"The Outcast Dead" by Graham McNeill

From the fairly limited time I spent on forums discussing (or yelling about) Horus Heresy books, I got the impression that much of the fandom considers ‘The Outcast Dead’ to be the point where the HH series took a nosedive in quality (well, either that or ‘Nemesis’). In fact, I think I only ever saw it brought up as an example of how Graham McNeill can’t plot worth shit and knows nothing about the setting, due to a fairly large/problematic plot contrivance we’ll get to later.

I actually like this book a lot – big surprise, right? So I wrote a long ass review, maybe even rivaling my 'Fulgrim' writeup. Apologies in advance for how long and rambling it ended up...

Sadly, the sick-ass 80s goggles worn by purple boy are not canonical to the book...

Before reading this book, you need a passing knowledge of the Crusade Host, because that won’t be explained too promptly or clearly in the novel. Lemme give you the Cliff notes. Essentially, each Legion left between one and three warriors on Terra, really just to act as a symbolic guardian or ambassador on the Homeworld. (The Ultramarines left five – always gotta be the best, don’t they?) These warriors were referred to as the Crusade Host. At the outbreak of the Heresy, the host numbers thirty warriors. Obviously, some of the Legions represented here have since turned traitor – but these warriors have been on Terra fifty years, so they’re unlikely to be part of the secret Lodge-fostered revolutionary plot, right? Unfortunately, Dorn, Malcador et al are not really the type to give a down-on-his-luck Astartes the benefit of the doubt. Y’all just can’t let the Space Marine man thrive! In a not-exactly-clear sequence, the Crusade Host are betrayed by one of their own number, a Thousand Sons marine who helps the Imperium's agents to capture and imprison them (though not without a fight).

John French’s ‘Riven’ and Anthony Reynolds’ ‘The Purge’ tell the stories of the X Legion and XVIII Legion Crusade Host warriors, respectively, and for the curious you can find the exact rundown of which Legion left which amount of warriors and what their names were (it was ‘bonus material’ in the limited edition of ‘The Purge’). For ‘The Outcast Dead’, though, we’ll only be meeting a small amount of the Crusade Host.

But that all comes later.

First of all, we have to set up our storyline and lead characters, some of which are established pretty quickly. First, we have disgraced astropath Kai Zulane, recently involved in a huge catastrophe which resulted in the loss of the XIII Legion vessel Argo, leaving him with PTSSD (post traumatic space-stress disorder) (yep, I guess that’s the quality of joke I’m making now). The other central character – kind of – is Yasu Nagasena, who we meet while he’s preparing to storm a fortress housing the Crusade Host, at the head of an army of three thousand human troopers. I say ‘kind of’ because he barely features in the beginning of the book. We also have a supplicant in the Petitioner’s City called Roxanne, who seems important at the beginning but is missing for most of the middle of the narrative. Yep. Graham’s naming convention continues to take the occasional wobble (Snowdog, anyone?) but she’s a pretty damn good character. I might even say she’s the best female character Graham’s written in the Heresy series. (Not that there’s much competition in his lineup of whores and matriarchs.) She’s like a much less irritating version of Dalia from ‘Mechanicum’.

Kai Zulane is bound to be divisive. He whines, he complains, he throws tantrums, he cries, he never asked to be born, and it’s good to know that if he ever needs attention all he has to do is die. For all intents and purposes, he’s a sullen teenager who hasn’t been allowed to stay out all night. Graham has created a truly obnoxious character – but Zulane is supposed to be obnoxious. I would rather read about Zulane and his selfish crying than the boring Remembrancers Graham wrote for his earlier books – and I find Zulane’s dialogue and motivations to be pretty believable, instead of the weird colourless mind of, say, his Sindermann (articulate if didactic intellectual when written by Dan, charisma-free dullard when written by Graham).

Nagasena is a little more problematic. Sure – Graham put this guy in there because he loves samurai, and why not? Who doesn’t? And what is 40K if you can’t just shove an archetype from a totally archaic culture in amongst all the spaceships and laser cannons? But the deployment of age-old Japanese warrior tropes is clumsy at best, kind of a lazy ethnic stereotype at worst (Nagasena loves gardening and painting, because, well, Japan, right?). When Chris Wraight had to justify why a technologically advanced Imperium in the 31^st Millennium would employ a Legion of Mongolian warriors who were not a million miles from the host of a 2^nd Millennium leader, he gave it his best shot (and I think he was successful). Compared to, say, Shiban in ‘Scars’, Nagasena is a blatant caricature. It's a shame, because his story arc is generally pretty damn interesting.

To begin with, our heroes are all on different parts of Terra, but news of the disaster at Isstvan V is starting to seep back to the Homeworld, and all the main characters are witness to the creeping dread and denial of an Imperium starting to realise just how fucked it is. And there’s a lot of fun in seeing Kai (ostensibly the major character of the book’s beginning) struggle through the ‘cold war’ political climate of Terra, just trying to get by, but getting caught up in events of galactic import (of course). It’s a little light on action, though. Then, just under halfway through, the representatives of Traitor Legions in the Crusade Host stage a daring escape from their super-super-hyper-max prison, Kai is caught up in the madness, and the action kicks into overload.

Hey, boy: ‘The Outcast Dead’ really fucking moves. Even in its opening chapters, where the game pieces are being set up on the board but there’s not much of what you’d call ‘action’, I’m engaged and entertained. When I consider how boring I’ve found quite a few ‘classics’ by Graham – ‘False Gods’, ‘A Thousand Sons’, the 40K Ultramarines books he wrote – I’m sometimes surprised how many of his books I think are paced superbly; this, ‘Iron Warrior’, ‘The Seventh Serpent’ and ‘Angel Exterminatus’ all spring to mind.

Our ‘second lead antagonist’, Babu Dhakal, is an out-and-out villain if Nagasena is a reluctant anti-hero. I like the idea that even at the centre of ‘the greatest galactic civilisation’ truly evil, dangerous bastards are allowed to thrive – and, well, it makes sense considering the Emperor is the boss here (evil maybe, dangerous certainly, bastard without question). But… the more we find out about Babu and his henchman Ghota, the more I think he has a legitimate grievance, even if the things he does to settle the score are pretty unjustified. I honestly hope we see more of this storyline, and with both characters alive and well and their grudge against the Emperor intact at the end of the book, it seems far from impossible they’ll show up to twist the knife again during the Siege of Terra.

What I really love about ‘The Outcast Dead’ is the glimpse it gives us of Terra as its pre-Heresy (and at times, pre-Crusade) culture struggles to adapt to the new system. Disillusionment with Unity is now allowed to come to the surface now that the Emperor and his goons have other things to worry about. With the growing paranoia caused by the Heresy, and the fragile state-enforced ‘materialist/atheist’ philosophy coming apart as the Imperial Cult continues to grow, it’s a rich seam to mine, and Graham sure mines it. Continuing my suspicion that Graham is at his best when riffing on Dan Abnett’s ideas, it feels like he re-read ‘The Lightning Tower’ and ‘Blood Games’ and was impressed by Dan’s not-actually-that-grimdark spin on a world caught between hard SF and 40K mysticism, and decided to use that as a foundation for the book. And it really worked. I think that apart from some of the Forge World background, this is the best Terra-set stuff in the Heresy.

