"Garro: Sword Of Truth" by James Swallow

I believe this is the longest HH audio drama, clocking in at around 2 hours and 20 minutes, spanning two CDs. While I guess most of the 60-80 minute audio dramas in the HH series are the equivalent of a short story, 'Sword Of Truth' is closer to a novella. It's read by Toby Longworth, John Banks and Ramon Tikram. Warning: even for a PurpleHeresy review, this bitch be rotten with spoilers, so if you haven't listened to this Audio Drama or read it in the new HH Scriptbook Vol. II, probably don't read this.

GARRO!
(not pictured)

We open on the Somnus Citadel on Luna, with an engaging portrayal of Garro, brooding and preoccupied with the horrors of Isstvan and Calth. It serves as a nice recap of the HH events so far (though why the fuck you'd start with this audio drama I don't know) as well as Garro's story in particular, including the events of 'Flight Of The Eisenstein'. We also have a recap of 'Garro: Oath Of Moment', which is lucky, because I haven't got the CD, I don't plan to download it, and I may never do a review. (I have read the script though.) In brief, Garro went to Calth and fought Word Bearers and daemons alongside the Ultramarines and Imperial military. He also recruited a former Ultramarines Librarian, Tylos Rubio. Rubio is established as an uncertain, cautious character where Garro is already fairly intractable and unquestioning of his new masters. He doesn't want to turn his back on his former Legion and is haunted by the shame he felt breaking the Edict of Nikaea. This part of the drama is really well written. Also the soundtrack is brilliantly employed here, low-key and almost ambient, and the acoustics of the vocals really sound like they're in a giant, echoing chapel. Rubio is a bit quiet in the mix though, and remains so throughout the drama - perhaps a performance issue rather than a production one.

One of the main things I like about the Garro stories is the little glimpses we’re treated to of the earliest foundations of the Inquisition, so I was pleased at the moment here where Rubio is presented with his new Knight Errant armour, grey and featureless but for the 'I' sigil of Malcador (clearly quite similar to that of the 40K Inquisition).

The Garro/Rubio dynamic isn’t flawless. Early on here, the two comrades have already begun the lengthy, pointless dance around Garro’s “heretical” beliefs. Garro is one of the most prominent characters in the HH universe who is a devotee of the banned Imperial Cult. This involves disobeying the atheistic nature of Imperial society and venerating the Emperor as a god… a religion which will ironically become the status quo in a few thousand years. As Rubio is able to read Garro’s thoughts and emotions to some degree, but won’t fully probe his mind out of respect for his privacy, he’s always slightly suspicious of Garro… but he never quite gets to the point of openly accusing him, or actually, you know, doing anything about it. Religious intolerance and the theological attitudes of the Imperium were heavy themes of the early HH books, so I’m glad that some stories are carrying on with those threads, but I’m still not sure if this story thread is actually going anywhere. (No end in sight, several years later…)

We then meet our initial antagonist, a Custodian Guard named Corarrin. He is arrogant, aggressive, competitive and distrustful (especially of the fact Garro wishes to employ a psyker). I’m pleased with Corarrin’s inclusion in the story. He is described extensively and is quite a distinctive character, not just Generic Custodes Dudeman. As we get to know him further, we get to understand his motivations and why he's so abrasive. In a way, Corarrin seems to be a stand-in for Rogal Dorn - he has similar attitudes, and he and Garro clash on similar issues. I’m glad they did this, there’s only so many times Garro can think “Jeez, I disagree with Dorn, but I’m physically incapable of speech around him because homeboy is legit swole.” It’s cool that they put in someone for Garro to bounce off of who can actually get touched. We’re not at that stage yet, though. While Corrarin’s barely hidden insults to the two Knights Errant are noted, Astartes apparently don't feel comfortable speaking out openly against the actions of any Custodes. However, Garro clearly doesn't want Corrarin’s arrogance to go unanswered, so under the guise of a healthy training exercise, he engages the warrior in a duel. A nice way to make the listener feel there's been some action while the plot is still being established, and a well-written scene; we also get more of a sense of Corarrin's character when we see his barely restrained fury at losing to someone he clearly sees as inferior. Garro's fiery retort also shows it's possible for him to be pushed too far.

So then, nearly 30 minutes in, the plot itself starts moving. A sizable fleet of apparently Imperial vessels has entered the outskirts of the Sol system. They claim to be refugees from Horus' betrayal. Corarrin views them with suspicion, but Garro feels some kinship with their plight. They are led by the 'Daggerline', a World Eater frigate Garro recognises from Isstvan. A pressing concern is the huge amount of civilians amongst them. These are the poor, downtrodden bastards Garro is committed to protecting - but amongst so many, can they be sure there are no agents of Horus present? We quickly learn that Corarrin is just itching to destroy the entire fleet at the first time of trouble. Moving to the fleet, and making contact with the 'Daggerline', we are introduced to Macer Varren of the World Eaters. Varren is a plain-spoken, passionate and quick-to-anger Legionary. Some ambiguity of characterisation may have been an interesting idea, to keep you guessing where his loyalties lie, but frankly it was hard to be suspicious of Varren for even a minute. Amongst the other Astartes who can seem pompous and stuffy, he's a welcome breath of fresh air, and you know there's no 'heel turn' in store for him.

We then meet the rest of the Astartes that Varren bought with him, and here's where the cracks in the drama (the story as well, to a lesser extent) start to show. Firstly, while there are clearly a lot of Space Marines present, we are only introduced to a few named characters, so we know that most of these guys are just superfluous bullet-sponges. On the Daggerline are several groups of Astartes, but we just meet their leaders. Rakishio (Rekitio?) of the Emperor's Children, who's kind of a boring non-character (though there's a well-placed mislead where Rakishio responds "I can't say" when asked about the fate of Saul Tarvitz, and you wonder if he might be more than he appears) and also Hakim of the White Scars. Remember the horrible scene in 'A Thousand Sons' where Yeseugi haltingly speaks with a forced Asian accent at Nikaea? Well, James Swallow doesn't give the Scars that horrendous broken English, but Heavy Entertainment decided to make Hakim have a VERY strong accent. And it sounds really overdone, as Hakim telling Garro that the Emperor's Children are planning something becomes "THEY'AH PA-RANNING SAAAHMTHEENG". It's something of a pet hate of mine, I don't think it's a bad idea for all the Legions to have a different accent (rather than all of them sounding like they went to Eton) but this is on the verge of pantomime. Not only is the accent strong, but effort seems to have been made to put maximum sneer and sinister-ness into it. I really feel like a much more restrained, less dramatic performance would have made Hakim's character a little bit more ambiguous and less obviously a villain. And fuck it, I'm gonna stop dancing around it: It seems racist, and built on negative perceptions of Asians. I know some people are like "lol fagot why u mad thats how they acshuly speak tho" but come on. The cynic in me says that they listened patiently through a 'normal' take and then asked Ramon Tikram to "do it really Chinesey" or something like that. At this point I should say that despite my issues with his delivery, Hakim is actually a well-written character at least, and the White Scar being the first character that Corarrin shows actual respect (if not deference) is a nice moment.

