Is it M41 yet??

Errr... no. So it's been a while since I wrote any posts on this 'do shitty reviews of all the Horus Heresy books and feel bad when nobody even reads them' project. But I haven't given up, by any means. I have, however, been busy with 'other pursuits'... Necromunda and Netflix have taken up most of the time I'd normally be using on this project, and I've also been trying to read a few non-Black Library books and remembering the time when I used to read Serious Literature. Heh.

I've felt a bit of pressure building when it comes to PurpleHeresy as there's so much I haven't even begun to tackle that I hoped I'd have done before 2014 started. I have rough reviews of 'Aurelian' and 'Honour To The Dead' which require a fair amount of editing before they're suitable even for this shit blog, and notes from my readthrough of 'A Thousand Sons' which I haven't begun to transcribe (they may rival my 'Fulgrim' readthrough notes for length). I've also read 'Brotherhood Of The Storm' and 'Scars', not even trying to make notes. I feel like for those books, my notes would have just been alternative phrasings of 'HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE BOMB PEW PEW PEW', so I'll save it for my second or third readthrough. I will say that 'Scars' was one of the best Horus Heresy books I've read in a while, and unlike many fans, I've really enjoyed the last 10 or so, so that really says something. I've also enjoyed the audio drama 'Wolf Hunt' and the e-book 'Wolf Of Ash And Fire' - that one in particular makes me salivate at the prospect of 'Vengeful Spirit' in a few months, as my confidence in Graham's writing gets stronger and stronger. And, as always, I'm pining away until there's an official release date for 'The Talon Of Horus'.

I'm beginning to re-read the 'Silent War' arc, or the books I loosely group together under that banner. Stuff that loosely involves subterfuge, particularly the ones set or partially set on Terra. I've started with 'Legion' (still amazing) and I'm planning on moving on to 'Flight Of The Eisenstein' and 'Mechanicum' shortly after. This will ultimately lead to me writing a review of 'The Outcast Dead', which may be... interesting. I enjoyed it a lot the first time round, maybe this time I'll understand why all the nerds hate this one in particular.

I don't tend to do this on here, but I'm going to talk about two non-HH Black Library books I've read recently (which, as per usual, I bought only because of their tie-ins to the HH line).

First off, John French's 'Ahriman: Exile'. Despite my hopes, I was disappointed by this. It seemed like an automatic success at first. A 40k-era continuation of Ahzek Ahriman's story as he wanders the stars searching for knowledge and redemption, written by one of Black Library's rising stars. 'Tallarn: Executioner' was superb after all (review coming soon... maybe). And I've always been a Tzeentch devotee at heart so Ahriman's story was always interesting to me. But 'Exile' fell short of what I feel French was capable of. In being a dark, grimy story about being a very small, yet important part in a huge conflict, it felt like it was heavily influenced by Abnett's Inquisitor books and ADB's 'The Emperor's Gift', in intent if not form. It was full of unpleasant, or abrasive, yet well-drawn characters, and it frequently put its "heroes" into situations of genuine peril which they couldn't get out of just by planting their feet on the floor and rapid-firing a boltgun. But Ahriman's character didn't really... click for me. As in 'A Thousand Sons', Ahriman comes across as a bit of a boring place-holder at times (but, sacrilege: the writing quality here is leagues beyond 'A Thousand Sons'), so insular and withdrawn that one of the main joys I take from this kind of fiction - seeing how different Traitor Legions interact with each other after their fall from grace - was hardly present in the book.

At times he seemed like a power-armoured Shinji Ikari; bubbling with self-hating "Ooooh I'm such a despicable coward" sobs even as he did phenomenal, world-changing and suicidally brave things. The best thing you could say about 'Exile' was that somewhere, someone was reading it and getting ideas for the best Dark Heresy campaign ever. And that's not a bad thing to say about a book like this. Ultimately, I wouldn't say the book was a waste of time to read at all; there are setpieces which will probably stay with me forever, and there are enough mysteries around at the end of the book to make me take note if a sequel is released. (And I hope John French gets a full Horus Heresy book soon.)

Next up, 'Pandorax' by C Z Dunn. I bought this hefty tome because a gamer friend mentioned casually that there's a plot strand in this where one of the original Grey Knight Grandmasters shows up after 10,000 years in stasis - a former Fallen Angel Librarian who fought in the Horus Heresy. When I heard that, I flipped the fuck out. I knew there was only one Fallen Angel that was gonna end up being, and it totally disproved my theory about Zahariel's ultimate fate (trumpeted loudly in my 'Fallen Angels' review). And you know what? This is better. My version was dumb. The added prospect of seeing the Dark Angels and Grey Knights fight shoulder to shoulder and try to overcome a deep distrust of each other, as well as appearances from Abaddon and Huron Blackheart, convinced me that it was worth a look. Hey, I'd never read anything by this 'C Z Dunn' before, but with a story like that, anyone could knock it out of the park, right?