I’m making ‘TOD’ sound like it’s some chin-stroking, lore-deep slow-burner going for a ‘literary sci-fi’ spin on the Heresy. It’s really not like that – it’s an action-packed ‘popcorn’ book. The situation here – a small group of disparate personalities with trust issues have to work together when the whole world’s against them – seems an obvious throwback to the violent yet cheesy 80s action movies Graham seems to love so dearly. In fact, the second half of ‘The Outast Dead’ seems like a vaguely Warhammerfied adaptation of some lost 80s blockbuster. I can see the lineup now: Chuck Norris as mystical Atharva (fuck it, it’s the 80s, so give him an incredibly tasteless ‘Native American’ headband), Arnold Schwarzenegger as brooding Severian, Sylvester Stallone as tough guy Tagore, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as twin World Eaters Subha and Asubha, Patrick Swayze as pretty-boy Kiron, a quick cameo from David Hasselhoff as Gythua… and Charlie Sheen (or maybe a young Leonardo DiCaprio) as Kai Zulane. You could even pull in golden-boy everyman Hulk Hogan to play Rogal Dorn. Fuck, now I want to see that movie.

the outsiders dead lol

The thing is, while they’re nowhere near as shallow as in ‘Battle for the Abyss’, the characters here rarely move beyond Legion tropes. You’ve got an arrogant perfectionist Emperor’s Children marksman, a hulking, stoic Death Guard ‘big guy’, a smug yet conflicted Thousand Son psyker, an abrasive and prideful Luna Wolf scout. And of course, the World Eaters are angry berserkers thirsty for blood. However, it’s nice that some efforts are made to subvert the Legion characteristics. The gradually mounting tension between the three World Eaters is nice, an unexpected trait I’d like to have seen built on further. Having the Emperor’s Children and Death Guard warriors’ only real character traits being their strong friendship is kind of great. It’s a fun group of personalities bouncing off each other. I’d even argue that the ‘Legion trope squad’ dynamics here work better than in a later Graham book, ‘Vengeful Spirit’.

Of course, there is one character who I’d say eventually transcends the bold comic-book outlines of the rest of the titular Outcast Dead – and that’s Atharva, the Thousand Sons warrior. His role is so prominent that he has to be viewed as a main character, unlike most of the other Astartes tough guys here. Much like Mhotep in ‘Battle for the Abyss’, Atharva is an extremely powerful mage, to the point that the accusation could be made that he’s a broken character who can do whatever the author wants because magic. While he’s an Athenaean, he also seems to have a good grasp of most other Thousand Sons disciplines when it suits the narrative, and there also seems to be precious little limit to what he can achieve. While flawed, he also has a quick wit and powerful insight so frequently lacking in Ahriman and friends. Perhaps it’s my bitterness over how well-regarded ‘A Thousand Sons’ is as a book, since I always felt it was fairly mediocre, but I really believe Atharva is the best XV Legion character Graham has written. And hey, he’s part of one of the best ‘what the fuck?!’ moments in the book, when he voluntarily cuts off his psychic ability permanently to stop himself from being affected by a pariah. Weird, very weird - and I'm sure it's not a canonical 'possibility' in 40K lore, but who cares? It’s a kind of rad moment.

So what are the problems with ‘The Outcast Dead’? The slow-burn drama of the book’s first half is something I can understand fans disliking; generally HH readers seem to want their books to be a bit more visceral and action-packed than this. I think it’s an invaluable study of Terra in the early years of the Heresy – but I recognise not everyone agrees. It’s when the Crusade Host jailbreak occurs that Graham really gets to the meat – and that meat is pretty damn rare, with the escape sequence itself being some of his best tense combat writing, even though its resolution is somewhat fuzzy.

Another sticking point for a lot of fans is the way ‘The Outcast Dead’ deals with Magnus’ projection to Terra. At the book’s outset, we are in the prelude to Isstvan V (possibly the Massacre has already happened, considering that unreliable lines of astropathic communication are kind of a cornerstone of the narrative). Yet people are talking about how there hasn’t been any word from Prospero for months – but Magnus’ message to Terra was dispatched following his inability to sway Horus on Davin, which was, what, two full years before Isstvan V? Prospero surely was turned into a cinder more than a few months ago. And then – as news reaches Terra of four more Legions’ betrayal – a terrible psychic shockwave blasts the planet, emerging from the Palace, caused by the psychic ‘visit’ to Terra of the Crimson King – something that happened before the Heresy really got underway, but here presented as a present event (even going so far as to intercut Kai’s story with a scene featuring Magnus and Ahriman doing spell prep for the projection, and a scene with the Emperor seeing the g-g-g-g-g-ghostly visitation).

Now, in ‘Wolf Hunt’, Graham’s audio drama sequel to ‘The Outcast Dead’, this apparent timeline snafu is ‘clarified’ with exposition from Malcador himself: of course the Emperor received the message from Magnus before Isstvan III, but that projection caused a terrible calamity with the Webway portal the Emperor was working on, so he needed to nearly-single handedly hold back the ‘shockwave’ for nearly two years before, whoops, some fucker told him a really funny joke and he lost his grip and BLAM, Terra becomes shockwave city. This is also reinforced in ‘The Sigillite’, where it’s implied the Emperor has been fighting to control the Webway portal fallout caused by Magnus for a very long time.

Yet, if this were really the case, and it was the plan for the Imperial leadership to stifle the Webway disaster’s truth all along, it could have been dealt with MUCH more clearly. It really doesn’t seem to add up – sure the psychic shockwave is devastating, but you could argue that having the incredibly significant figurehead of the Emperor absent for so long has caused greater problems. I mean… come on Graham. You can treat us like idiots sometimes, just not all the time. Have some scenes where people belabour the point that the Emperor has been absent too long and with no explanation. Have Malcador drop some dark hints. Have Dorn, or maybe THE EMPEROR HIMSELF – who makes a cameo here, in ‘psychic apparition’ form – allude to this terrible tragedy. Instead, in the words of one powerful psyker, “It’s happening now! It’s happening right now!” 

There are also just too many scenes where people talk about ominous predictions and foretellings regarding SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY FUCKING HAPPENED TWO YEARS AGO. Why weren’t those Magnus scenes framed as flashbacks? It would only make sense if the big shocking payoff was ‘Surprise, it actually happened years ago!’… but ‘it actually happened years ago’ was a WELL ESTABLISHED ELEMENT THAT EVERYONE ALREADY KNEW FROM THE ORIGINAL TIMELINE!

the outKast dead lol

On my third reading of this book, it feels like Graham either forgot how the timeline went (which is what the message board assbutts would have you believe) or he’s trying to allude to these rather strange changes to the ‘original’ timeline in a very subtle, coquettish way. And frankly – don’t take this as a criticism, because as I’ve said, I love this book – Graham doesn’t do subtlety. At best, this is sloppily written; at worst, the internet assholes were right for once. It feels like something a halfway competent editorial team could have picked up on right away. Maybe it’s unfair to say that; it’s rumoured Graham isn’t the most cooperative with the BL editors, so perhaps their hands were tied.