Also. Here’s a tiny detail that it’s kind of unfair to call out, but I will anyway. The story states the varied Astartes and Custodes present hold the belief that the White Scars have never shown anything but unswerving obedience and loyalty to the Emperor; an attitude that the novel 'Scars' directly states was not common amongst the other Legions, with many unsure of Jaghatai's loyalties and frustrated with what they perceived as a wilful, disobedient streak in his character… and others openly stating the V Legion would go to Horus' side. Later it's said that the Scars have proven their loyalty in the civil war, again, something that's just not true at this part of the HH timeline. (I guess this could take place after ‘Scars’, though; ‘Sword Of Truth’ is never firmly placed in the timeline aside from being after Calth.) In fairness, it's very likely that Chris Wraight's treatment of the White Scars hadn't even begun to take shape at the time 'Sword Of Truth' was written and recorded.

So without getting too exhaustive in my overview of events, SHIT GETS DIRE pretty quick, with the fleet of vessels feeling threatened and paranoid at the Custodes’ attitude towards them, and all kinds of courtly intrigue shenanigans taking place and dudes informing on each other all over the place. Things really hot up towards the end of part one of this drama, with one of the vessels in the refugee fleet desperately trying to run the blockade and being destroyed. With Garro now seeing Corarrin as having civilian blood on his hands, their relationship utterly disintegrates, while Rubio detects something dark and mysterious on the transport which attempted flight. As part two begins, Garro and Varren have an excellently written, excellently acted confrontation which adds more character to their relationship. Varren is characterised as quick to anger, but there doesn't seem to be the instability, or uncontrollable rage, that are brought on by the Butchers' Nails. (Then again, later the implants are alluded to in connection with Varren, and he bursts into a wild frenzy of killing.) The growing friendship and respect between the Knight Errant and the World Eater is nicely contrasted with Rakishio and Corarrin’s arrogance, and there's some further development of Rubio as a character as his long-dormant Librarius powers return to potency – but sadly, Rubio is probably the least utilised character in this drama.

Due to a shocking plot twist (or obvious misdirection if you prefer), the Emperor's Children are taken into custody by the Custodian after a tense confrontation. While they aren't really a focal point of this drama, their surrender shows the pre-corruption III Legion's respect for the chain of command and faith in Imperial honour. Both misplaced, as it turns out. As tension mounts, Rubio, Garro and Varren unearth the TRUE mastermind behind the conspiracy (hint: it was the dude who sounded like a fucking Scooby Doo villain.) As they try to warn Corarrin, Hakim makes his move. It's a superb sequence and it makes you root for a character you probably wanted to die not too long ago. It begins the last part of this drama, which boasts a fair amount of twists and turns, and you've really got to admire how well Hakim planned his gambit. Varren berating himself for not realising the White Scars' treachery is one of the best-delivered moments in the drama, but he needn't have worried. Those guys fooled everyone. (Yet another reason that Hakim should have been performed more ambiguously.) The only moment that takes me out of the story is when Hakim taunts Varren with the revelation that all his World Eater command are dead. So an entire complement of Astartes dies 'offscreen' with no apparent consequence. I find it hard to believe that the XII Legion loyalists were all in small, disorganised groups, as that seems like the only way they'd all be killed with no casualties to the traitors, and it feels like if the V Legion complement outnumbered all the others, we’d have been told about it…? Then again, Hakim has shown formidable ingenuity in his plans, so maybe I'm not giving him enough credit.

While it's a bit of a cliché, Hakim's "I'll tell you why I turned my cloak, BEFORE I KILL YOU" moment does show a quite nicely-developed set of character motivations, not just crazy ranting. It's also quite a nice foundation for the events of 'Scars'. In the end the fact that 'Garro: Legion Of One' came out before this is a bit of a spoiler (and I’m not really sure why that happened), as the main characters are Varren, Garro and Rubio. So we know that they will all come through safely. It does stretch the limits of credulity; actual numbers aren't given, but it was implied that the traitor White Scars had them heavily outnumbered. At least there's an attempt made to give a reason the Knights Errant are able to escape (though it's pretty fucking stupid). It helps that the soundtrack during the last battle scene is fucking cool! While this might not have the best overall soundtrack of all BL audio dramas, it’s not far off (as I said, the Somnus Citadel ambience is the highlight). Sometimes less is more, though… And to wrap things up we get a nice Malcador cameo, Varren 'taking the grey', and Garro musing further on the terrible angsty times we live in.

So what about the voice acting? Apart from the one I harped on and on about earlier, it’s mostly good. Rubio's voice acting is a little overdramatic and emotional. Garro's voice acting is overdramatic in a good way, consistent with his fruity yelling in the other audio dramas. You gotta have at least one super-hammy performance in every BL audio drama, so there ya go. Corarrin is excellent, a perfect mix of anger and confidence. I really liked the performance of Varren here, with his aura of East End charm and expressive outbursts of anger. Rakishio is almost comically bad, sounding like a posh bodybuilder with a heavy cold. But it’s all tied together nicely by the narrator, who is nicely energetic without being too over the top. Finally, the CD (or MP3 download if you prefer) has some great cover art, with a heroic picture of Macer Varren taking centre stage (which does look like he's escaped the visually distinctive implants of the Butchers Nails).

Like I've said, there are a few problems with 'Garro: Sword Of Truth'. My initial impressions were not at all favourable, but each time I've listened to this again, my opinion of it has improved. I'd say this might be the best Garro audio-drama, maybe even a better Garro story as a whole than 'Flight Of The Eisenstein'. I honestly feel that if the stories are this good, audio dramas this long are an excellent idea. I give it 9/10, and I really hope we get more Garro soon, ideally penned by Jim Swallow, and with Rubio and Varren back at his side. ('Garro: Shield Of Lies' coming soon though!) Oh, and I know I say a lot that "Since (blank) dies offscreen, I bet they're alive!" and it's getting a bit ridiculous, but I suspect we'll see Hakim again. Especially considering the revelation that an unidentified ship escaped the blockade and the chaos that broke out amongst the fleet… Hakim/Saul Tarvitz team-up audio drama in 2015. YOU HEARD THIS COMPLETE LIE HERE FIRST FOLKS!

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.

Book One: Betrayal (Forge World publication)

With feelings of guilt and self-hatred, I bought this from Forge World for £70 (plus P&P). After paying large amounts of money for the Collectors Edition of 'Visions Of Heresy' (by no definition worth it) and 'Macragge's Honour' (probably about halfway worth it), I was quite cautious and held off buying it for quite awhile. But... I'd finished 'Scars' ages ago, and it was over a month before 'Vengeful Spirit' would come out, so... I decided I NEEDED MORE HERESY STUFF. Yes, I'm aware this is kind of compulsive behaviour.

GET A LOOK AT THIS SHIT

I'm very pleased with this purchase. First of all (not that this really matters) the book is gorgeous. It's a full-colour, leather-bound 400 page monstrosity with hefty corner guards and a big fabric bookmark. You get several highly detailed pictures of Legion armour with their colour schemes at various points of their military careers, some of them even pre-Crusade. Did you know what the Dusk Raiders looked like before Mortarion reshaped them into the Death Guard? I sure didn't.

This is how you add pictures of minis, you make them look like actual paintings.