Well, no, as it turns out. 'Pandorax' is terrible. It's fucking garbage. It is honestly one of the worst books I've ever read.

...OK, it's not really BAD bad, not bad enough to get this angry about, but it's dumb bad. So fucking dumb bad.

'Pandorax' is about the defense of Pythos, a jungle/hive world from the Black Legion, who show up with support from the Death Guard and a shitload of boring daemon assholes in order to get some magickal MacGuffin which apparently has been hidden on the planet for milennia. With help from some stalwart Catachans, a friendly visiting Inquistor manages to get a distress signal off before the planet's defenses are overwhelmed and guerrilla warfare commences. Many months later, the entire Dark Angels chapter shows up, along with a company of Grey Knights. But are they trying to save Pythos, or are their motives a bit more complicated??

So far, so good, so what? The plot goes to hell quickly, involving dissent and argument between the Grey Knights and Dark Angels just because, a Heldrake that's fucking super tough and indestructible until the plot says it isn't, apparently interchangeable Imperial Guard regiments with vastly different specialist skills being namedropped with no reason other than to add variety to the battle scenes, every single Chaos general stabbing each other in the back, generally for no obvious gain (yeah, I guess that one's fair enough though) and my absolute favourite device in BL fiction, a horde of unstoppable daemons ripping apart huge armies of Imperials. Yeah, an unstoppable force murdering all the guard, we ain't seen THAT shit before. The way their armies tend to be portrayed, Tyranid and Daemons players must be those guys who insisted they never got killed when they played with other kids. "I shot you!" "No, I had another guy. I always have another guy, and so my guy can never die. Not really die. I'm in THE WARP, not dead, so I ACTUALLY WIN!"

But put all that aside. The plot, really, doesn't bother me much. What bothers me in particular is how predictable, lazy and rote the character development is. Aside from one character betraying their comrades quite early on (heavily signposted, too) everyone acts EXACTLY the same from when they're introduced to when they die (or the book ends). There is, for all intents and purposes, NO character development at all. In its own way, it's even more agonising than the shitty characterisation in those first few McNeill HH novels. To add to this, the book is so full of awkward phrasings, garbled syntax and oddly mangled clichés that it feels like it wasn't even run through a basic grammar check. An unfortunate flaw, as C Z Dunn has primarily worked for Black Library as, er, an editor. 'Pandorax' feels like it has a terrible line, confusing phrasing or straight-up mistake on every page. I mean, 'Battle For The Abyss' needed to put the thesaurus down, but aside from a few glaring examples, grammatically it was tight... But like that book, 'Pandorax' feels like it was rush-written due to GW demands rather than, well, needing to be written because the story was worth telling. Advertised as an 'Apocalypse Novel', it's supposed to cater to fans of the ridiculous version of 40K where you need to field armies that take hours to complete a single movement phase. But actually only a fairly brief action sequence near the end of its 400+ pages is an 'Apocalypse'-level engagement, the rest being more standard-size fights or even small skirmishes involving around ten or so on each side.  That's not a complaint though, at least there's SOME variation instead of just "start with 100 vs 100, work up to 1000 vs 10,000!!"

So, what did I like? Well, it heavily features Grey Knight Supreme Grandmaster Kaldor Draigo, who is the internet's favourite illustration of how immature GW fiction is (and almost illegally obviously named after the internet's favourite horselord rapist, Khal Drogo). As opposed to the way Matt Ward has portrayed him, Draigo here isn't just an unstoppable juggernaut capable of 'bombing' a daemon Primarch's heart Wildstyle. He's an arrogant but incredibly capable rising star in the Grey Knights. I guess it's dumb to say I 'liked' this but at least I didn't hate it, not compared to the fucking dull-as-dishwater non-character that is Azrael. I also found the hints about the Grey Knight founding really interesting - this is probably old news to people who have one of the many, many Grey Knights-related rulebooks or novels out there, but, yeah, so there were eight 'Grandmasters' originally at the Chapter's founding in the Heresy era. Their identity is entwined with the Horus Heresy series of Garro audio-dramas. Now, we already know that Garro's 'dirty dozen' are going to end up heavily involved in the founding of the Inquisition and the Grey Knights. But we also know that Garro, Qruze, Loken and Varren don't have psyker abilities (unless there are drastic changes to their characters), so Rubio and Severian are the only Malcador recruits even slightly likely to become Grandmasters. And whaddya know, that's almost directly confirmed in this book by Abaddon (what a helpful guy). We also are given to believe Zahariel (well, who else could it be?) became Epimetheus, the Grandmaster in this book. Of course this raises the question: how did this come about? And shortly after that: who the fuck are the other FIVE Grandmasters?