With all that said, I DON’T CARE THAT MUCH ABOUT THIS EVEN IF IT IS A MISTAKE. Sure, Graham possibly fucked up, and if he tried to clumsily do a stealth retcon and not own his mistake, that’s kind of shitty – but a) we can’t 100% prove that’s the case and b) does it totally ruin the book? I don’t think so at all. It’s background stuff; the real meat of the book is the development of Heresy-era Terra as a place, and the dumb action movie Dirty Dozen shit that works so well.

And what’s the last problem with this fairly great book? Well... it falls apart a little at the end. It seems Graham ends quite a lot of his books with a giant overblown fight scene where all the different plot lines tie up in a conflagration of violent fucking death. If the characters have been enjoyable to spend time with, I get quite invested in these fights – ie ‘Angel Exterminatus’. If I haven’t liked the characters, it just serves to underline how hollow the reading experience has been for me – see ‘Dead Sky Black Sun’ or ‘A Thousand Sons’. ‘The Outcast Dead’ is… kind of in the middle. ‘Big hero death’ moments for Gythua and Kiron seem like the prelude to a big, heartrending ‘kill everyone, let the reader suffer’ ending. And then we get a big hero death for Tagore. It’s brutal, pretty sad, and well handled – he’s a monstrous psychopath, but we’ve spent enough time with him that we’re kind of rooting for him. And then there’s a similar moment for Subha. And Asubha. And Saturnalia, kind of... By now it’s starting to feel like the same death is being repeated again and again in the hopes we have an equally powerful reaction each time. And then we get one for Atharva (well, in a way we get two). And Kai himself, of course. These moments are sometimes separated by only a few pages, and one after the other, they slowly start to lose their power.

And the messy wrap-up of the story that’s going on all around these deaths – that doesn’t help much. A daemon taking on the aspect of the Angel of Death manifests just because. I was aware of the foreshadowing leading up to this in the book, but the payoff seemed confused and utterly gratuitous, and amongst the fucking ocean of murder that’s happening around him, Palladis’ theoretically-maybe-a-bit-cathartic death loses any impact. Who was this character and why did he do the things he did? Graham helpfully has him die sobbing that he’ll finally be with his dead family again, and hopefully that means we won’t think about how one dimensional Palladis turned out to be. But why was the daemon there, and what was its aim? With Graham reducing his BL workload since he works for Riot Games now, it seems possible we’ll never see that storyline given a satisfying ending.

The last bloody payoff for Kai – realising his vision is in fact a foretelling of the Horus/Emperor duel – is a great moment. And Graham gets to write about one of the most important scenes in the 40K fiction – though this is a vision, so BL could still fuck around and change the way things play out when the books actually deal with this. I’m not sure how I feel about the Emperor knowing and apparently embracing his ‘death’ as an unchangeable inevitable fact at this point in the Heresy, since it doesn’t really sit comfortably with how I’ve come to view the Emperor – but I guess maybe we’ll see how ‘Master of Mankind’ deals with this.

He may neglect to service the fans in quite the way they want, but Graham is still giving us some great moments. TOD feels like Graham looked at ‘Blood Games’, ‘Battle for the Abyss’ and ‘Nemesis’, gauged exactly what was cool about them and what was a drag, and put the cool stuff together in one gloriously illogical package. It’s a heck of a read. Vital to the ‘macro-view’ of the Horus Heresy? Not at all; the key mainline plot points can be summarised in a paragraph. But it’s one of my ‘secret favourite’ Heresy books, and one I feel is wildly underrated. 8/10

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

Short Fiction Round-Up Volume 3: "Vorax" (Matt Farrer), "Luna Mendax" (Graham McNeill), "The Gates of Terra" (Nick Kyme)

Coming to you this time, three stories with a unifying theme: they all take place within the yellow light of Sol, though none are on Terra’s holy ground (well, as far as I know… jury’s out on the last one) after the outbreak of the Heresy. While this theme unifies them, the stories, characters and quality are all varied. I thought it’d be cool to do this themed roundup as the recent Weekender featured an announcement that the HH narrative will be moving definitively into the Solar System Campaign which leads into the Siege of Terra. Seems premature to me, but BL know what they’re doing… right??

Vorax by Matthew Farrer: Before ‘Cybernetica’ delivered on the promise of more, it seemed for a while like the Horus Heresy series had straight up forgot about Mars. (Nowadays everybody wanna talk, like they got somethin’ to say…) All these stories of Space Marines (mostly from the Shattered Legions) having desperate battles in the far corners of the galaxy when there was already a Traitor stronghold on Terra’s doorstep apparently going ignored. ‘Vorax’ was no more than a tidbit – an Advent Calendar Quick Read that in some ways serves only as a glorified advert for an expensive resin model made by Forge World. Yet somehow, it manages to be one of the best Heresy stories BL has put out in recent years. I’d compare it to Farrer’s seminal ‘After Desh’ea’ in the way it arouses my interest in a faction I’ve often found boring and one-note. I don’t wanna say that in its few pages, ‘Vorax’ is “better” than Graham’s whole ‘Mechanicum’ book was at showing scrapcode corruption and the madness that reigns after Mars declares for Kelbor-Hal… but… Well, I seem to already have said it, don’t I?

The story of ‘Vorax’ is rather basic and in fact can be summed up in a sentence. On the Ring of Iron, the Mechanicum traitor Ratiomancer Rhaal torments loyalist Enginseer Arrys, but is interrupted by some Vorax automata, who horribly murder him. The end. (Spoilers.) But like most of these Quick Reads, the story isn’t the appeal, it’s the way the authors can deepen and augment the background to this huge conflict. Farrer is one of the best in BL at showing us a new side to old, boring scenarios. Plus, homeboy can write – his flashy yet somehow terse style, florid in dialogue but brutal in combat, is one of my favourites after Dan Abnett. Here, he excels in showing the details of physical change wrought in Mechanicum operatives by the Mars scrapcode and their embrace of Kelbor-Hal’s new regime. Disturbing and horror-influenced, but somehow more believable than a lot of the more ‘gross’ stuff in HH. He also manages to tell us the current state of the Mars conflict and its blockade in subtle ways, making me wish for more of this from Farrer – a novella at least, or several more Quick Reads – to flesh out the Ring of Iron conflict. Still, I think any stories on this subject would be welcome, regardless of the writer – it really seems like a rich area that the series hasn’t mined yet.

In a short story like this characterisation often has to be done using broad strokes and clichés. Yet Farrer gives Rhaal a distinct and convincingly unhinged voice – it’s a very different approach from the dispassionate, brusque canting of Rob Sanders’ Dark Mechanicum creations. I’ve grown to enjoy Rob’s work in that area but this is still my preferred portrayal of Martian insanity and evil. Importantly, the Vorax themselves are a terrifying force of nature, and it’s a shame that as far as I know they haven’t shown up in any other Heresy work to date.