The layout is absolutely beautiful, the pages are the same cracked-parchment colour as the 'Visions Of Heresy' book, and also have the same deep red border full of High Gothic (I think?) text. My (minor) first complaint here is that a lot of the page layouts are only half text or sometimes closer to 25% text with a lot of the lower half of the page taken up by a sepia-tinted, bleached-out photo of Forge World minis in frustratingly amazing 'Isstvan III' style terrain. I don't dispute the photos need to be there (Forge World gots to get that PAPER, plus they are amazing minis) but I feel they didn't need to be so processed to look like ageing, yellowed photographs of a smoky warzone. In fact I feel they could have made them a lot stronger, and have them as full-colour like all the other pictures in this book.

...and the bottom half of this layout is how minis are shown far too often in 'Betrayal'.

It feels like maybe the Forge World Horus Heresy Range had only a few models available at the time of this book being put together (MKII, MK III and MKIV tactical squads; Contemptor Dreadnoughts... and of course the Forge World obligatory TANKS AND TITANS). So you do tend to see photos of the same 'units' again and again. This is Forge World though so the miniatures themselves are fucking beautiful.

So the book looks wonderful, how about the content? Nothing worse than presentation being excellent and substance being completely absent. Luckily, 'Betrayal' is excellent and has some great, substantial content. The first half of the book is dedicated to background and the second half is for rules. Of course, the background part was my absolute favourite. We open with a historical overview of the Age Of Strife and the Emperor's unification of Terra. Then in much more detail we learn of the Space Marine Legions and the creation (and 'dispersal') of the Primarchs, the Great Crusade, and the Seeds Of Treachery that led to the, well, Betrayal of this book's title. After this, we have a lengthy section on each of the Legiones Astartes this book focuses on: the Sons Of Horus, the Emperor's Children, the World Eaters and the Death Guard. We get about 20 pages for each Legion.

Each Legion gets several full page spreads like this, concerning the subtly different armours worn through their history.

I'm a big, big fan of the Horus Heresy novel series and stuff about the Primarchs in particular so I was expecting a lot of this to be familiar to me. But no. Alan Bligh writes with skill and enthusiasm about the 'first four' Traitor Legions and while you already know the gist of it, there's lots of fresh insight, background and characteristics here for these four very distinct Legions (in fact, to use a pet hate of mine, there's more material here on the Death Guard than there has been in the whole of the series so far). As well as an overview of their Unification, Crusade and pre-Isstvan history, you get a section some 'Exemplary Battles' of each Legion, in which their principles of warfare are demonstrated and you get to marvel at the Primarch's genius (yeah, even Angron a little bit).

Here's the only real problem with this part of the book. There are a lot of typos, mostly grammatical, but a few spelling errors. They didn't ruin my enjoyment of this book but they reinforced that Games Workshop, Black Library and Forge World all seem to view copy editing as something completely optional and not worth spending a lot of time on. But garbled sentence structure doesn't stop something from being good (I better hope that's true). The only thing that came close to annoying me was the frequent use of the word 'panoply' - it felt like this was being used once per page at some points. But hey, as a result I LEARNED A NEW WORD, so who am I to complain?

When I looked into buying this, many of the reviews I read skipped over the first section and focused on the rulebook part. This reminded me that many people are fans of Warhammer 40,000 as a game rather than fans of the Horus Heresy novels. After reading the 'fluff compendium' first half of the book, I was in the mood to read through this whole thing in its entirety but my resolve to do this quickly disappeared as I realised you can't power through a rulebook the same way you can read a novel. In fact by the time I had read about 20 pages of the rules I was pretty bored and started just skimming through.

If you want to recreate the battle of Isstvan III as a tabletop campaign, perhaps you could use an INSANELY FUCKING DETAILED AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF THE DEPLOYMENT ZONES?? JEEEZ GUYS

However, I do still have a bit of interest left over for 40K rules and there were some really great ones which further added to the character of these four Legions and showed how you can easily translate their dogma and fighting style into actual working rules:

• Due to their bitter pride, the Sons of Horus can't benefit from their allies' Warlord traits... but, if they outnumber their enemies in close combat at the end of a fight, they can all attack again - reflecting that very few opponents can withstand a coordinated assault from a large amount of 16th Legion troops.
• World Eaters get bonuses for wiping out units in close combats and must always consolidate towards their enemies (I found their special rules the least imaginative, though, but what can you do with Angron's mob except force them to run towards the enemy screaming?)
• Emperor's Children always have to issue or accept Challenges if possible, and if their champion loses, the unit gets an additional -1 to Leadership tests thanks to the blow to their Legion's pride. To reflect their propensity for fast-moving assaults, they get bonuses when Running or making Sweeping Advances.
• Death Guard on the other hand are given a -1 penalty when making Sweeping Advances, but to offset this, they're immune to Fear and Pinning, and they get bonuses when making Difficult or Dangerous Terrain checks. A shelled-out wasteland full of toxic waste is like a day at the beach for these guys, after all.

But that's not all, each Legion has access to unique units, like the World Eaters' Butchers Nails-crazed Rampager squads, given close-quarters weaponry influenced by the gladiatorial culture of their Legion. Some of these units seemed a little bit dull (like the Justaerin Terminators, I mean you gotta put em in there, but it seems like you're paying way more for a much smaller unit of Terminators with WS 5 and Ld 9). And of course, Forge World makes amazing (and amazingly expensive) models for all these specialist units.

Before any of this, though, there's the 30K era 'Legion Army List' which all your HH-era armies are to be based on. There are of course similarities to the Space Marine and (more obviously) Chaos Space Marine current codexes. But a lot of it is quite different to how the Codex Astartes dictates you set up the bomb. Makes sense, since Guilliman hadn't written that shit yet. There are small but significant differences in here - in 30k, if you want a squad of less than 10 Astartes it's gonna have to be a Support Squad and all of them will be carrying a Special Weapon. Then we have stuff like the 'Destroyer' units which use borderline 'illegal' weapon loadouts - guns which leave battlefields as irradiated, burned-out wastelands (well, even more so than before, anyway - this is the Warhammer universe we're talking about, everywhere's kind of fucked). I think this was my absolute favourite unit in the list, perhaps I'm biased as I've really enjoyed Destroyer appearances in the fiction series. (The short story 'Distant Echoes Of Old Night' features a Destroyer unit as its main characters, and AD-B did an excellent portrayal of a Destroyer in 'Betrayer'.)

There are statlines and special rules for several special characters who've never seen print before, including a Death Guard loyalist I hope we see more of in the 'proper' series.

The target audience for this book is the full-time, dedicated hobbyist, the person who has the disposable income to drop almost £80 (including P&P) on a rulebook. This person should be both a Horus Heresy novel series fanatic, and someone who actively collects, paints and plays 40K Space Marine armies. I don't really fit with many of these criteria. However, I'm certainly going to buy 'Book II: Massacre' and, since the forthcoming 'Extinction' features the Alpha Legion and Raven Guard, it's likely I'll buy that as well. Do I think these are worth their exorbitant price? No, but they're closer to "worth it" than some of the stuff GW has fucked me with, and that counts for something.

I give this 8/10 (docked from a perfect 10 for the hideous price, but I can't stay mad).

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

"Battle For The Abyss" by Ben Counter

For a long while, 'Battle For The Abyss' was not just my least favourite HH book, it was one I actively disliked. Fan reaction to this novel has stayed near-universally negative, so I'm not alone. But having enjoyed 'Galaxy In Flames' way more than I anticipated on my re-reading of it, I was interested to see whether 'BFTA' was still dreadful.