There's a contentious theory that the Grandmaster Khyron is actually the Night Lord Sevatar, based mainly on the fact that in 'The Emperor's Gift' a statue of him is depicted as brandishing a Nemesis halberd and Jago totally used a chain-glaive which is not 100% dissimilar and the plinth shows some attributed remarks of Khyron alluding to the fact he had committed treachery in his past and that's totally applicable to Sevatar since he totally killed or tortured hundreds of Loyalist marines! Ehhh, about this I'm ambivalent. Aaron's already said in no uncertain terms that Sevatar dies in the Heresy timeline. Now, maybe he's just being creative with the definition of 'death' and Sevatar's identity rather than his physical form is what dies. I'd also LOVE to see acid-tongued Sev playing off a bunch of ramrod-straight Grey Knights. But... to me, I think Sevatar's too far gone to ever accept The Emperor's Gift. That's not to say that if it turns out to be Sev, I won't weep tears of joy...

Anyway, at this point we have to seriously think about all the Astartes psyker characters which exist in the Horus Heresy: who's it going to be? Is my facetious theory about Mhotep still being alive going to end up being true? Maybe Yeseugi Khan is going to be the Grandmasters' 'token ethnic stereotype'? Maybe they're going to pull the Severian trick of "this character's really a psyker despite it not being mentioned before" on someone surprising. One thing I'm fairly confident of: there probably won't be an Alpha Legion Grandmaster.

Anyway, all this stuff that I actually care about is from a couple pages where the fluff is briefly discussed. For most of the book, I couldn't even raise a yawn. Read the stuff about the Grey Knight history online, and consign this bullshit to the list of forgotten BL books. If you want to read a Grey Knight story, read ADB's 'The Emperor's Gift'.

Oh, the title is actually the name of the system it takes place in, and it's also a portmanteau of 'Pandora's Box', which is a myth where a certain cache is opened up and releases damnation on the world. Subtle stuff.

Oh, the other day my copy of 'Macragge's Honour' arrived. The "time it takes to read it" to "money spent on it" ratio is extremely unfavourable, but I can't even try to complain about it; it's fucking gorgeous. I'm not sure how much re-read value it will prove to have, but I'm very glad to own it. There may be a bile explosion when I see it on sale for a third of the price I paid in a year or so, but... that's in the future, and I have my beautiful renderings of Kor Phaeron's smugness now. That said, I fervently hope that Black Library does NOT begin to branch into graphic novels as a "regular thing". Just seems like an opportunity for them to release even slimmer volumes than their novellas and charge even more. Something tells me a £14.99 'trade' paperback of a Black Library graphic novel is incredibly unlikely.

Yeah, so, tl;dr: 'Aurelian' review coming soon I hope, and I still love the Horus Heresy despite recently being told it's "a terrible series that makes all the primarchs seem really emo".

"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.

"Fallen Angels" by Mike Lee

So after 'Descent Of Angels' turned out to be, erm, pretty OK, how does the second (and last, so far) HH Dark Angels novel stand up on its re-reading?

Apparently the dude with the big sword is Luther. Sick helm brah.

Well, there's no fucking around - the book picks up exactly where 'Descent Of Angels' left off - with Luther, Zahariel and hundreds of other out-of-favour Dark Angels landing back on Caliban, cut off from their Legion and out in the cold. Holding the fort are a load of green recruits they are supposed to train, as well as the ancient, sick and wounded who were unable to follow the Astartes off-world. We also see new Cypher - a young, mysterious knight with dual pistol skills. During this section there seems to be a lil ole Game Of Thrones reference - Luther jokes that they should raid "Master Luwin's kitchen". Hahaha you Winterfell-ass motherfuckers, you better not!!! Aldurukh remembers. Luther puts on a brave face, but has to admit privately that it looks like they'll never leave Caliban again. Quickly, it seems apparent that Mike Lee's writing is quite similar to Mitchel Scanlon's; perhaps a little better. His lack of overblown, wooden language makes the book a little easier (and quicker) to read than 'Descent Of Angels' was. The attempts at Space Marine banter here, obviously, ain't shit compared to First Claw's sniping or Torgaddon breakin' Marines' balls, but at least it makes a change from po-faced bellowing at all times.

