"The Lion" by Gav Thorpe

I suspect (though, of course, cannot confirm) that ‘The Lion’ was supposed to be immediately followed by ‘Prince of Crows’ to close out ‘The Primarchs’. Chronology-wise, the two stories are as firmly linked, in their way, as ‘Feat of Iron’ and ‘Promethean Sun’; arguably more so, as ‘Crows’ seems to follow ‘The Lion’ by a matter of days. But, of course, that’s not how the table of contents ended up. It’s not impossible to believe that Aaron was a little late with the story – but then, if this was the case, one looks at the sheer quality of ‘Prince of Crows’ and thinks “Well, I don’t mind waiting.”

Still one of the cooler Legion sigils.

‘The Lion’ is a sequel to ‘Savage Weapons’, and we join the First Legion as they continue to prosecute the Night Lords in the Thramas crusade. It’s also a sequel to ‘Fallen Angels’, as it picks up Nemiel’s storyline again. However, ‘The Lion’ goes to some places you might not expect from those two starting points. Mere pages in, we’re off to a planet called Perditus (Oh, Games Workshop, I do so enjoy your creatively named planets) as the Lion chooses to go and interfere in a conflict between the Iron Hands and Death Guard, leaving the bulk of his Legion to keep fighting in Thramas. Aside from a brief cameo, Kurze’s mob aren’t here, though by the novella’s close, the Lion has procured the device necessary to break the Thramas deadlock – hence tying this story in to the terrific drubbing the Angels give the Night Lords not once but twice in ‘Prince of Crows’, the impact of which would only have increased if ‘Crows’ had been the last novella here – but I’ve said enough about that already.

I don’t think I’m alone in considering AD-B’s ‘Savage Weapons’ the best Dark Angels Heresy fiction so far. Gav tries hard to follow up that compelling portrait of the secretive First Legion and their mercurial Primarch, but by making the Lion a viewpoint character, the mystery is dispelled a little. Historically I’ve been more in favour of Primarch viewpoints than Primarchs being shown as remote and unknowable (‘The First Heretic’, ‘Angel Exterminatus’ and ‘The Unremembered Empire’ being some prime examples), but I really feel that with his near-pathological aversion to showing his motivations, the Lion is incredibly poorly suited to being a narrator, perhaps only second to Alpharius. So what does Gav do? Shows the Lion’s motivations all over the place. Rather than building on Aaron’s compelling but (by necessity) rather sketched portrait of an arrogant, imperious templar-king in space, Gav takes it back to the end of ‘Fallen Angels’: the Lion’s motivation here seems to be little developed beyond “I’M P-NOID, MY HOMIES SAY I’M P-NOID!” (A bit of Clipse humour there.) He also has apparently unexplained swerves in temper – sure, he was always stern with his Legion, but going from slightly paranoid doubts about his subordinates to straight up executing one of them over a dispute of ethics? It seems a rather dramatic swerve, but more on that later. It feels like Gav wrote with the words ‘Mystery’ and ‘Reveal nothing’ above his desk but only looked up at them from time to time – during one period of soul-searching, the Lion notices a blade from Luther on the ship, but his inner monologue gives no indication of how he feels about that character; shortly after he kills Nemiel we’re privy to a moment of the Lion’s quiet reflection, but he doesn’t even vaguely consider the ramifications of what he just did.

The Lion is a patronising egotistical bastard with poorly hidden doubts as to the superiority he trumpets; he’s also a genius strategist and a superlative warrior even for a Primarch. It’s safe to say he’s a fascinating character and while I don’t think this is a bad portrayal of him, it’s a shame it took until ‘The Unremembered Empire’ for his character to reach three dimensions. (And even there, he was mostly shown from the outside – we weren’t given much insight into his thoughts.) Perhaps it would be best for us to NEVER be inside the Lion’s head. It’s still hard to read where his character is going in the Heresy-era – though his conversation with the Lord of Change during this story seems to offer some hints.

Sadly, the ‘little brothers’ take some hits as well. Corswain goes from one of the best Loyalist characters I’ve ever read (honourable, bleak-humoured but dour, someone whose heroism seems genuinely warranted rather than lazy SUPERCOOLGUY plot armour) to a generic, habitually-bowing Space Captain Man. The others, primarily created for this story, aren’t any better. And Nemiel – well, Nemiel was always kind of shite, so I can’t say this book is worse for him, but fuck, I’d hoped they would somehow improve on him before shuffling him off. In terms of making the Dark Angels an interesting Legion dramatically distinct from their 40k-era incarnation… nope. The only slightly interesting element in the dialogue here is the Dark Angels’ overuse of “my liege” in deference to the Lion. In fact, in one three-page scene, “my liege” is used no less than eight times. A clever lampoon of the Dark Angel’s pomposity and lack of imagination, or lazy writing? You decide. Am I just an asshole for wanting Dark Angels to always talk like gloomy monastic knights, possibly ones from France or Germany? It’s fluff-appropriate, but it’s also difficult to pull off without them sounding stilted and awkward.

The Night Lords do appear here, briefly. For a while I thought this was the worst Night Lords portrayal in the whole series, but that’s unfair. It’s too short to be called bad. It is, however, a bit of a plot failure. They track the Dark Angels through the warp in a way which should be impossible (barring warp trickery) before destroying their own ship in an apparent suicide attack which allows daemons to manifest on the Invincible Reason. Since it’s been established that the Eighth had a general disdain for magic and daemons during the Heresy, this seems unusual (and also – maybe this is the Legion least likely to mount a suicide attack?) but the Night Lords also had mad enough ‘fringe elements’ to make it far from impossible. What I resent is the complete lack of an attempt to even halfway explain it. Just a few sentences on how this Captain was a radical, crazy former psyker who went mad following Isstvan, or something like that, would be enough to shut me up on that regard. But no, just more navel-gazing from the Lion.

This plot point leads into a significant action in First Legion history, the first time they face daemons (well, I guess some of those monsters on Caliban were pretty suspicious) and a wonderful opportunity to explore the Legion’s their grip on the secular Imperial Truth – but that’s an opportunity Gav seems to ignore. In fact, the daemon fights in ‘The Lion’ have the same problems the majority of daemon fights have for me in the Heresy fiction:

1) No dialogue or possibility of the two sides relating in any way other than a full-on brawl. It’s tough to get too invested in a conflict where one side will remain voiceless and receive no viewpoint narration and the other side has no emotional response beyond shocked revulsion (as opposed to the myriad other reactions traitor v loyalist battles can play with).

2) There are only so many times I can read the same old rundown of the various daemon types and then get descriptions of their basic attack methods. Yep, those are Nurgle daemons doing Nurgle shit; yep, there’s some Daemonettes being all seductive; and look, a Lord of Change for the boss battle. Now, obviously GW’s product line restricts what the writers can do – but think about the variations and fresh character the writers can give to that old Tactical or Assault squad of Space Marines. Couldn’t daemons be similarly varied in their approach? Even the language used feels like each writer is cribbing from the same hopelessly understocked pool of adjectives; from my recall, only ‘Damnation of Pythos’, ‘First Heretic’ and, weirdly, ‘Battle for the Abyss’ have been remotely creative in their physical descriptions of daemons.

3) I feel like I’ve read ten or eleven “This is the first time we’ve fought daemons!” scenes and absolutely no “We’ve fought daemons before, so let’s use that knowledge” scenes. It’s getting real fucking old. I try to suspend my disbelief a lot with Heresy books, but with daemon fights, each time I read a “NEVER SEEN THIS SHIT BEFORE” statement, I think Guess what? I’ve seen this shit too many times.

Of course, the most memorable thing to come out of this sequence is the summary execution of Nemiel. After a forceful but brief argument about the Lion’s proposed breakage of the Nikean Edicts, El’Johnson karate-chops the Redemptor’s head off. Remember what I said in my last review about Graham’s brutal murder of high-ranked characters making the point that the Heresy was perilous and plot armour was in short supply? Well, this ain’t that. I don’t know what it is. For a while I thought this ‘interrupt’ of the Nemiel/Zadkiel arc was really clever and subversive – but now, in a wider context, it just looks horribly confused. Perhaps it was a way for Gav to distance himself from ‘Descent of Angels’ and ‘Fallen Angels’, which were not necessarily the best received books in the early Heresy. But by truncating this character’s storyline so dramatically, and then apparently leaving the drama to go stale (none of the Dark Angels work since this has referenced Nemiel’s execution), it feels like a flagrant waste of a character with a little bit of potential. As it stands, it looks like Nemiel’s murder is just going to give Zadkiel some motivation to rebel against the Imperium – but he’d kinda already done that by the time 'The Lion' was published, sooooooo... hm.