"You alright bro?" "Oh shit, I think I'm gonna hurl."

In terms of publication order, this novel is the introduction of the Ultramarines/Calth/Word Bearers arc. (In terms of reading order, as well as chronology, I don't think many would argue when I say 'The First Heretic' is a far more suitable intro.) Keep in mind, this book was the successor to 'Legion'. It's clear Black Library wanted to un-blow our minds and keep expectations low. This  book starts surprisingly close to Terra, and we're introduced quickly to Zadkiel, our primary Word Bearer antagonist. Zadkiel establishes himself right away as a zealous follower of Lorgar and the Word. In fact, all the character traits he'll display for the whole book are laid out on his first page. What, you were expecting a character who changes his behaviour or whose motivations can be questioned throughout the narrative? That was foolish of you. Here's a line I especially don't like: "His grey, turbulent eyes conveyed vehemence and surety." No Ben, the author is meant to 'convey' that. The beginning moments also set up the novel 'Mechanicum', introducing Kelbor-Hal as a character and showing that Mars is about to erupt in civil war, so pick up that book soon, kids. I do like this element of HH novels, even though it's kind of a gross shill... when you re-read them, you can always see a few strands included that you know are 'teasers' for novels that came later. I like Kelbor-Hal's ruthlessness here, though it kind of just makes me want to read 'Mechanicum' instead...

Zadkiel closed his eyes amidst the maelstrom of devotion and savoured, drank deep of the zealotry.

The stakes are high, and we know this before the Word Bearers' plan is even outlined. Zadkiel has 1000 Astartes at his command - a full Chapter (shh, I know the Chapter sizes have been flip-flopped a lot in this series, IT DOESN'T MATTER TO THE NARRATIVE, nerds). The warship, called the Furious Abyss, an Abyss-class ship (helpful) is also introduced right away in the narrative and described compellingly as a real nice piece of work. It doesn't take long before we find out what Zadkiel's cooking. He's gonna reach Macragge, bomb one of its moons into fragments and then virus-bomb whatever survives the catastrophic meteor shower. An impressively Dr. Evil-like plan. Along with the strike against the bulk of the Legion at Calth, this attack would (if successful) left the Ultramarines broken beyond repair.

We then move to some Ultramarine characters - this lets us know that the call for the Calth muster has already gone out, which should give you some big-time chills (especially when you think of how long it took BL to actually DO anything with that plot point). Almost instantly though, our blue-armoured heroes are killed by the Furious Abyss, a slightly hacky but very effective plot device which probably gave me one of the only moments of surprise in the whole book. Then we move to some piece of shit space station and get to meet Cestus, our actual Ultramarine hero, plus his life partner Antiges. They're something of a Loken/Abaddon pairing, with Cestus being thoughtful and sensitive (comparatively) while Antiges is brusque and forthright. Then there's Saphrax, who is a real tightass even for one of the XIII. We also meet Brynngar, a mead-swilling, void-barbarian type of Space Wolf. You know, the cliché Dan killed (or the lore he ruined, depending on who you ask) with 'Prospero Burns'? To be fair, we can't expect Ben to anticipate a book published over 2 years in the future. Brynngar is a walking archetype but in this book, that's kind of the entry criteria... borne out by our next entry into this genhanced Dirty Dozen, Mhotep, in one of the lamer intros of the book, well... see for yourself:

"Hooded eyes spoke of intelligence, and skin, so tan and smooth that it was utterly without imperfection, suggested the nature of his Legion: the Thousand Sons."

Huh?! What a confused mess. I know Counter's capable of writing with power and clarity, so why this bullshit? Well, the theory that's been passed around quite frequently is that this was a rush job, completed under pressure so that BL could keep to their release schedule (maybe 'Mechanicum' was delayed?). There's no proof for that though, so I guess we can theorise however we want. Anyway, Mhotep is a lot like the Thousand Sons marine from 'The Outcast Dead'. He's suave, mysterious, and makes HH-reading babies cry about how overpowered his psyker abilities are. While supposedly heading to Prospero, Mhotep decides to join up with the other Astartes on the station due to INSCRUTABLE THOUSAND SONS REASONS.

Slogging through the daemonic horde... he felt the pressure on his sanity increase.

So, after that ship in the first chapter of the book realised it was getting killed, it sent a distress signal to the shitstation; due to his proximity to a malfunctioning reactor, or due to GHOST RAYS (pick one), Cestus is the only one to see the 'missing piece' of the message which states that Macragge is in danger (but wait, how could the dying ship know that? Did Zadkiel tell them his evil plan 'offscreen' before he killed them?). Cestus therefore has some important information but because it got to him through suspicious means he doesn't want to tell anyone due to his ULTRAMARINE ultrastraightness. It's some real soap opera "I was hiding in Rodney's closet stealing his coke stash, and I saw Tarquin fingering Annalise - what a dilemma! I'm in trouble either way" shit. Understandable I guess, but it becomes annoying and contrived quite quickly. Luckily, he doesn't take TOO long to confide in his homies. After the initial shocking development of the named, good-guy Ultramarine character being introduced and then almost instantly dying, Counter unfortunately makes it apparent that of the 50 or so Loyalists who flock to stop the Word Bearers, only a few will live long enough to develop anything that might be called 'a character'. I mean, only around 10 of them - if that - are given names or dialogue that doesn't go like this: "One marine with him, not mentioned before, was called Plasticfish. Plasticfish reloaded his bolter and said maaaan these Word Bearers don't like these explosive rounds. (Five pages pass.) The volley of bolts knocked Plasticfish's head clean off. I DON'T LIKE IT EITHER were his last words as his head flew down the corridor."

For all its faults, 'BFTA' has some pretty great moments. Unlike so many HH writers, Ben Counter can write a compelling void war sequence, arguably almost as good as Abnett (nowhere near ADB though). Also, the pace is good (this is the problem that ruins 'Fulgrim' and probably 'A Thousand Sons' for me). It's in ceramite-crunching action scenes that Ben excels, explaining the somewhat exhausting 'action sequence after action sequence' pace of the book. We're less than 100 pages in before the Word Bearers reveal their treachery and, though their motives are sooo mysterious at this point, it clearly sets up the situation. The baddies will race to the finish line, and the goodies will stop at nothing to thwart their evil plan, for the rest of the book. Standard action movie stuff. With this in mind, 'BFTA' does its job pretty well. It's kind of like 'Speed' with the desperately increasing tension, or perhaps 'Die Hard' in space. Of course, it has the common 'dumb action movie' problem of all the characters being fairly one-dimensional, the villains most of all. The Word Bearers have no characteristics aside from loving Lorgar and hating the Emperor (and Guilliman, kind of as an afterthought). Compared to 'The First Heretic' and its nuanced characterisation of the XVII Legion and their rivalry with the Ultramarines, it's laughable, but that's a pretty unfair comparison. The nature of that entire book was exploring the Word Bearers. This is all about CRASH BASH NAGASH. In fairness I should say that the relationship between Zadkiel and Ultis, an ambitious young Word Bearer line soldier, is kind of interesting. But only interesting by comparison with the rest of the relationships in the book (and it has zero payoff).