Sadly, the main problem with Vorax is that it’s so bloody short, and that its nasty, brutish ending makes it seem more like a prelude to a longer work than a self-contained narrative. I can only hope… but considering how infrequently Matt’s stories appear, it seems unlikely. For those who want more evil Mechanicum stuff from Matt, his novella ‘The Inheritor King’ from the Sabbat Crusade anthology also deals with corrupt machines, though in a very different way. For those who just want more Heresy stories from this guy, well, I’m right there with you. 9/10

Luna Mendax by Graham McNeill: At first published only in an event-exclusive anthology (which I was lucky enough to get my hands on), ‘Luna Mendax’ is an important chapter in the Garviel Loken story. Luckily, BL have finally put it out as an eBook, something they probably should have done in tandem with the release of ‘Vengeful Spirit’, since it’s an explicit prequel to that book. But oh well, since it’s out, it seems petty to complain.

‘Luna Mendax’ sees Graham McNeill take over as the writer for Loken for the first time since ‘False Gods’. Ben Counter may not have changed Garvi too much, but James Swallow made him fully insane and delusional, giving him the mantle of ‘Cerberus’ for his rather unsurprising return from the grave in ‘Garro: Legion of One’. Then John French took Loken on with ‘Grey Angel’, writing his shattered confidence well but involving him in a rather strange Caliban-centred plot hole which may or may not ever get a satisfying resolution.

When we meet Loken he’s working to build a beautiful garden, in a deserted hab-dome on Luna. Yeah, it’s a bit of a cliché for an old warrior to be working in a garden and musing on the nature of peace, an easy shorthand for the fact Loken is tired of war and wants to, well, retire. But after that slightly annoying intro, ‘Luna Mendax’ becomes a nice curiosity, an enjoyable HH story for those who don’t insist on their BL material brimming with violence, ichor and innards. Not only does it fill in the gaps between ‘Grey Angel’ and ‘Vengeful Spirit’, it also fills in the gaps after ‘Legion of One’, and that’s appreciated. The mission to Caliban in ‘Grey Angel’ is discussed at length, but the wilfully obscure nature of Loken’s findings are passed over, which is probably a smart decision. Graham also dials back the mad frothing of the ‘Cerberus’ insanity to show a more realistic portrayal of a warrior recovering from a deeply traumatic event which left pretty much everyone he had ever known either dead or his sworn enemy.

Loken’s memories are a mess, which gives Graham an opportunity for several flashbacks. These emphasise one of the things I like most about Graham’s writing: he really loves ‘Horus Rising’ and is unashamed of showing it. This writing showed a marked improvement in characters established in that first novel. It also gives Graham a chance to press ‘reset’ on the character of Loken and have him revert to his pre-Isstvan III self as his memories come flooding back. No more screaming insaniac, no more borderline-catatonic PTSD victim. 

Perhaps that’s a little disingenuous, throwing away other authors’ work on this central character, but I think it worked well to have the ‘old’ Loken back for ‘Vengeful Spirit’. And, yeah, it helps that I like Loken a lot. While Garro has reacted to the upheaval of the Heresy with explorations of religion and worship of the Emperor, Loken seems to be walking a more difficult path with less certainty in the answers, and that’s part of what makes him the ‘Grey Knight’ I like most (well, after Varren).

Lastly, it also sets up one of the weirder arcs in ‘Vengeful Spirit’, if I recall right – Torgaddon’s soul is devoured or trapped by a daemon, which ends up inhabiting Grael Noctua’s body, and I guess this is him asking Loken for help? Man, I hope that once gets as crazy a payoff as the setup seems to promise.

If there’s any complain I can level at ‘Luna Mendax’ – apart from the kind of lame opening – is that I would certainly have appreciated more of an insight into how Loken sees Malcador and Garro. It’s odd how Garro and Loken weirdly never seem to be in the same place at the same time since the Heresy started (not while Loken’s sane, anyway). These two squaring off, or maybe just fighting back to back, is something I’m really looking forward to.

My favourite Heresy stories are often the ones which have little in the way of combat, focusing instead on exploration of characters. I’d take this moving, elegant story over the similarly structured – but in my opinion, hugely overrated – ‘Last Church’ any day. 8/10

The Gates of Terra by Nick Kyme: The last of our three Sol system stories begins strong with a Malcador/Dorn discussion that, well, doesn’t suck. Very mysterious; they’re discussing the inevitability of Horus reaching the walls, the Edict of Nikea, and the importance of using every weapon available to them, even ones they must keep from the Emperor himself. Impressive, eh? As it starts to get interesting, the narrative shifts to… Arcadese. Remember him? The Ultramarine from ‘Forgotten Sons’. As a heavily augmented wounded veteran, dealing with feelings of obsolescence and a creeping suspicion his Legion have abandoned him, I found Arcadese a fairly interesting character. We last saw him leaving the dying planet Bastion after the failure of his diplomatic mission there, swearing to avenge his friend Heka’tan of the Salamanders, and to kill as many Traitors as he could before death claimed him. So what’s he up to now?

Battling a strange, indefinable feeling of wrongness – as if recovering from a head wound – Arcadese finds himself in a besieged fortress helping to hold off the full vanguard of Horus’ armada, including the grim monolith of the Vengeful Spirit. To make matters worse, in the sky Arcadese can see… Terra. That’s right, the war has come to the heart of the Imperium already. Arcadese is on an orbital station in the Ardent Reef, and he must hold as many of these ships off as he can. The situation is hella grim and with World Eater drop-troops and their daemon allies right at the fortress door, the Ultramarine must prepare to make the ultimate sacrifice, knowing it will never be enough to stop Horus.

BUT WAIT. As Arcadese dies, it’s revealed the whole thing was a simulation, psychically implanted by Librarians working at the behest of Malcador and Dorn (hence the conversation in the beginning). The Siege isn’t happening yet, dummy! The war is definitely a little further along here than we’ve gotten in the main novels’ ‘timeline’, since the Warmaster’s attack is considered to be imminent and the Imperium has knowledge that daemonic opponents will most likely be faced.

Honestly, I sort of love this weird twist ending, though the justification for it is flimsy at best. The ridiculousness of using this kind of intensive training rather than traditional simulation runs is handwaved away (in fact Malcador literally says there’s “no time” for that discussion). It hardly seems the most efficient way for the Astartes of Terra to prepare. And putting it into practice for such a relatively small group of Marines, especially one including a warrior of dubious effectiveness and stability like Arcadese? I’d like to have a few of these plot holes filled in, but there are aspects to ‘Gates of Terra’ which make me think it’s a really cool idea. Maybe this ‘battle-conditioning’ will just be used for the leaders of the forces who will be sacrificed at the various ‘waypoints’ before Terra can be reached… or, maybe we’ll never fucking hear about it again, like so many cool ideas floated in short stories. (Remember when the World Eaters went to dig through the ruins of Prospero? Apparently BL wants to act like this never happened.)

Any Malcador story will give you a few juicy morsels of information about the future of his shadowy network of underlings, and this is no exception. Another of Malcador’s Astartes, the Librarian Umojen, could be another potential Grey Knight. Then again, it’s revealed here that there are hundreds of these loyal Astartes being run through the psyker-induced simulation runs, from many different Legions, and each of the ‘trainees’ are overseen by Librarians of diverse Legions as well. This puts Malcador’s pool of potential Grey Knights at levels so high that it seems pointless to even have a conversation about Grandmaster identities.