One thing I do really like about ‘The Lion’ is Calas Typhon popping up, and I think it’s the first time he’s been shown since ‘Flight of the Eisenstein’. While the character is a long way off being the best-developed equerry in the series, Gav’s portrayal of Typhon at this point of the Heresy made sense – he’s not full-on corrupted yet, but he’s openly vowing to ‘the Father’. I suppose that as he’s a former Librarian, it makes sense that he’d be gifted with some knowledge of the dark powers behind this war. The physical corruption and the gifts of Nurgle are beginning, as well – all in all, ‘The Lion’ is a nice development for Typhon following the initial impressions we got in ‘Flight of the Eisenstein’. Around the same time that Typhon shows up, we get some Iron Hand characters, but they’re of minimal interest, being fairly bland Loyalists rather than the psychotic sadomasochists the 10^th seem to always be portrayed as these days. One kind of cool thing about these guys: Midoa, the Iron Hand warrior, has extensive facial augmetics which make him speak in a “sing-song cadence”. I don’t know if Gav intended for me to hear all Midoa’s dialogue in the autotuned voice of T-Pain, but that’s what I did.

Gav is a little like Nick Kyme, in that he’s written stuff for the Heresy which I really like, and stuff I very nearly despise – and it’s difficult for me to articulate what the difference is between the two types of work. In both, you’ll find overblown battle scenes, fairly shallow characters, a healthy respect and knowledge for 40K’s ‘lore’, a willingness to disregard or revise that lore when it best serves the story, and the distinctive White Dwarf writing style. ‘The Lion’ is not a great novella, and it doesn’t leave me massively optimistic for Gav’s HH Dark Angels novel supposedly coming this year, ‘Angels of Caliban’. But it’s not terrible either. It’s exactly the standard I expect from the Black Library, and that’s a little depressing, but it’s not enough to make me give up forever. Yep, you guessed it: 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.

"Book Two: Massacre" (Forge World publication)

To my surprise, I enjoyed the first Forge World Horus Heresy book, ‘Betrayal’, very much – arguably, more than I’ve enjoyed a few of the Black Library Horus Heresy novels. At the time, the only other book available in the series was ‘Massacre’, and I bought it as soon as I finished ‘Betrayal’. 

GET A LOAD OF THIS SHIT! Part II

As before, the first half is ‘fluff’ (lore) and the second half is ‘crunch’ (rules). I’ll be focusing on the first half, since I don’t care too much about tabletop gaming anymore (and for all the crazy money I’ve sunk into my HH fandom, I will NOT begin a Horus Heresy-era army – that is where I draw the line). Like with ‘Betrayal’, the ‘fluff’ part of this book is presented as a historical textbook. There are vague parts where it’s admitted that nobody really knows what happened, and also some stuff that directly contradicts Horus Heresy novels… but that’s because it’s a chronicle apparently collated by one unnamed scribe on Terra (well, it’s attributed to an ‘A.K.’, so I guess today was a good day… groan), apparently writing long after the Heresy, based on first-hand or second-hand accounts from the survivors of these events. I really, really appreciate the length that Alan Bligh and co. have gone to in order to make these books immersive and faithful to the tone of the novel series, as well as informative and ‘neutral’.

Funnily enough, this focuses on the Dropsite Massacre of Isstvan V. The first few pages are kind of a ‘previously in the Horus Heresy…’ recap. This was a little worthless in my eyes, because who’s gonna buy just ONE of these series? It’s safe to assume people who bought this have heard all they need to hear about the events on Isstvan III. A page for a recap would be fine, but this goes back to pre-Unity! Ahh well, I didn’t mind reading it again. Having said that though there is a nice bonus here: a timeline which definitively presents events of the tail end of the Great Crusade and the beginning of the Heresy in chronological order. (Did you know that Alpharius only assumed command of the Alpha Legion three years before Kurze destroyed Nostramo? I didn’t!)

Once this part of the background is done, there’s an exhaustive account of the Isstvan V engagement, beginning with the first Loyalist ship of the Retribution Force to enter the system (a Raven Guard vessel, incidentally) and ending with Ferrus Manus’ death and the cease of the ‘formal’ military engagement. If you think ‘Fulgrim’ and ‘The First Heretic’ told you all you need to know about this engagement, you can probably skip this section of the book. But if, like me, you feel those books’ accounts (while great) only scratched the surface of one of the most significant and brutal fights in Imperial history, you’ll enjoy reading this much more dry, ‘factual’ account. Just because it takes a different approach to narrative, doesn’t mean ‘Massacre’ isn’t just as good at building tension and describing the horror of Isstvan V.

TEXT FOR DAYS SON, TEXT AND TEXT AND TEXT

This account takes in the key moments of this action, through the initial forays into the system showing that the Traitor naval presence seems to have unaccountably disappeared, to discussing the pervading confusion and anger at the command level in the Loyalist forces trying to make sense of what was happening (Horus must be mad, or under the thrall of some horrible xenos parasite; Horus the prideful bastard is trying to carve out his own Empire), to the Loyalists’ fateful decision to not wait for the rest of their force and make planetfall immediately, through to the eventual horror of the Iron Hands as they encounter the ‘changed’ Emperor’s Children up close for the first time, taking in the way the Sons Of Horus literally treated the Army units in their command as cattle and drove them against the First Wave with long barbed whips, and more obscure stuff like the suicidal ‘grudgematch’ between the Legio Arturus and Legio Mortis Titans. Whew, what a long-ass sentence. I must have been reading a Forge World book.

Even beyond this there are some gorgeous illustrations, including a two-page system map of Isstvan, as well as extra bits that nicely play with the ‘historical textbook’ format: testimony from a Raven Guard on his experiences in landing in the First Wave and a transcript of the interrogation of a captured Word Bearer. You really get a feeling here of how catastrophically the Death Guard, Emperor’s Children, World Eaters and Sons Of Horus are mauled in the first part of the battle, something I feel hasn’t come across in the HH novels. The first wave may have died in droves but they gave back as good as they got. And then, of course, the horror of the Dropsite Massacre itself. I could read another ten novels set in/around this time; it feels like there are thousands more stories to be told. The final ‘butcher’s bill’ – over 200,000 Space Marines dead, including both Traitor and Loyalist. Pour some out.

SPACE MOTHERFUCKER

Before we get to the ‘meat’ of new Legion backgrounds, there’s a small section on each of the First Four Traitor Legions – an overview of their actions in the Dropsite Massacre, an account of a significant figure in their ranks and some nice background/illustration of some vehicles. I didn’t really find the Emperor’s Children or World Eaters sections too noteworthy, but I really liked the other two; for example, we learn that following the drastic weakening of their armoured divisions in the Isstvan III battle, the Death Guard were forced to deploy reserve armour for Isstvan V’s engagement. These reserve forces also took a severe beating, and as a result, the Legion’s overall ability to deploy armour during the Heresy was dramatically reduced. And what was the role of the former Luna Wolves in the battle? Horus was cautious with his own Legion, probably because of the huge casualties they took on Isstvan III – he knew he needed to preserve his Legion’s strength as much as possible for the upcoming long war. Therefore the 16^th mostly deployed on the defensive until the second wave revealed their allegiance and the outcome of the battle was clear, at which point Horus lead from the front and joined in the massacre.

With that out of the way, we move on to the four Legions covered here. Apologies, but for a lot of people (especially those who read the White Dwarf Index Astartes articles back in the day) you’ll already know a lot of this… but most of it was new to me.

The Iron Hands: I always held the Iron Hands as my least favourite Legion. They seemed to have the arrogance and perfectionism of the Emperor’s Children and the brutality and contempt for human life of the World Eaters, but while those Legions were damned for their weaknesses and suffered severely for them, the Hands always seemed to have their failings treated as virtues by GW and the fandom in general; I found Iron Hands evangelists irritating on a level that Ultramarines fans can only dream of reaching. I think perhaps not liking Ferrus Manus as a character in ‘Fulgrim’ or ‘Feat Of Iron’, or in fact most Iron Hands characters as they’ve been portrayed in HH fiction, may also have been a factor. (Shout out to John French’s ‘Riven’, though, that’s a really good one.)