Oh yeah, here's a great moment. The Furious Abyss has a giant book on its prow. Makes sense, what with the Word Bearers' iconography, right? Now, considering the size of the ship, this book is probably the size of a fairly large high school. At one point, the book slowly slides open to reveal A MASSIVE GUN. Probably the dumbest Wacky Races-type bullshit I've ever read but it's played 100% serious. I just pictured Cestus on the bridge throwing his helmet on the floor and jumping on it going "OHHH THOSE DAMN WORD BEARERS HAVE GONE TOO FAR THIS TIME!!"

Confusingly, a lot of characters refer to the Warp as 'the abyss', which isn't much help when one of the main ships is an Abyss-class cruiser called the Furious Abyss. Also, sorry, but Furious Abyss sounds like something a livejournal poet would use as a euphemism for a vagina. (Just me?)

So, after the void battle, the Word Bearers flee into the abyss in the Abyss, the Abyss (see what I mean?) and fuck about with the Warp to make pursuit extra difficult, as Lorgar and his sons are wont to do. The Loyalists follow anyway, and struggle to make headway; tempers are frayed, as are the Gellar fields, leading to daemons manifesting on the ships and running amok. One of the ships is ripped open and killed by the Empyrean, described as a sea of deadly emotions which feed on the crew (OK, I know it's established fluff that this is the nature of the Warp, but when it was put in those terms, I could not help but think of this song when reading this scene, and just about wet myself as a result):

Anyway, Mhotep banishses a big scary-shit daemon by yelling and cutting the shit out of it with his special custodes spear that totally isn't a custodes spear. Dude is pretty overpowered, I guess I can see why some people whined about this but it's kind of tempting to overlook his Draigo Junior antics as he's really one of the only memorable characters (apart from the awfulness of Zadkiel). Skraal the World Eater is less forgiveable, I guess because while Mhotep is kind of every generic son of Magnus in the whole HH series, Skraal can't be reconciled so easily with the World Eaters stuff post-'Tales Of Heresy'. The Butchers' Nails aren't mentioned, just generic battle-rage; mind you, it is possible to assume dude has the Nails (as he is pretty much out of control and hulking out for most of the book, and when not in battle he's hostile and twitchy).

Following Mhotep's daemon fight, the brotherhood splits regarding his POSSIBLE HERESY (they even call it 'heresy', even though the Imperium is atheist as fuck at this point) with Space Wolf and Thousand Son taking harsh stands against each other. Dialogue is particularly poor in this section, there's a point where two Astartes say to each other in a very overblown way "You're a stanky liar!" "Well, he who smelt it dealt it!" "NO, YOU!!" I kind of wish this conflict subplot wasn't in here as it just seems too 'on the nose', accentuating the Russ vs Magnus faction-grudge and Nikaea ramifications that were dealt with in the Prospero 'duology'.

Skraal kept watching with abhorred fascination

Hey, Kor Phaeron shows up as well! He's... a sinister asshole dripping with arrogance. Whew! No fluffbreaking here. Actually, the information on Kor Phaeron is a little inconsistent. He's travelling to Calth with a bunch of powerful Chapter Masters, who aren't given any character development (well, not a surprise by this point) but are also, as far as I know, not mentioned again in the whole series. I guess they weren't so all-fired important after all. Or they were Foedral Fell and Morpal Cxir and co. travelling under pseudonyms...? I guess the Word Bearers would have a LOT of Chapter Masters, since their chapters can be as small as 300, but... I'll admit, one of my pet hates is inconsistency like this. "This character is super important and involved in making plans with another major character. You will never see a trace of them again." Also in these sections, mention is made briefly of that dude Sor Talgron, the boring not-Argel Tal from 'Scions Of The Storm'. (I had to look him up later though.) Anyhow, apparently he's close to Terra and keeping up the pretense of loyalty to get closer to the Throneworld and not provoke suspicion. Sounds like grounds for a pretty interesting story. Shame they appear not to have done anything with this one... yet.

Over halfway through this book, important characters start to die. The Loyalists make a bold attempt to board the Furry Abyss (...well, it made me laugh...) while it's docked for repairs. Surprisingly, using stealth as your weapon when you command Space Wolves and World Eaters doesn't work out!! This leads to a pretty great, yet predictable, battle scene - suddenly generic Marines are getting named, in a frantic effort to give their almost instant deaths some emotional weight... it doesn't really work, but great sequence. I was kind of surprised Antiges went out so quick, but at least Cestus didn't drop to his knees and go NOOOOOOOOOOOO...!!! That's reserved for McNeill books I guess. As this thread resolves in ignominious defeat for the Good Guys, with Skraal marooned on the Abyss all on his lonely. I really like the sequence where Zadkiel messes with Skraal's head, telling him the truth about his Primarch's allegiances. Skraal's response is predictable - "FAGOT LIES! I KILL U WITH BAER FISTS!" - but I like that they tried to mess with the guy's mind. Such as it is. Skraal actually goes to some pretty dark places on his Rambo-style journey through the Abyss; there's a part where he sees some 'From Hell' type shit going on to Antiges' corpse as the Word Bearers try to discern the future in his innards.

"They tail us ever doggedly, my lord" uttered Reskiel as he considered the reports of Navigator Esthemya clutched in his gauntlet.

Once a second daemon invasion happens to the Blue Team's ship, it really feels like Ben's out of ideas and blatantly padding the book - this sequence adds little (though it's a little better written and engaging than the first one, certainly ONE of them could be cut). The same kind of stuff happens again, and the only difference is that they actually see Mhotep breaking a daemon's asshole open, rather than just surmising that's what he did... but we're not given time to concern ourselves with that - as almost right away, Cestus and Brynngar are dueling to decide Mhotep's fate. The Brynngar strand kind of fucking loses it at the end, also dude says at one point "You're a sore sight for my eyes." HOW CAN YOU FUCK UP THAT PHRASE? Also, Cestus' hallucination/'spirit journey' into the mythic Hells of Macragge myth is... a bit much, but well-written - I like the conflict between the Ultramarine's cast-iron faith in rationality and his belief those old myths are bullshit, coupled with his old pre-Legion folk beliefs which have been reawakened by a load of crazy shit that he thought was impossible. I also like that in Ultramar, apparently rebels and non-conformists are consigned to one of the inner circles of hell, dying horribly as part of a giant machine that crushes them. Marx would probably have some shit to say about that...

This next bit is just gonna be a 'cleanup' scattering of tiny complaints that didn't actually bother me that much...

• Some misspellings I'm not 100% sure are misspellings: 'reclusium' (Abnett says 'reclusiam'), a tech-adept called 'Magos Epsolon'... hmmmmm. 
• A few times characters warn against "sacrificing (x) on the altar of (y)", a phrase I don't love and one that doesn't gain anything with repetition. 
• Too often here, the Ultramarines just act like 'modern' 40K Space Marines - just brainwashed Ecclesiarchy "Put your trust in the Emprah!!" dogma. So the book does compare poorly to writers who've tried to show the nuances of the 30K setting's attitudes to the Emperor and how the Legions are very different to the Chapters of 'today'. 
• Still, I'll give Counter some credit. His daemonic creatures are creatively done, unlike with so many HH writers, who seem to be happy to just describe the daemon models Now Available From Your Local GW. Counter actually puts effort into making some freaky-ass warp entities. 
• Unfortunately, most of them tend to get fucked up by Mhotep before they get a chance to really DO anything. 
• The ending here is in keeping with the rest of the book - cool/dumb action sequence where BIG SHIP GO CRASH. But DID MHOTEP DIE? Probably. But don't rule out an audio drama soon where Malcador sends Varren to Formaska ONLY TO FIND that dude is still alive and has been eating space-rats for years to stay alive.

