemn this or not. On the one hand, a standard human non-combatant without any kind of combat training would probably be utterly terrified if huge evil robots were trying to kill them. So maybe I should applaud Graham for realistic character actions. But from another perspective, this focuses so much on a female character’s weeping hysterics that it comes close to being a defining trait. 

I’m not saying a conscious decision has been made to show that women are weaker or more cowardly than men… but that’s the message I get, especially when her male companions’ response (also fear) is barely focused on. Compare to, say, Abnett in the Gaunt’s Ghosts series, where he is excellent at showing the bowel-destroying fear troopers both male and female encounter in combat: the portrayal is a lot more subtle and even-handed and, to my recollection, never falls back to simplistic pantomime overreactions. Yeah, yeah, not every writer can be Dan, and not every reader gives a fuck about this aspect of 40K; in fact from what I can tell, a lot of Black Library fans are deeply resentful of any ‘agenda’ they suspect of being pushed regarding gender equality in the grim darkness on the future. But this goes beyond my flag-waving political correctness, it’s just lazy character writing. I think Graham’s come a long way with this stuff for sure, but that doesn’t make this, ‘Fulgrim’ or ‘False Gods’ any less tough to read. I absolutely do give him credit for Adept Zeth though: she illustrates that Graham makes no distinction between the men and women of the Mechanicum. It's a shame, then, that she's barely developed as a character, only having time for a few interesting hints of something more to her than there first appears before her premature end.

That’s just a little lecture about the evils of gender role stereotyping comin’ to you from a guy who listens mostly to misogynistic rap music and is scared to even talk to women. Fuck this blog, right?

In the last part of the novel, we see the long-promised civil war finally erupt on Mars. The rise of Kelbor-Hal’s ‘Dark Mechanicum’, while lacking any subtlety, gives us some great scenes. The repercussions are felt even on Terra, where Malcador and Dorn worry about Mars even as they resolve to first squash Horus at Isstvan V. (Dorn and the Sigillite’s portrayal as close confidants here is certainly at odds with what’s come since – but that’s something which understandably happens a fair bit in these early books.) I loved that brief mention of Sor Talgron's creepy machinations; it feels like ‘The Purge’ was in the pipeline for years, perhaps ADB’s Word Bearer domination delayed it a bit?

After a spectacular Titan battle, the book ends, quite suddenly. My feeling is that Dalia’s fate is a setup for some 40K novel or event (possibly even Graham’s ‘Mars’ series, which I’ve not started yet) since it certainly doesn’t look like it’ll have any future relevance for the Horus Heresy. When thinking back on that section of the book, then, it’s hard to restrain the feeling of “who gives a fuck?” Like ‘Nemesis’, that’d be fine if the story was original or interesting to act as a ‘standalone’, but to be brutally honest, I just don’t think it’s strong enough. Meanwhile, the Civil War thread spends most of its time building agendas and characters embroiled in this power struggle, only to ultimately murder most of them in a riot of Forge-destroying violence. Graham has a tendency to do this with his characters; see the III Legion officers in ‘Angel Exterminatus’. I applaud him for killing almost indiscriminately – this is WAR, after all – but couldn’t he leave some room for series-spanning character arcs? With the Loyalist forces near-annihilated, I don’t know this ‘war’ will continue, but keep in mind this was only a snapshot of the conflict focusing on a ‘small’ but significant part of Mars. Ultimately, we leave ‘Mechanicum’ with a fairly limited context for how the planet-wide struggle is going.

Through this book, Graham’s dialogue is sometimes a little shaky. For someone who’s keen on characters making some big, portentous speeches, there are a few too many “fair enough”s and “I suppose”s here; the casual nature of it seems forced, and context-inappropriate. But that’s a minor issue. The structure of ‘Mechanicum’ is not dissimilar to ‘Deliverance Lost’, in that full-blown action only occurs near the end of the book. Possibly encouraged by ‘Legion’, this book skirts a cautious acceptance that BL readers don’t need a battle every fifty pages to maintain their interest.

There is dumbness galore here, not on ‘Battle For The Abyss’ levels, but sometimes close. Kelbor-Hal’s rather literal manifestation of ‘corrupted data’ calls for Michael Biehn to blast him with a shotgun and rasp “needs a reboot” or “reformat THIS, sucker!” or similar. Something about Graham’s books, especially during this era, screams “80s action movie”. Often really dumb and fun to read, but sometimes you find yourself thinking “That’s some fucking stupid shit.” The ancient Adept our heroes meet on their quest for the Dragon of Mars is dripping with ‘Writing for Nutsos 101’ clichés to the extent that I’m surprised he doesn’t shriek “Mad! They called me mad! Blind fools!” Mind you, sometimes the craziness is a boon. For example, the bizarre story of how the Dragon of Mars was imprisoned by the Emperor and how it’s linked to the origins of the Imperium… it’s so bonkers I’ve actually got to love it. Oh, apparently, most readers more au fait with the current 40K fluff than me concluded from hints in the book that the Dragon was actually a C’Tan. I don’t really know what that means or give that much of a fuck, I just thought I’d mention it.

As usual for a Graham book early in the Heresy series, criticism can be made of the lack of character ambiguity. Kelbor-Hal and his cronies are never less than loathsome; Adept Zeth, while occasionally heartless, is pure as snow when it comes to loyalty to the Imperium. Consider Deltrian, the Adept in the Night Lords series by ADB – that was a character whose portrayal showed clearly the Mechanicum was about as subject to black and white notions of “good” and “evil” as the shadowy upper echelons of the Imperium were. To show either side as cackling monsters or stern-faced saints seems to cheapen the schism a bit.