In their early years of Terran campaigning, the Iron Hands recruited from all over the world, but most significantly from Old Albia, which was also a heavy recruiting ground for the Death Guard, and I am guessing is meant to be located in the region of the modern-day Britain (Albia, Albion… maybe?). They quickly gained a reputation for relentless, well-coordinated ground war with heavy armoured support. The reunification with their Primarch came quickly, but it was not a smooth one: the proud and intractable nature of both Manus and his new Legion meant that clashes were inevitable, but most of the ‘Iron Tenth’ quickly became fanatically loyal. As well as a firmness of ethos, another important aspect Manus brought with him to reshape the Legion was the resource of Medusa’s ancient and sophisticated technology. The Iron Hands culture became tightly interwoven with that of the Mechanicum, and the tech-literate but otherwise quite savage tribal culture of Medusa informed all aspects of what the Legion became – especially their unique makeup of nearly autonomous ‘Clans’ of Astartes, all of which competed for resources and the favour of their Primarch.

These hands be straight iron, yo

Probably my favourite part of this background was the ‘what if?’ questions raised by it. Manus was highly intolerant of any perceived failure and his punishments were harsh and absolute. Sounds bit like Perturabo, doesn’t it? His Legion gained a reputation for tactlessness and, sometimes, hostility towards its Imperial Army allies or even other Legions. To Manus’ closeness to Horus and Fulgrim, his apparent callousness and implied willingness to harshly punish or even kill his own sons, add the fact that there was at one time a growing Lodge presence in the Iron Hands, and consider how differently things could have gone. Maybe if the Lodges had been associated more strongly with Horus than Lorgar (who Manus apparently had little regard for; see ‘First Heretic’) or if Fulgrim’s overture hadn’t been so badly done, or the Isstvan betrayal had been delayed by a few years… maybe Ferrus would have come down on a different side.

This part of the book was basically all I needed to make a complete U-turn on my dislike for the Iron Hands. They are actually one of the most interesting Legions if approached in the right way. In fact there is material here for a good few very rewarding Horus Heresy short stories (or a pretty hefty novel): a pre-Heresy account of the bitter competition of Clan lords trying to excel, or an in-depth retelling of the council that took place on Medusa following Ferrus Manus’ death in an attempt to decide the Legion’s course of action. And after the great ‘Riven’ I’d love John French to write a book about the dark paths that the most unstable X Legion soldiers take following the death of their father. After all, there were apparently a significant amount of Iron Hands who never even mustered for Isstvan, maybe as many as 30,000 – and that doesn’t even take into account the broken survivors who managed to get off-world. In the past I’ve felt the last couple years of Horus Heresy books had featured the Iron Hands too prominently, but now I think they’re still a rich seam to mine for the HH series; I’m glad that this (and ‘The Damnation Of Pythos’) have opened my eyes to that.

(And I’ve got Chris Wraight’s ‘Wrath Of Iron’ waiting on my bookshelf – looking forward to diving into that one.)

The Night Lords: Following AD-B’s ‘Prince Of Crows’, and the flashback sequences in his Night Lords trilogy, I felt like I had more of a grasp on the Heresy-era Night Lords culture than almost any other Legion: their gallows humour, their casual (almost… entitled) attitude to cruelty and their strange pride in their awful shithole of a homeworld. Plus, I wasn’t too keen on re-reading Night Haunter’s origin story AGAIN. But I was being unfair – there is much more to the Night Lords that Aaron didn’t touch on.

The VIII Legion was born in the giant prison-sinks beneath Terra; subterranean cities of criminals which never saw natural light and with a fairly unpleasant way of life. Rather than drawing from the criminals, the Emperor instead took recruits from the children born in these prison cities; inmates who’d committed no crimes, children who’d grown up in a sunless world and a crime-filled environment where life was cheap. Probably the Terran and Nostraman Night Lords had the easiest ‘culture merge’ ever.

As we know, the Night Lords were something of a ‘terror weapon’; when an enemy (or ally) committed a crime that went beyond simple defiance, when the Emperor wanted to send a clear message of “that shit won’t be tolerated!”, he sent the VIII. This section talks about the Night Lords’ “tendency to moral absolutism”, something I think has been captured particularly well by Aaron. The Night Lords’ attitude to ‘guilt’ reminds me of Robot Santa from Futurama. “Thugs beating up a shopkeeper for not paying protection money… naughty! Shopkeeper not paying his protection money… equally naughty!” This early section about Legion ethos might be the best-written part of the book. Here’s my favourite quote: “Perhaps memory is too kind, perhaps we wish to believe that there is a nobility in such monsters, where in fact there is only horror. Perhaps we wish there to be a purpose behind atrocity, otherwise how could such creatures be suffered to live?”

I feel like I’ve read more than enough about Kurze’s rise to power, but I really appreciated the description of Nostraman society as it stood when the Primarch arrived on the world. I also really appreciate the discussion of how deeply Nostraman culture came to influence the Legion’s structure; it was probably a bad idea that control of these thousands of sadistic super-soldiers was given to bored foppish nobles and low-level Mafia ‘enforcers’ who’d watched Scarface too many times. (Well, basically grown up in ‘Scarface’ plus ‘The Sopranos’ times ‘Mad Max’, but, you catch my drift). The short but sweet characterisations of the Kyroptera (like Kurze’s Mournival, or maybe his consiglieres) and the Atrementar of the First Company (the Night Lords’ secret police and enforcers… but with Terminator armour) really added to the Legion flavour.

Unlike with the X Legion, I really liked the Night Lord character/vehicle gallery. Especially the one for Uros Kastax, just check this shit out: “Known to have participated… in the Yoggoth Genocides, the Fall Of The Lords Of Ephrath and… the Succoth Perfidy.” How much HP Lovecraft can you take? Plus, it’s heavily implied that this guy’s squadmates used the Dropsite Massacre as an opportunity to shoot Kastax in the back. That’s the Night Lords way, summed up in one character. (Also nicely embodied by Talon-Master Vibius, a sergeant who took advantage of the chaos of Isstvan V to kill those standing in the way of him assuming control of his entire company.)

Like I said before, I didn’t think there was any juice left to wring out of the Night Lords blood orange, but Forge World managed it. Damn.

Salamanders: For my first few years of fandom, my attitude to Vulkan’s sons was “who the fuck are the Salamanders?” Then during my last years of being a young, enthusiastic 40K fan, the Third War For Armageddon happened, where Games Workshop heavily pushed the Salamanders as an alternative to Blood Angels and Ultramarines. I was a big fan… initially. Since I started reading Horus Heresy stuff, the XVIII seemed a bit… dull. Dull as dishwater, in fact. Maybe it didn’t help that the writer who apparently has their writing privileges locked down is one I don’t really find enjoyable to read. I appreciated their altruistic outlook, and the noble attitude they had towards their role in the Imperium, but that was it. Once again, it fell to Forge World to show me the error of my ways.

The origin of all the Legions were shrouded in secrecy, but apparently that of the Salamanders was even more so; they were closely linked to the Space Wolves and the Alpha Legion in their early recruitment stages and initial deployments. One can assume that the Emperor had very specific skillset or task in mind for these three. Or maybe there was another reason. The XX Legion is involved, so we will probably never know.

But wait, the friendly and noble Salamanders aren’t anything like the savage, almost-mutant Space Wolves or the sneaky, multi-skilled Alpha Legion, right? Actually, before Vulkan was reunited with his Legion, there was a pretty heavy darkness to these guys. Even in 40K, Salamanders are known for their stubbornness and almost suicidal willingness to take on impossible odds to protect the Imperium. Back in the Great Crusade, though, this was less ‘suicidal bravery’ and more just ‘suicidal’. They were willing to spend their lives in thousands to complete their mission, and from this section, it looks like could have ended up with the fighting style of the Iron Warriors or even World Eaters if their Primarch hadn’t been a stabilising influence. Speaking of which, between the Emperor discovering Vulkan and Vulkan taking command of his Legion, there was apparently a gap of several years where Vulkan fought at the Emperor’s side. I’d love to see some more information about that, perhaps in an HH novel flashback. I really like the section on how Vulkan’s introduction of the Promethean Cult, in particular, grounded his Legion and gave them purpose and direction for their dangerous bravery, and also stopped them from falling prey to the Lodges.

Pretty amazing...