Having re-read 'Know No Fear' again as well, Kor Phaeron's plan seems reeeeeal sloppy. So he was gonna trust one ship (a giant one, to be fair) to kill Formaska and Macragge all by itself? In that case, why would a load of other Word Bearers show up at Macragge and observe from a distance? Cause when they see the suicide mission FAIL BADLY, and then all go "Wellllll... we best get to Calth in time for 'Know No Fear' to start I guess... no loose ends here. Certainly none of US have the technology or armaments to destroy that moon ourselves with cyclonic torpedoes or concentrated fire or anything like that." I mean, the assault on Calth itself was meticulously planned, but it seems... LUCKY that in the day or so of build-up after Kor Phaeron arrives in the Calth system in the Infidus Imperator, no ship shows up from Macragge going "Yo, some giant Word Bearers cruiser appeared in system and acted suspiciously, then blew up, we went inside and there was all kinds of wacky Chaos shit in there, so I sez to myself Guilliman will want to know about this, that's what I sez." Yeah OK, the explanation barely needed to be included - the Word Bearers fucked around withe the Warp to stop any information reaching Roboute, like they do so many times in the series. But it would have been nice if 'Know No Fear' had addressed this. I mean, 'Betrayer' managed to acknowledge 'Battle For The Abyss'... no matter what their opinions on the material, I prefer it when the authors don't retcon previous plots out of existence.

Last of all... Counter kind of goes nuts here trying to avoid use of the word 'said'. People are bellowing, hissing or intoning instead (often their voices are choked with awe or thick with rage, too). I don't subscribe to the Elmore Leonard view that authors should only ever use 'said', on pain of death but I mean damn, you can say it SOMETIMES.

'Battle For The Abyss' is too entertaining for me to keep hatin' on. But there's too many dumb turns of phrase, and thesaurus-abusing word choices, for me to give it a high score. I give it 6/10 (though I did enjoy it much more than 'False Gods', that book is, well, better written than this one, and has more important scenes). I also give Ben Counter an apology for the stuff I said about him being the WORST GUY EVER. I'd not object at all to Ben coming back to the series, just give him enough time to write the novel and give him a good editor, after all, 'Galaxy In Flames' was pretty great. Mind you, most of the good ideas/enjoyable parts in this novel were re-done elsewhere much better, not least the 'mismatched Marines try to halt great evil against the odds' plot reuse in 'The Outcast Dead'. But then again, that was widely hated as well... except by me...

I'll leave you with the dream casting for Cestus, captured here facing the prospect of assaulting the Word Bearers' kingship.

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

"Galaxy In Flames" by Ben Counter

'Galaxy In Flames' closes the inaugural trilogy of the Horus Heresy series. It takes us up to the finish of the Isstvan III virus bombing/massacre, and sets up the storylines of several Horus Heresy books that came next.

There's a Titan behiiiind youuuuuu!

In my 'False Gods' review I alluded to the Night Of The Long Knives... stupidly, I seem to have forgotten that Part 1 of 'Galaxy In Flames' is called 'Long Knives'. Ahh, me and Ben Counter, just totally on the same wavelength. Ahhh... First things first. I'd like to apologise for saying that Ben Counter is Black Library's 'watchword for wack'. Actually, reading this book, I'm forced to admin Ben is pretty fucking good. But you might not know that from reading the first few pages. Unlike with 'False Gods', the first few pages do have a fair amount of superfluous "IN CASE YOU JUST JOINED US" scene-setting and recapping. "Oh what's up Sindermann?" "Nothin' man, just thinking a lot about all the events which brought us here, in minute fucking detail." Kyril used to be a master of rhetoric, now he talks like, well, a rhetard. I'm guessing that's a lack of the authorial skill necessary to write a convincing-sounding speech rather than Black Library's subtle comment on the simplifying effect religion can have on politics. That aside, we are not too long into the book before the conflict on Isstvan III starts. Sure, it takes a while for the betrayal to happen, but it's not a drag at all to read the buildup. Of course, this "get to the main battle REAL QUICK" approach led to a lot of people whining about 'Prospero Burns' so it ain't all good...

Before re-reading this, I remembered this as a significant step down from 'False Gods' in every way. In fact, the writing style is very similar. Counter is a little more terse in description, but his dialogue can be just as clunky, laboured and non-naturalistic as McNeill's was in 'False Gods'. However, his book is less full of implausible or stupid character actions, that's for sure.

The book begins around a year after the events of 'False Gods'. (Horus is now wearing his Martian Terminator armour, so this book begins after the events of 'The Kaban Project', and probably takes place at the same time as 'Mechanicum'.) Horus' wicked plans set into motion at the end of 'False Gods' have had some time to marinate, undersmell me? In that time, the dude has gone fairly quickly from "Damn, I gotta stop the Emperor from proclaiming himself a God!" to "I am a God, so HURRY UP WITH THOSE DAMN CROISSAINTS!" In a marginally less plausible "LET'S ALL GET TRAPPED ON A CHAOS WORLD" plot than 'False Gods', the Gang head out to Isstvan with the Death Guard, World Eaters and Emperor's Children to sort out a creepy "uprising" on a "compliant world". (Is it just me, or is the distress signal from Isstvan very similar to the record of disaster they find on the Reaver homeworld in the classice nerd movie 'Serenity'?) While this gives us a chance to catch up with our favourite III Legion dudes, it also gives us a great introduction for Nathaniel (or Nathanial?) Garro, although we meet him while getting his ass kicked. I can't quite reconcile the 'rough around the edges' Four Yorkshiremen Garro with the stuffy, cultured-sounding dude in the audio books... but hell, who says characters can't change a bit...

'ey, we didn't have none o' this fookin' corruption in my day, lads.

One thing's for sure. You won't be seeing a downturn in chracterisation quality anywhere near as massive or widespread as the one from 'Horus Rising' to 'False Gods'. In fact I'd say most of the time the writing and plotting are much better than in McNeill's book... though not everyone gets away clean. The Remembrancer story arcs are one big L after another. Euphrati Keeler began life as a strong, independent, interesting female character - a big deal, as there have been VERY FEW of those in HH. And now... she's just 'Space Preacher With A Pussy'. Who cares? Definitely one of the lamer-handled character arcs in the whole series. Mersadie Oliton is just an observer at this point and Sindermann, well, he can't orate his way out of a paper bag anymore, so the rapturous applause he constantly gets is frankly bewildering.

