"Meduson" (short story collection, Warhammer World exclusive)

A while ago – a long time, actually, it seems – there were rumours going around of an upcoming Heresy anthology called ‘The Shattered Legions’. As time wore on and nothing more was heard about it, it seemed like this was just something that the fell winds of Chaos would stop from ever happening – like Graham writing the Calth novel, or that Prospero graphic novel that Gav was doing. Yet some of us have always wondered: what happened to the stories that would have made up the anthology? Did they get drip-fed to us as Quick Reads? Did they become audio dramas and novellas or even novels, or did they just disappear into the Recycle Bin of time? As I finished ‘Meduson’, it seemed clear where those stories went; this anthology is ‘The Shattered Legions’ in all but name.

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So, if you’ve managed to pick up ‘Meduson’ (it’s only available at Warhammer World, Nottingham – more on that later) you’ll know it’s a strange beast. Like ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’ it’s not quite a novel and not quite a novella. While it’s just shy of 300 pages, ‘Meduson’ feels like a rather weighty contribution to the Heresy series. Sure, many people have a strong dislike of the anthologies at this point, and the contents of this book may not sway them. But how could you not get hyped at a release featuring all-new fiction from John French, Chris Wraight, Graham McNeill and Dan Foch’n Abnett, plus several others? Of course, we can all grumble about our dream line-ups being different, and that’s quite likely a complaint many will have, since Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Matt Farrer, Anthony Reynolds and Jim Swallow are all absent (and when will the great Joe Parrino get a shot at a Heresy story?) but let’s work with what’s here.

There are nine stories in the book, from eight different authors (Guy Haley does two). Despite its not-novel page length, that’s impressive. The first anthology novel ‘Tales of Heresy’ had seven stories, and my beloved ‘Age of Darkness’ also had nine. ‘Meduson’ feels closer to a ‘proper’ anthology than the slim volumes like ‘Blades of the Traitor’ or ‘Death and Defiance’ we’ve got recently. In fact, if my prejudice can show (well, it always does), I applaud ‘Meduson’ as a more welcome addition to the Heresy than the water-treading of ‘Legacies of Betrayal’.

Enough editorialising. Let’s get into the contents, shall we?

Meduson by Dan Abnett: Of course, of fucking course. Of course this had to happen. With so many (quite rightly) praising ‘Little Horus’ as a masterpiece, and some BL authors making overt tributes to it in their books (Graham and Chris, most notably), it was only a matter of time until Dan himself revisited that story. On top of that, Shadrak Bloody Meduson himself hasn’t actually appeared ‘onscreen’ in the Heresy yet. He was smoke and mirrors in ‘The Seventh Serpent’, alluded to in ‘Little Horus’ and may or may not have been present in ‘Vengeful Spirit’, but we haven’t met him. So it’s only fitting that his ‘creator’ be the one to actually put Shadrak onto the page. ‘Meduson’ shows the war-leader at the beginning of his meteoric rise, in the aftermath of the Dropsite Massacre, as what’s left of the Iron Hands clan-leaders squabble and beat their chests trying to decide what to do in the Primarch’s absence. Meduson is not content to make suicidal gestures or attempt to rebuild the Legion. He wants a different kind of action. You can imagine where things go – ‘Little Horus’ is significantly later in his timeline, and hopefully most of you have read it by now – but if anyone is going to make you happy at being along for the ride to a familiar destination, it’s Abnett when he’s firing on all cylinders.

So, I won’t spoil too much of it, but I will say that there is a rather memorable moment with a not-quite-bonded augmetic hand. It feels like Dan saw Aaron’s “Where’s your sword?” – “I left it in a Primarch’s spine” moment in ‘Savage Weapons’, nodded to himself, and made it a mission to quietly one-up AD-B in sheer badassitude.

In my original review of ‘Little Horus’ I expressed a hope that Dan would get to write something about Heresy-era Iron Hands. And – well, here he is, doing it. I’ve stated before that the most glaring fault with ‘Unremembered Empire’ was that it marked the first time Dan had done two Heresy novels in a row about the same Legion. While they’ve been a presence in some of his work – ‘Little Horus’, notably – this is the first thing he’s written focusing on the Hands. I feel that every time Dan hits a new Legion, he hits it with both feet: think of how he redefined the Sons of Horus, the Alpha Legion, the Space Wolves and the Ultramarines in the novels he wrote about them. The Iron Tenth here are far, far more emotional, noble and openly grief-stricken than they have been in any HH fiction so far. This – funnily enough – makes them about a billion times more likeable. Sure, Dan’s not flawless. His spin on each of those Legions is sometimes a little out of step with the other BL authors’ portrayal (well, he writes them as fantastically human, rather than herky-jerky robots, which makes this great to read but not necessarily that fluff-aligned). But… fuck, man, that guy can write. The Hands here are the flipside of the coin shown in the superb ‘Riven’ – they show that not only dark, violent shit can come out of this Legion; they can be a (comparatively) positive force as well. I know some of you Iron Hands groupies out there flip the fuck out when someone shows your Legion with anything other than a near-psychotic intolerance of emotional development, but I’m 100% in support of the choices Dan made here.

It’s not just Iron Hands crying and listening to Fall Out Boy or whatever people choose to believe about the ‘emo’ aspect of the Heresy. Dan takes the time to expand a little on the organisation’s culture and the impact Medusa had on them. There’s even a kind of awesome, nearly throwaway moment lampshading the character’s apparently lazy surname. Enough! I’ll just say ‘Meduson’ is a triumph and leave it at that. I’m pleased to give this story 10/10 with no reservations. Here’s hoping his rather crowded schedule won’t make ‘Dreadwing’ a ‘Master of Mankind’-style pipe dream.

Unforged by Guy Haley: I was a big fan of ‘Strike and Fade’, with its quartet of bitter Salamanders waging guerrilla war on Isstvan V long after the Dropsite Massacre had finished. For a while it seemed that it would be a one-off; a bleak little snapshot of the futile resistance on that dead world, fighting an unwinnable battle with no command structure or Primarch to pull them out of the fire. To my surprise, Guy returns to this ‘resistance cell’ with his story ‘Unforged’. Jo’Phor and Hae’Phast are back and this time it’s personal!! As it turns out, though, I guess I didn’t want to hear more about them, at least not like this. The story seems rather predictable and the characterisation doesn’t really seem to build on what was already established in ‘Strike and Fade’: the tortured protagonist, the angry one, the rookie, and Silent Bob. It’s certainly got its enjoyable moments, and there’s a nice tie-in with a dangling plot strand from ‘Scorched Earth’ (the more I read by him, the more it feels like Guy Haley is genuinely a huge fan of the Heresy series and loves tying things in to other authors’ work).

However, my expectations for Guy’s work have perhaps been raised unrealistically high following his superb ‘Twisted’ in ‘Blades of the Traitor’. In that context this was a little disappointing; sure, the settings of this and ‘Twisted’ are vastly different and these characters could hardly go in as intriguing a direction as Maloghurst, but when it comes down to it, I just didn’t have fun with this. But, well, I guess the point of stories like this is showing that a lot of Astartes’ stories in the Heresy ended in a bleak, sudden way. Point made. 7/10

Immortal Duty by Nick Kyme: World Eaters! Iron Hands! FIGHTAN! That’s an interesting thing to see, right? Especially when it’s a boarding action above Isstvan V, told in flashback? I know we’ve had a lot of Isstvan stories, but there are rather less which focus on the void war – in fact, I think ‘Veritas Ferrum’ might be the only one. More to the point, this story focuses on an interesting part of the X Legion we haven’t seen much. Since I first read about them in one of the Forge World books, I’ve found the Medusan Immortals to be a fascinating weapon in the Iron Hands’ arsenal. Made up of X Legionaries who have shamed themselves in some way, they are – even for the Tenth – heavily augmented and ‘flesh-spare’, ruthlessly focused, and committed to dying nobly in the Primarch’s service. It’s some ‘Suicide Squad’ shit, but without the awkwardly posed portraits.