I want to mention that the ‘gallery’ section for the Salamanders is particularly nice; it’s in the nature of the Legion to create ornate, beautiful armour and Forge World really outdid themselves portraying that. And their exemplary battle is… fucking hell. If you like the Salamanders, you should read about that battle. If you don’t like the Salamanders, you should also read about that battle. Overall, I’m not as completely reversed in my position on the Salamanders as I am with the Iron Hands… but I do find them way more interesting after reading this. Almost enough to buy those Nick Kyme 40K Salamanders books. Almost.

The Word Bearers: With ‘The First Heretic’, ‘Betrayer’, ‘Aurelian’ and most recently ‘The Purge’ dealing extensively with the culture of the Word Bearers and their long road to Heresy, I went into this section with a fairly cynical attitude. After all, how much more could I learn about this Legion? Not to sound like a broken record, but more than I expected, as it turned out.

Argel Tal: "Screw you chumps and chumpettes, I'm catching the next pimpmobile out of here."

In the first days of the XVII Legion, they recruited solely from the sons of the Emperor’s defeated enemies, and were taught about the value of the Emperor’s mercy, the importance of redemption, and that one should go to any lengths to bring the Imperial Truth to the unenlightened. If the ‘Catholic Space Nazis’ meme about the Imperium holds true, the Word Bearers were the Catholic-est. But even the Church changes its doctrine when needs must. When Lorgar returned to his Legion, he began to convert the more iconoclastic Word Bearers to his belief that the Emperor was a God. Once these influential Legionaries fell, the path of the Legion was assured… until Monarchia, that is. While we know the background of this Legion well, Bligh writes elegantly about this period and gives us a fresh perspective rather than just rehashing Aaron.

I liked the way the role of the Chaplains in the Legion was fleshed out, and I enjoyed the dark hints that the Word Bearer Apothecaries were harvesting the gene-seed of any and all Legions at the Dropsite Massacre.

Those Word Bearer marine portraits are pretty beautiful (good luck painting the intricate extracts from the Book Of Lorgar onto your squads of Terminators, nerd). Hell, I don’t really have much to say because through my reviews, I feel like I’ve talked about the Word Bearers so much already… but this section of the book lives up to the standard set by the coverage of the previous three Legion.

HELL YEAH WE GOT TANKS

Then there’s a little bit of info on the Titan Legion, the Legio Atarus AKA the Firebrands, who held a resentment for the authority of Mars’ Fabricator-Genereal and a grudge against Horus for his poor use of them in one of his campaigns, and by these circumstances escaped becoming traitors. (That sells them a bit short, I guess, but I don’t really care for Titan Legions anyway.) Then we’re on to the rules, which I won’t spend much time on. First there’s a framework for a Dropsite Massacre campaign, which looks horrendously complicated. Like I said I didn’t care much about the rules as I knew I would probably never use them, but they’re worth a read anyway as there’s still some nice background information there like, especially in the unit descriptions. For example, it’s in the Rules section we learn that only the Sons Of Horus were able to field the Alpha Legion-designed ‘Banestrike’ ammunition (designed to pierce power armour) in any significant numbers. The rest went to Alpharius’ lot. We also get updates for the ‘Betrayal’ Legions, giving them new special rules, special characters, rites of war and units. The Red Butchers, a brilliantly dark World Eater unit of utterly insane warriors in Terminator armour that can be immobilised remotely by their comrades once battle is done – it’s the only way to get them to stop killing. The most significant in ‘fluff’ terms are the Kakophoni, the proto-Noise Marines of Marius Vairosean who the III Legion first fielded on Isstvan V... but by the time I got to the army lists for the four ‘Massacre’ Legions, I just couldn’t get very excited about any of it. I know some dudes buy these specifically to geek down over the Primarch stat-lines and resolve their long-running arguments over whether Ferrus Manus could have beaten Horus in single combat, but I find those people as baffling as, well, as baffling as most people find my own reasons for buying this.

You can also find rules for the VIII Legion Terror Squad, a unit headed up by a Big Punisher who's known to pack a Mac in the back of the Ac.

So how does ‘Massacre’ stack up to its predecessor? I honestly think it’s better in every way, and keep in mind that ‘Betrayal’ featured three of my favourite Legions – the Sons Of Horus, Emperor’s Children and Death Guard (not that I’m not fond of the World Eaters as well). My only real complaint from ‘Betrayal’ has been dealt with – no longer are there pages two-thirds dominated by images of Forge World vehicles and units with a faded sepia filter. There are still some of them in effect, but they’re much smaller and more judiciously deployed. (Well, the ‘giant space filler’ stuff does still happen a bit, but mainly in the rule section, where you’re going to get a fair amount of ‘dead space’ anyway due to the nature of stat/rule sheets.) Furthermore, the ‘staged’ images with Forge World models are overall of a much higher quality and tend to be in vivid colour rather than all bleached out. Just look at some of those Dropsite shots. On top of that, the introduction of black and white ‘sketches’ of Astartes units (generally special characters) in the Rule section is a brilliant idea; it’s suited perfectly to the rather dour monastic tone of the book. Jesus, look what an evil bastard Sevatar looks; with that sneer, I half-expect the picture to tell me to go get my fucking shinebox. The quality of these sketches got even higher in ‘Extinction’ – here there are a few questionable choices, but overall they’re pretty great. The illustrations of Legionaries have also been changed in format slightly. Unlike in Book 1 where you would get four pictures of Astartes per page and a few sentences about each, they’ve decided instead to have one, much larger, picture of a Legionary and his gear, and several paragraphs of background. The increased depth (and larger image size) are a great idea and while it doesn’t feel like you quite get the ridiculous scope that ‘Betrayal’ gave you (with, say, three Legionaries per Legion rather than sixteen), it’s overall a much better approach. While they look amazing some of these didn’t really live up to their potential for me. I feel like Bligh and co. have a gift for writing ‘big picture’ lore that doesn’t necessarily translate to inventing compelling characters (I really didn’t get anything from the Iron Hands heroes/vehicles section, for example).

Calas Typhon. He looks like a former Premier League footballer... Which one? ANY ONE.

And of course, we have the age-old Forge World/Black Library/Games Workshop question: does this seem to have been proof-read? In this case, yes. There are a few instances of typos, (“death-throws” rather than “death-throes”, “the remaining populous” rather than “remaining populace”) but less than I seem to recall in book 1.

‘Massacre’ is about as close to perfect as any book in this format is going to get. The only thing stopping it from being a perfect 10 is that, well, about half the book is much less interesting to me than the other half. I know it’s a little unfair to penalise it for that but I can’t help but wish there were 100 or so more pages of lore. I still feel it’s prohibitively expensive – publish it in paperback for £30, £70 is obscene – but I won’t factor that in to my score this time. And so I give this 9/10.

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

"The Imperial Truth" (short story collection)

Today, exclusive to PurpleHeresy, a review of the just-announced HH limited edition novella "The Purge"! I hope you're ready for a lot of anorexia jokes!

Ahh, I'm just fucking with you. Today I'm reviewing 'The Imperial Truth'.

"And over there, you can see some horrible fucking compression."

‘The Imperial Truth’ was a stand-alone, limited-edition novella available only to attendees of the 2013 Horus Heresy Weekender, and for a long time ‘TIT’ (jeez I better not use THAT acronym) was one of my primary reasons to curse Black Library for a bunch of bastards. Why were they so keen to dry-fuck the fans who weren’t able to spend £70 for admission, plus train fare, to go to Nottingham and buy a bunch of limited editions in the £20-£30 range? Ah, I guess my question answers itself. We live in a capitalist democracy, so we always have a choice of “to buy or not to buy”. I think I was angrier because of the fact people said these stories were really good. BL release schedules being what they are (and ‘exclusive’ basically being meaningless with them) I knew that we’d get these stories eventually, but I wanted them now, now, now, right now! Luckily, when the ‘last few hundred copies’ went on sale in the Black Library vault, I managed to snap one up pretty quick. It’s now sold out, which I think means we’ll either get these in e-book form in the next few months, or they’ll bring it out as a non-limited novella next year – so take heart if you didn’t get a chance to buy it. Hopefully, the 2014 Weekender anthology ‘Perdition’s Gate’ will also be added to the vault this time next year, as I hear that one’s pretty fucking good as well. Without further preamble let’s get into the stories in this collection.