This was apparently first published in French as part of the French Games Day 2012 Chapbook and, well, at times it seems like there’s been some Babelfish use here in preparing the English version. One character is referred to as ‘Lieutenant’ throughout and I’m not sure if this is because Arcadese admits to not knowing the character’s name – though he feels he should – or if it’s just been translated BACK into English from French and some weird shit has gone on with the phrasing. “Lieutenant had vanished from sight in the hellstorm” surely would read better as “The lieutenant (or ‘The nameless lieutenant’, or ‘The mysterious lieutenant’) had vanished from sight in the hellstorm.” This shit does make a difference, people, and since Nick Kyme also works for Black Library as an editor, you’d expect it to be picked up. Likewise, some of the sentences seem very terse, even to the point that words seem to be missing, and again, I’m not sure if this is intended to show Arcadese’s brusque manner or just a fuckup in translation. And sometimes words are there which shouldn’t be: ie the “cracked view-screen screen” mentioned in passing.

On my first readthrough, I felt pretty enraged that the Siege of Terra, even the prelude to it, was being introduced in such an off-hand way, in a fairly mediocre story. I went into my second reading of the story knowing that the apparent Siege was really a red herring, which made it easier to swallow, though it doesn’t get any less bland. There are some moments of ‘pretty okay’, maybe even ‘great’ void combat here, but Kyme’s characterisation of Arcadese here doesn’t really add anything new to an UItramarine I’d actually found pretty interesting previously. Add to that the fact that most of the combat sequences had me close to yawning – well, I’m far from proclaiming this a classic. However, I really like the direction hinted at in the ending, and while I’m not particularly bothered with finding out what happens to Arcadese specifically, I do want to know where this particular storyline goes. And as a “Fuck what you just read, it was all a simulation” moment, I’d take this over ‘Rules of Engagement’ for sure. 6/10

So there you go. Three stories about the Sol system. I guess we'll be seeing stuff like this a lot more in the next few years as the Legions begin their march back to ‘where it all began’. We’ll see how that turns out.

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 Lion" by Gav Thorpe

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

Still one of the cooler Legion sigils.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gav is a little like Nick Kyme, in that he’s written stuff for the Heresy which I really like, and stuff I very nearly despise – and it’s difficult for me to articulate what the difference is between the two types of work. In both, you’ll find overblown battle scenes, fairly shallow characters, a healthy respect and knowledge for 40K’s ‘lore’, a willingness to disregard or revise that lore when it best serves the story, and the distinctive White Dwarf writing style. ‘The Lion’ is not a great novella, and it doesn’t leave me massively optimistic for Gav’s HH Dark Angels novel supposedly coming this year, ‘Angels of Caliban’. But it’s not terrible either. It’s exactly the standard I expect from the Black Library, and that’s a little depressing, but it’s not enough to make me give up forever. Yep, you guessed it: 6/10.

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

"The Reflection Crack'd" by Graham McNeill

Whaaat? I thought he had quit this blog!!

Whaat? He already reviewed that story!!

Yeah, I'm back. There were times in 2015 where I wanted to walk away from the HH series completely... just drop the mic and peace out. But things are starting to look up, if you believe BL's often-misleading marketing (credulous idiot that I am, I believe it every time). With 'Master of Mankind' and 'Descent of Angels' on the way, the interesting-looking 'Sotha' already out in eBook format, some potentially great anthologies announced, and a sequel to 'Scars' or even 'The Crimson King' not an impossibility before year's end, I'm 'back in' (though more cautiously than before).

Yeah, I'm hoping to finally write my 'Outcast Dead' review. I'm hoping to get a lot of audios and novellas reviewed that I haven't had the will to touch at all. But first... I've got some shit to get off my chest about the stories in 'The Primarchs'. Starting with Fulgrim and his boys.

Fierce.

For all the flaws I believe ‘Fulgrim’ has (vastly overlong, characters’ extreme stupidity seeming to serve nothing but the rolling forward of the plot, the exact nature of Fulgirm and the Legion’s corruption being poorly handled, terrible Remembrancer storyline), I really enjoyed the exploration of Lucius as a character. Dan Abnett might have ‘created’ this III Legion legend’s persona in the Horus Heresy era, but Graham McNeill is the one who mastered it. So it’s fortunate for me that ‘The Reflection Crack’d’ leans heavily on Lucius as our viewpoint.

Following the events of Isstvan V (‘Fulgrim’) and the subsequent revelation to Lorgar and the other traitor Primarchs that Fulgrim had been possessed by a daemon (‘Aurelian’), we pick up the III Legion lurking in space. In fact it begins where ‘Aurelian’ left off: in the wreckage of La Fenice. And who’s that lurking in the shadows? Lucius is committed to achieving martial perfection and has dedicated his efforts to unknown ‘patrons’ who sent the daemons to destroy La Fenice. Yet he’s still haunted by the loss of his looks, and driven by a suspicion his beloved Primarch is no longer what he seems. It’s a nice way to set up his continued character arc here (let’s gloss over the fact he has set up spikes inside his shoulder-pads which prick him if he makes sword-fighting moves that aren’t perfect enough. How would that work? Would he not just be forced into making the same moves again and again?)

The conflict between the different factions of the Legion here is much more enjoyable than the good side/bad side dynamic which I thought was clumsily handled in ‘Fulgrim’. Here, they’re all ‘bad side;, but they still have different views on what the Legion actually is: the same disciplined, well-drilled mechanism as before, just serving a new master – or perhaps a completely different beast, embracing every possible perversion?

And… perversion… yeah, about that. In my time in the 40K/Heresy fandom – both online and ‘IRL’ conversation with other fans – I’ve found there’s a general attitude that the Emperor’s Children are “the gay ones”. Perhaps a curious assertion, since the fluff seemingly implies (to my reading) that Astartes are celibate, not affected by sexual urges, and incapable of sexual reproduction (perhaps even ‘chemically castrated’?). But, yes, they wear purple or pink, they pout a lot, and their behaviour can often be described as a little camp. Yes, the relationship between Emperor’s Children Legionaries seems closer to courtship than the fraternal bonds which other Legions have (with its flattery and rejection and temper tantrums and frustrated longing).

Still, ‘The Emperor’s Children love the cock’ is as stupid and reductive a statement as saying a particular Chapter or Legion is ‘emo’. Often this manifests in “bums against the wall, lads”-type comments when Fulgrim and the 3^rd are mentioned; sometimes it’s more subtle and insidious. Warhammer is still, in my perception, a male-dominated culture and of course in any predominantly male group you will get some people who have objections to homosexuality for a variety of reasons. That’s not something that I want to get into, but while I don’t necessarily appreciate or agree with this attitude, I also don’t require all potentially gay characters to be shining saints of virtue. In fact I think that would be just as dull and ultimately harmful to the story as portraying them all as cruel, sadistic monsters who are intent on destroying or ‘turning’ all the straight, upstanding citizens of the galaxy (like those super-hetero Ultramarines).

To my mind, ‘The Reflection Crack’d’ strikes a pretty good balance in that regard. Graham neither shies away from the homoeroticism deeply stitched into the III Legion nor the dishonest, bloodthirsty nature that’s now common amongst its warriors, but I don’t think he ever implies that one is responsible for the other. I can definitely see some finding this problematic – the intertwined way that homoeroticism, excess and cruelty are portrayed in this book could be pretty offensive. But hey, to me, it’s fine – that’s all I’m saying.