‘Immortal Duty’ is brazen in its intent: it is a 40k story about phalanx fighting, the disciplined shield-bearers versus the berserk hordes, even making the Roman/Greek comparison explicit at one point. Like the best boarding action stories, it’s claustrophobic and intense. However, it’s not quite flawless. Nick Kyme always seems to have one facepalm moment per story – see the Tyler Durden reveal in ‘Scorched Earth’ – and here, that’s the way our protagonist reminisces over a particular World Eater warrior he fought beside many years ago, before the Heresy… ONLY FOR SAID WORLD EATER TO STEP OUT OF THE SHADOWS, FLICK HIS LIGHTER OPEN, AND CHALLENGE OUR HERO TO A RAP BATTLE… acgkkh. The ‘flashback’ setting up the confrontation comes just a few paragraphs before the character appears. That’s problem one – could Kyme not have put this at the beginning of the story? Did he think his readers were such idiots they wouldn’t remember something more than a few pages ago? (Maybe don’t answer that.) To me – admittedly, not a published writer, let alone a qualified editor – it feels like this moment could’ve been handled with more grace. In a Legion of hundreds of thousands, noted for its insanely huge turnover of warriors, bumping into someone you know is pretty noteworthy, but our narrator just seems to shrug and get on with it.

For all its dumbness it is, however, a really cool moment, and if you get too sniffy about unbelievable dumbness, the HH books aren’t for you anyway.

That’s my main gripe with ‘Immortal Duty’. It seems, towards the end, Kyme’s going for a ‘Riven’/ ‘The Keys of Hel’ tie-in, but it’s a little clumsily handled – in a way that doesn’t necessarily make me super-amped for the inevitable sequel. Still, the story is bookended nicely, and I really liked the moments where it was clear how uncomfortable the other Shattered Legions were with aspects of the Iron Hands’ culture. With ‘Immortal Duty’, you can add another win to Kyme’s column – Emperor’s Children and Iron Hand stories seem to energise him, so I’m a little nonplussed he’s doing another Salamanders novel. 8/10

Grey Talon by Chris Wraight: A sequel to ‘Meduson’, a sequel to ‘Scars’, a sequel of sorts to ‘Allegiance’, a parallel to ‘Brotherhood of the Moon’, a prequel to ‘Little Horus’, and possibly (hopefully?) setup for a plot strand in Chris’ in-progress ‘Scars’ sequel. Confused? Don’t be. Even if the only one of that list you’ve read is ‘Scars’, things should be pretty clear to you – Bion Henricos, lately having cheated death above Prospero, is off to tempt fate again. This time, he brings with him Hibou Khan, one of the ‘penitents’ of the V Legion who led an insurrection in Horus’ name but renounced the Warmaster when Horus’ motives became clearer. Hibou wasn’t really a major character in ‘Scars’, but this fleshes him out a bit – he’s a great addition to the cast, maintaining that enjoyable White Scar humility and poetry while also being full of shame for his actions. There’s a quite dark undercurrent to Hibou’s arc; after all, he is committed to a good death in battle with the Traitors (something that still eludes him as far as we know). This is nicely contrasted with Henricos; of course, as an Isstvan survivor, he has a burning hatred for any ally of Horus, so you can imagine how he feels about ferrying Hibou around. Chris continues to expand nicely on both of these warriors as characters; it’s funny to think that for a long time they were just peripheral figures briefly alluded to in one of Dan’s stories. There’s a wonderful poignant feeling to the end of the story as you realise you don’t want to leave Bion’s company, obstinate and hateful as he can be – but sadly, Horus Aximand looms rather large in his future…

As well as being full of character-building goodness and tense ship combat, ‘Grey Talon’ brings Shadrak himself back into the story, which is a nice touch, a step towards the anthology being a truly cohesive read. In fact, there probably could have been a bit more of this elsewhere. While I think a few more appearances of the title character could have made it even more cohesive, I suppose it would have been easy to overplay it.

‘Grey Talon’ is a fantastic story, possibly one of the best in the collection. With ‘Daemonology’ being so fucking good, and my feelings on Chris’ recent White Scar-focused short stories being a bit mixed, I was starting to wonder if I really wanted a ‘Scars’ sequel over a Mortarion book. This strengthened my confidence in ‘Scars 2’, whatever form it eventually takes, being another classic on par with the original. 10/10

The Keys of Hel by John French: ‘Riven’ was one of the all-time great Horus Heresy short stories, and – until I read ‘Meduson’ – I would have called it the best Iron Hands fiction in the Heresy series. This sequel is not as good, but “not as good as ‘Riven’” is still a pretty high fucking bar. So, what’s the deal this time? Well, Crius is back! That zombie robot motherfucker. The creeping, almost Lovecraftian horror of ‘Riven’ is not as noticeably present here, with more emphasis given to combat – which John writes very well, but I believe his true strength is in characterisation and lore-building. That’s not to say that some moments won’t make your flesh crawl, though.

If I can take a little diversion here. The title of this story made me hope that we’d see something I’ve been waiting for since I read the Forge World Heresy background for the Iron Hands – an exploration of the X Legion forces left on Medusa and their confusion as the Heresy unfolded; their debates and arguments as to which of the many unattractive courses of action they will take. While we’re on the ‘wish list’ subject, I’d also love to see something about Iron Hands aligning with Horus – they were not necessarily all fond of their Primarch and they had close links to a few Traitor Legions, so it’s far from impossible.

This is a brilliant story; it’s testament to how brilliant ‘Meduson’s batting average is that ‘The Keys of Hel’ isn’t the best one here. Furthermore, in an anthology stuffed with Iron Hand boarding actions, this manages to stand out as having some of the nastiest, razor’s-edge combat in the whole book. It’s another convincing exhibit in the ongoing ‘John French is the best Black Library author’ case (despite the slightly wince-inducing moment where Crius thinks of his old VII Legion buddy, unconsciously thinks the word “friend”, then thinks “What is a friend?” – yeah, I had a real ‘Inbetweeners’ moment at that line). It’s a visceral, bone-crunching tale which also takes some rather unexpected turns, and has a superbly spine-chilling epilogue. I’m fascinated to see where this storyline goes; John is obviously fond of it, and I hope we get some further developments in time.

9/10

Deeds Endure by Gav Thorpe: Above a World Eaters training facility, a small force of Salamanders debates with much larger force of Iron Hands on their best course of action to destroy this target. The Salamanders want to minimise damage to the civilian population (of course) while the Iron Hands want to bombard the facility from orbit and to hell with collateral damage (of course). The bitter arguments reveal the key philosophical differences in these Legions (of course) and give way to accusatory statements about Isstvan V (of course). Could these two Legions, supposedly on the same side, actually come to blows (of course)?

I can’t pretend I wouldn’t have preferred a continuation of the Corax story, or further setup for the Dark Angels characters Gav’s tackling in his next novel – but I suppose that would not have been thematically appropriate for this anthology. Yet what we got is so rote and inconsequential, it’s almost tempting to say “I’D RATHER HAVE NOTHING” – ‘Deeds Endure’ does seem to sap the anthology of some of its impact and momentum. In fact, it’s tempting to believe that ‘Deeds Endure’ exists only to float the existence of an alternative pattern of Tactical Dreadnought armour, something Forge World will probably release eventually.