Hands Of The Emperor by Rob Sanders: In the context of the HH series, Rob is seen as one of the key Alpha Legion authors, but instead of XX Legion shenanigans, here he tackles one of my favourite areas of the Heresy: Age Of Darkness-era Terra. Our main character is a Custodian Guard called Stentonox, one of Constantin Valdor’s immediate subordinates, and we follow him as he tries to get through his 24-hour shift as Master of the Watch for the Imperial Palace. We learn this position is cycled between a different member of the Custodes every day, which is a pretty cool detail I think. Anyway, shit gets pretty outta control for Stentonox fairly quickly as he attempts to fulfil his role (apparently somewhere between police chief, air traffic controller and diplomatic envoy). Before long he’s in direct conflict with a complement of Imperial Fists who are manoeuvring an airborne ‘continental plate’ into the restricted airspace above the palace, and refuse to acknowledge his authority, saying only that Dorn’s word will be carried out. These continental plates are basically Bespin’s Cloud City, so you can understand the Custodes’ concern over not being in control of their movements. So how far will each side go to assert their authority, and will the long-simmering mutual resentment between Astartes and Custodes come to the fore? Sheeeeeit, do you even have to ask?

I really like these glimpses of the Imperial Palace. Rob Sanders brilliantly evokes the galactic capital’s atmosphere of desperation, mistrust, and frantic activity, with the defenders hoping they will be able to shore up Terra before the storm comes. It shows that even warriors who would normally be seen as upstanding and forthright can be drawn into intrigue and shadowplays simply by circumstance. And I like the way that the story isn’t neatly resolved in all aspects by the time it finishes; you get the feeling that its consequences will linger, particularly in the festering grudges of the Imperial Fist captain who opposes Stentonox. For my money this is a much better Custodes story than ‘Blood Games’ – but then I never loved that story too much. I give this 9/10.

Phoenician by Nick Kyme: A first-person monologue from the perspective of a mortally wounded Iron Hands Morlock Terminator on Isstvan V, this is the first of two ‘microstories’ in the collection, only lasting for a few pages. Who cares about some dying, flesh-spare bastard’s miserable last thoughts, right? Except… he’s watching the duel between Ferrus Manus and Fulgrim. Due to its length there’s not much to say about this one, except that I loved it. I feel the quality of the writing here is far above Nick Kyme’s usual standard (which I find capable, but bland). Thanks to their portrayal so far, as well as their general ‘fluff’, I don’t really like the Iron Hands at all as a Legion, but Kyme made me sympathise with his viewpoint character before I’d even finished the first paragraph. We’ve read about the Fulgrim/Manus duel in a few places before, but here it’s given a fresh lick of paint so it doesn’t feel too repetitive. And hey, the Morlock was lucky enough to die before witnessing that clumsy dumb-shit ‘What have I DDDDOOOOOONNNNEEEE’ moment Graham put in ‘Fulgrim’. Hey, you might like that moment, but I personally hate it. A lot. Overall I’d give this 8/10. I’d say Nick should be given a shot at another Iron Hands story, but ‘Feat Of Iron’ was… not my favourite. Maybe just ask him to write ‘microstories’ from now on?

By The Lion’s Command by Gav Thorpe: So I guess Corswain is now just a Gav character. I wouldn’t mind, but the drop-off in characterisation is comparable to the Torgaddon drop-off between ‘Horus Rising’ and ‘False Gods’. Ahh well. This is another Gav Thorpe Dark Angels story. I liked ‘Call Of The Lion’ a lot, but ‘The Lion’ was a little problematic for me (a few too many ‘why the fuck…’ moments). With Dan Abnett now the author associated with Lion El’Jonson for the HH storyline, Gav takes the plot strand of “what happened to the rest of the Dark Angels after the Lion went to Ultramar?” No Night Lords here (thank fuck, after that horrible bullshit in ‘The Lion’), so I guess Thramas is done. Instead, the First Legion are chasing Calas Typhon and the Death Guard from system to system; on this occasion, the two sides square off near a planet which has seceded from the Imperium, but not declared for Horus, and whose governor makes his contempt for both sides fairly clear. An interesting moral conundrum which is dealt with… fairly ambiguously by the Dark Angels.

Despite Corswain now just being a cardboard cut-out of a high-ranking Dark Angel rather than a black-humoured badass, there is little wrong with ‘By The Lion’s Command’. It moves along at a good clip and there’s a nice heel-turn by Corswain at the end. My only minor complaint was that there were absolutely no Death Guard characters here, but it was a short story and really, a lengthy Typhon scene would have served little narrative purpose. What’s most interesting is the direction hinted at in the last few pages. Corswain is splitting the Legion, with some of them most likely continuing to hunt Typhon (perhaps setting the First as the antagonists in the hopefully forthcoming Death Guard novel?) and searching for Leman Russ’ forces to combine their strength (setting up thousands of ‘culture shock’ buddy comedies with Adam Sandler as the blue-collar Space Wolf and Andy Samberg as the clean-cut Dark Angel) but others heading to… Caliban. I admit my dick twitched at that news, as I’ve been craving a Fallen Angels novel since ‘Grey Angel’. And the loyalist First will be headed up by Belath, which sets things up nicely for a possible Astelan/Belath showdown (what do you mean “no one cares”? I CARE!!). I assume Gav will tie this story strand in to the Cypher story he’s apparently writing for ‘Legacies Of Betrayal’.

In another anthology, with less impressive neighbours, my hype levels might have pushed this to a 8/10… but it’s 7/10 for me now. I still think Gav is much better suited to the Raven Guard, but maybe that’s because I think it takes a LOT to make the knightly pomposity of the Dark Angels interesting. Only Aaron and Dan have done it for me so far.

The Devine Adoratrice by Graham McNeill: As of yet, the only story in the collection which has been released as a standalone e-book. A prequel set some decades before ‘Vengeful Spirit’, this is concerned with the Devine noble house, who play a major part in that book as Knights on Molech. You don’t need to read ‘The Devine Adoratrice’ before you read ‘Vengeful Spirit’, but maybe you should, as I think it deepens the characterisation of the repulsively arrogant Devines, and adds more gravitas to their fall. Granted, none of these characters develop hugely as a result of the events which unfold here. They’re massive shits in ‘VS’, they’re massive shits here. But Graham writes smoothly and evocatively about an unusual, interesting culture that’s not quite the Imperial norm, and ALSO puts in some stuff where a big robot does the Hulk Smash.

The end reveal – Raeven and Lyx’s affair is even more taboo because THEY ARE TWINS! – was more of an eyeroll moment for me than a shock. I guess ‘Vengeful Spirit’ mentioned this plot point and I read that first, but I must have forgotten since then, since my reaction wasn’t “Oh yeah, I remember that now!” but “What? That’s weird and kind of dumb.” I guess Slaanesh loves incest, but we already knew that shit. As I’ve pointed out before it’s dumb to assume authors are reading the same books that I am, and the ‘degenerate incestuous nobles’ is kind of a common trope, but I REALLY feel like there’s a Jaime/Cersei theme with this shit. But hell, who cares? Me being a whiny little bitch isn’t enough to stop ‘TDA’ being a comfortable 8/10.

Lord Of The Red Sands by Aaron Dembski-Bowden: Remember that brief introductory vignette in ‘Betrayer’ with a few pages of Skane on Isstvan III, finding Kharn’s almost-dead body? This microstory is in a very similar vein. (Heh, vein.) A deepening of the World Eaters culture and way of war in just a few pages. Aaron writes about Angron’s mad rampage through the Loyalist survivors of the virus-bombing with panache and skill. It’s AD-B, of course he does. But it’s not all flying blood and viscera. Angron’s almost tender treatment of a dying Loyalist World Eater centurion he sees as worthy of respect shows that Aaron is the master of bringing dimension to characters who GW often treated as paper-thin before the HH series started. And our peek into Angron’s internal monologue regarding his ambitions and motivations… well, you might be surprised what we find. 8/10 for this; I think the writing quality is perfect, but it’s just too short to call it compulsory reading – though if you liked ‘Betrayer’, you need this story in your life. I believe you can buy it as part of the ‘Angron’ audio/ebook bundle from Black Library.