You might be able to tell how this is going from all this complaining. Sadly, re-reading ‘Mechanicum’ was less enjoyable than I had hoped. Perhaps the first time I read it I was relieved at the slight uptick in quality compared to ‘Fulgrim’ and ‘False Gods’ – after all, this time Graham wasn’t shitting all over characters Dan had written brilliantly. Yet at a second glance, his characterisation and dialogue hadn’t got any less shallow. The book also takes a great deal longer to get started than I remember; while I do like the intrigue of the Martian power moves, I don’t think Dalia and co. turn out to be worth the time spent on them. Only Zouche is interesting and the weird blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hint that he might have a deeper, more sinister agenda makes me hope we’ll see him again.

And speaking of that...

I’m still very interested in the Mechanicum storyline in HH and it’s a real shame it’s been dormant this long. Like most early HH Graham books, I can’t help but wish Graham had put the good bits (notably the Titan and Knight combat) in a novella and someone else had tackled the bits which called for more subtlety, like the actual culture of the Martian priests, or the behind-the-curtain political manoeuvres of Horus’ emissaries, or the motivations of Kelbor-Hal for revolt (beyond a couple sloppy pages which are the equivalent of some asshole saying "WE'LL GIVE YOU GOLD!"). I’m ‘bout to throw out some dream roster shit. David Annandale would have been great to write about the Dragon of Mars stuff, John French could have been excellent for Mechanicum Machiavellian plotting, Chris Wraight could have shown the actual day-to-day logistics of Mars’ government and how it interacts with the Munitorum, Aaron could have shown the claustrophobic desperation of the Imperial Fists’ scramble to secure supplies… OK, the involvement of all of those authors with the Heresy series was some way off. But I’d also nominate Matthew Farrer, with his excellent ability to write about the 40K Mechanicus (or the Heresy Mechanicum, as ‘Vorax’ showed), as a person who could have made this book the visceral, disturbing novel it should have been. Of course, Dan would be my first choice for rewriting any of the first 10 HH books, but Dan was cooking up some marvellous shit about Prospero during this time, I think… I realise I seem to trash McNeill quite a bit on this blog, but with his “PurpleHeresy’s Most Improved” medal for ‘Angel Exterminatus’ and ‘Vengeful Spirit’, Graham himself would be a nice choice for a sequel.

Anyway, all this wishlisting is a waste of time, since Rob Sanders is apparently in line to come in with the sequel for this in novella form sometime next year. Here’s hoping that he will at least be able to match the original.

Well, I went in with a positive attitude, no one can deny that... but this falls short of the greatness it deserves – like too many of the early Heresy books. Y’all haters who shit on ‘Deliverance Lost’ and ‘Angel Exterminatus’ might need to re-read the late-2000s novels and check whether it really was all better back in the day. 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.

"Child Of Night" by John French / "Daemonology" by Chris Wraight

Well, my ‘Mechanicum’ review has stalled a bit. I’ve been distracted by other stuff the last couple months, most recently the World Of Fire And Ice ‘history’ book from George RR Martin but also Borderlands 2 – great video game, horrible writing – and listening to YG’s mixtape Just Re’d Up 2 an unhealthy number of times. THAT’S ON THE SET, HOMIE

Enough about NON BLACK LIBRARY LIFE! I know what people come to this blog for, when they come at all…

So as you might have gathered from a few comments in previous reviews, when I found out ‘Legacies Of Betrayal’ was no novella collection but an apparently randomly selected grab-bag of previously available material, with only two stories included that weren’t already out there in some form (‘Spirit Of The Conqueror’ by ADB and ‘Serpent’ by John French) I was… bitter. My resentment grew a little when I saw that ‘Spirit Of The Conqueror’ was included in ‘Death And Defiance’ as a teaser for ‘Legacies’, and it turned out to only be a few pages long. I’d like to believe that was just an extract from ‘Spirit’, not the full text, but… I’m not optimistic.

Yet my resentment has ebbed a bit in the last couple weeks. It’s been announced that the fourth Forge World Horus Heresy book, ‘Conquest’, dealing with the Sons Of Horus and Death Guard’s actions post-Isstvan V, has a ‘Winter 2014’ release date. We’ve also been told that Andy Smilie’s Flesh Tearers book, ‘Sons Of Wrath’, will deal with events surrounding the Chapter’s founding, meaning it’ll be immediately post-Heresy, a time period I’m extremely interested in. That’ll be out December as well (earlier, if you want the First Edition). Hell, the great audio drama ‘Parting Of The Ways’ released in October dealt memorably with the post-Heresy period for the Space Wolves, and their slow decline before and after Russ’ disappearance. In terms of the Heresy series proper, ‘Master Of The First’ was a (surprisingly) gripping Gav Thorpe audio drama about the Fallen Angels on Caliban, and Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s long-awaited continuation of the Sevatar story, ‘The Long Night’, will hopefully follow this month, also in audio form. The first Garro audio drama in well over a year, ‘Shield Of Lies’, is set to drop in early December. And no doubt the Black Library Weekender will see a bit more of 2015’s release schedule information announced, including confirmation of the 32^nd book in the HH series, and hopefully cover art too. All in all, Quarter 4 of 2014 is not looking as much a fallow field for HH enthusiasts as I worried it could be.

Anyway, I’m not here to talk about that. I’ve already reviewed ‘Death And Defiance’, and I’ll hopefully review ‘Master Of The First’ soon. This is about two ‘Digital Monday’ shorts Black Library released this week and last week, providing further reassurance that they still give a fuck about the HH series, and that they in fact have some of their best guys on it.

AWW MAN WE GOT DIFFERENT COLOURS AND ALSO SKULLS

“Child Of Night” by John French: Fel Zharost, First Librarian of the Night Lords, is a character we’ve not met before as far as I recall. And, well, there’s a reason for that: as this story starts, he’s been an outcast from his Legion for many years, and is hiding in the ‘sinks’ on Terra – the dark underground cities/prisons which the Night Lords originally took their recruits from, and where Fel Zharost’s life began. The Terran days of the Eighth were an element John French expanded on brilliantly with Alan Bligh in the Forge World book ‘Massacre’, and he flawlessly transposes that ‘fluff’ to a narrative setting here.