The Iron Hand Kratoz is our protagonist, and like his God Of War namesake, he’s a thundering shitehound who looooooves pretending to justify wholesale murder. Yet compared with the same-old-bland-story Salamanders he finds himself in opposition with, he’s a charismatic powerhouse. At one point, he is told quite solemnly that “vengeance” is “just another word for revenge”. One starts to wish the response would be “Yeah, no shit, Sherlo’okh!” rather than the po-faced Iron Hands v Salamander arguments we’ve read – it seems – a thousand times. I was desperately hoping, right up until the end, that a single Raven Guard could show up so there’d be a bit more chance of Gav writing a decent character, but no luck.

While occasionally dull, it’s a long way from actively bad; Gav’s certainly written worse (I remain unconvinced that ‘Cypher: Guardian of Order’ needs to exist, though hopefully ‘Angels of Caliban’ will prove me wrong). There’s a nice moment where the Salamanders unpack the Iron Hands motto “The flesh is weak” and give another spin on it – perhaps this was a retort to the unfair internet hate David Annandale got for re-using that phrase frequently in ‘The Damnation of Pythos’. As I finished it, though, I hoped sincerely that Gav focuses his Heresy writing on the I Legion or, better yet, Corax’s remnants for the near future. 6/10

The Noose by David Annandale: An obvious high point of ‘The Damnation of Pythos’ – one that even that book’s detractors seemed to enjoy – was the naval confrontation between the Iron Hands and the Emperor’s Children. A big help to that sequence was that Annandale really nailed the disturbing body-horror menace of the III Legion’s slide into madness, in a way that even Graham McNeill has only hit sporadically. And here, showing the III Legion in repose as well as in the thick of the fighting, he makes it even more sinister. While I’m not sure he knocked it out of the park – the main antagonist repeats ‘perfect’ and ‘perfection’ in his inner monologue so much it honestly becomes nearly parodic – this is an excellent story.

When I realised this was a sequel to ‘Pythos’, I wondered at the logic; if any storyline seemed ‘one and done’, it was that book. But by taking up some of the strands that were left dangling, Annandale has done a credible job of crafting a ‘Pythos’ sequel which merits being told. Annandale writes Iron Hands as awkward and slightly one-dimensional – but unlike with many other BL writers, this seems like a conscious choice rather than bad or lazy writing. When you look at how unctuous and twisted his Emperor’s Children are, you can’t disregard the guy's skill as a writer. Given my preference, I’d take Dan Abnett or John French’s Iron Hands over these. But given my preference I’d also see Annandale take a far more prominent role in the HH series, and write about a very different Legion rather than the Tenth. It feels like Night Lords, Emperor’s Children or Thousand Sons would be the ideal area for his nearly Lovecraftian creep-outs, but honestly I just want another Heresy novel from him, hopefully one which gives him a more rewarding scenario to work with than a joyless trudge into, well, damnation. Hopefully he’ll hit M31 again between Yarrick books. 8/10

Unspoken by Guy Haley: And we’re back to Isstvan V, with a story which ties in to Guy’s other story here, ‘Unforged’ – but other stories too, with important roles going to Tarkan and Sulnar, key Iron Hands characters from Nick Kyme’s novella ‘Scorched Earth’. Our main character, though, is the Salamander Donak, or ‘Silent Bob’ as I’ve tended to call him, as we learn what happened to him following the curiously downbeat ending of ‘Unforged’. As I read this story, I felt bad for my dismissal of him as a one-note archetype. By showing us the Shattered Legions through Donak’s eyes, Guy makes him into a credible and memorable character; it’s nice to see a slightly darker Salamander explored here, amongst all the ‘nice but dull’ ones we’ve had in the series. In fact, ‘Unspoken’ is all-round great; this might be Guy Haley’s best story yet. It’s certainly just as good as ‘Twisted’, and shows he’s one of the Heresy team’s ‘secret weapons’, apparently able to write smooth, enjoyable fiction about Traitor and Loyalist alike. 

Like ‘The Crimson Fist’, ‘Unspoken’ switches between a few viewpoint characters, one of which is first-person, the others being third-person. In my opinion, it seems better integrated in ‘Unspoken’ than it was in the Phall novella. ‘Unspoken’ also brings Meduson back into the story – not appearing as such, but making power moves behind the scenes. To top it off, we have a face-crunchingly brutal Iron Hands/Salamanders assault on an Alpha Legion facility. Yeah, you might get a few moments of déjà vu for ‘The Seventh Serpent’ during this sequence, but why not? Once again, Haley excels as the janitor brought in to tie other authors’ bastard children into the primary storyline. That sounds dismissive and insulting but I really don’t mean it that way – his clear enthusiasm for his colleagues’ material always comes through. Considering that Aaron, Dan and even Graham seem to have left projects and storylines hanging in ways they are unable (or unwilling) to address, I certainly hope Guy is called upon in future to deal with some more unresolved Heresy issues.

9/10

The Either by Graham McNeill: When I saw the title, I got to admit I got a little bit hard. As time goes by, it seems that Graham is closer and closer to saying “OK, maybe I got the Sons of Horus kind of wrong in ‘False Gods’, but I read ‘Little Horus’ and I get it now. I’m going to do them justice.” Perhaps that’s a very creative interpretation, or more likely, a biased one by someone who’s bitter than ‘Angel Exterminatus’ is widely hated and ‘False Gods’ is widely loved. While I didn’t relish what Graham did with Dan’s characters in his sequel to ‘Horus Rising’, I’ve been a big fan of the way he’s portrayed the Legion in ‘Vengeful Spirit’, and as I’ve said before, I think he’s somewhat unique in the Heresy authorial staff in that his last few additions to the series have been his best.

So, I love the Sixteenth Legion, and I love Graham’s modern work; I was already halfway erect. But a new short story about them? Focusing on Tybalt Marr of all people? That really gave me a chubby.

‘The Either’ unfolds in parallel to the events that begin ‘Vengeful Spirit’, starting with Marr arriving on Dwell after the failed assassination on Lupercal and Mortarion, ending with Horus about to depart for Molech. It's best to have some familiarity with 'Vengeful Spirit' before you tackle this, but it could also stand alone pretty well, since Marr has played little part in the series until now. He’s been relegated to a peripheral character, mostly - but here, Marr is revealed as a bitter, glory-hungry and vain warrior... yet an oddly likable one. These character-focused pieces certainly have their detractors, mostly the fans who think the series is just treading water now, but I think without building up characters we care about, BL can’t make us care when most of them die all horrible-like in the course of the war. And Graham’s not just building on a Traitor officer; he’s building on the character of the Legion. As with most of the recent Heresy offerings by Graham, it seems he’s one of the most openly influenced by the Forge World Heresy books, dropping little tidbits alluding to the deep Sons of Horus lore in those weighty tomes.