All That Remains by James Swallow: A story of Loyalist human soldiers, survivors of rebellions on their own worlds which led to them facing daemons. Shell-shocked (or warp-shocked) yet still unbroken, they are determined to carry on the fight against Horus… until they drop out of the Empyrean, becalmed for NO RAISIN. I’ll be brief here, because it’s not a heavily plot-focused story. The emphasis is on building the characters and this is done brilliantly. It’s not just humans in this story. Halfway through we are introduced to a Knight Errant formerly of the Thousand Sons Legion, and I am going NUTS trying to work out if we’ve seen this character before. The story is resolved nicely, with some more humans for Malcador’s ‘Silent Army’, and… what’s this… the hundreds of psychically capable young boys in the hold may be redirected to Titan and turned into Space Marines? FFFFUCK. If Jim Swallow gets to do a Grey Knights Founding novel, especially if he writes it to the standard shown here, I will BREAK OFF MY DICK with all the pounding. Having said that, sometimes I feel that Swallow is better at the short stories (‘Forgotten Sons’ was also excellently written). However, this feels like something from towards the end of the HH timeline – the soldiers here have seen Thousand Sons standing with Horus’ forces and summoning daemons, which certainly hasn’t happened ‘yet’ in the main HH timeline. Still, the fact that Titan is on the table at all at the moment is very encouraging and I hope they follow up on it – even if it’s set post-Heresy, I’ll buy that shit fo sho. This is a 9/10 story for sure.

All I can say in conclusion is “Shit yeah”! This reminds me of ‘Age Of Darkness’, back when it felt like almost every story was an awesome set-up for an exciting novel that would come further down the line. I continue to have reservations about BL pushing ‘event only’ anthologies – imagine what it’s like for HH fans in Brazil or Japan – but as long as we get them EVENTUALLY, I can’t be too mad. I give ‘The Imperial Truth’ an overall score of 9/10. It’s releases like this that remind me the Horus Heresy is probably my all-time favourite series of books.

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

"Fulgrim" by Graham McNeill

Yikes, the only HH novel (so far) solely titled after a Primarch ('Aurelian' is a novella, and 'Vulkan Lives' is a very short sentence). You'd hope it'd be an all-but-definitive capturing of that Primarch's personality, backstory, and motivations. I'm not sure 'Fulgrim' quite gets there.

The cover illustrates the problem with the HH 'let's use the right-hand 50% of a large picture as the cover drawing' format. This is Fulgrim's book, but the cover shows the Iron Hands, and the actual image of Fulgrim himself, relegated to the back of the book, is covered by a fucking text box.

The story of 'Fulgrim' begins soon after the Triumph at Ullanor, and runs parallel to the initial HH trilogy of 'Horus Rising', 'False Gods' and 'Galaxy In Flames'. 'Fulgrim' is one of the longest HH books at 500+ pages and this review was a bitch to write (I wrote like 9 A4 pages on this shit!).

When we join the 3rd, they're embroiled in an alien war on some Kevin Costner-ass Waterworld. They're fighting a creepy snake-like species who seem to take a great deal of pleasure in, well, everything. UH OH!!! We also learn that the Emperor's Children apparently suffered some unspecified tragedy near the beginning of their fucking-shit-up career, which left them dangerously below strength. While outwardly poisonously arrogant, their past has made them a tad insecure and also had the effect of giving them the urge to succeed and constantly push BEYOND their past successes. Around the time of this, their lowest point, the III Legion also fought alongside the Luna Wolves, which brought the two Legions close together and gave them an enduring mutual respect. MANY YEARS LATER THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN WOULD CLONE THE SONS' DEAD PRIMARCH JUST FOR KICKS. That's what enduring mutual respect gets you in 40k.

Going into this re-read (not one I relished the prospect of), I remembered the problems with 'Fulgrim' being in two main categories. Art, and Sex. As a pawn of Slaanesh, Fulgrim is swayed by the heady scent of sensuality and also the unknowable expanses of the mind unlocked by great art. More than in any other book, more than any other Primarch's story, it's natural that sex and art would feature heavily in 'Fulgrim'. But... I'm not sure how much Graham is really a big fan of writing about either subject. Dude does not seem to be secretly hoping for a career as an art critic or an erotic writer. (Thank fuck. 'Fifty Shades Of Warplate' is a scary concept, the world's not ready.)

I'm reliably informed this guy was never called an asshole

Maybe I'm being paranoid here, but it sometimes feels like McNeill is equating "appreciation of abstract art" with "ripe for corruption". He also seems be playing to the often-held prejudice that artists are ready to throw themselves into taboo-busting bacchanals at the drop of a hat, or indeed at the drop of some panties. It annoys me that Ferrus Manus seems to be set up as the archetypal, stolid "I don't know about this art stuff, but I know what I like: good common sense" dullard. Hey, guess what: he turns out to be hella resistant to corruption and the seductive call of Chaos! Art: Dangerous frippery which leads you to the Dark Side. Having said that, I really like the fact that one of the first 'chips' the forces of Chaos use to turn Fulgrim against his "dearest brother" Ferrus is the Gorgon's casual dismissal of Fulgrim's artwork. In fact, one of the most consistent messages of 'Fulgrim' is that you should never criticise the Phoenician's artwork. Dude is frankly the most dangerous art student since Mobb Deep.

And the problem of sex... well. McNeill's between a rock and a hard place here. The charms of Slaanesh manifest themselves commonly through PRIAPISM and LASCIVIOUSNESS so, really, he's gotta put SOME concessions to Feverish Lustfulness in there. But... yikes, man. It starts off aiight I guess, a few glossed-over sexual trysts and some guys growing big goggle-eyes with a comedy BOIIING noise when a lady in a 'tight, revealing' dress that shows 'a great deal of cleavage' walks by. The most risqué we have to get at this point is "I've always found that when sex involves all five senses it's a quite mystical experience." I dunno, when does it NOT involve all five senses? Unless one of the parties involved is wearing headphones, and also a big sack over their head. Weird. I personally prefer it when all SIX senses are involved. Yep, when Haley Joel Osment is watching me and crying. But DAMN does McNeill lose it pretty quick. I mean goddamn son. On one hand I applaud him for not shying away from depicting weird creepy daemonic orgies as, well, weird and creepy, but JESUS FUCK! I damn near wanted to tie on a chastity belt on after I read some of these.

On another sex-related note... I'm really not down with these female 'characters' at all. They're shallow illustrations of standard dumb fiction tropes. Hey, we can't avoid some of that in HH. It is Warhammer 40,000 fiction after all, and where would the Space Marines be without a bit of trope-usage? But when it's women being so clumsily characterised, shit just seems more egregious. We have Bequa, the spoiled bitch who's terrified of rejection, and by extension, terrified of ageing into someone who's not physically desirable. She actually thinks at one point - I'm paraphrasing, BARELY - about how she loves nothing more than corrupting the young and the innocent, making them used-up and bitter like her. In a way, Bequa is nothing more than a rewrite of the spoiled-ass hoe in 'False Gods', but whatever. Did McNeill get burned by a rich older women? I'm feelin' him if so, you gotta stay away from those maneaters Graham! Then we've got Serena D'Angelus and, well, Jesus Christ. Serena starts off as a beautiful but self-doubting "wounded bird" who just needs to be nursed back to health so she can flyyyyy. But she quickly becomes an unstable perfectionist who cuts herself JUST TO FEEL SOMETHING when she runs into problems with her work. ART, HOW MANY LIVES WILL YOU RUIN?! It says a lot that the self-confident, sexually aggressive female character is portrayed as venal and terrifying, and our heroic sculptor would much prefer the more vulnerable, slightly hysterical Serena. Though Ostian is happy to ogle the rapacious Bequa, he runs a mile when she's like "whip it out then". McNeill, you sly dog, you've satirised who a lot of your key reader demographics see women! We'd much rather have a startled faun who we can protect from the big bad world, right...? But - horrible to relate! - even the Good Girl is corrupted. Corruption which leads to... her bangin' hella dudes. And killing them. And using their blood and shit and (probably) cum to paint foul-smelling paintings. That's that 'outsider art' yo...

I will say that generally, the writing quality in 'Fulgrim' is much better than in 'False Gods'. Still, there are a few slip-ups... not to be too fussy, but McNeill's comma use is quite shady here. I don't like this sentence much:

"Perhaps, she had thought, a galaxy, reawakening to the manifest destiny of humanity, to rule would provide new and undreamed raptures and enchantments."

I mean, WTF is going on there?! I do like McNeill's writing in general, but for this and 'False Gods' a few scenes are ruined by mistakes which should have been spotted by a cursory proof-read. There's also the unintentionally Australian/Californian moment where Fulgrim shouts "I will not believe you?" LOOK THERE'S NO TIME FOR GRAMMAR, THE GALAXY IS IN CRISIS. Also, we're told fairly early on that Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus have the very closest relationship of all the Primarchs. I'm so fucking sick of any HH book telling me "of all the Legions, (X) was the most (Y)." Shit is mad lazy.