The action quickly jumps 53 years forwards, right to the eve of the Heresy. It's here we'll stay for the rest of the book, jumping between the exiles on Caliban and the Lion's Crusade force. Soon after the book begins, we are told of the Isstvan III bombing, and the book ends with the Isstvan V betrayal yet to happen (but soon come, dread). So the timeframe is fairly short. No lengthy 'Time passed and these events happened' sequences like in its predecessor. The news of the Heresy sets up Nemiel's plot thread; the Lion can't take his Legion to Isstvan to bring Horus to book, as he's currently stuck in a dang quagmire... but he'll take a small strike-force to the rebel Forge World of Diamat, in the hopes of disrupting Horus' supply lines. (Man, Jonson is keen on leaving most of his Legion to sort shit out and just fucking off with a strike force - see also that novella 'The Lion'.)

Nemiel wasn't a 'viewpoint' character in 'Descent Of Angels' as that book was definitely focused on Zahariel. Here, we're inside Nemiel's head for around half the book. Both cousins feel pangs of loss for each other and wish the exile had not happened. Nemiel is now a Chaplain, "charged with maintaining the fighting spirit of (his) battle brothers and preserving the ancient traditions of their brotherhood". It's still very strange to me that the atheistic Empire would use a term like 'Chaplain'. It makes sense for the Word Bearers - who I think were the inventors of the role - and it kind of makes sense that many Legions would later use the position as an 'enforcer' of the Edict of Nikaea (which 'The Lion' seemed to retcon Nemiel as). But Nemiel's duties here, well - it possibly would have made more sense for him to be a well-loved Veteran Sergeant or a Company Captain or something. All I'm saying is: it's acceptable for the 30K Space Marine Legions to not always fit in perfectly with the 40K Chapters... we won't shit ourselves. On that subject, it's apparent that it was written before 'A Thousand Sons' and its ramifications were really planned out. The Edict of Nikaea isn't mentioned too much, and in fact Zahariel is constantly described as a Librarian, carries a force staff, uses his psychic powers without thinking "O NO THIS BAD" or having his brothers yell "wwwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitchhhhh!!" I guess it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that the news of the Edict never reached Caliban, but the Edict being such a huge part of the First Legion's arc makes this a little problematic.

I'm just sayin' I don't think Nemiel should be baby Asmodai just yet...

Back on Caliban, Zahariel is preparing to send 4200 new Astartes to join the Legion - holy fuck! It seems they're about to begin their "19th training cycle", could they have sent 18 similar sized groups of Astartes in the last 53 years? Even if the first batches are implied to have been smaller, that's... still pretty huge. We also find that Luther has spent his years in exile 'civilising' Caliban - improving its infrastructure, boosting its population, making it more hospitable to life - basically turning it into a factory for the Imperial war machine. "I started this muthafuckin Caliban shit... and this the muthafuckin thanks I get??" Zahariel's continued psyker powers reveal to us that apparently the Winds of the Warp are strong on Caliban - possibly due to the proximity to the Eye of Terror? Oooh, this is an interesting turn for Caliban's backstory... well, if it hadn't been heavily signposted at every opportunity. Still, I was a little surprised by the revelation that the Watchers in the Dark are apparently xenos psykers tasked with protecting Caliban and containing its inherent corruption. I don't know if this is a new HH retcon, a secret finally revealed, or an established bit of Dark Angel lore since '94. Guess that's what comes of not giving a single shit about the Dark Angels until now... poor research, guys. I'm mad ashamed of myself.

One thing that made me cuss and realise my chronology of Dark Angels events was totally off is the fact that Astelan shows up as a fairly major character; he's been on Caliban for ages, which shows that 'Call Of The Lion' takes place 15 years after 'Descent Of Angels' and the ominous threat at the end of that book signified his exile, not his execution. Glad I finally realised that.

The Lion's parts of the story remind me of Guilliman's criticisms in 'Unremembered Empire'; that Jonson is too sly, secretive and private. That criticism's borne out here. Even with his favoured sons, the Lion isn't a leader who is in favour of transparency. He was born for royalty, like Guilliman was born for democracy and Kurze was born for totalitarianism. The arrogant control-freakery isn't necessarily a handicap, as he's a very good tactician, taking point in every aspect of the Legion's strategy and warfare.

The void war section Nemiel witnesses here is pretty dull and makes me wish ADB could have given some of his skillz to this bro. Not an auspicious start, as it's our first battle sequence. In fact, throughout the whole book, the action sequences aren't great. Arguably they're quite dull. As a result, Nemiel's chapters in the book are kind of a drag, as they include way more action - in fact, once you've got the setup out of the way, Nemiel's chapters seem like one long, continuous action sequence. (Despite my criticism, I can't deny that the section where Nemiel's insertion team finds the, erm, 'savage weapons' Horus seeks is brilliantly written and fucking cool.) With the creepy building foreboding of Zahariel's 'strand', Mike Lee is much more successful. Though the bit where Nemiel suspects the Lion is incapable of 'reading' his subordinates, then spends about half a page dissecting what this says about his character, is fucking great... and it also may be why Jonson KARATE CHOPPED NEMIEL'S FUCKING HEAD OFF. (I mean, we know Jonson had Watchers on deck, maybe they were reading minds and reporting back to him... xenos psykers be snitchin'.) Then again, later in the book it's implied that Jonson's motive could have been to silence anyone who could know of Caliban's taint (snarf); Nemiel and Zahariel were the last to speak to Lord Sartana, after all, and the Lion couldn't know what they discussed... so, they had to go.