So how do things stand as this one draws to a close? The setup seems to be for a bloody showdown between Marr and Meduson, and to be honest, I can’t imagine either one walking away (maybe that’s just the fatalist in me) as they have both sworn to take the other’s head. While part of me thinks a simultaneous kill is a dumb and simplistic way for this story to close off, I could really go for, say, a novella following the two commanders as they circle the drain… and Graham certainly seems more prolific of late. Though his recently announced move to the States means it seems less likely he’ll be the one who gets to tie this strand off – perhaps Guy Haley could fill in…

But that’s probably a long way off. Even if this goes nowhere for a while, ‘The Either’ is a great story, and it’s the perfect way to close off this collection. 9/10

As a standalone product, ‘Meduson’ is a triumph. Even the obligatory duff story (sorry Gav) isn’t too bad. However, I’d love to dock it most of its positive score because of the way it’s being marketed. ‘Meduson’ is a cracking read, and a tribute to the Black Library authors’ ability to pull together and bring us a great, unified anthology by sticking to a few themes (arguably ‘Meduson’ is an even better example of this than ‘Mark of Calth’). So it’s kind of fucked that so few people can actually read it. If you’re a Horus Heresy fan, and you don’t feel your Shattered Legion threshold has been reached, you really should try to get your hands on a copy of this. Go on eBay, or get a friend who lives in or near Nottingham to pick you up a copy. For those who don’t have those options, a darker path might need to be considered. I dislike the idea of anyone torrenting these authors’ hard work (which they absolutely deserve financial restitution for), but considering the insanely restrictive walls Black Library have put around procuring ‘Meduson’, this is probably the only product in the Heresy you could illegally download without being a complete dirtbag. At least, in my eyes you’re not a dirtbag; BL’s legal team would no doubt have a different view.

Remember, though, BL have shown over time that their deployment of the word ‘exclusive’ is creative at best. You can take solace from the fact these stories may be added to a novella (‘The Seventh Serpent’ would be an obvious choice) and marketed as an all-new Heresy hardback in a couple years. As long as that’s not guaranteed, though… torrent away.

Kind of a bummer way to end the review, eh?

9/10

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

"Tallarn: Executioner" by John French

Prompted by the wide-scale re-release of this previously limited-edition novella, and the announcement of a full-length Tallarn novel coming soon (released before I finished the review), I decided to jump back in time and review this – absolutely one of the best Horus Heresy novellas so far. Better even than ‘Aurelian’ or ‘Prince Of Crows’? It’s not a competition… but yes, I think so. Let’s look at why.

PEW PEW PEWWWW

In 40K, Tallarn is a desert wasteland, homeworld of the Tallarn Desert Raiders, its surface near-uninhabitable. In 30K, despite Graham’s ‘False Gods’ line “My mouth’s as dry as a Tallarn’s sandal”, Tallarn is a temperate ‘jewel world’, prosperous and thriving in its economy and environment. All that will soon change. At the novella’s beginning, (which, thanks to ‘Black Oculus’, we pretty much know follows on from the events of ‘Angel Exterminatus’) we see the Iron Warriors fleet burst into existence, jumping from… elsewhere. They translate in disarray; Perturabo’s flagship, the Iron Blood, even smashes a lesser vessel out of the way, leaving it to die. It’s implied here that the Iron Warriors turn their deadly attention to Tallarn simply because it is the closest system to where they’ve ended up – yet there have been hints elsewhere that there is a deeper motivation to the actions of the IV in their stubborn persecution of the world. I suppose we’ll need to wait and find out. Once there, they virus-bomb the planet, leaving millions upon millions dead – but not managing to extinguish all life on the world, due to Tallarn’s extensive subterranean network of tunnels and installations.

The book has a rather interesting format. It’s split into six chapters, each one of which follows our group of characters for a short time period during the beginning of the Tallarn war. These chapters are very ‘ground level’, focusing on these soldiers’ experiences and rather narrow view of the planet-wide war. Between each chapter, there’s a page of wider context, telling you what happened in the weeks or months between these little moments. (This concept – personal narrative, then some macro-view inserts – is also used by John to great effect in his Tallarn audio drama ‘The Eagle’s Talon’.) In the Limited Edition novella there’s a helpful timeline insert to show you the exact timeframe of how long the war dragged on – but those of you buying the standard edition should have no difficulties following the chronology.

Our heroes here are a mix of people who, through various means, have avoided the terrible but quick death caused by virus-bombing. They have survived to become soldiers, whether they wanted to or not. Actually, Lieutenant Tahirah is already a soldier, an officer in the armoured formation the Jurnian 701^st. She drives a Leman Russ Executioner (hence the novella’s name) called Lantern. When disaster comes, they are working far below the Sapphire City. Stranded on the world awaiting deployment for twenty-seven months, she and her unit are getting jumpy, bored and frustrated. They are about to get more than they bargained for. Sharing the underground complex are the Chalcisorian 1002^nd, whose sergeant Brel is another primary character. Plagued by old war injuries which left him with debilitating headaches, Brel is a real piece of shit, sort of a cross between Joaquin Phoenix in ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ and the venal Meryn from Gaunt’s Ghosts, yet somehow surpassing them both in roguish scumbaggery (he makes quite a dramatic first impression). Lastly, Akil is a wealthy merchant prince who trades in the Sapphire City, whose most pressing concerns are that the end of the Great Crusade will impact negatively on Tallarn’s economy. Journeying home through a more proletarian area of the city, he intervenes in a brutal mugging, saving an (apparently) helpless old man from two thugs. Akil’s kindness will have a profound effect on Tallarn’s fate. While there are other significant characters, these three are the ones we spend the most time with, and John works excellently within this small cast at contrasting their character traits. Outside of his extra-legal shenanigans, Brel is like a hunter, relying on instinct and feeling out the battlefield to get the drop on his prey. The moment where he cuts his machines’ systems and lies in wait, using the other tanks in his squadron as bait, shows us just how cold a bastard he can be. Tahirah is more by-the-book, a promising soldier now doomed to an ugly, unwinnable war, and her frustration at this is a powerful motivator – not always in a good way Akil is a bit of an audience substitute, in that he is no solider: relatable reactions to the situation, like fear, guilt and anger, are mostly supplied by him. However, there is more to him than we can see at first glance.

Due to my misreading of key factors of the story background, and the way the timeline insert is laid out, I thought ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ took us through most of the battle for Tallarn. The novella actually finishes about a month after the hostilities commence; we have around a year of war left before the Iron Warriors withdraw. Chronologically, your next trip into Tallarn should be ‘Eagle’s Talon’ and ‘Iron Corpses’, in that order, followed by ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’ which deals with the last half of the war. ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ may be little use as an overview of the largest tank battle in galactic history, but it’s a superb introduction to the Tallarn arc – I’ll need to go back to the other stuff before I review it, but my feeling at this time is that it’s the best Tallarn fiction by a long, long way.

There are similarities here to ‘Know No Fear’ and ‘Legion’ – two fairly lofty comparison points. ‘Know No Fear’ in the brilliantly tense writing of the action sequences; while much more ‘low-stakes’ than the planet-spanning dust-up of Calth, the tank battles here are just as capable at keeping you on the edge of your seat. As for my beloved ‘Legion’, the similarity is in the book’s almost exclusive reliance on unaugmented human personnel. The Iron Warrior antagonists and the loyalist Space Marines who flock to Tallarn later in the conflict are not shown as characters. The Traitors are just represented by their sealed war machines. While the spectacular cover image of burning Terminators disembarking from a damaged Land Raider certainly happens, it’s not really a fair representation of the majority of the action. Notably, no Space Marine is given a single line of dialogue.