It sometimes feels like Graham still didn't know his strengths at this point, and was trying to be Dan; the inordinate amount of time spent with boring non-Astartes characters, or describing the dull opulence of the 3rd's surroundings... well, it detracts from what he's always been truly good at; describing intense battles and developing Astartes characters. Still, there some pretty cool parts in his scene-setting for this Legion. The Emperor's Children culture seems heavily based on that of ancient Rome. It's a good idea, and works fairly well, though it doesn't really go beyond them wearing togas, being fond of pillars, and (later on) throwing some pretty crazy orgies. There's also a real relish to their warmaking, a sadistic love of action and, well, violence as an undercurrent to their operations. Something you'd not get with the Luna Wolves at this time, or the Space Wolves.

I can't tell you how many times I've written 'Emperor's Chode' when trying to type this Legion's name.

Fulgrim's actual introduction as a character in this book is pretty great. I'm not sure if any Primarch introduction will beat Abnett's unveiling of Horus, but McNeill certainly does his best. We see quickly how charming, intelligent and, let's not beat around the bush, beautiful Fulgrim is. We also see how he's kind of a spoiled, vain little bitch. As Horus perceived in 'Horus Rising', Fulgrim's Legion is slipping into extreme hubris. Still, that's all ultimately to Horus' benefit. The III Legion lodges are, like Erebus planned, breeding grounds for ill-feeling towards the Emperor. Under the guise of 'fraternal informality' to be sure, but it's still there. Even within the lodges, though the Children are some butt-smooching, up-the-chain-o-command motherfuckers.

One of the charms of 'Horus Rising' was ambiguity of characterisation. (Yes, I'm still singing this same sad song.) Even when you knew a character was going to end up on the side of Chaos, bitter and corrupted and trapped in the Eye Of Terror... Dan made it fun to wonder WHY and HOW they would get there. In 'Fulgrim', a lot of 'em seem to be, well, there already. Take Fabius Bile, for example. Dude is basically Josef Mengele from the first time we see him, all sinister glances and noticeable erections as he rubs his hands with glee at cutting up his fellow Astartes. There's no ambiguity at all. He starts as a sick sumbitch who likes vivisection, and, as we all know, he's still that way in the 41st Millennium. The Heresy, it would appear, had almost no effect on him. McNeill's Fabius is like McNeill's Erebus. You can't believe someone so obviously slimy and manipulative could influence a Primarch, but those supposed towering intellects/Gods Among Men totally buy into it. Fabius only takes a few words to convince Fulgrim he should be allowed to meddle around in the Legion's geneseed. I'm not denying his creepy experiments and their horrifying results lead to some of the best parts of the book. But how hard would it have been to have him start as a good guy? Even a kind of shitty, vain good guy like Lucius? Right now I'm just thinking "don't these guys have any kind of vetting procedure to their recruitment?"

Likewise, I often typed 'Fabius' as 'Fabolous'.

Obviously, Tarvitz, Lucius and Eidolon will play their important parts in the novel, but McNeill makes sure to also introduce us to "his" Emperor's Children characters - Marius Vairosean, Julius Kaesoron, Apothecary Fabius and Solomon Demeter. In fact, I'd say McNeill does his damnedest to give these characters the most 'screen time'. Only fair. He actually could have gone a bit further in this regard; Lucius and Tarvitz were pretty insignificant captains in the scheme of the Legion during the time of 'Horus Rising'. Here, it's retconned so that before the war on Murder they'd been inducted into a secret society of the highest echelons and had the ear of the Primarch. Not out and out impossible (Loken saw himself as a pretty insignificant captain at the beginning of 'Horus Rising', after all) but for Lucius and Tarvitz to not mention it (or in Tarvitz's case, even think about it) during the Murder campaign? Weird.

Naturally, the 'new' Emperor's Children are horrendously arrogant, but their arrogance and perfectionism manifest in different ways. Solomon Demeter is ultimately a pretty straightforward, aggressive bruiser with a taste for the thrill of combat, which can make him act with a cavalier disregard for his (or his command's) safety. Solomon's very impetuous and seems cheerfully polytheistic, with his talk of fates and gods of battle. Beginning the book, I was certain that Solomon would embrace the Pantheon, but he becomes a mini-Loken quite quickly in the narrative. Marius is a much more regimented and controlled Space Marine; his esteem for Fulgrim's perfection results in him being a complete kiss-ass. Julius Kaesoron (errrr... not sure who he's named after, and if he's gonna get stabbed by someone called 'Bruteus' later in the series) is a bit of a dilettante, aspiring to get his feet in both the "good at war" and "appreciative of art" categories. JUST LIKE HITLER!!!

The final assault on the alien Laeran is a bit of a disaster. First, all the warriors inhale a weird vapour that makes the colours, sounds and sensation of battle so much more VIVID. Four twenty, bro!! Then they stumble across a giant alien orgy (seriously) and get, understandably, a little creeped out. Then Fulgrim sees a beautiful sword right in the middle of the alien orgy-temple, and he's like "takin THAT shit lololol". This last bit leads me to believe that Fulgrim is deeply idiotic. When you come across a creepy sword which seems to be worshipped by an alien civilisation, and which seems to have driven said civilisation to wild excess, and shortly after picking the sword up, YOU START HEARING CREEPY FUCKING WHISPERS IN YOUR MIND, what would stop you from throwing that shit away? Er, if it was real purty-like apparently. Ugh.

By the end of part II, we're on a dark path with the Legion. Marius' (fairly minor and understandable) failure in the Laeran endgame leaves him with a burning need to redeem himself - we can see how easily manipulated this trait could be, so I could have done without the "pointing out the obvious" bit where he baldly states that in future, he will carry out Fulgrim's orders without question WHATEVER THEY MAY BE. Meanwhile, Julius' drug trip in the Laeran temple has driven him to seek out similarly intense sensations to recreate that first high. And hey, Fabius just straight up gives the whole Legion combat drugs rendered from the bodies of the fucking Laer. That's gotta cross one or two lines, right? Meanwhile, Fulgrim is having actual arguments with himself in front of his soldiers. Surely some alarm bells are ringing by now... I'd forgotten that after the Laeran war, we're given a section heavily involving Ferrus Manus and the Iron Hands. Certainly a much more straightforward, unimaginitive Legion than the 3rd. You wouldn't find the 10th jerkin' around with no xenos artefacts... Honestly, I'd always remembered Ferrus and the pre-Isstvan Iron Hands as incredibly boring (aside from Ferrus' brief flashback cameo in 'The First Heretic'). But I gotta admit, McNeill's portrayal of Ferrus Manus is pretty great, and really gives you a feel for the character in only a few short descriptions.

As the book goes on, Fulgrim's appearance becomes more and more ornate..

Part III of 'Fulgrim' sees the introduction of Eldrad into the HH series, with his annoyingly circuitous schemes to SAVE ALL THE HUMANS but certainly not by keeping them well-informed on the dangers of Chaos or helping them out in any demonstrable way. It also presents a useful get-out clause for why the Eldar didn't just predict the Heresy and have Horus bumped off: apparently, the warpcraft involved in the Primarchs' creation makes it impossible to see their futures. All in all though, the 'Eldrad parley' sequence always seemed a bit superfluous to me, just a way to make explicit what was already pretty clear - Fulgrim's new sword houses a daemon. Still, it IS really cool to see Fulgrim in an all-out crazy Primarch v Wraithlord "who has the most ridiculous warp strength" contest. And if you think THAT's crazy, wait until Fulgrim goes gorillas and punches an Avatar's brainz out!! This is also the part where the sword lures Fulgrim with the actual name of its patron... Slaanesh. If you hadn't guessed. But Fulgrim embracing that name marks the point at which he can't turn back... Fuck it, writing about this sequence has convinced me that it's actually really awesome. Definitely one of the highlights of the book's often treacle-slow first half.

Meanwhile, Kaesoron is being corrupted slowly by the poetry of Cornelius Blayke and his insistence that sensual desires must be yielded to. I actually found the break in the action for Julius' extensive Ancient Poetry Criticism Corner pretty interesting and a worthwhile fleshing out of the story. Part III also sees the chronology catch up with 'Horus Rising', as Tarvitz, Eidolon and Lucius rejoin us fresh from Murder. This helpfully reinforces what a slippery shit Eidolon is; dude be str8 LYIN about his alien adventures. Not everything in Part III is good or even logical. When they make planetfall on one alien world, Solomon Demeter is obviously extremely moved by the beauty of the place and wishes - however briefly - that it could remain untouched. Then, when Fulgrim has the same reaction - except with more tears - Demeter's all "What's HER problem?"