Even Tony Jaa ain't do that shit Lion. Damn.

Zahariel investigates an apparently growing insurrection on the Lion's homeworld - his arc carries an interesting concept from 'Descent of Angels' - compliant worlds, even Primarch 'homeworlds', aren't sacrosanct - they get hecka plundered. You can see why the civilisations might revolt. Of course, I'd feel more sympathy if the rebellion didn't seem to be led by noblemen crying about how they got no feudal subjects anymore. But that's good, right? It'd be easy to paint the rebels as sainted crusaders the way the storyline is going. We also find that Luther is holding those thousands of new Astartes back from their deployment. I was kind of annoyed when Zahariel uncovered this information and gave in to the one of the worst HH cliches - positing the actual reason (that Luther is disillusioned with the Imperium and the Lion, and is unsure if they deserve his loyalty) then rejecting that, throwing his hand to his brow and swooning "No, NO, I must not think on't!" While this story line is far from unpredictable, I kind of like that some aspects of it at least are a bit shadowy. For most of the novel, it seems like the "accepted fluff" from 40k around this Legion - "half of 'em fell to Chaos because of Luther's selfish ways and bitter jealousy" - is just some bullshit Jonson made up after he Hulked out and blew up his homeworld for embarrassing him in front of his dad. But then, towards the end... Luther's fall to Chaos becomes much more possible.

The last third or so of 'Fallen Angels' is excellent, full of great moments - the Lion and Nemiel's suicidally brave (and arrogant) last stand against waves of Sons Of Horus, and Luther's 'declaration of independence' from the Imperium's affairs, as well as his big reveal of "Hey, I done got myself psychic powers through all my book learning!" While I'll still contend the Zahariel chapters of the book are superior and stay that way throughout, aspects of his plot strand's ending seemed stupid and rushed to me - the big reveal of the "Terran sorcerors" who serve as the book's antagonists is completely botched - who are they? what's their endgame? how did they infiltrate the arcology? THERE'S NO TIME!!! Just make 'em dicks with robes and wands and pointy hats, and fudge their motive confusingly.

This would have been way better.

By the end, Luther is certainly on the path to becoming the sinister magician we saw in 'Grey Angel'. It's kind of a cross-pollination of Lorgar and Magnus' stories - driven by bitterness and a public scorning by someone you intensely admire, you let your thirst for knowledge get the better of you. Unoriginal it may be, but Luther's arc has actually become one of my favourites in HH and I'm extremely interested in how it turns out. Speaking of 'Grey Angel', a central tenet of that audio drama was that Luther didn't know - or feigned a lack of knowledge - of the Heresy. Re-reading 'Fallen Angels', I realised this was falsehood. So did John French just forget (unlikely, but not impossible) or did the manipulative, psychically gifted Luther just read Loken's mind, realise the information he was looking for, and play dumb real good? I think I've answered my own question. But to what end? I'm assuming to buy time for his Legion...

It's still my opinion that Young Cypher is a big red herring. I believe Zahariel is the one who'll become the 40K Cypher. Still, this creepy young anonymous Cypher dude will have a big role to play in upcoming Dark Angels stories, I'll wager. We get a nice amount of backstory for him, it's just not that interesting. He's such a fucking one-dimensional chin-stroking evil puppetmaster that I can't believe they'd make him THE Cypher. Also, Zahariel is about the only Dark Angels Fallen character of note beside Luther (well, excepting Corswain, he's kind of the only surviving Dark Angels character of note, full stop). It seems unlikely that they'll waste him on death. Then again, my predictions have frequently been inaccurate, so we'll see what happens.

Here's the main problem with 'Fallen Angels'. You're switching back and forth, quite often, between two quite different stories - the slow burning political/mystery thriller on Caliban, and the straightforward BASH EM CRASH EM action movie featuring Jonson and his Crusade. But aside from its (many) minor flaws, I can't hate on 'Fallen Angels' anymore. Not when there's weirdo shit like 'False Gods' around still getting serious accolades. As a book, it reminded me more than a little of 'Vulkan Lives'. Sure I was bored at times, but I was also thinking "Oh, man, that makes that part in that book so much better!" I think reading the HH books in order of publication is a mistake, and the Dark Angels 'arc' illustrates this. Normally, introducing a Primarch would involve a big focus on description of their appearance, manner and general swagga. Sadly, you go through two whole books without ANY gripping descriptive work on The Lion. Then Dembski-Bowden's 'Savage Weapons' says more evocative shit about Jonson in its short length than both the full novels, and of course, 'Unremembered Empire', flawed as I think it is, was superb in its Lion coverage. (Then again the trip down 1st Legion Memory Lane wasn't all good; re-reading the novella 'The Lion' from 'The Primarchs' collection, which I've praised to the skies at every opportunity, I didn't find it significantly better than 'Fallen Angels' or 'Descent Of Angels' at all.)