Child Of Night’ flashes back to key moments of his lengthy service, beginning with the first time he encounters Astartes and his psychic gift manifests – a memorable and excellent scene, which establishes the ambiguous nature of Zharost’s relationship with his Legion. We also touch on the period where the Eighth were the ‘watchdogs’ of Unity, bringing the Emperor’s retribution down on untrustworthy allies and traitors using torture, psychological warfare and terror tactics. Zharost fulfils these duties with aplomb, but no particular relish. We see Zharost’s disgust and disillusionment with the changing culture of the Eighth writ large in a tense confrontation between himself and Sevatar over the Edict of Nikea, a scene which shows both men letting their masks slip more than they would like. Last but not least, we see Zharost’s present: cornered by an Astartes from an unknown Legion in the prison sinks of his birth, the Librarian feels that the Emperor’s justice has come to him at last for his neglect of his duties. But COULD THINGS BE QUITE AS THEY APPEAR? Erm, well, no.

You know what makes a short story damn near classic? A compelling lead character, and Fel sure fits that bill. A Terran, and a psyker, we get the feeling he considered himself something of an unwelcome presence among the Nostramans, who have been known to distrust witches. (Anti-Terran feeling doesn’t seem to have been prominent in the Eighth, but not all of a Night Lord’s paranoia needs to be warranted.) He also seems to have been less gleeful than many of his Terran kin about the Legion’s shift into manic sadism. Event after this quite short story, I’m very eager to see where Zharost’s story goes – if the heavily-implied truth is that he’s going to be a new Knight Errant, I think he might be an excellent fit with Garro, Loken and co; as an older, Terran Legionary, he could be a replacement for Iacton Qruze (though of a darker hue). Due to his psychic gifts, Zharost also seems like a possible candidate for a founding Grey Knights Grandmaster as well – which would certainly upset the fan theory that Sevatar was one of the first heroes of the 666^th Chapter.

The writing is excellent throughtout; Frenchie really seems like one of the most reliable authors in BL right now – I’m really looking forward to whatever his next project is, and I hope he gets a crack at another Knights Errant story in the near future. With this, and ‘A Safe And Shadowed Place’, a cynical man might think BL are auditioning authors to take up ADB’s crown as King Of The Night Lords, considering that Aaron has implied he wants a break from HH (perhaps a long one) once ‘Master Of Mankind’ and hopefully ‘Nightfall’ are done. I’m not complaining; Aaron’s left a strong foundation for his colleagues to build on, and Guy Haley and John French have shown they are more than capable of working within the parameters of what’s come before. If what we get is this good – well, I say let the Dark King take his break.

I give this 9/10.

“Daemonology” by Chris Wraight: Oh shit, a MORTARION story! You know I was on it like a bonnet. This is a dual narrative, knocking back and forth between the Death Guard’s assault on the Library World called Terathalion, soon after the events of ‘Scars’, and a confrontation between Mortarion and the Sigillite during the Great Crusade, after he’s been recovered from Barbarus but before he takes command of the then-Dusk Raiders. As I’ve said, I was… dissatisfied by the change in Mortarion’s attitudes between ‘Scars’ and ‘Vengeful Spirit’ regarding sorcery… but I also understood there was room for more fiction between those books to tell us how it got this way. And… well, I was hoping for a whole book, at least a novella, but this story could be it. But guess what? That’s all I need, because ‘Daemonology’ is a perfect bridge between the hardline witch-hunter of ‘Scars’ and the cautious sorcerer of ‘Vengeful Spirit’. Sacking Terathalion to capture one daemonhost human (but also because he loves to destroy worlds, and the fact that this one was beloved of Magnus doesn’t hurt), Mortarion hopes the neverborn will be intimidated enough by his threats of physical pain that they’ll help him understand the horrors of the Warp. Not because he wants to use the Warp, of course; because he wants to be better armoured against its dangers. Is this dude naïve or what? The daemonhost is a great character and its own arrogance and smugness is nicely set against Mortarion’s aggressive ego.

A WALKIN STUDY INN A DAEMONOLOGY HAAAAAYYY

The only thing I’d complain about here is that there was no time to flesh out the Death Guard Legion’s character – great scene of their method of planetstrike, but no captains or line soldiers are given any lines to say, and there’s no indication of how the Death Guard feel about Mortarion’s defeat at Jaghathai’s hands, or his increasingly unstable behaviour. The focus is absolutely on the Death Lord. It's totally understandable, since this is a short story, and I’m really happy with the way he was portrayed, but I think his Legion desperately needs some non-Typhon characters. A shitload of them are going to have to die before or during the Siege, after all.

As for the flashback stem of the ebook, Wraight shows once again that he is the definitive writer for Malcador in the whole HH stable. These flashback scenes are much less action-packed than the ‘modern’ ones, but they contain some welcome fleshing-out of the Death Lord’s character. It shows nicely that Mortarion’s mental state was worrying to the Sigillite, especially considering his open hostility toward many aspects of the Imperium. The way he was placated by the prospect of one day having his day in the sun at Nikea is a great touch.

Mortarion is a wounded monster throughout the whole story, either recovering from his ordeal on Barbarus or his defeat on Prospero – the story catches him at two of his lowest ebbs. Sadly, we know it can only get worse for Morty. But that’s what makes him one of my favourite characters – his tragic fall, and his unbelievable arrogance; he’s utterly convinced he knows better than his father or any of his brothers. This slow and agonising journey into damnation is making up for the hash I think the BL authors made of Fulgrim and Horus’ initial descents. I am daring to hope that since his recent books and stories (both HH and not) have often featured the Death Guard heavily, Chris Wraight may be called to write the next HH Death Guard book which, well, hopefully exists in some form. As much as I enjoy James Swallow, I think Wraight would be the better fit. Mortarion barely featured in ‘Flight Of The Eisenstein’, after all, and Swallow didn’t leave much of a stamp on the 14^th Legion – that book was more about Garro’s journey than his past.