The disintegrating relationships between the Mournival members are handled much better here than in 'False Gods', though we're a long way from the nuanced friendship/rivalry of 'Horus Rising'. And Counter's take on the Emperor's Children is definitely the most consistent with the Legion's backstory for the rest of the HH series. In fact, I kind of wish Ben had written 'Fulgrim' (though making it half as long as McNeill's version could have been a good start). I think I read 'Fulgrim' before I read this, so I can see why I found the III Legion parts here so frustrating first time round - I already knew the fleshed-out version, and I had no need for the overview. Reading it in the right order though, 'Galaxy In Flames' is a particularly excellent setup for 'Fulgrim'. Actually, of all the characters in the entire book, Lucius is probably the best-served. First off he's given a nice epiphany on the joys of the Glorious Cacophony of Slaanesh. The Warsingers' song which he is battered by on Isstvan III really changes him, in fact, this is probably one of the most pivotal moments in his narrative, and it's told extremely well. Then there's that unexpected twist of Lucius being earmarked for death along with the Loyalists. The way he slimes out of it may make you hate him, but I also felt a grudging respect. In fact, I'm surprised Tzeentch didn't claim him with that little scheme working out the way it did. Lucius is such a great, memorable HH character, and it's fitting that he would simultaneously embrace the gifts of Slaanesh and somehow retain the ethos of the III Legion: arrogance, ambition, and the relentless pursuit of perfection. Lucius always seemed better-drawn than Vairosean, Eidolon or even Fulgrim to me...

Ben takes the opportunity to give us a bit of foreshadowing on the directions some of these Legions are going to take. Loken's discovery of a creepy Chaos temple on the 'Vengeful Spirit' is a great sequence. And hey, right after that, Loken's the one who gets an acid trip this time out, though he shakes it off with a cry of "I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR ILLUSIONS!" Told you Loken was too straight up and down for that shit. On Isstvan Extremis and then Isstvan III, the Emperor's Children fight creepie opponents who take orgiastic glee in utilising sonic weaponry... foreshadow much? Eidolon's already killing enemies by screamin' on 'em, too. But how?? Well, STAY TUNED FOR 'FULGRIM', KIDS! Horus' fall is a tiny bit more nuanced here, but he's still 99% evil dick, so it's not too huge a surprise when he closes the book by carrying out George W. Bush's lifelong dream: massacring pesky dissident journalists. "Call me a warmonger, would you? Well would a warmonger HELLA MASSACRE YOU JUST LIKE THIIIIIIIS? Warmonger this, motherfuckers. Callin' me all types of shit."

Horus does his hilarious Magnus The Red impression.

Counter's action sequences, while a little unimaginitive, are certainly readable. The general lack of Astartes carrying on an internal monologue while they're in the thick of the fighting makes that aspect of the book superior to 'False Gods' in my opinion. For example, the virus bombing description is masterful - I doubt even Dan Abnett could have done it better, as the tension of the buildup, and then the sheer horror of the atrocity are superbly captured. But... sadly, this is around the time that the Three Remembrancer Amigos story arc becomes soooooo boring. Their escape from the Vengeful Spirit is kinda ill, but that but with the fumble of Qruze's origins makes me wince, as does every time Sindermann or Keeler open their fuckin' holes. The fact that so much incredible shit is happening planetside makes it even harder, I mean, you cut away from Angron beating the crap out of his own Legion for THIS? Even that wiener Titan moderati gets a badass showdown on the bridge of the Dies Irae ("OK ... I'M RELOADING!!").

Along with the ongoing simplification of dialogue and (to some degree) characterisation, the question of religion also continues to be simplified. 'Horus Rising' took this as a multifaceted issue and there were several conflicting views of religion expressed without a clear narrative side being taken. Here, all the 'goodies' are starting to fall down and genuflect whenever the EMPRAH is mentioned. Likewise, anyone who doubts the necessity or inherent goodness of religious institutions is guaranteed to turn out to be a ten-gallon shit. You know, I remembered the series as being pretty mature and open-ended on the subject of religion... but now, I think I was just so shocked BL were tackling such an unexpected subject that I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Because when I read it now, most of it is just "if you don't have a God, you don't have a purpose" or "monotheism good, atheism bad, polytheism worse!!" or "no faith in higher powers? YOU ARE A BAD PERSON MY FRIEND!"

The final section of 'False Gods' follows Tarvitz, Lucius, Torgaddon and Loken as they carry out their guerilla war against their final brothers. After a virus-bombing followed by a fiery planet-wide deathstorm, the remaining loyalists are quite few, and they're in a bad way. Despite the unrelenting combat and the pervading brutality, there's a lovely, elegaic tone to parts of this section. The loyalists have accepted their fate, and while they're determined to sell their lives dearly to stall Horus' consolidation of power, they know No One Here Gets Out Alive.

Yo, THIS is Ben Counter? Looks like he should be in Neurosis.

Ah, or DO they? As much as it seemed unlikely at the time, Loken lived, and the only major Loyalist character we KNOW to have died is Tarik. Vipus, Ancient Rylanor, Tarvitz... we don't actually SEE them croak. Sure, given the situation they're in at the end of the book, they probably SHOULD have died, and it'd take some convincing twists to bring them back (I don't want a repeat of the Loken "oh yeah I hid under a building to escape the brutal saturation bombing which totally worked and then I went crazy for probably several months and I may have eaten Torgaddon's remains" scenario) but I can't help feeling that the fact we weren't SHOWED their deaths in detail means BL has something up their sleeve for these guys. Anyway, if 'Galaxy In Flames' Part Three, 'Brothers', was its own self-contained novella, I'd probably give it 9/10 or even 10/10; it's easily the best part of the book. By the way, guess how many Remembrancers are in that last part? None.

Well, OK, there is one flaw to that section. After the intense, emotional showdown between Lucius and Saul Tarvitz, the extremely verbose intro to the Mournival Reunion Tag-Team Grudge Match Showdown seems very unnecessary. Loken's passionate arguments are nothing all the loyalists haven't all thought in their internal monologues, and Abaddon does little more than sneer U ARE BLIND FOOL LOKEN, I AM MAIN WINNAR, HORUS WAY BEST WAY! If Ezekyle had actually been given an opportunity to put forward his own viewpoint at this point of the Heresy, in detail - damn, that could have been fascinating.

As is customary for a lot of these books, the last pages set up the Big Plans for the next few. Isstvan V is a-callin', and that can't end well. A brief mention is made of the fact that Perturabo is about to destroy Olympia - and this kind of annoys me, as it seems such a colossal part of his character and his motivation, and it seems like the HH series is just going to gloss over it. The first time we really spend time with Perturabo ('The Crimson Fist', 'Angel Exterminatus'), Olympia is a bit of a distant memory and he doesn't think about it much. Still, that's hardly Counter's fault; I think everyone assumed at this point that it would be dealt with in detail before long. The only real annoyance I can point to in the last few pages is the troubling line near the end about Targhost and his "darker skin" making him look "more at home... on a murdered world". WTF? WHAT YOU SAYIN' THOUGH SON?? There's also a scene where Sedirae rallies the troops which is probably the only scene, EVER, IN ALL OF THE SERIES which supports the "Sedirae was a dangerously ambitious dude and Horus had to get him bumped off" theory that James Swallow busted out near the end of 'Nemesis'. I never bought that shit at all, though... Sedirae seemed like a real Horus ass-kisser to me. But, yeah, that's not an axe that would be appropriate to grind with Ben Counter.