The Black Library book other than this I remember having great tank combat was Dan Abnett’s ‘Necropolis’, and Dan’s a pretty high benchmark for a Black Library author wanting to write a compelling action sequence which also builds on characters. To be honest, I don’t read much non-Black Library combat-heavy stuff, so there’s likely more mind-blowing sci-fi tank battles out there – but ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ certainly did it for me. However, the action almost feels more like submarine combat – tanks in thick fog, unable to see their opponents until they’re on top of them. The fact that these skirmishes are rather small scale (barring a slightly out-of-place, but utterly visceral, confrontation with a Titan) gives them a desperate intimacy we don’t see a lot in books from this publisher. I guess this leads to the only concern I had about ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’ once I’d finished ‘Executioner’: that if, as John had stated, it was going to take a much more ‘widescreen’ view of the Tallarn war, with a larger cast and larger battles, perhaps this intimacy would be lost. ‘Ironclad’ is fantastic, I’ll say that now – but it’s no ‘Executioner’.

The plot here is intriguing and well-layered considering the relatively sparse page count. The tension of that last denouement is handled masterfully, and to cap it all, there’s even a ‘post-credits scene’ to rival any Metal Gear Solid game. The fact it’s called ‘The Hydra’s Dream’ would seem to prove that the shadowy organisation operating from within the Imperial survivors’ camp is made up of operatives from the Alpha Legion – an assumption that John’s subsequent Tallarn work has borne out.

‘Tallarn: Executioner’ is beautifully written. I’d enjoyed ‘The Last Remembrancer’ quite a bit, but this was what convinced me John French was a top-tier Black Library writer to watch. He does not have the bleak humour of AD-B, but nor does he have that writer’s occasionally embarrassing fits of over-emoting. I doubt that, for example, Aaron could have handled the tragic-heroic ‘face turn’ of Brel without making it much more melodramatic. (Christ, I’m using wrestling terms to denote plot points. I listen to the Giant Bombcast too much.) John’s work is cold and clinical when it needs to be yet can also bring some poetic beauty to things. Whether it’s the description of the virus-bombing of Tallarn – in some ways, a more disturbing one than the ‘Galaxy In Flames’ murder of Isstvan, due to its matter-of fact brevity – or the relationship between the survivors, or the bittersweet moment of the poison fog clearing enough for Akil to see the moonlight over his dead world… Well, John’s got that quality that I will – while hating myself to use such a cliché – call cinematic. It certainly doesn’t pull its punches; many of the non-combat scenes leave you just as shaken as the high-stakes tank fights. By showing us the quality of the Sapphire City – not sci-fi beauty, but conceivable modern beauty – John gives its desolation that much more of an impact. When we were told that Isstvan III and the Choral City were once beautiful, did it really sink in? We only ever saw them as the backdrop to a war.

Finally, Silence and Lantern, the names of the two primary engines in the squadron for most of the book, correspond, oddly enough, to the weaponry of Mortarion: his huge scythe is called Silence, and he wields a large unidentified pistol called the Lantern. I’m not sure of the significance of this allusion, but since John French helped to write ‘The Horus Heresy: Betrayal’ where Mortarion’s wargear was named, I’m pretty confident it was intentional. The scout vehicle, Talon, might be a nod to John French’s buddy AD-B’s ‘Talon Of Horus’ book.

As I originally asserted, ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ is one of the very best Horus Heresy novellas so far. ‘Aurelian’ and ‘Brotherhood of the Storm’ are certainly on its level, but cut from their associated novels, could they stand alone? I strongly doubt it. And as much as I enjoy all the other novellas Black Library has produced for the Heresy, none of those come close. ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ is the complete package – ‘Ironclad’ is a great sequel, but ‘Executioner’ almost needs no continuation. 10/10

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

Horus Heresy Weekender - Part Three

Day One: 7^th February (continued)

Blades of the Traitor

My struggle to describe who John French exactly looks like continued. Here I’ve scribbled: “Matt Damon. That’s what John French looks like. Matt Damon in some Daniel Day-Lewis method acting nightmare.” That seems weirdly insulting, but I think it’s mean as a compliment?

The seminar started with each author of the stories in the ‘Blades of the Traitor’ anthology describing their stories.

Chris Wraight described ‘Daemonology’ as a look at Mortarion’s psyche. He really enjoys writing for Mortarion – the character has a long way to go before he gets to his ultimate destination, but it’s an interesting journey. He also loves, in particular, the Primarch origin stories, and what the Emperor and Malcador had hoped for – perhaps misguidedly – when ‘making’ the Primarchs.

John French kind of repeated what he’d said in the Tallarn seminar about ‘Black Oculus’ (and I kind of zoned out, since I already read that story) but he did smirk that the story was “pretty trippy” which I got a kick out of.

Guy Haley described ‘Twisted’ as showing Maloghurst in “an exciting new light” but then noted that was what celebrities often said about ad campaigns where they model lingerie. It’s nothing like that. Apparently more than Maloghurst is described by the title. The Vengeful Spirit, the Sons of Horus legion, the Warmaster himself – all of them are becoming warped by the insidious influences brought into Horus’ side in this war. Guy characterised this as a “political manoeuvring story” which really piqued my interest.

Nick Kyme started his section with a debate on the pronunciation of his story’s title, ‘Chirurgeon’. It’s about Fabius, post-‘Angel Exterminatus’, post-‘Imperfect’, but it also ties in to the Great Crusade-era of the Legion. He described it as “unpleasant”.

Graham McNeill told us that ‘Wolf Mother’ is a follow-up to ‘Vengeful Spirit’, concerning the ship of refugees Horus let escape Molech. He’d wanted to write more about Slaaneshi cult debauches – “they’re fun and inspirational for all the family” – but for reasons of space, he had to leave them out of the novel, so what better place than a short story to explore them further?

Q&A

Q: As there’s a strong traitor theme to this anthology, were there any other traitor characters you would have liked to write about?

A: Graham: Loves writing about Lucius, but he’s already a pretty major character in The Crimson King. He likes Lucius a lot. You would have expected that guy to have embraced Slaaneshi excess more fully than any of his Legion, but in a lot of ways he’s keeping the disciplined spirit of the Emperor’s Children alive.

John: Would have liked to have explored the Davinite Priesthood more – we’re seeing more overt Chaos/warp stuff now, and it would have been good to fit something in to that.

Nick: Happy to keep working on Fabius, as he’d enjoyed writing about him in ‘Imperfect’. He’d like to write some more Conrad Kurze, but knowing where that arc is going next, there’s not really room to do more about him. (So, could we be seeing a direct sequel to Conrad's predicament at the end of ‘Unremembered Empire’ in the near future?) There was also a temptation to write an Erebus story, but there was a worry that he’d become a bit overexposed.

Chris: Would really like to write about Typhon, or perhaps Ahriman/Magnus – he likes the idea of tackling the ‘second in command’ dynamic. He’s interested in writing the Third Legion as well, Fabius or Lucius in particular – Chris tends to be quite keen on the good guys side, though.

Guy: Again, Typhon is a fascinating character as he’s so arrogant and overreaching and it all goes horribly wrong for him. Guy really likes bad guy stories in general – Maloghurst was chosen for him as a topic this time as there were key issues BL wanted addressed around the character.

Q: And who don’t you want to write? (OH SHIT! SOMEONE FLIPPED THE SCRIPT!)

A: Nick: Alpharius. There’s been a bit too much time in the sun for that guy! When a character becomes so widely written about it’s really hard to find a new angle without making up weird, outlandish stuff.

John: Garro. Jim’s stamp is on that character so deep that it would probably feel strange to write about him. It wouldn’t be easy to do your own version without wrecking something!

Graham: Pretty much nobody. If someone else has done the character really well, then it might give him pause – but maybe not, as he can view that as a challenge, like the Knight Errant stuff being so heavily associated with Jim and them Graham putting them in ‘Vengeful Spirit’.

Guy: Again, Garro. But that aversion does really make him want to give it a try.