A lot of what’s good about this book is setup for ‘Angel Exterminatus’, so I’m not sure if you’ll enjoy one if you hated the other. In his burgeoning psychic powers and knowledge of the Warp, we get hints to Fulgrim’s imminent ascension to daemonhood. As well as expanding on (or perhaps distorting) the character of existing III Legion monsters like Vairosean, Fabius, Kaesoron and Eidolon, Graham introduces new hopefuls like Abranxe, Krysander, Ruen and Kalimos. As a result, by the time ‘The Reflection Crack’d’ ends Graham has set up a potentially diverse and interesting rogues’ gallery of III Legion warriors, providing a strong foundation for the Legion’s command structure in future books… or so you would think. The fact that he spends much of ‘Angel Exterminatus’ bloodily whittling down this roster is a shame, but it also makes a point often neglected in the Heresy books: warriors who appeared to be significant or important died in droves over the course of this war without accomplishing what they hoped.

The scene of the Emperor’s Children utterly losing their minds in Fulgrim’s presence gloriously illustrates just what a debased mess their Legion now is; I only wish that the journey to these depths of corruption had been handled as well as the destination is. There’s a creepy atmosphere of over-the-top gothic horror to the Pride of the Emperor now; Graham’s descriptions make me visualise its corridors as all clogged up with dead leaves (for no logical reason) on some real Edgar Allen Poe shit. And of course, Eidolon’s terribly misjudged questioning of Fulgrim’s orders is a great scene, showing how dangerous and unpredictable Fulgrim has become – and the face nobody seems to care about his ‘death’ also emphasises how far the Leigon’s fallen. While this storyline (and the way it continued in ‘Angel Exterminatus’) goes some way to justifying the online comments from assholes along the lines of “Heresy novels are worse than Marvel at keeping dead people dead!!!!”, I always quite liked it, and it led to some fantastically creepy moments.

As the story accelerates towards its end, we get a couple extremely memorable scenes. The Order of the Phoenix using deadly force against their Primarch is one of the most brutal, yet gripping, battle scenes Graham has ever written. And then, of course, the controversial torture – the conspirators get into some diabolical shit on Fulgrim’s helpless form, pausing sporadically to have a philosophical debate on the nature of suffering. And, of course, Graham uses some slightly flowery language to disguise the fact that Fulgrim gets some arcane butt-plug rammed inside him while loving every minute of it. Yep, I’m going to go with ‘memorable’ for both of those.

Do I have any particular beef with this tale? Well, the torture scene is utterly ridiculous, but I get the creeping sense it’s meant to be. Julius Kaesoron’s name was always a rather unsubtle historical allusion, but giving Fulgrim one of the most famous lines in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ is – well, rather too obvious even for Graham. And the military battle sequence for the Prismatica cluster seems to be there by BL mandate rather than actual necessity; I think it saps the momentum of the story, drawing focus from the plot elements which are really important. (Yet part of me thinks this is thematically appropriate; it’s well-established that Slaaneshi warriors routinely engage in ‘pointless’ combats in order to gain things they feel are aesthetically pleasing.) Graham was also successful at making the great revelation of ‘The Reflection Crack’d’ a real blindside volley, but he made it surprising by, well, not foreshadowing it at all or even giving an indication of how it happened. Even with the meagre explanation offered in ‘Angel Exterminatus’, I still don’t feel we’re close to a satisfactory explanation of how Fulgrim overcame his ‘passenger’.

Aside from maybe ‘Butchers Nails’, this might be the best short-form prelude ever to a mainline Heresy novel. Re-reading it has got me really excited to read more from Graham about Lucius. Graham has left Games Workshop/Black Library now but has stated he still intends to write for them – like I was saying before, hopefully ‘The Crimson King’ will come out in 2016? 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.

"Corax: Soulforge" by Gav Thorpe

Gav introduced the Raven Guard to the mainline Heresy series with his novel ‘Deliverance Lost’. That book was divisive; perhaps realising that demand for a sequel might not be universal, Black Library elected to make Gav’s follow-up a limited edition novella, released in 2013, then given a non-limited reprint this year.

With this and 'Tallarn: Executioner', for a while there it seemed like the Heresy novellas might fall under a dumb new naming system which over-abused colons (pause). I was looking forward to 'Fulgrim: Judgement Day' and 'Angron: 2 Swole 2 Furious' but then the colon-free 'Ravenlord' ruined everything.

It was kind of predictable that ‘Corax: Soulforge’ would be ill-received. Unlike with Nick Kyme’s ‘Scorched Earth’ (and Gav’s ‘Deliverance Lost’, for that matter), I actually kind of agree with the poor reception ‘Soulforge’ got. I’m a big fan of Gav’s full length Raven Guard novel (some would say an apologist) and when that book ended, I was eager to see what Corax and the proud remnants of his Legion got up to next. As it turns out, the answer is… not fuckin’ much.

After the fall of the Perfect Fortress on Narsis at the end of ‘Deliverance Lost’, Corax was resolved to tackle the Word Bearers at Khalgorst. It’s clear that some time has passed since then; some of the Raven Guard make brief mention of what’s happened in the intervening time, but it’s not really gone into in detail. Seems Gav isn’t willing to pander to the fans like me who get a weirdly intense joy from cataloguing exactly where stories fit in the ‘timeline’ – and that’s fair enough. Hitting a Word Bearers vessel, Corax and his troops capture the Navigator, who hates the Seventeenth Legion as much as the Raven Guard do. She advises them of a rebel Forge World the Word Bearers are ‘grooming’ for a hostile takeover. With some of his forces diverted to fight Emperor’s Children (a fight which isn’t shown here), Corax and a minor infiltration force must appeal to the Mechanicum forces on Constanix – forces whose allegiance is unknown – and hope to deny the sons of Lorgar their prize.

‘Soulforge’ starts enjoyably; the Raven Guard boarding action is a gripping, nasty sequence with some visceral combat writing. It’s also interesting to see Agapito continuing to struggle with the limitless anger that’s dogged him since Isstvan. He’s still consumed by his hate for the traitors, and it’s starting to make him reckless – sometimes he seems to revel in the fact that the Raven Guard who weren’t at Isstvan can never truly bond with him again. Meanwhile, as Branne grows apart from his comrade, he becomes more comfortable with his role as leader of the Raptors. Speaking of the Raptors, Navar Hef and the ‘mutant’ Raven Guard initiates are still on combat duty, and their presence makes some Raven Guard uncomfortable – I’m really interested to see how this subplot plays out, especially towards the Heresy’s conclusion. The glimpse of the corruption and change wrought on the Word Bearers’ mortal crew is also nicely handled.

Following its strong opening, however, it’s a slow downward spiral for ‘Soulforge’. That’s not apparent right away: while Corax’s stealth insertion to Atlas (a floating forge-city on Constanix) isn’t too interesting, his uneasy confrontation with several machine-priests of uncertain loyalty to the Imperium is a tense and engaging scene. We see the worth of Corax as an ambassador, both in his ability to be diplomatic and also his capacity to inspire sheer terror. We also get some nice glimpses into Corax’s mind – his musings on his past and present are telling, though they aren’t really anything new for someone who’s read ‘Deliverance Lost’. The battle to retake Atlas also begins promisingly, as Agapito and Corax power through brisk but slightly bland fight sequences. For those who complained that ‘Deliverance Lost’ held too few moments of Raven Guard FIGHTAN, this is your chance to see how the sons of Corax fight… though this ‘attack, feign retreat, then attack again’ style has certainly been written about better elsewhere. Even the ‘stealth Titan’ moment (yes, you heard me) is endearingly silly, but it marks the point at which the account starts really going downhill.