Like 'Descent Of Angels', I'm giving this the 7/10 solution. Man, the books I was hatin' on before are actually pretty good. Seems like 'Fulgrim' and 'False Gods' are the only ones I can really summon up hate for these days...

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

"Descent Of Angels" by Mitchel Scanlon

AKA 'Decent Of Angels'. Cause it's decent, I guess...? FUCK, failure of joke. My memory of this book and also of its companion piece 'Fallen Angels' is not particularly favourable. Let's see if that is still the case after re-reading it.

Your MOM Descended on my Angel last NIGHT.

My patience is tested initially with a portentuous, overdone hand-wringing preface a-weeping and a-wailing about the fall of the Angels, the curse of Caliban and how Luther was a chill bro who gets totally misrepresented by the durn Emperor and his LIES. Our narrator for this intro isn't defined, but I'm guessing it's Zahariel. Who? Well, we'll get to that.

Once the italics disappear, the books set about establishing the character of Caliban's society before the Empire reaches it. They're essentially in a feudal state with castles, horses, knightly orders etc. However, they also have the technology for pistols, chainswords and power armour, though in crude forms. Their civilisation is harried by creatures called Great Beasts, each of which is a hideous yet unique monster. They sound very Chaos-tainted from the first time they're described, so the big secret reveal that's sold hard during 'Fallen Angels' that Caliban suffers heavily from warp-taint is, well, kind of pre-spoiled. Right off the bat though, I'm impressed - the beginning of this book is WAY better than I remembered it as. The ominous scene setting introduction, Zahariel's initiation, and the first time we see Luther and Jonson - pretty much handled impeccably. Scanlon's dialogue and characterisation is patchy, though. Especially when dealing with Zahariel and Nemiel. I can see why I hated these characters on my first reading. Also, the writing is a little shaky - not full of weird, twisted errata like 'False Gods' was, but packed with clichés, ie darkness that "seemed to reach out from... haunted depths like a living thing, enveloping (characters) in its silken embrace like an unwelcome lover." Count 'em up kids.

Early on, Lion El'Jonson's name is retconned to mean 'The Lion, The Son Of The Forest', not just a straight up stolen name from a dude who wrote a poem called 'The Dark Angel'. I would think that to make this a little more credible, the book would be full of forests with 'Jon' in their name. But no. Ah well. Anyway, Jonson's origins story is gone over in depth here - with almost 2/3 of the book dedicated to his life before the Imperium finds him, he may have the most 'pre-reunion with daddy' HH history of any Primarch in the series. The fact he was alone in the forest for the first few years of his life makes him unique amongst his brothers - most of them were quickly given surrogate father figures. Even Angron and Night Haunter - while fending for themselves - were at the centre of large societies of humans. This goes a long way towards explaining why the Lion is so secretive and has such an obsession with being self-sufficient.

The Lion wants to be the very best, that no-one ever was.

We also learn quite early on that the Lion has some premonitions of the Emperor and his crusade coming to Caliban. Not so special and unique now, are you Conrad? Ahh, that's unfair I guess... but I'm petty like that.

There are hints early on of how much the Order of Caliban will influence the First Legion - ie there are famed cavalry called the Ravenwing, the order has a Lord Cypher who is Keeper Of Secrets, they all wear hooded surplices over their armour... couple this with the fact we know Caliban has crude bolt pistols and chainswords, and you could argue the Lion had to make nearly no adjustments when he assumed control of his Legion. Also, when it comes down to it... ain't Knights In Space just a cool idea? Unoriginal but cool. Anticipation of this almost glosses over the fact the Lion uses goddamn CHILD SOLDIERS of 7 and up, putting them in incredibly deadly situations. But again, that totally fits with what a fucking ice-dick motherfucker he is. He also gets incredibly butthurt if anyone reminds him the Dark Angels existed before he took control. Insecure or what?