Chris: Alpharius – he doesn’t feel that he has a handle on that character, which is why he didn’t put POV Alpha Legion stuff into ‘Scars’. He also doesn’t think he’d make a good Night Lord writer as he’s too reasonable!

Q: Do you feel possessive of your characters?

Guy: The HH characters I write belong to the series, they belong to all of the writers who take part. Having said that, he’d really like to do some more stuff for Lucretius Corvo (‘The Laurel of Defiance’), but he doesn’t necessarily want to lock that character down forever.

John: Wouldn’t want one of the arcs he’s writing taken over – but individual characters are pretty much OK. It was quite hard to let Polux go, though! It can be a bit like comic book writing. Characters are going to change arc to arc as different people write them.

Chris: There are huge characters which you just have to accept you will never get sole writing privileges for, but then there are smaller characters who you feel a bit more ownership of. For example, Chris would really like to write all of Arvida’s stuff (but then I think he said that Arvida might show up in ‘The Crimson King’, so I guess he didn’t get his wish?).

Graham: You need to be very possessive and attached to them while you’re actually writing them – but you shouldn’t necessarily feel that way all the time, you need to let other writers in and not shut them out.

Q: Which two characters in the Heresy series would you most like to write a confrontation between?

Nick: Has kind of already done his ideal one, Vulkan and Kurze. He enjoyed writing it and though their psychological games were quite subtly done, but it seems people only compliment him on the bit where Vulkan beats the shit out of Kurze with a giant hammer!

Graham: Also has kind of done his ideal one – the one he bagsied in the first Heresy meeting, Fulgrim and Ferrus. The most satisfying one to write was the memorable scene in Perturabo’s workshop where he smashes Fulgrim’s face.

Guy: The Emperor versus Horus! “But they’d never let me do it.” He does have a great one coming up between Kurze and someone else.

Chris: He likes this idea, as even the Primarchs have “who would win?” conversations (see ‘Scars’). He’d maybe like to do a confrontation between the two unknown Primarchs (that got a big laugh).

John: Malcador versus Magnus in the psychic realm having a battle of wills, or Guilliman and Dorn post-Heresy.

Q: How do you decide how the Primarchs relate to each other, ie, which ones get on or hate each other?

A: Graham: Some are planned long in advance, some end up as quite surprising. For example, you might not expect Magnus and Perturabo to be close. This lead to Graham doing a great impression of Magnus patronising the Lord of Iron – “Oooh, there’s little Perturabo. Oooh, he wants to build things. Isn’t that nice?”

John: Yeah, it doesn’t always make sense which Primarchs get on, but then, that’s a lot like real life – why people like or dislike each other isn’t always predictable and rational.

Chris: He spoke about the Khan and Russ’ mutual dislike – he thought it was an interesting twist; not hate, but antipathy. He was also really fascinated by the Khan and Magnus’ link when it was mentioned in ‘A Thousand Sons’, and built on that. He would absolutely love to do more on Horus’ relationships in general: was he really the universally loved figure we are told about, and if so, why?

Guy: He’s drawn to relationships – not necessarily friendly – of Primarchs who are mirrors to each other. Dorn/Perturabo, Kurze/Sanguinius, or Kurze/Vulkan for example.

Q: Ever going to do anything about the missing Primarchs?

A: (crickets chirping, barely perceptible sound of several authors and most of the fans in attendance rolling their eyes)

Q: Do you dislike any of the Primarchs as people?

A: John: All of them are pretty awful! Kurze is probably the worst.

New Models

The hall was filled up pretty quickly by a fairly boisterous, enthusiastic crowd, reinforcing the impression I was getting that more people here cared about the HH miniatures than the HH novels. There was a presentation that was fairly packed with new model releases, which we were told should mostly be out over the next few months, in time for the Warhammer World opening (the first of many times we were told to buy tickets for this other event). As well as the models I’d already seen in the ‘Flesh and Steel’ seminar, there were such upcoming releases as:

-Solar Auxiia Stormhammer (big, giant tank)

-Reaver Titan weapons such as a Volcano Cannon and Chainfist

-The Primus Redoubt Gun, a piece of fixed artillery so big it will come with its own scenery tile

-Thunderhawk landing pad

-Word Bearers tainted ‘Mhara Gal’ dreadnought (This was featured in the event programme and had some pretty interesting background, seeming to be some nameless Gal Vorbak warrior who was horribly wounded at Isstvan V – could be just some random guy, but wouldn’t it be a kick if they brought back Xaphen or one of Argel Tal’s other buddies?). This was a beautiful/horrible model.

-Raven Guard upgrade packs – MKVI armour heads, shoulderpads, torsos, command section extras

-Space Marine Deredeo Dreadnought, a ‘heavy artillery’ version of the dreadnought

-Solar Auxilia Rapier-style tracked platforms with various heavy weapons

-Alexis Polux of the Imperial Fists (and Crimson Fists)

-Armillius Dynat of the Alpha Legion (while this was the AL special character I was least intrigued by in ‘Extermination’, I have to admit this model looked amazing – really hope they do an Exodus model though)

-Samus, Ruinstorm Daemon Prince

-Xiphon interceptor (Space Marine flyer)

-Stormbird (This looks really great, absolutely massive – a Rhino can fit in the back. People completely freaked out over this model.)

I'm sure there are loads of pictures out there of all this stuff, since as soon as a new slide went up, people threw up their phones for the snappy-snaps. BUT PURPLE HERESY DON'T ROLL THAT WAY, YO.

Q&A

Forge World would like to do a model for every character they write rules for in the books. All the Primarchs will be done, with some being done more than once as the traitor Primarchs change. Sadly Ferrus won’t be done again (so there’s no hope of a ‘zombie Ferrus’ model for you to recreate ‘Imperfect’ or ‘Vulkan Lives’ with). Even older characters from book 1 like Tarvitz, Rylanor, etc, would be nice to do, time and resources permitting.

There will probably be a Garro model eventually.

Rapier-style tracked platforms will come out for the Legions.

The Ultramarines will be the next to get shoulderpads/upgrades (I assume this is after the Raven Guard).

Prospero Book One (when it comes) will most likely feature both Wolves and Thousand Sons. They probably won’t be in different books. (This leaves me wondering what will be in Book Two of Prospero? Custodes and Sisters of Silence?)

There are lots of plans for the Knight range, and there are more variants on the way, along with more heavy/elite classes of Knight.

Q: Will you put out a Warlord Titan model?

A: These are about twice the size of the Reaver Titan, which is already a very big model. But maybe. Maybe.

Q: Will you put out more female models?

A: We’d like to – there may be opportunities to put out female Rogue Trader, Solar Auxilia or Mechanicum models, for example.

 Meet The Creators

The last thing that happened on Day One was the ‘Meet the Creators’ seminar. I spent pretty much a whole hour talking to Chris Wraight, who is super nice and didn’t seem terrified by my enthusiasm for his books. I’m just going to throw out the key points I gleaned from our conversation.

I got things started with the question I've rhetorically asked a few times on this blog: whether there’d be a Death Guard novel from him anytime soon, since he was so keen on Mortarion and Typhon’s stories. He doesn’t anticipate there being a full length Death Guard book in the Heresy series, apart from the one dealing with the Fall of the Death Guard in the Warp on the way to Terra, and that will most likely be near the end of the series. Since it’s so far off he’s not sure who’d write it, but he’d love for that to be one of his – and to continue dealing with the Death Guard and Mortarion in the HH in general as he sees the Death Lord as an interesting character. However, he doesn’t think he’ll be writing about Typhon anytime soon as Gav is writing about Typhon at the moment (my guess: Gav’s forthcoming Dark Angel work will heavily feature Typhon as an antagonist – see ‘The Lion’).