One thing I quite enjoyed about ‘Deliverance Lost’ was the lack of combat. That tense Alpha Legion confrontation and the Perfect Fortress battle are really the only fights in that book, the focus instead being on the effects of the Heresy on the Legion’s state of mind and the subterfuge of the Alpha Legion. ‘Corax: Soulforge’ actually has a similar format in that the real action doesn’t start until the end. However, due to poor pacing, ‘the end’ is actually half the book. I’m not just being facetious, the last fifty pages or so drag so horrendously that it feels like the book is constantly just grinding to a close. I damn near fell asleep reading these combat scenes. They are just a series of mostly unnamed Raven Guard easily defeating a bunch of lame skitarii and other Mechanicum goons, with the slightly tougher Word Bearers coming in at the end. And then you get a couple ‘final bosses’. It’s kind of videogamey, a bit like those first two Dark Angels books – or, for that matter, ‘Promethean Sun’. There were several occasions where I got to the end of a page, turned it, then realised nothing I read had made any impression and I had to read it all again. I’d rub my eyes, get up, walk around the room, wonder to myself “Am I too tired to do this now?” and “What am I going to write about this book?” and frequently “What the fuck am I doing with my life?” - but then I’d read a few pages of, say ‘A Dance With Dragons’ or ‘Harlot’s Ghost’ and nope, it wasn’t that I was too tired – it was that when I was reading ‘Soulforge’, I was reading boring writing.

If the focus is going to be on (shitty) battle scenes, I kind of wish Gav had pulled his pretty good Raven Guard ensemble cast into it and given each one a little bit of development. Instead, we get ‘Tom Clancy: Rainbow Raven’ (don’t do fan art of that, you sickos). Gav gives us dry, boring fights, and to Legion culture he only adds an ill-executed attempt to give the sons of Corax a ‘special forces’ makeover. (Corax is wearing black camo on his face! BUT… FUCKIN’… HE CAN TURN HIMSELF INVISIBLE! FURTHERMORE, HE IS FIGHTING MECHANICUM DUDES WHO CAN PROBABLY SEE IN THE DARK! WHY WOULD HE BOTHER?!?)

As a Corax book, I’d regretfully call this a failure since I don’t believe it expands on the Primarch usefully or convincingly. But as a Raven Guard book… I’d also call it a failure, since it does very little to deepen the character of the Legion or add new blood to its shrinking Heresy-era cast. This does see the introduction of the Legionary Soukhounou, though he does very little apart from remind us that Terran Raven Guard are still a thing, and will probably form the basis of a Successor Chapter when the Heresy series finishes. Navar Hef’s barely present and the ‘affliction’ of the Raptors is hardly mentioned. Valerius doesn’t factor into the story, Branne has almost nothing to do here, and Noriz, the Imperial Fist who was helping Corax in ‘Deliverance Lost’, is mysteriously absent. The tech-priests are pretty unmemorable characters (all I can remember is that one speaks… very slowly… with laboured pauses… and ellipses… signifying his heavy breathing… Basically, he’s an augmented version of Stevie from ‘Malcolm in the Middle’). Worse, as Branne, Hef and Valerius fight a completely different war in a separate system, the primary cast essentially shrinks to Corax and Agapito as soon as the first chapter ends. Agapito’s nu-metal angst gets tiresome quickly, and Corax… well, I still think he was fun to read in ‘Deliverance Lost’, but here, he just switches between either moping or easily murdering hundreds of dudes, and (on one plot-dictated occasion) kind of losing in a fight for a little bit before the camera zooms in on his eyes and he snarls “B-Baka…”

So, this was a Limited Edition novella – BL have always tried to be a little innovative with the presentation of these things (maybe not £30 innovative, but still). With its smooth black-on-black cover, the Limited Edition of ‘Soulforge’ looks amazing – really amazing. Unfortunately, the cover is, like, matt black or something. If you like to take off the dust jackets to read them, like I do, your novella’s cover will be irreparably stained with fingerprints within seconds. Even if you wipe it down, it’ll never be the same. It also shows up evidence of either tiny scuffs or a sprinkling of dust like a motherfucker. Maybe I just have inhumanly sweaty fingers, but I don’t think I’m entirely to blame. All of the LE novellas are a bit like this, but ‘Soulforge’ is without doubt the worst-looking I own at this point. I’d like less of this, and more covers like ‘Scorched Earth’ or ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ if possible, please. It does look really cool at first, though. I also applaud the innovation they showed in printing a Quick Read-length story on the inside of the dust jacket (‘The Shadowmasters’, now available as an MP3). That’s that stealth shit. It makes up for the LE edition’s colour insert being mostly useless, though that John Blanche Corax concept sketch is ILL. In conclusion – even collectors shouldn’t feel bad if they missed the first printing of ‘Soulforge’; the ‘vanilla’ Black Library unlimited novella is far better value for money.

There are scenes of worth to be found in ‘Soulforge’ beyond its strong opening pages. The lengthy scene where Corax briefs Agapito for the battle ahead gives a few opportunities to develop these important characters. (On the other hand, it feels like a bit of a space-filler, considering it’s positioned right before the actual battle, and we frankly know the stakes are not too high for Corax.) Possibly influenced by the howling of internet gibbons whenever a Primarch does something weird or inscrutable, Gav ensures that Corax begins to inform his troops of the insidious nature of Chaos and its links to the warp – information which has been hinted at but never confirmed for them. Surely his rejection of Nikea can’t be far away. And learning a little of Corax’s relationship with Guilliman is a nice bone to be thrown. My end judgement, though, is that this is a less charming ‘Promethean Sun’ – it’d read nicely as anthology filler, and may be embraced by people who are desperate to read every scrap of writing about Raven Guard or Dark Mechanicum characters, but pay £30 (or even £15) for it and you may find it hard not to be disappointed. I’m glad that only a few of the Heresy novellas have been a let-down for me, but this is definitely one of them. 5/10

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

"Promethean Sun" by Nick Kyme

As the release date of ‘Deathfire’ drew ever closer, what better way to prepare than by re-reading Nick Kyme’s Vulkan arc? So last month, that’s just what I did. The logical place to start was here: a study of Vulkan and his Legion during the days of the Great Crusade.

Promethean Sun. Beacuse it's burning and fiery, like so much about the Salamanders. Also, homophones - because Vulkan is a Promethean Son. Eh? Eh? Geddit?