Enough speculation! I’m very happy to give this story 9/10 as well.

One last complaint: I use the Google Chrome free extension Magicscroll to read my Black Library ebooks and goddamn, they look like SHIT. I don’t know if this is a problem with the reader, or with Black Library’s formatting; neither would massively surprise me. Font sizes fluctuate wildly from page to page, the document clearly can barely handle bold and italic fonts being used, let alone both at the same time, and sometimes entire paragraphs – for no reason – are blue hyperlinks to nowhere. It almost – ALMOST – makes me want to buy a Kindle or something in hopes that the text might look a bit better. It’s not going to stop me reading these ebooks, of course, but it is one more reason why I personally favour printed over e-format. Maybe I should stop complaining and find a better ebook reader.

Anyway, apart from that little bit of whining, I’m extremely pleased at the high quality of these short stories. Here’s hoping Digital Monday is HH-focused at least a few times over the rest of this year.

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

"Death And Defiance" (short story collection)

This is a bit of a first for Black Library. A Horus Heresy novella-length hardback which is available at a normal price from the beginning of its publishing cycle. No limited edition at double the cost and then it’s unavailable for two years. No ‘event only’ availability. As pissed off as I am about what I now know regarding 'Legacies Of Betrayal', I’m glad Black Library can pleasantly surprise me with stuff like ‘Death And Defiance’. 

Fulgrim looks like fucking shit! What is this, a Conan book?

Despite what I personally think is one of the worst pieces of HH cover art in years and years, I was fucking PUMPED to buy this collection right after Warhammer Fest finished and it went on sale on the BL site (with surprisingly little fanfare). There are five stories here, written by some old faces and some new. Let’s get right into them.

Imperfect by Nick Kyme: Nick is very uneven as a writer, in my opinion – but his audio drama ‘Censure’ is a firm favourite of mine, and the micro-story ‘Phoenician’, concerned with Fulgrim and Ferrus’ Isstvan showdown, impressed me a lot. So I was excited to find he would be tackling those characters again in this collection. Here, Fulgrim and Ferrus face off across a regicide board, but is their good-natured banter all that good-natured? Is this regicide game everything that it seems? Any time that question is posed, the answer’s going to be “no”, isn’t it? Man, at this stage of the storyline, I would kind of get a kick out of it if the regicide game was just some flashback to happier times (ending with a soft-focus montage of Ferrus and Fulgrim riding their bikes, laughing, while Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Glory Days’ plays). But that’s not what’s cooking here. Since this is Purple Heresy and not a site by actual professionals who put effort and journalistic ethics into making good reviews, I’m just gonna spoil the shit out of this. The ascended Daemon Prince Fulgrim has cloned Ferrus Manus many, many times and is playing a regicide game against each one – I believe the story implies that he is trying to see if there is some chain of events or line of reasoning he can put into play that would result in Ferrus’ loyalty switching to Fulgrim (and Horus) rather than the Emperor. Sadly, each attempt ends in failure, with each clone trying to kill Fulgrim and failing. You’d have to eventually say, could we not just play 2-player Halo or something?

I do really like some elements of this story. Nick’s Fulgrim is different to the preening, histrionic drama queen Graham sketched so entertainingly in ‘Angel Exterminatus’. Here, Fulgrim is more subdued, more guilty, and his actions – if not his internal monologue – seem to present him as deeply ashamed of his failure to turn Ferrus, and the fratricidal incident this led to. He seems desperate to right this wrong in some way. An interesting twist on the characterisation of Fulgrim so far; we’ll see if it’s taken further.

I feel there is meant to be some big, shocking implication to the fact Fabius has some cloned infant with a “Cthonian birthmark” in his laboratory, but I assume this is foreshadowing for the cloning of Horus – something Aaron already wrote about in ‘The Talon Of Horus’. Then again, it seems a little early in the HH timeline for that event hundreds of years in the future to start getting set up, which means maybe this is going to tie into a different Sons Of Horus cloning plot. I think it’s too early to really give a fuck. Maybe he’s cloned Loken so there can be an evil Loken in the Mournival? At this stage I would not be surprised if Fabius was growing cloned Cthonian babies so that he could eat them alive just for kicks. I like the III Legion a lot so whoever writes them, I’ll read it, but after my initial optimism, it doesn't look like Nick Kyme plus Emperor’s Children is guaranteed to always be good. That new 40k Salamanders book he wrote sounds kind of interesting, but I’m still not hugely into the idea of another Horus Heresy novel by him. I bet it’s coming whether I like it or not, though. This one I give 7/10.

Howl Of The Hearthworld by Aaron Dembski-Bowden: A pack of Space Wolves bitterly protests their assignment as ‘watchpack’ to Rogal Dorn, then eventually accepts it. They get on a ship and start on some poor clerk guy. That’s pretty much the events right there, though of course there’s more depth to it that I’m not doing justice to. I probably won’t write much on this (I think it’s the shortest story here). My gut reaction is that these seven warriors will end up being the only Space Wolves present on Terra for the Siege, and will probably play some significant/tragic role there. Maybe we’ll see more character development before then, maybe they’ll start a brawl with Bror Tyfingr and get murdered, maybe they’ll never even reach Terra. The Space Wolves here did seem interesting and I certainly want to find out more about them, but as in some moments of ‘The Talon Of Horus’, it feels like Aaron is over-writing some of this stuff. I’m not saying every 40K novel has to be bleak, hard-bitten Mike Hammer type shit, but – though I hate to say it – it means that Aaron’s Space Wolves are just not as enjoyable to me as Abnett’s or Wraight’s. This would be fine (as different portrayals of the same Chapter are equally valid in 40K) if I didn’t feel like he was aiming for the same exact area as those two but JUST missing it. It may grow on me over time, but at this point I’d say ‘Howl Of The Hearthworld’ is the least enjoyable Horus Heresy material Aaron’s ever produced. Still, I didn’t like ‘Betrayer’ at first either. For now, I give this 7/10.