He normally takes five months to write a Heresy book – Warhammer Fantasy novels are shorter to write, often because the story has been planned out extensively beforehand. He’d love to take a full year to write a massive doorstop of a novel, but he doesn’t think Black Library want a book like that from him – he also finds the deadline helpful in some ways, because if it wasn’t there, he’d just keep writing and writing. For example, he wanted to follow more of the plot strands in ‘Scars’ all the way to their conclusion, but he thinks it works well with some of them being cut short.

Speaking of which, Chris has written a novella about the Space Wolves immediately after ‘Scars’ – in other words, an Alaxxes novella. It’s finished, and he hopes it’ll be put out this year. He’s also just started a novel following up ‘Scars’, and he thinks it’ll be finished this year, though perhaps not published. (He implied that Hibou Khan’s story post-‘Little Horus’ may be a significant part of it.) Once that’s done, he’d like to write a follow-up to the 40k Space Wolves book ‘Stormbringer’, and I think he may have said there’s more End Times stuff coming, though I’m not sure about that.

When asked about the upcoming release schedule for the Horus Heresy, Chris was quite forthcoming, and told me that yes, as far as he knows, ‘Deathfire’ by Nick Kyme and ‘The Crimson King’ by Graham McNeill are next on the release schedule. He also said he thought Guy Haley was writing an Imperium Secundus novel which might come out after that, though he advised I’d need to speak to Guy to get any more information on that. (Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to speak to Guy at all, but that sounds pretty cool!) He also complimented Guy’s incredible work ethic and said it’s almost annoying how prolific he is.

I asked about the ‘Librarius threesome’ of Sanguinius, the Khan and Magnus the Red. He’d explored the relationship between Jaghatai and Magnus, but how did he see Sanguinius and the Khan’s relationship? Chris said he didn’t see them as being close, as the Khan may have been a little disapproving of the Angel’s popularity/position at the centre of things. Chris is a big Blood Angels fan, though, and would love to see more books featuring the IX Legion as central characters, though he’s not sure he’ll get to write one.

He really enjoys the Forge World books and would like to help write the background when they eventually get to the White Scars – but he knows Forge World have a lot of writers already.

If he wasn’t writing for Black Library, he’d probably try writing high fantasy, though there are a few other genres he’d like to try out.

I think that’s pretty much it… Thanks Chris, it was pretty cool meeting one of my favourite authors and having them be a straight-up normal person. Whew! With that, the schedule for the first day of the Heresy Weekender was pretty much over.

Bonus round

In the buffet queue, I managed to speak briefly to Graham McNeill, and ask if there would be a lot of Primarchs in ‘The Crimson King’. He said probably not, as it would mostly focus on Magnus. However, Lucius will feature heavily – the conflict between Lucius and Sanakht is far from resolved. He compared their relationship to the Dread Pirate Roberts in ‘The Princess Bride’ – “Well, goodbye for now. Next time I see you, I’ll probably kill you.” Lucius also needs to continue his quest for answers: why didn’t he stay dead once Sharrowkyn killed him? (Following ‘The Eternal Blade’, I’m eager to see how this progresses.) I did want to ask Graham more, like “If there are no Primarchs in ‘The Crimson King’ but Magnus, why did Alpharius say that thing in ‘The Serpent Beneath’?” and also “You killed pretty much all the Thousand Sons’ power elite, are you adding some more guys?” but I didn’t get a chance – never mind.

I had a fairly bizarre situation while eating, as I sat next to James Swallow and we talked about Primarch penises. Odd.

The legendary Heresy Weekender evening entertainment was almost underway when I decided I would get an early night and fortify myself for day two. PEACE OUT, HERESY FANS - Til next time.

"Burden Of Duty" by James Swallow / "Grey Angel" by John French

2 OF AMERIKKKA'S MO$T WANTED

Burden Of Duty by James Swallow: For a long time I considered ‘Burden Of Duty’ (or ‘Garro: Burden Of Duty’ to some) the weak link in the Garro audiobook chain, since “NOTHING EVEN HAPPENS!!!!” Listening to it again, though, it seems to be an excellent addition to the ‘Silent War’ arc. The actors here are John Banks, Toby Longworth and Ramon Tikaram, and as always, Toby Longworth is great to hear as Garro: that unhurried elegance just on the right side of stuffiness.

James Swallow always starts his Garro dramas with a bit of a recap/overview of the Heresy series. Welcome for newcomers (though once again I have to state that people with no knowledge of the HH chronology who begin the series with a Garro audio drama are smoking crack). I’m not sure how well that will play when the rumoured prose collection of Garro’s audio adventures is printed, though – imagine an anthology where the first couple pages of every story is identical. Not a fun time.

The plot for this audio drama is pretty straightforward. Using a single-person ship and a falsehood, Nathaniel Garro infiltrates the Imperial Fists fortress-ship Phalanx and makes his way to the meditation chamber where all the Fists Librarians have been sequestered. The Imperial Fists apparently withdrew their psykers from combat duty entirely once the Edict was passed. The Librarians, led by a Brother Massak, awaken from their meditation and attack this intruder, but the fray is stopped by Rogal Dorn, who takes Garro into custody. Despite being pressed to account for his actions, Garro will not reveal the purpose of his mission – but it seems obvious he was intending to recruit the unused former Librarians into Malcador’s service. The drama ends with Garro released by Dorn, but the Imperial Fist Librarians remaining in seclusion. Like I said, fairly simple, but the worth of ‘Burden Of Duty’ is in the well-drawn characters, and the exploration of the motivations of two key figures in the Heresy and the ambiguity of their relationship.

Joe Budden Of Duty

Chronologically, I always assumed that this took place at the same time as ‘Grey Angel’ since they were packaged together on the same CD. However, a lot of people think this is set much earlier, long before Loken joined the Knights Errant. Since ‘Legion Of One’ was supposed to be the last recruitment mission by Garro, this probably takes place before that, but it really could be at any time after ‘Flight Of The Eisenstein’, since none of the other Knights Errant are mentioned.

I’ve made my dislike of Rogal Dorn quite clear on this site, but this drama illustrates how far a good performance can go in changing your mind about a character. Here, Dorn is stern and patrician, yet he has an underlying charisma where the character could have been cold and forbidding. I’m not sure who’s playing him, but they sound exactly like Horus in ‘Warmaster’, so it’s either Ramon Tikaram or Toby Longworth. It’s a stark contrast to the way Magnus sounds like a burbling idiot in ‘Thief Of Revelation’ – this is how to do a Primarch the right way. Effective, nuanced performance, not gimmicks. His attitude to Garro seems to have softened a little, I think there’s clear admiration there – but he also seems to see him as little more than a catspaw of Malcador, who he obviously has little regard for. The last lines of the drama show perhaps one of my favourite Dorn moments in the whole series, as a decision I’d assumed was down to his servile obedience to daddy is revealed to be something much more ambiguous. Overall, Legion and Primarch bias may stop me from ever truly liking this guy but if he’s handled well, he can be an interesting character at least. Comparatively, Garro isn’t given too much to do in terms of dialogue, but his quiet dignity is always appreciated. Brother Massak could be a promising addition to the HH cast – I’m interested to see what else they do with this guy – but is a bit of a blander version of Rubio at this point (down to the slightly intense whispered delivery).