It's not all about the Lion (and I think this fact is one of the reasons 'Descent Of Angels' was quite poorly received by HH fans and still gets shit on today). Luther is a major character from the very beginning of the book. I found his character very bland the first time round, but after 'Grey Angel' single-handedly rejuvenated my interest in this character, I paid much more careful attention this time. And Zahariel is a much more interesting character than I remembered. He's outwardly cavalier and confident he's The Bravest Little Knight. But he's tormented by memories of his brutal initiation, where he was disturbed by the cruelty of the men he now calls brother. His rivalry with his close relative Nemiel also secretly disturbs him. Zahariel is terrified of the Great Beasts (a pretty normal reaction and one that makes him a much more relateable character).

So, the first quarter or so of the book is mostly scene setting and context. Then we're show the order in action when they come up against the Knights Of Lupus (RIP J Dilla). Zahariel goes on a Beast Quest (hoping to one day rhyme like Freddie Gibbs) and discovers his hidden psychic powers, as well as meeting the hidden Watchers In The Dark. The Emperor and his Astartes don't arrive until over halfway through 'Descent Of Angels'. It's a bold move, and I can see why so many people ended up pissed off and bored, but I think it ultimately pays off. We see these characters and learn their culture for a long while, so their reactions to the Imperium mean more. Already, the seeds of the Dark Angels' schism are sown...

I mean, this guy would have totally flown a spaceship if he had one.

Zahariel's discovery of his psychic abilities is pretty damn great. However, I don't see how he had to kill a Calibanite Lion. First you make this big song and dance about how the Beasts are all different to each other and there are no two the same. Then you say that the only Calibanite Lion was already killed by Jonson, a fucking Primarch. Then Zahariel finds out that no, guys, there's totally another Calibanite Lion and he just goes and kills it. I get that the purpose of this was for Zahariel to catch the Primarch's gaze - not in a totally favourable way, either ("NOW I DON'T HAVE THE HIGH SCORE ANYMORE!!!!! GRRRR!!") - but why not have it be a different, equally badass beast? It's still impressive for a teenager to triumph in that way, why double back on your own mythology to emphasise it?

In my opinion, the plot (and some of the action sequences) of 'Descent Of Angels' are surprisingly good. It's just that there's a bit too much exposition and dialogue handled in a stumbling, haphazard way. All the more reason to wish that Dan, Aaron, John French or Chris Wraight get the next Dark Angels full length. We got the brilliant 'Savage Weapons' from ADB and the Lion's excellent treatment in 'Unremembered Empire' from Dan, but that shit ain't enough. I want a full First Legion novel where they talk a bit more like normal people - I mean, I know they're pompous, honourable knights but that doesn't mean they have to spout awkward Tolkeinesque drivel. Regardless of the blandness of the writing, and sometimes of the characters, the lasting gift of 'Descent Of Angels' is the relationship between Luther and Jonson. It's a little bit fraternal, a little bit unspoken (sexual?) jealousy, and a little bit political power-struggle. Tough to describe. You really get the feeling that while there's envy there, Luther loves the Lion and wants him to succeed. Few Primarchs we've seen have a contemporary like this; I'm thinking a little bit of the Abbadon/Horus relationship, but even there we're always reminded of their military hierarchy.

The Knights of Lupus episode (as well as many more moments through this book) shows Luther as the smoothie in the partnership. Luther is the diplomat to the Lion's intractable, tactless bastard. If they'd stuck together, I've no doubt they could have achieved great things. The KoL episode, though, also really illustrates what a shit the Lion is. This segment starts with a gripping siege scene, albeit a very videogamey one - kill these guys! breach the walls! this guy is pulling on a lever - oh no, more Elites! Shit, a giant boss battle! Oh, a final cutscene, this guy's gonna tell us some history and accuse us of being the REAL monsters... IT'S LIKE MASS EFFECT 3 UP IN THIS BITCH. After this, we get a glimpse of how naive and short-sighted the Order's goals are: what do they think will happen after the Great Beasts are gone? (This is reinforced as poorly thought out in 'Fallen Angels', when we realise the importance of the function Great Beasts played on Caliban). Furthermore, we start to suspect that Jonson massacred an entire knightly order just to get a peek at their forbidden library of knowledge. Another question always in my mind was: how does the open, even-tempered good guy Luther in this book become the disquieting, slimy presence in 'Grey Angel'? I guess I will have to re-read 'Fallen Angels' to find out.

All we wanted... was the right... to live... and breed horrible Chaos monsters...

The 'payoff scene' where the Stormbirds of the Imperium finally arrive is excellently handled. I really like the initial chapters where Calibanite and Imperial are just feeling each other out. In these novels, we haven't really been shown what happens a) when a Primarch meets the Imperium or b) when the Imperium meets a feral but obviously 'compliant' world. It's not pretty, as their ecosystem, social structure and even beliefs are rendered down in a matter of weeks as mulch for the Imperial regime. It's not long after our heroes have passed their trials that we are whisked forwards in time - the process of Astartification (?) is glossed over. There could be an excellent HH book that spends most of its time on the process of implanting the new initiates with gene-seed, but 'Descent' isn't it. (I don't understand why a lot of reviewers seemed to lambast the book for its incredibly slow pace during its 'Caliban' sections, then got angry when a lengthy 'WE ARE TURNING INTO ASTARTES' sequence wasn't included.)