A Safe And Shadowed Place by Guy Haley: With Aaron’s portrayal of the Night Lords perhaps one of the most widely loved explorations of a Legion, it’s not easy to step into the Horus Heresy with a Night Lords story. Guy Haley has written relatively little Heresy fiction, but with ‘Shards Of Erebus’ and ‘Strike And Fade’ he showed he could stand with the big boys. I also really enjoyed his ‘Hunter’s Moon’ audio drama. Fucking good thing I did, because less than a year later it will be taking up like 20 pages in the "new" story collection ‘Legacies Of Betrayal’. That’s a rant for a different time, though. It’s ballsy that Guy’s jumping in with a direct sequel to ‘Prince Of Crows’, one of the fan favourites of the HH canon. He doesn’t follow Sevatar’s arc, of course (apparently set to continue in audio drama format this year); if anyone but ADB handled that, there would be riots in the streets. Instead, ‘A Safe And Shadowed Place’ deals with Skraivok, a Night Lords officer whose badly damaged ship has limped to the borders of Ultramar following the Dark Angels’ battering of the Night Lords fleet. Abandoned by the few captains that were accompanying him, he struggles to deal with his fractious command and the frustratingly slow repair of his vessel. The waters are muddied by Krukesh the Pale (a minor but memorable presence in ‘Prince Of Crows’) showing up with a much larger Night Lords fleet and starting to throw his weight around.

Guy seems to have studied Aaron’s Night Lord characterisation very closely, but he puts a lot of ideas in there that are clearly his own as well. While I wouldn’t call any of the characters here staggeringly original, Guy is a good writer of both action and dialogue, and while Sev’s barbed witticisms are sorely missed, there is some bleak humour here. I can’t believe Black Library let him put in the moment where our VIII Legion hero idly thinks to himself that a female bridge officer “looked like a screamer”. Yeah, I know he was supposedly thinking it in the context of considering skinning her alive, but… I’m pretty sure the innuendo was intentional. Hilarious.This was the first story in the book where I didn’t feel a vague sense of disappointment after reading it. With a growing Night Lords fleet presence lurking near Sotha, and Kurze still apparently on Macragge intending to wreak yet more havoc on Imperium Secundus, I’d assume this story is a one-off intended as further VIII Legion antagonistic setup for Dan’s sequel to ‘The Unremembered Empire’ – but I’d certainly not object to more Guy Haley Night Lords stories. 8/10.

Virtues Of The Sons by Andy Smilie: I think this might be the first Andy Smilie Horus Heresy story. He’s more famous for writing a lot of 40K-era audio dramas and novels, most of which seem to be about the Flesh Tearers. Black Library’s frequent attitude of thinking someone is perfect for Horus Heresy books about a Legion because they write about that Chapter or its successors in 40K books has not always resulted in the highest quality books. Here, though, I reckon they’re on to something. Smilie obviously has a real ‘feel’ for this Chapter and is keen to get his teeth into their origin story. Of course, Amit, ‘the Flesh Tearer’, the possibly-Khornate Blood Angels warrior with anger management and impulse control issues, is a prominent character in this story, but it’s not all about him. Sanguinius and a Blood Angel called Azkaellon are also heavily featured. Primarch writing is always tough, I think, but Smilie writes Sanguinius possibly a little better than James Swallow did (yes, that is a compliment, I really liked ‘Fear To Tread’). As for Azkaellon, his juxtaposition with Amit makes me think he’s also going to be a Blood Angels Successor Chapter founder, but I can’t be sure about that. I could do some research, but I kind of prefer to be surprised in this case.

This kind of has the opposite problem to a lot of HH fiction: it’s very well written, but the events here, taken by themselves seem a little insignificant. The cynical side of me thinks this is a little bit of foundation-laying for ‘Sons Of Wrath’, the book about the first years of the Flesh Tearers Chapter following the end of the Heresy and Sanguinius’ death. I was planning to buy that book anyway, since immediately post-Heresy fiction interests me almost as much as the HH series itself, but knowing Smilie writes this well made me realise it’s going to be a mandatory purchase. Perhaps I’ll be grateful for ‘Virtues Of The Sons’ once ‘Sons Of Wrath’ is out, but for now, I’m giving this 7/10

Gunsight by James Swallow: My lengthy and quite whiny review of ‘Nemesis’ may have mentioned that this story was on the cards. I don’t know if anyone was after a ‘Nemesis’ sequel starring Kell the Vindicare Assassin; ‘Nemesis’ wasn’t super-well received and I get the impression most people thought Kell died at the end. But fuck me, this is really good. Kell is aboard the Vengeful Spirit, a lone gunman in the truest sense, consumed by an obsessive desire to finish his mission. The way that Horus’ shift in allegiances has changed the Spirit is really well captured; I liked what Graham did in his book, but I think Swallow just has a more evocative way with scene-setting. He also tackles one of my favourite themes in the 40K universe: the insidiousness of Chaos, and how easy it is to be corrupted especially when you believe yourself incorruptible. This is the other side of the coin shown in the Gaunt’s Ghosts series, where Gaunt and his men are able to overcome the darkness by clinging to their faith and their basic human decency. Kell is not so lucky. Still, there are some surprising twists along the way, and the door is very much open for a continuation of Kell’s ‘mission’ (in a way). I almost wanted a full-blown ‘Nemesis’ sequel after this… well, maybe just a novella, since this also reinforced my opinion that James Swallow is really good at short stories. Him becoming a near-exclusive audio drama/short story guy is a smart deployment of his talents. Against all odds, this is an excellent story; I give it 9/10.

