Review: Angels of Caliban by Gav Thorpe
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The First Legion go to war, and their primarch's brutal actions threaten to tear apart the fragile alliance of Imperium Secundus.

With the Dark Angels spread across a hundred systems, primarch Lion El’Jonson stands as Lord Protector of Ultramar – though his true motives are known to few indeed, and old rivalries on the home world threaten to tear the Legion in half. But when word comes of the Night Lords’ attack on Sotha, the Lion’s brutal actions bring Imperium Secundus once again to the brink of civil war. Not even the most fearsome warriors of the Dreadwing, nor any arcane secret of the Order, can guarantee victory if he sets himself against his loyal brothers.
Angels of Caliban continues the trend of reinvigorating the Horus Heresy by wrapping up story arcs and progressing characters and Legions in a satisfying way. It juggles two quite different plotlines, Imperium Secundus and the growing revolt on Caliban, and does so well.

The Story:
"The First Legion go to war, and their primarch's brutal actions threaten to tear apart the fragile alliance of Imperium Secundus.

With the Dark Angels spread across a hundred systems, primarch Lion El’Jonson stands as Lord Protector of Ultramar – though his true motives are known to few indeed, and old rivalries on the home world threaten to tear the Legion in half. But when word comes of the Night Lords’ attack on Sotha, the Lion’s brutal actions bring Imperium Secundus once again to the brink of civil war. Not even the most fearsome warriors of the Dreadwing, nor any arcane secret of the Order, can guarantee victory if he sets himself against his loyal brothers."

The Review
I've always defended Descent of Angels. A lot of people online seem to dislike it, with the biggest complaints being that it doesn't have much to do with the Heresy itself, and instead plays out more like a fantasy novel than science fiction. To me, that always seemed more appealing, and learning more about the Dark Angels on Caliban, their culture and the seeds of doubt that would lead Luther to turn on the Lion, was great. In Angels of Caliban, those aspects are picked back up at long last, and there are a lot of additions and expansions to the Dark Angels' background and characterization.

Some of this is down to ForgeWorld's plans for the Legion in the Horus Heresy tabletop game, which added more info about the different Wings (we knew about some, the Ravenwing and Deathwing most prominently, but now there are six total), and new armaments for the First in general. But there is also plenty about Caliban, and Luther's life specifically, that comes to light here. Before, Luther has always been a bit of an enigma. We saw him through the eyes of Zahariel and Nemiel, for example, but this time he has scenes of his own, contemplating and weighing options.

There is a lot more depth to Sar Luther, Grand Master of the Order, thanks to this book. It sets the mood for him as a character in the wider Legion history, giving a sense of tragedy and good intentions, an idealist whose hand is ultimately forced by an ever-increasing web of schemes all around Caliban. As the book ended, I still found myself feeling sympathy for the Lion's adoptive father-brother, rather than see him as the arch traitor he is considered in the 41st Millennium. He is as layered as the Legion/Chapter itself, and for that I salute Gav.

The bigger surprise was Zahariel's role in it all. He shifted in tone and motivation quite drastically since we last saw him. Once more we see the good intentions of the Calibanites, while also seeing the tragedy their actions summon to their world. Considering that Zahariel was the protagonist of the previous two Legion novels, his change to antagonist left me somewhat gutted, but I loved the execution and am eagerly waiting for the resolution of that can of worms (see what I did there? No? Read the book!).

Gav also weaved in events from his scattered short stories, like The Lion, which introduced us to Tuchulcha (who obviously appears again, and is creepy as ever, with some dialogue parallels to The Unforgiven), but also saw the execution of Nemiel, Zahariel's friend and cousin. This stokes a lot of fires on Caliban, once Zahariel learns of it from Chapter Master Belath, who we've seen initially in contest with Astelan in Call of the Lion, and later alongside Corswain (who, sadly, only gets mentioned here).

Everything is tied together in Angels of Caliban, so you'd better read those stories first. Thankfully, they are all part of the numbered series by now, and not exclusive to audio formats or event exclusive anthologies anymore. On top of that, the Legacy of Caliban trilogy, and Gav's debut Dark Angels novel Angels of Darkness, which set the tone for the Legion ever since, are all connecting to this installment in one way or another.

While this book does reveal a few things that fans were wondering and theorizing about for years, it also opens up more questions. My big disappointment in that regard was the lack of Lord Cypher reveal - but at least that might yet come to pass in a follow up, retroactively. Many things are implied, few are outright stated, and a lot of them are pulled directly into question again.

A big reason for that is Merir Astelan. Everything he says or does has to be taken with caution. He is unreliable as a narrator, as has been shown many times since Angels of Darkness, but also blatantly lying to his supposed brethren, always gambling for his own advancement and willing to drop all loyalties for personal gain and glory. If anything, he might be the biggest architect of the fall from grace the Unforgiven experienced, by playing all sides at once. If you haven't come to hate him so far, chances are you will with this book. But then, he is also superbly intriguing and has a lot of knowledge to reveal - if you dare trust any of his words.

It is that sort of ambiguity and lies wrapped in truths that make the Dark Angels so appealing to read about. They are honorable, but also untrustworthy. They are proud, but also insanely fickle and paranoid. They might invite you to a glorious feast in one moment but already be planning your execution behind your back. Angels of Caliban has the potential to be very divisive for the Legion's fans - which is as well, looking back at the legacy of Gav's original story, and the eternal discussions about the Fallen themselves.

On the other hand of the galaxy, we have the Lion still hunting for Konrad Curze in Ultramar. The plotline kicks off parallel to Guy Haley's Pharos, and shows the Lion's purge of leftover World Eaters/Word Bearers fragments across the 500 Worlds, and how he and his commanders deal with the regular folk.