This was also the first stand-alone novella published as a Limited Edition for the Horus Heresy. It’s a parallel with ‘Feat of Iron’, the Iron Hands story in ‘The Primarchs’. We find the Salamanders on Ibsen, or One-Five-Four Four, with Heka’tan (yes, of ‘Forgotten Sons’) leading a massed action against the eldar forces opposing the Imperium. Of course, Vulkan himself (he of the burning scary eyes and big sweeping hammer) makes an appearance just when things are getting really bad, turning the tide of the battle. It’s the cool-guy/saviour moment you’d expect in a Primarch story, of course, but it’s a little rote and predictable. Perhaps that’s because we’ve seen so many of those kind of moments… but damn, contrast this to the entrance of Horus in ‘Horus Rising’; that shit really made you feel the immensity of a Primarch in battle and how awesome it was just to be present for it.

While it zips along at a good pace, the beginning chapter is cliché-riddled bolter porn of the type we rarely get in the Heresy. I think Kyme has improved dramatically since he wrote this, but opening with a fairly dull action sequence is one of the quickest ways to kill my interest in a story. The language is really familiar from tens (maybe hundreds) of similar stories at this point. Naturally the Salamanders being what they are, massive overuse of both literal and metaphorical fire can be found in these pages. I wonder, is Nick Kyme’s writing frequently boring because he’s writing about dull fucking Salamanders, or are the Salamanders deeply dull because so much about their culture and method of warmaking has been set down by Nick Kyme? Sort of a chicken or the egg situation.

It’s when the combat stops, and characters are built on, that it gets a bit more interesting; Kyme’s got a certain way with dialogue which – while not sounding within a million miles of what a real human would ever say – certainly seems appropriate coming from a staid, slightly pompous Primarch like Vulkan. The Primarch’s interactions with his close Pyre Guard champion Numeon (who will play a prominent role in ‘Vulkan Lives’ and ‘Deathfire’) are a nice way to establish the strengths and weaknesses of Vulkan as a character. For example, unlike many of his brothers, Vulkan seems to freely admit his faults, most notable being a lack of the burning (heh) self-confidence some of his more wildly conceited peers have been blessed with. If – as is implied here – the Emperor is putting on his human suit to do spot-check inspections of Vulkan to check his attitudes, it says some potentially interesting things about both Vulkan and his father, as well as making one think, erm, could you maybe not have done this with some of your other sons? Or maybe this attentiveness is a marker for just how significant Vulkan will end up being (like I keep saying, I got my suspicions).

(Let me just make an aside here: the antagonists for most of this story are eldar mounted on dinosaurs. I don’t know if this is a regular thing, I admit to a lack of familiarity with eldar fluff… but that’s pretty cool. I might’ve continued to be interested in those stick-up-the-ass space elves if they’d been riding fucking dinosaurs about. Milking this scenario for all it’s worth, Kyme has some fun with some classic Jurassic Park moments. It's a nice touch in a series that can sometimes be guilty of overdosing on the Grim Darkness.)

However, this is a Nick Kyme book, and while I think homeboy has written some great stuff for Black Library, he’s also often guilty of dropping some colon-destroying howlers in his prose. ‘Promethean Sun’ is no different. I hate myself for doing this, but I’m gonna get my ‘Battle for the Abyss’ on and recount some of the more dodgy writing in this slim volume.

-“My strength is our strength, Numeon. We are one, the Legion and I.” Despite his inner feelings of estrangement, this much Vulkan knew to be true. Save perhaps Horus, who had his Mournival, all the Primarchs trod a solitary path. It was simply that the Primarch of the Salamanders felt it more acutely than his brothers.

Huh? Am I misreading, or does this start with an affirmation of Vulkan’s unity with his Legion, then go on to imply he’s actually the loneliest of all the Primarchs? It reads like Nick got bored halfway through the paragraph and lost the thread.

-In the middle of a battle, Vulkan sees a young child in danger of being crushed by a falling pillar and he rushes forward, “knowing that to even witness the death of such an innocent would forever stain his immortal soul.” Well,

1) nice ‘teaser’ allusion to his Eternal status, but it makes him sound like he’s Catholic rather than Promethean

2) the moment of “No! Save the kid!” is one of the hackiest, shallowest ways of getting a character to appear sympathetic, especially a character who is designed to straight murder dudes and does it with some frequency in the established fiction

3) furthermore, Vulkan sees another young child’s corpse earlier in the novel, killed in a battle he fought in, possibly even killed by warriors under his command – and the sight merely haunts him for “a moment”. No eternal soul-staining.

-"Lord Vulkan would see our wounded self-esteem restored in the tempering flame of the forge." Yeah, I’ve heard that forges are perhaps the best tool for repairing wounded self-esteem, next to a trip to Mardi Gras.

-"The hellish kaleidoscope of close combat was almost upon them." I did not realise the Salamanders dosed themselves with LSD before battle. That’s some hardcore shit.

-“'We should pursue them, Lord. Varrun and I can ensure they do not return’ he promised with a feral look.” A feral look? Homie, I don't play that, yo. A feral smile, maybe. Even a feral snarl. But a feral look? I picture a ‘feral look’ as the Salamander whooping, licking his lips and doing a ‘don’t you know I’m loco?’ glare with his eyes.

-Describing eldar witches who have ridden lightning (METALLICAAAA OOH YEAH) to the battleground: “They embarked to set foot on the earth as any man would step from a ship”. Splitting hairs, but that really should be disembarked, shouldn’t it – especially if you’re comparing it to stepping off a ship. Words matter. Editors know this.

-There are moments in this book which are certainly… videogamey. Look, tie-in fiction for videogames might not be my thing, but I recognise those as actual books. This, however, sometimes reads like a half-crazed novelisation of a Call of Duty match. Just a mad, tactics-free rush to kill some eldar nubz; I’m not normally the kind of reader who gets hung up on “those tactics would never work” issues in these books, but at times this seems more World Eaters than Salamanders. At moments, it feels more like Dynasty Warriors (large horde of weaker enemies? Just mow them down with your AOE attacks!) or God of War (huge version of a previous enemy as an actual boss battle), but I’m not crazy about those games either.

Ahh, I’m a complete dick. I’ll stop it now – but I do genuinely find the sloppy moments of Nick’s writing quite frustrating, especially since he is capable of writing really well. Enough about that though.

There is a brio and enthusiasm to parts of ‘Promethean Sun’ which I really admire. But its overuse of cliché, its combat-heavy structure and some rather dull characterisation makes me wary to endorse it as a worthwhile purchase for any but the most dedicated Heresy fan. As time goes on, it seems like the best place to find good writing about pre-Heresy Legion culture and the highlights of the Great Crusade is in Forge World’s books. As a result, Crusade stories like this seem a little clumsy, since the authors often seem dead-set on putting in as much foreshadowing for the Age of Darkness as possible. ‘Promethean Sun’ is better than ‘Scions of the Storm’ or ‘Wolf at the Door’, but it’s still far from an essential read. It’s no ‘Battle for the Abyss’, but it’s certainly closer to that much-maligned book than most other Heresy offerings. While I hesitate to condemn a book for an ‘inconsequential’ story – some of the best Heresy fiction has focused on events far from the frontlines which may have little effect on the wider conflict – this just doesn’t seem to add much to the series. To top it off, the text here is noticeably larger and more spaced-out than any other HH novella I’ve got. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was the smallest novella yet in word count.

If you’ve not yet purchased the hardback novella or ebook, you may as well hold off until it inevitably appears in a mainline Horus Heresy story compilation. 6/10

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