So overall, this book didn’t have a collection of top-notch stories, but considering my least favourite was one of the shortest and my favourite was the longest, I can forgive a little inconsistency. I hope Black Library releases these a bit more frequently. It might take the sting off them apparently thinking a HH story anthology’s primary function is to be a fucking recycling dump. In the midst of all my bitter ranting I give this one 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.

"Nemesis" by James Swallow

Damn, it has taken me QUITE A WHILE to write this review...

Just noticed this book is dedicated to Aaron & Katie. Awww.

‘Nemesis’ opens “two years after the betrayal of Isstvan”, though whether that’s two years since the virus bombs fell on the Choral City or two years since the Urgall Depression became the galaxy’s largest graveyard isn’t really clear. In the ‘cold open’, we catch up with the Sons Of Horus, who’ve spent the past years rampaging through the Imperium, converting or crushing the planets they’ve found. Some poor jobber has been sent to kill Horus, a pretty poor choice for a novel’s opening gambit really, since we are automatically going to have zero stake in this assassin character. (I guess they could have said Horus was actually killed at this point, and ‘Horus’ for the rest of the war was just Alpharius.) Anyway, after that dumb mislead, we see the political manoeuvring that’s already rife in Horus’ high command, here summed up in a bitter argument between Erebus and Luc Sedirae. Since I know the, erm, developments in Sedirae's story later in the book, I read his sections with greater attentiveness than before, and I think Swallow rounds out the character very nicely, giving him an undercurrent of seething frustration at the slow pace the campaign is taking.

This turns out to be ANOTHER mislead and we’re off to the setting of one of our primary plot strands, Iesta Veracrux. Yosef Sabrat is our first protagonist, basically veteran cop-dude-man, having to investigate a series of horrific murders on this apparently unimportant world (which mainly exports wine). I do kind of like these sections as it’s nice to see a different side of the 30K Universe. This thread is a nice study of how a normal Imperial agri-world can be torn apart without an invasion force landing, all it takes is some dark suspicions from the general populace and fear, paranoia, misinformation does the work – it reminds me a bit of ‘Liar’s Due’ in that way. I kind of hoped Swallow would go all the way with this cop drama and make it into a real ‘whodunnit’ story. But less than 80 pages in, we find out who the culprit is – a malevolent entity called Spear. What do I mean? Well, it’s a little unclear what Spear really is, but more on that later: he can definitely change his identity to people who he’s killed (hey, just like the shittest ever Buffy villain).

Meanwhile, on Terra they’re setting up the other main plot strand of ‘Nemesis’. The leaders of the six ‘clades’ of the Officio Assassinorum are meeting in secret, with their faces masked, all weepy about their failure to get rid of Horus. Back when I played 40k there were 4 assassin types, but here there are also Vanus and Venenum, who are information-gatherers and poisoners respectively. (Unlikely to make an appearance in tabletop games, but I guess they’re probably popular with 40k roleplayers.) We also have the ‘classic’ clades: Vindicare (snipers), Eversor (berserkers), Culexus (psyker-killers) and Callidus (shape-shifting infiltrators). Quickly the clade leaders come up with a pretty obvious scheme: why not send one member of each clade to kill Horus, working together as a team, rather than individually? To which the reader might say, shit, why not send TWO of each team? Or three? Or in the immortal words of Gary Oldman, EVERRRRRYYYYOONNNE!!!!!!! Anyway, they’re certain that Dagonet, near to where the Sons Of Horus are fighting, is where The Archtraitor will pop his head up and boom bang bing, they’re gonna cap that fool.

The seventh operator here, the Master of Assassins, turns out to be Malcador, which pulls ‘Nemesis’ into the ‘Silent War’ category of HH novels I’m very fond of. I love all these surreptitious political shenanigans on Terra. Another important character in the Imperial thread is Constantin Valdor, the Chief Custodes. An important character, and I think this book is the first to flesh him out. In fact, he’s the one who gives the ‘kill order’ on Horus to the execution force. While apparently a major figure on Terra, I really don’t remember much about him – it doesn’t help that to my recollection he’s made only fairly minor appearances and cameos in books so far. I just want more Custodes lore, dammit! Only ones that really made an impression were Aaron’s in ‘First Heretic’, and, well, those guys won’t be back. I don’t know where Valdor’s arc is going, which is probably a good thing – but it’s more due to the vagueness of the character than any great mystery.

There’s a few brief Dorn scenes in the book. He takes the view that as long as Horus heads the rebellion, the traitor forces can be predicted in their actions, so an assassination would be disastrous. Unfortunately, this view makes the assumption that Horus is still the same guy as before. But I guess that’s what you get when you’re happy to stay blinkered on Terra with your head in the sand, only acknowledging things your daddy spoon-feeds you. (Yeah, I know none of that is fair. I’m just venting.) I really don’t understand how anyone can like Dorn, the way he’s been portrayed in the Heresy books at least. Basically, I think until Dan (or maybe John French) writes Dorn again, I will continue to hate on that guy, he’s probably still my least favourite Primarch. I mean Vulkan is dull, but he’s cool at least, and Ferrus is a much bigger asshole, but he’s more interesting than the Emperor’s Praetorian in my opinion… Meanwhile, on Ieasta Veracrux, the staff of a Rogue Trader show up to assist with the investigation into the occult murders. Kind of the equivalent of the FBI showing up in a cop drama and waving their dicks around over jurisdiction. There’s one brief mention here of the Contract of Trade being sealed with a drop of the Emperor’s Blood, and on my second readthrough, this struck me as almost painfully obvious. And here’s where another issue with the ‘detective’ narrative becomes more obvious. We start getting much more effective characterisation and fleshing out of the various investigators – but just as we start to like each of them a bit more, Spear shows up and kills them in short order. And then leaves the planet, so really none of it was too necessary, I guess?