Instead, we're off to the Great Crusade. We learn quickly that the respected senior members of the Order were taken along with the Astartes and slotted into their ranks - shit, old Hadariel is even a Chapter Master. Seems like the existing Terran structure of the 1st Legion was very accommodating to the Order (or, more likely, the Lion would brook no disagreement). We're not in the new-look 1st for long before we're off to Sarosh, an apparently unobtrusive, compliant world. Actually it's totes corrupt and Chaotic but rather than resisting the False Emperor in the usual way, they're outwardly compliant and burying any real progress in endless bureaucracy. The description of this is weirdly funny, but also deadly boring. Man, the White Scars are ill-treated in these books, eh? On Sarosh, we get a friendly White Scar dude who just says alternative phrasings of "DON'T TRUST EM" again and again. Christ, at least he's better than Hakim... or the White Scar Librarian in 'A Thousand Sons'. I will never get tired of bringing up those racist-ass characters. Still, I read the first chapter of Chris Wraight's 'Scars' and it looks like he is gonna redress that balance, so... cautious optimism. BUT WE'RE HERE TO TALK ABOUT THE ANGELS SO MOVING ON...

Like the White Scars dude said...

Overall though, the Sarosh segment - which wraps up the book and sets up the concept for 'Fallen Angels' - is great, as Scanlon ratchets up the creepiness excellently. From the featureless golden masks all Saroshi wear, to the fact that projected census data shows 8% of the planet's population is simply unaccounted for, there's clearly Some Wrong Shit Goin Down. When the planet does, inevitably, erupt into Empire-defying violence, it's extremely chilling. Having said that, the "suicide bomb shuttle" plot detail is fucking stupid and depends on an incredibly retarded Mechanicum contingent on board the Invincible Reason.

"You guys, this shuttle the diplomats are coming in is really old and busted."
"Bor-ing! I'm so OVER it already. Don't even BOTHER scanning THAT shit."

It does at least lead to one of the book's best moments - the tense sequence where Luther debates whether or not to actually defuse the bomb... how badly does he want the Lion to stop overshadowing him? Dramatic.

The end of the book is abrupt, and comes when an intense action sequence is seemingly just getting underway. I guess the HH writers quickly learned the lesson of the exhausting 'Fulgrim' - always leave 'em wanting more... Suddenly, Zahariel, Luther and many of their brothers are packed off back to Caliban. With the Lion becoming increasingly capricious, those who are out of favour are to be swept under the rug and forgotten about. Ostensibly, they're "overseeing recruitment on Caliban" but everyone knows the real score. It's worth noting that at this point, we're still over 50 years before the outbreak of the Heresy. I'm not sure what to think of the Future Fallen Angels being 'benched' so quickly, basically a few months into the 1st Legion's involvement in the Crusade. In fact it seems to contradict the 'Grey Angel' section where Luther implies his involvement took into account several significant battles alongside 7 or more other Legions including the Luna Wolves. But this may just have to go into the growing file of "Stuff that shows HH readers don't read each others' shit too religiously."

I was kind of dreading this re-read. But I really enjoyed 'Descent Of Angels' the second time around. The writing is often clunky, and it very rarely surprises. Still, I can't see why I hated it so much before. All that's changed? I actually CARE about the Dark Angels now. Stuff like 'Grey Angel', 'The Lion', 'Unremembered Empire' and especially 'Savage Weapons' have got me interested in these humourless dicksmackers. It's crazy they got benched so quickly - for a while it seemed like nobody wanted to write about these dudes at all. More recently, there seems to have been a thawing of the ice towards these guys, so we'll see what happens. First read-through, the stilted, overly formal and often clichéd writing style really annoyed me. However, I now think it's intentional - Scanlon wants to create a mythic ambience to the book. First read-though, I shared the still-prevalent HH fanboy opinion - "All this shit is irrelevant, it's just for DA groupies - give us stuff that has a bearing on the actual Heresy!" Now I think this stuff is pretty relevant to maybe the sleeper hit of the HH series - the character studies of the Lion and Luther's natures and motivations. At this point, it seems very unlikely that Scanlon will be asked back for another book, but I don't think he's the shithound that many BL fans seem to paint him as. And therefore, I'm giving this the cautious thumbs-up of a 7/10.

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

"Fulgrim" by Graham McNeill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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