It's very tempting to give this book 8/10, which would place it in the top tier of Heresy novels. But... the remembrancer stuff (broken record alert!) really drags the book down, and the dialogue (particularly the non-Astartes dialogue) is often clunky. I'm going with 7/10, though it's a high 7; definitely more enjoyable than some HH books I've rated 7/10. For instance, it's got much more enjoyable elements than 'Vulkan Lives', but it's also much more uneven than that book.

I was wrong about 'Galaxy In Flames', I'm glad to admit that. Was I wrong about 'Battle For The Abyss' as well? Hmmm, we'll see...

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

"Betrayer" by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

'Betrayer' takes place fairly soon after the events of 'Know No Fear' and probably unfolds around the same time as 'Fear To Tread'. The Dembski-Bowden audiobook 'Butcher's Nails' is also a nice context-setting prelude to this action and can only increase your enjoyment of 'Betrayer'. This is another novel where Lorgar's machinations are behind the thrust of the action. Well, isn't that the case in all Horus Heresy books? But this is another novel where you actually see him machinatin'. It's also the first HH novel where Angron, The Red Angel, 12th Primarch, Father Of The World Eaters, takes centre stage.

Brotherly love.

We've seen Legions before whose Primarchs seem to dislike their own sons, like Kurze or Perturabo. But I don't think we've seen a Legion where there's this antipathy from both sides. The World Eaters worship Angron in many ways, but they also know that he has damned them utterly. Like their Primarch, they are aware that there are ways to fight battles other than a frontal assault but aren't particularly interested; the Nails drive them forward to unsubtle close combats with their enemies, whatever the tactical layout. This means that even in straightforward, easily-winnable conflicts, they lose masses of troops. Long-term effects of the Butcher's Nails - hardly suited to a Primarch, let alone an Astartes - are robbing the Legion of their sanity, having already done away with their versatility and their compassion. They seem to accept this, but that doesn't mean they don't hate Angron a little bit for it.

Kharn is interesting, or rather, Kharn is a fundamentally uninteresting character handled in an interesting way here. As I've said, 'After Desh'ea' is one of my favourite HH short stories, partially because we see Kharn as he used to be: noble, capable, and in control of himself. In 'Betrayer', that Kharn is long gone. Glimpses of him remain, but his personality is quite comprehensively shattered by the constant pain in his skull, and any tactical nous he begins to display is generally dashed quite quickly. I can't pretend that I find much interest in a character who is constantly howling for blood and running towards the enemy, but luckily Dembski-Bowden is too good a writer to make him into a cardboard cut-out like the 41st Millennium Kharn pretty much is. The interesting moments come from the times where Kharn fights against the slow lobotomy taking place inside him and shows sparks of his old nature, even defying Angron a few times.

Even in the full grip of the Nails, Kharn is given a few moments to ponder on the nature of the Legion and the Primarch without it seeming shoved-in and clumsy. His gallows humour is also welcome. Apart from Kharn, though, the most interesting characters are the naysayers to Angron's path. Sure, all the World Eaters know deep down their Primarch is a broken, unworthy thing, but Esca (a doomed Librarian) and Lhorke (a Dreadnought entombed long before Angron joined the Legion) are much more... direct in their disapproval. It's a bit of a shame we couldn't spend more time with them.

Dembski-Bowden also seizes the opportunity to build on his characterisation of Lorgar here. His scenes really are priceless, and all the more effective when his quiet self-confidence and capable intellect are juxtaposed with Angron's twitching, snarling rages. These two really, really have an odd dynamic to their relationship: competitive, suspicious, but somehow affectionate... well, brotherly. (Oh, and speaking of the Urizen: there are juicy hints that follow on from what (I think) was implied in Abnett's divisive 'Pariah': Lorgar is the originator of Enuncia, or at least he's the one who's brought it into the 31st milennium.) Additionally, we get to see more of Argel Tal, who is... different from the last time we saw him. He seems more comfortable with his possessed state, but he is also haunted by the events near the end of 'The First Heretic'. He and Kharn have an oddly touching friendship. They are probably two of the most noble soldiers in the Traitor Legions we've spent time with thus far. Quite an accomplishment considering the atrocities they're responsible for...  To this, add even more exploration of the split within the Word Bearers (Lorgar grows ever more tired of Erebus and Kor Phaeron's frolicking about) and their fallout for Argel Tal, and it's fair to say this is about the 17th Legion just as much as it is the 12th.

If you're expecting 350 pages of the above, you're shit outta luck.

Despite it being very heavy on close combat, the book's not all chainblades and disembowelments. Other elements of 31st millennium combat come to the fore at various points of Betrayer. Titans, and void war. To be brutally frank, I've never liked reading Titan battles. I don't know why, but something about them just rubs me wrong. The Titan parts in 'Betrayer' aren't much of an exception. Aaron is great at the human element in colossal battles, and the crews are very engaging, but... I can't explain it, I just don't dig Titan action. Best to put this down as personal preference and move on.

Void war, on the other hand, is something else. I grew up loving Star Wars and devouring whichever of the spin-off novels I could find in my local library. The colossal space battles, and the incredibly diverse ship types darting through the action, were one of the main reasons it made such an impact on me. I can't say I'm a Star Wars fan still. (Maybe it was Episode III. Maybe it was slowly realising how fucking racist George Lucas is. Maybe it was something else.) But that shit has stayed with me. It's clear to me Dembski-Bowden shares that aspect of Star Wars space-battle love. Maybe he's a Rogue Squadron fan too? Whatever the case, the celestial slugfests of 'Betrayer' are superb - perhaps even better than the ones in his Night Lords books, which is really saying something. They're edge-of-the-seat tense, they drive the plot forward, and they're also very, very readable; not dumbed-down, but also not getting lost in dreary litanies of tech-specs. And yeah, I'd say this is an area where AD-B is (whisper it) Better Than Abnett. SHIT!!! I've said it, and I can't take it back.

While I wouldn't call it "good" as such, I'm still fond of this series.

And while I'm assuming that the author is part of the same fandoms as me - this is probably totally wrong, but I feel like there's a tiny grain of George RR Martin in here. In the mad, pre-teen boy-king who now rules over Angron's old enemies in Desh'ea... and also in the way Aaron is willing to kill off major characters without much preamble or warning. (Erebus, you shit!) And some Varys-worthy behind-the-scenes scheming, too. Looks like Lorgar's honeyed tongue (no homo) might be starting to sway exiled Magnus The Red into acceptance of Horus' cause, if not full-blown alliance... stay tuned...

What's the last word on 'Betrayer'? I'll be honest. I didn't love this book to start with, or at least, I didn't love it as much as I wanted to. After the last two novels in HH being so brilliant - pardon me, masters McNeill and Swallow, for saying unexpectedly brilliant - I was fiendin' for the newest AD-B masterwork. For the first hundred or so pages... I couldn't get into it. There is a lot of throat-clearing and character development, and sometimes you'll think "Get to the interesting stuff!" But hell, when the plot really starts moving, you'll forget all about any initial misgivings and get into the bloody, twisty and (unexpectedly) heart-wrenching story. Perhaps I'm a gay nerd, but I swear I had actual tears in my eyes when Angron tripped down memory lane and poured a 40 of blood for his dead homies. And by the time 'Betrayer' ended, I honestly felt emotionally scarred... And for that, I give it 9/10. I can't wait for the saga of Lorgar to continue.

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