The beginnings of our ‘execution force’ gathering are sort of interesting, as Valdor plays a prominent role. We first meet Vanus operative Fon Tarel. He’s established as a compulsive information-gatherer, which is apparently the main function of his clade – they do not kill directly, they plant misinformation and skilfully manipulate their targets into fatal positions. Right away, you realise Vanus operatives aren’t likely to have much place on a “kill-a-Primarch” mission, but the character doesn’t suck. I really like the brief glimpses we get of the ‘Atalantic Wilderness’ (sic) on Terra, a featureless desert dotted with scavenger gangs where there used to be an ocean, a long time ago. It adds another dimension to the seat of the Imperium and shows that Terra is far from a locked-down, 100% secure safe-haven.

I’m gonna skim over the rest of the Execution Force introductions. The sequences where they gather the team are pretty good, enjoyable action sequences where they show each assassin’s MO and a few of their character traits. The Callidus operative’s ‘groundwork’, wherein the target is psycho-conditioned subtly over a period of weeks, to fall in ‘love’ with the assassin’s cover identity – well, that’s pretty cool. And the setting of the Venenum operative’s introduction – some ancient temple on Terra that’s been reclaimed by the jungle and is being used as a “poison farm” – is also imaginative. Unfortunately the assassins can come across as quite shallow characters based on standard movie/fiction tropes. The Vanus is the nervous, high-strung hacker from any generic thriller or heist movie; if it was an anime he’d push his glasses up his nose all the fucking time. The Vindicare has the standard ‘doesn’t play nice with others’ sniper characteristic, as well as being the ‘conflicted leader’ whose arrogance conceals deeply hidden doubts in his own abilities. The Eversor is the ‘big angry dude’ who just wants to fight all the time and snarls at anyone who tries to assert authority. (So he’s like a Space Wolf from the bad times of Black Library.) I guess the Culexus isn’t hugely clichéd, though I guess an unkind reviewer could say that she’s meant to illustrate how unknowable, strange and cruel women are. (I definitely don’t hate the book enough to argue that, though.) Overall I think she acts a bit like a stereotypical ‘alien trying to learn the ways of humanity’ – socially awkward, emotionless, apart from everyone else. By the nature of her/his/its character, the Callidus is a bit of a cipher, though it’s consistently arrogant and smug. And Jenniker, the poisoner, is the doubting Imperial servant with a hidden conscience, who secretly follows the Imperial Cult. If you’re like me, you could think of a fair few movie characters that fit nicely with those descriptions. I mean, they’re not badly written. There are nice moments showing the tensions between the clades (usually when the Eversor opens his mouth). But I’d have personally preferred a much smaller team with more detailed characters.

So, when the execution squad actually gets to Dagonet, it’s almost fallen to pro-Horus forces already. They decide to prolong the resistance by joining the rebels; that way, Horus may present himself on the planet’s surface. Not a terrible plan, as Horus apparently won a decisive victory on Dagonet early in his military career, so there’s a chance his pride won’t let a prolonged war against him sully his memory of that easy first conquest. Of course, like Dorn’s viewpoint, this plan still hinges on Horus having the same personality as he did pre-rebellion… Meanwhile, Spear takes on the personality of Hyssos, an associate of the Rogue Trader baron, and finding that the Warrant of Trade is on Dagonet, he decides to go there, since if he can get the Emperor’s blood, he can kill the Emperor (apparently). The two storylines are neatly tied together, ready for the third act…

Around this time, Spear begins to lose his shit, as apparently the murdered shade of Josef Sabrat is still able to mess around in Spear’s psyche and occasionally cause him discomfort or even loss of control. This prompts us to flash back to Spear’s backstory, and this is the genesis of the most commonly raised complaint about ‘Nemesis’. Spear is a “Black Pariah”, some combination of a psyker and a psychic blank. Personally, I don’t really care about this botch of the fluff. Sure, it’s pretty broken but I find it easy to reason it away. Maybe Spear is incorrect about what he is. Maybe Erebus mislead him. It’s salvageable (as well as being a very, very small part of a 500+ page novel). But visit any forum discussion on HH and you’ll eventually see people holding the Black Pariah twist up as proof James Swallow has no regard for the fluff and should never write another BL book. This is one of the things I find most baffling about HH fans and also why I don’t hit the forums much. They’ll praise to the heavens books that I personally find mediocre as fuck, like ‘False Gods’ or ‘A Thousand Sons’. Hey, those books respect the fluff – no doubt there. But a book comes along which changes, or just tweaks a tiny aspect of, their beloved lore and it’s just the worst thing ever. See Oll Persson in ‘Know No Fear’, or when exactly the psychic backlash left the palace in ‘The Outcast Dead’, or the Black Pariah in ‘Nemesis’. Stuff I personally feel is of minimal importance in the context of the books (or a drastic improvement of established fluff, in some cases) but which had GW fanboys all but calling for these authors’ beheading. Eugh. Sometimes I really hate the fandom I’m part of.

Just one of the many drawbacks of caring about Warhammer 40,000 I guess.