And how are the Remembrancers/artists doing? Ahhh, Serena. She used to be a good girl, now she's slutting it up. It doesn't seem to take long (after she's cut herself up a bunch and thought about her low self esteem) before she hoe-traps some random shithead from La Fenice, fucks him and then cuts his throad while totally coming her brains out. Hey, that's what it takes for a woman to have an orgasm. Someone's got to die. Right, HH fans? Anyone? No? Oh well. It was kind of funny to me that - while way more graphic than expected - the sex scene was extremely coy compared to the horrific bloodbath that followed. Y'know, those kids, we can give them the most horrifying violence ever, but we can't have 'em learnin' about the sexin' from a Black Library novel! I hate to say it, but this horrifying development is one of the only 'corruption' plots here that actually makes sense. Serena is corrupted by alien substances and possible witchcraft on Laer, and her motivation becomes capturing the strange beauty of that planet in her paintings. Her inability to do this drives her to murder and turns her paintings into ritualistic things. The resulting magickal/warp-touched painting of Fulgrim becomes significant at the end. One of the few times that everything comes together in the book. Shame it's the result of such a misogynistic plot.

Yikes, we're on to... part four?! Most of these novels don't go beyond three parts. This is where you start to suspect 'Fulgrim' is two books smooshed together (or maybe three or four novellas of varying quality). This is where we first see That Fucking Painting. Fulgrim seems pretty stoked about it. Now that the guy's so heavily corrupted, he does become oddly paranoid in his vanity - believing he's so perfect that everyone is jealous of him. Hmm, could Kanye have become a servant of Slaanesh at some point? Shit, do I even have to ask? This is where shit starts heating up in terms of the overarcing Heresy storyline. Horus' slow 'feeling out' of Fulgrim for possible inclusion in his Heresy starting line-up is masterfully handled.

The controntation between Ferrus and Fulgrim is excellent, and makes their first meeting seem more bland and pointless. That's one of the main problems with this book; too often you're left feeling something is boring, pointless and artlessly handled, but it turns out to be necessary backstory which is needed for the second half of the book to be so good. During the confrontation, Fulgrim flaps his trap a little too much, letting Ferrus know that Angron and Lorgar have already turned, and Mortarion will be with them soon. This just reminds me that there's still so much mystery around Morty and his character. I mean, there's those bits in 'Eisenstein' or 'Thousand Sons' - but they're little more than cameos. Dude needs to get his due one of these days! I'd love there to be an equivalent to 'Fulgrim' covering this time period for the Death Guard and shadowing their Primarch closely. It does seem unnecessary that Fulgrim tells Ferrus all of his evil plans while trying to sway him to Horus' banner - but if you think about it, it's also one of his cleverest moves. The attempted corruption led to Ferrus' all-encompassing rage and total abandon of tactics on Isstvan, which you could say is one of the main factors in the doom of the Loyalist army. If Horus could have got under the skin of Corax or Vulkan in this way, we'd be looking at zero Shattered Legion survivors, probably.

Further to this little conversation though, once Ferrus got word that Fulgrim was telling the truth about Horus, and that Mortarion and Angron had joined the cause... might he not have also surmised that the stuff about Lorgar wasn't just Fulgrim bullshitting? And MAYBE got a little bit wary when he heard the Word Bearers would be reinforcing the Loyalists at Isstvan V? Ehhh, even a brief moment where he acknowledged the earlier conversation and then dismissed the idea that Lorgar would ever turn from the Emperor would have been good enough... it seems like an unnecessary plot hole to me.

Vespasian is a pretty boring character at the best of times, but his final scene is incredibly dumb: Fulgrim is just openly musing on how he's going to betray the Emperor soon and join with Horus... once he's purged his ranks of the pesky loyalists, which is happening soon, very soon. Vespasian's response: UHH MY LORD I CAN'T UNDERSTAND THE THINGS YOU'RE SAYING RIGHT NOW, COULD YOU EXPLAIN THAT SHIT AGAIN??? YOU SAY YOU'RE GONNA CLEANSE THE LEGION'S RANKS? CAN YOU BE MORE SPECIFIC ON WHAT THAT ENTAILS? Basically acting like he's wearing a wire. Ahh well, he's dead soon. I'm still not too sure why Fulgrim was given the anathame by Horus, I don't recall if there was a 'payoff' for that in 'Angel Exterminatus'... And oh shit! Ostian's still alive! I bet you forgot about that dude! He does contribute to one last bit of wackness though. Serena's suicide once she sees his desiccated corpse. She seems to think she killed him. HOW WOULD SHE THINK SHE USED A GIANT, PRIMARCH-TAILORED SWORD TO IMPALE A FULLY GROWN MAN, PINNING HIM, SUSPENDED, TO A STATUE OF SOLID MARBLE?? So fucking stupid.

Lucius' final betrayal of Solomon Demeter is another win in the "Lucius is awesomely horrible" column. It also gives even more sting to the Lucius vs Tarvitz final confrontation in 'Galaxy In Flames'. It is a bit of a shame that McNeill has Solomon slowly collapsing in death while a single tear rolls down his face and 'Adagio For Strings' plays in the background as he slowly whispers "Forgive them... they are... so lost..." But you can't have it all. Another 'You Can't Have It All' moment is the last duel between Fulgrim and Ferrus. Superbly written, and then once the thing's over, we just get yet another cliched "WHAT HAAAAVE I DOOOOOOOONE!" moment.

Ahh, then we get to the shitstorm at La Fenice. First. Julius Kaesoron finds himself physically aroused by Bequa Kynska's appearance, which raises... unpleasant questions. And then, a hideous, reality-destroying musical spectacle begins, something that breaks the very mind of the audience to witness it - no, not 'Phantom Of The Opera'. Something worse. Considering that this is the birthplace of one of the goofiest, retarded-est units in 40K (Noisemarines, a deadly daemonic rock band with guitar guns) it's handled with aplomb, despite going prrrretty close to unreadably unpleasant at times. After that shit stops, the post-Isstvan V worldbuilding FINALLY rolls around in the last few pages. It's great, but it confuses me a bit. It sets up the Night Lords for the Thramas Crusade, sets the Alpha Legion up for trolling the White Scars, sets the Iron Warriors up for Phall... all well and good, but the 'Core Four' plus Lorgar all rendezvousing at Mars, I don't remember that at all. Maybe I need to read 'Mechanicum' again... but yeah, what a great scene.

As soon as I saw Harry Lloyd as Viserys in Gamer Frones, I was like "That's Fulgrim". No contest.

So now we finally return to La Fenice for the great epilogue which is a perfect introduction to 'The Reflection Crack'd'. Though if you hadn't got the Dorian Gray parallels yet, it's made painfully apparent in this part... "Nooo it's nothing like Dorian Gray! That's about a picture which starts off beautiful and becomes horrifying as its subject is more and more corrupted; this is a picture that starts off horrible and ugly and becomes beautiful when its subject's soul is trapped within!" Yeah, totally different. So, ultimately this ends up as kind of a shitty rewrite of 'The Picture Of Dorian Gray' which is a pretty shitty book anyhow I feel. (Yeah, HERESY, but I don't think Wilde was suited to prose.) Except that book would have been WAY shittier if Dorian had several thousand adoring, much smaller versions of him who followed his every move and he still somehow managed to keep his extensive corruption a secret from his various puritanical, apparently super-perceptive brothers and a stern, all-knowing father figure. Right after I finished 'Fulgrim', I dove right into 'The Reflection Crack'd'. My memories were right: this novella is way better. Yet it feels like the 'twist' of 'Reflection' - while excellent and surprising - might have needed a bit more explanation, or maybe the end of 'Fulgrim' being a bit more ambiguous instead of deliberately misleading... but hell, that's just another example of how 'Fulgrim' seems a little rushed.

I don't think I can dismiss this book as easily as I could before. It's still deeply flawed, overlong, padded, and frequently seems drop-dead repetitive. Then again, it's also got some wonderful scenes, and sets up one of my favourite HH mini-arcs so far ('Reflection' / 'Angel Exterminatus'). Were I an editor, I'd have cut the whole 'daemon painting' angle, and left all the non-Astartes characters on the cutting room floor. But they're in there, and we've just gotta work with it. I'm going to hedge my bets and give it 7/10.

Fuck, I hope I never write a review this long again.

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