Joe Biden Of Duty

‘Burden Of Duty’ is very subdued, which is an approach that works surprisingly well with BL audiobooks, considering the narrators usually get overexcited and start yelling if any combat is taking place. Here, the PEW PEW PEW lasers and VRRRRRRM chainswords are at a minimum: sound effects are mostly ambient and serve only to immerse you further in the story. Black Library bringing out a minimalist Pinter-esque drama with nothing but talking is very unlikely, but I vastly prefer this atmospheric stuff to the shouting and explosions stuff. Listening to this again made me remember how much I enjoy James Swallow’s Garro audios, and considering that I feel they’ve been getting better and better in order of publication, I have high hopes for ‘Garro: Shield Of Lies’. I give this a solid 8/10.

Grey Angel by John French: But wait, haven’t I already reviewed ‘Grey Angel’? Yeah, but it was one of the first reviews I did, back when the tone of this blog was… a lot more irreverent, and I felt the need to put a few jokes into every paragraph even when they didn’t fit. I wince a bit when I read that review, and listening to the audio drama again recently, I thought it might be fun to try reviewing it again.

Following his recovery from the blasted surface of Isstvan III, Garviel Loken, the Space Marine everyone thought was dead, IS BACK WITH A VENGEANCE! Actually he’s back with a subdued personality and a likely case of PTSD. At the request of Rogal Dorn, Loken and fellow loyalist Sixteenth Legion warrior Iacton Qruze have journeyed to Caliban to feel out the allegiance of the Dark Angels posted there, and inform them of Horus’ treachery should they prove loyal. Captured by the First Legion and interrogated by Luther, Loken realises the loyalty of Caliban is no clearly-defined state. The ‘Grey Angel’ of the title could be Garro, clad in his new featureless armour – but more likely it’s Luther, standing not clearly with the light or darkness, but rather in the spaces between. Meanwhile, Qruze roams Aldurukh and encounters a mysterious Dark Angel whose motives are similarly unclear. Like ‘Burden Of Duty’, the voice actors here are John Banks, Toby Longworth and Ramon Tikaram.

I’ll just briefly reiterate what I spent most of my original review banging on about: HOLY SHIT, THAT LUTHER THOUGH! The performance here for the Lion’s former best buddy is really, really good. While there is arguably even more arrogance and malice in Luther’s voice than Hakim in ‘Sword Of Truth’, here there’s a contrasting edge of wounded pride and nobility we didn’t see in the White Scar’s portrayal. (I mention Hakim because I swear Ramon Tikaram is doing the voice for Luther – which is an oddly fitting redemption for a great voice actor). Luther is obviously a more complex character than the two First Legion novels have showed him – and actually, more complex than even the fairly subtle creature shown here. At least we’re starting to mine the character’s potential – I really hope there’s a lot of Luther in the upcoming Horus Heresy Dark Angels work (and, to be honest, that a writer a bit less ‘meat and potatoes’ than Gav was writing about him). The other voice actors are far from bad – in particular, Loken’s performance is very strong – and the narrator is also good despite the over-excited rushing through action scenes, but Luther is the star here.

luther had a dreaaaaaaam
horus had a dreeeeeeam
the emprah had a dreeeeeam

‘Grey Angel’ has been criticised for its possible deviation from the established chronology of the Dark Angels. While Luther and the banished Dark Angels who would become the Fallen were only part of the Great Crusade for a very small amount of time according to ‘Descent Of Angels’, ‘Grey Angel’ asserts that they took part in many significant actions and fought alongside many of the other Legions, notably the Luna Wolves – and that Loken is well-acquainted with at least one of their number. I do really like this idea and a Luther/Abaddon team-up is an awesome concept, but I’m sure that the time Luther was at the Lion’s side in the Crusade was around a year or less, most of which is covered near the end of ‘Descent’. Also, Luther cracks on to know nothing about the Heresy, but at the end of ‘Fallen Angels’ it’s established that the news of Isstvan had reached Caliban. You could assume that Luther is just lying because he’s a deceitful character, and that the war-damaged Loken is easily convinced because he wants to believe the full extent of Space Marine treachery has already been revealed. You could also assume that John French didn’t read ‘Fallen Angels’ recently (or ever, and who would really blame the guy) and forgot that Luther was aware of the Heresy. 

I’m not one of those people who throws their toys out of the pram when the order of events in HH is a little unclear (it’s pretty much expected in multi-author undertaking like this) but I really think in this incidence, the possible botch is problematic. I try to be optimistic, especially where John French is involved, so I’d hope that Luther’s playing a long game here rather than this just being an authorial mistake. Still, Gav seems to have taken over the Dark Angels writing now, and Gav is pretty good at ironing out chronology errors, so hopefully he'll write something about this. The fact that ‘Guardian Of Order’ and ‘Master Of The First’ didn’t mention the events of this drama makes me wonder if he'll just ignore it though. I’m also much less confident now that the mysterious Dark Angel who helps the Knights Errant escape is Zahariel; his comments about his plan to “watch and guard in silence – [the same as] those who came before me” make me think that it’s Cypher. Since Cypher is probably going to get a lot more character development once Gav focuses on Caliban, this is one strand of the story I’m very confident will be picked up.

There are more pressing issues with the plot than the ambiguity of Luther’s words. Loken’s insistence on not disturbing the Caliban ‘balance’, and the cryptic words of the Watcher who assists him, are not my favourite parts of this drama – they seem a little contrived, a way of extracting these characters from this precarious situation with nothing resolved and little of consequence happening. In fact, the dramatic conflict near the end of the drama is probably the weakest part, though the aftermath of this conflict sees the writing improve once again.  ‘Grey Angel’ has flaws, and as a story, I’d give it 7/10, but the performances of this audio version – particularly Luther’s theatrical menace – really bump it up, so it’s 8/10 for me.

There are a few thematic links between these stories: as well as honourable characters being forced to commit subterfuge and ‘shadow actions’, the significance of dreams is emphasised few times. Whether that’s the visions of Heresy which come to Brother Massak when he sleeps, the flashbacks of dead comrades who haunt Loken’s scarred mind, or Luther’s bitterness at his inability to dream since the Imperium “changed” him. Then again, one could argue that the true link between the stories is the feeling of “coitus interruptus”: you think it’s heading towards a resolution, so to speak, only to stop short at the last minute, rather frustratingly. I really wanted Massak to leave the Phalanx with Garro… but he didn’t. I really wanted Loken and Qruze to uncover some significant and obvious treachery in Aldurukh and let Malcador know Luther couldn’t be counted on… but they didn’t. Of course, we can’t always get what we want - but you could argue that by virtue of these downbeat endings, the protagonists achieve nothing in these stories. I think the common 40K messageboard meme that Malcador’s assignments are pointless wastes of time is generally nonsense… but unlike with ‘Garro: Legion Of One’ or ‘The Sigillite’ it seems unclear here what Malcador was really trying to achieve with his mission – realistically, how could Garro hope to escape the Phalanx even if all the Librarians joined his cause? And Dorn’s task was just as bad: if the Calibanites had declared for Horus, the Knights would have been fucked, and even if they were faithful to the Emperor, why would they believe or obey two anonymous, Legion-less warriors? Still, when the stories are this well-presented and the performances are great, I’m not going to complain too much. It actually worries me how well this will translate to the prose format because Dorn and Luther are performed so well that I can’t really tell how the writing will stand alone.

I honestly think John French and James Swallow might be the best at the audiobook format. Definitely looking forward to what happens next in the Knights Errant storyline; following the action-packed but sometimes jumbled handling of it in ‘Vengeful Spirit’, it might be nice to return to the subtlety of these two stories and give the characters some space to breathe.

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.