Anyway, the last act builds the tension nicely, with the Venenum operative following her faith rather than her orders and helping the citizens of Dagonet defend a “holy relic” (which turns out to be the Warrant) from the evil force of Spear, while the Sons Of Horus make planetfall, expecting a fully compliant world. And thus, taken unawares, HORUS IS ASSASSINATED AND GETS HIS CABBAGE POPPED THA HELL OFF, KID! But no, wait, it was just Luc Sedirae wearing some Lupercal-calibre pimp threads. I don’t like this. Sure, the fake Horus is described as being ‘taller’ than his comrades, but shouldn’t Kell have realised “yo, this guy isn’t a fucking giant, so he’s unlikely to be a Primarch, maybe it’s a decoy”? Overall I guess I’m just kind of bummed out that a character I quite like (for no particular identifiable reason; he’s not hugely developed in any of the books) got shuffled off. Anyway, shit gets kind of South Central after that and Space Marines be firin’ into the crowd and shit. This makes the assassins scatter, their hopes of killing Horus pretty much crushed, and all that remains is for Jim to pretty much ‘Wild Bunch’ it, the way I kind of wish Graham did in ‘Vengeful Spirit’ – just kill all his main characters, one by one. While it felt obvious that this was the final destination, it didn’t stop the last battles from being well-written and tense (the Eversor doing a suicide-charge into a full squad of Sons Of Horus is a highlight). The book ends with Kell’s status unclear, possibly dead but apparently piloting his one-man ship directly at the Vengeful Spirit; it’s been rumoured he will feature in a forthcoming HH anthology, so maybe we’ll see him die ‘onscreen’ after all. I also really like the last scene between the clade leaders, with Dorn and Malcador duking it out for the Imperium’s soul before the Emperor has to come in and say “you’re both right but shut up though”. It’s nicely juxtaposed with the last moments with Horus and Erebus. Speaking of that, our time with Erebus certainly sets up his appearance in ‘Fear To Tread’ nicely. So yeah, for all my criticisms, I do commend ‘Nemesis’ for its particularly strong ending (though it gave me such SoH blueballs, I had to go read ‘Little Horus’ right away).

  

So, is this “OMG WORST HH BOOK EVER, MORE WORTHLESS THAN CATTLE FOR THE ABYSS!!!” ? Not really. I don’t think ‘Nemesis’ is a complete island. Even though the narrative thrust of ‘Nemesis’ seems standalone, there’s certainly evidence that Swallow has read the other HH books – he’ll drop allusions and hints in passing. I like the hint that Kell, the Vindicare, may have killed Astartes on assignment before this story (maybe even pre-Heresy…?). The allusions aren’t just to HH stuff. There’s a possible ‘Firefly’ reference when the Garantine, the Eversor assassin, is given his weapons and reacts with almost orgasmic joy; he gleefully says “I’ll be in my bunk” and walks off… Jayne? Jayne is that you? My days of taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle. What about the quality of the writing? Like I’ve said before, I think James Swallow is a good writer – not ‘great’, like AD-B with his well-rounded characters with subtle and broad emotional palettes, or Dan Abnett’s poetic and elegant style. But good. Solidly good. He writes briskly, the plot zips along, the dialogue has some sting to it, and if a cliché comes along, it’s usually a sci-fi cliché rather than a specific 40K cliché. Having said that, I don’t like all the choices he made here – the way the action cuts abruptly between Spear and the Execution force a few times in each chapter is something I find quite jarring. As for the actual content of the story…? Well…

Armchair BL Executive time: I’d have released ‘Nemesis’ in a vastly different way. I still think there’s a lot of worth to it… but powering through it as a novel, I found pretty tough going. Shit, you know I always try to be positive in my reviews and I have to say I found this much less readable than books like ‘Fulgrim’ or even ‘Vulkan Lives’, which I didn’t like at all. Personally, here’s what I might have pushed to be done with this material, if I was in the position where people actually gave a shit…

• The coming together of the assassin team? I’d have cut this down pretty drastically, pushed it together with the Valdor and clade leader stuff, and put it in an audio drama, probably concluding with the team learning who their target was. In a lot of ways this was a nice scene-setter, but I don’t think we need THIS much interaction between these, frankly, quite shallow characters.
• The detective story/Spear’s establishment? It was well-written, and I enjoyed it – but the oddly rushed conclusion to it, the surprisingly small importance it has to the later part of the book, makes me want to scrap this altogether. All I can say is that if James Swallow had used this as a basis for a non-BL novel, I’d have probably enjoyed it quite a lot more.
• Spear and the Execution Squad’s ultimate confrontation: Absolutely enough awesomeness here for a solid novella. You’d have to put a bit more explanation about Spear (or, to be honest, just make him a powerful warrior bound to a daemon, and forget the pariah/absorbed personalities angle) and add a paragraph about Eristede and Jenniker’s family ties, but you could pretty much publish, like, page 350 through to page 500 as they stand, and it’d probably be fine.

Anyway. I don’t think there’s a problem with HH self-contained books featuring casts who haven’t appeared before, and won’t appear again. I liked ‘Damnation Of Pythos’ a lot, after all, and that also kind of describes how Tallarn will most likely be handled in the HH line, and that’s fucking great so far. (And if we look at the opposite approach, remember how much people HATED Graham putting his 40K Iron Warriors into ‘Angel Exterminatus’). But… this was the wrong time to slot ‘Nemesis’ into the Heresy lineup, in my opinion. Not that it did any long-term damage to the series. I’m sure a few people thought ‘Oh man, the Horus Heresy series is fucked now’ and then the next novel was ‘The First Heretic’. Lastly, I think it’s worth mentioning that this probably has the most female-heavy cast of any Horus Heresy novel; maybe I should stop beating this particular drum, but it’s kind of shameful how few books have non-male characters, and for that, if little else, ‘Nemesis’ gets some real respect from me. But the INCREDIBLY overstuffed length, the rather dry first half of the book, and the sneaking suspicion that we don’t need an Assassinorum 30K book because apparently very little has changed in that organisation between 30K and 40K… well, all these things hurt ‘Nemesis’ badly. I am slapping it with a 6/10 for now (but ‘Fear To Tread’ is still really good, fuck all y’all haters).

Finally, here’s a song by Tom Waits called ‘Big Black Pariah’, about how much Tom hates James Swallow (?).

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