These early chapters also provide a stage for the Dreadwing, who are the bad boys of the Legion. Chemical warfare and utter annihilation of the enemy are their bread and butter. "We have come. We are death" isn't just some idle mantra to them.
Originally, Dreadwing was announced as a novel by Dan Abnett, but for various reasons, that was scrapped and rolled into Gav Thorpe's Angels of Caliban. As a matter of fact, I am glad this happened, as Gav's take on the Dreadwing was interesting and noticeably different from the Ravenwing or Deathwing action from his 40k novels, or even the Raven Guard.
It provided him with ways to explore the Legion's nature, and the Lion's unrelenting hunt, which stood in stark contrast to Guilliman's diplomacy, which obviously led to the two brethren butting heads.

In general, the tension in Imperium Secundus is rising. The Triumvirate is barely holding together, but the Primarch dynamics are out of balance. The Lion goes out of his way to subvert direct orders and rulings, feeling slighted where no insult was intended, and it all spirals out of control from there.

The Lion himself seemed both less and more likeable in this installment than in previous stories. I have a big antipathy for him. He is twisted by nature, arrogant and disconnected from his own Legion and his brothers. His social skills are that of an iron mace, and his pride and paranoia are constantly getting the better of him. But then, he is also using those aspects to achieve his goals in the hunt for Curze, which ended with a very cool showdown that feels like a natural conclusion to their rivalry that has been going on for far too long now.

But then the Lion also surprises with some very genuine moments of introspection and regret for his own being and decisions. He is aware of his failings, but also alone in bearing them, with no one to trust or turn to in earnest. He has no real equal. His brothers are rivals in some ways, and his gene-sons are wary of upsetting him, especially after learning of Nemiel's fate. In one moment he will encourage one of his officers to disagree and speak plainly, the next he will grow furious about it.
The Lion is broken in many ways, and the end of the book symbolizes that marvelously.

Guilliman, Sanguinius and Curze are all competently written - as was Horus during the prologue. In fact, that prologue was an excellent way to set the scene which filled in blanks and made new connections for the future, and set the Lion's and Luther's relationship front and center. It is full of foreboding, but also gave a glimpse of the Horus-that-was, beloved by all (but the Lion).
All things considered, I think Gav's grip on the Primarchs involved was very solid and satisfying, taking all the right cues from previous depictions.

That is what it comes down to: Angels of Caliban managed to pull together many disparate strings of story and weave them into an exciting and layered book that offered a lot of insight into the big players involved, while introducing new characters with potential. It solved some problems while creating numerous others for the Legion, and hammers home the sense of tragedy and misunderstandings that is so central to the Dark Angels. It shows that the road to hell is paved with good intentions - I loved it.

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Review: The Hunt for Vulkan by David Annandale
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The Imperium is on the verge of destruction. It needs a miracle to reunite the feuding High Lords and lead the armies of mankind to victory. It needs a primarch.

Tearing itself apart from within, the Imperium is still virtually powerless to resist the ork advance. When the Adeptus Mechanicus reveal they have discovered the orks' point of origin, the Adeptus Astartes start to gather their forces for a massive assault on their enemy's home world. But what the Imperial forces need is a figurehead, a hero from legend to lead them - a primarch. Meanwhile, on the planet Caldera, a mighty armoured warrior fights tirelessly against the orks - is he the saviour the Imperium seeks?
Time for a review of part seven in the The Beast Arises series. This one is a bit of a shift in tone, more action than intrigue, but does a fine job entertaining nonetheless.

The Story:
"The Imperium is on the verge of destruction. It needs a miracle to reunite the feuding High Lords and lead the armies of mankind to victory. It needs a primarch.

Tearing itself apart from within, the Imperium is still virtually powerless to resist the ork advance. When the Adeptus Mechanicus reveal they have discovered the orks' point of origin, the Adeptus Astartes start to gather their forces for a massive assault on their enemy's home world. But what the Imperial forces need is a figurehead, a hero from legend to lead them - a primarch. Meanwhile, on the planet Caldera, a mighty armoured warrior fights tirelessly against the orks - is he the saviour the Imperium seeks?"

The Review
The Hunt for Vulkan has to be the most direct and contained book in the series so far. In fact, I was surprised to find that I was already half through the novel at some point, with not much complicated happening. It is focused on one thing: Finding Vulkan, and it did so well.

The downside to the Primarch focus is, obviously, that we get to see little of Terra or the wider Imperium once the hunt is on. While there are some very cool moments involving Koorland and the High Lords in the first few chapters, parallel to the Fists Exemplar's trip to the red planet, kicked off in the previous installment, the bulk of the story is set on Caldera, where Vulkan is rumored to reside nowadays.

Some people may notice that Caldera isn't new to Black Library fiction. While I haven't seen it brought up on fan forums before, this is the world Vulkan named himself in Nick Kyme's Promethean Sun for the Horus Heresy series. It wasn't an arbitrary choice to place Vulkan there, but one that makes a degree of sense in context of what came before. Though I am a little disappointed that David didn't take the opportunity to indulge in some dino-warfare, only mentioning shortly. Either way, bonus points for linking Vulkan back to the Great Crusade here.

This was Annandale's first Primarch outing. While he has written for the Horus Heresy already, he didn't get to tackle the super-superhumans there. After reading this book, I'm confident that he will do well once he gets the chance to do it again. Vulkan comes across as a force of nature, and in a way it felt like he was actively drawing strength from Caldera itself. We know that Vulkan is, physically, the strongest of the Primarchs, but held back a lot. Here, he is an unleashed Hulk, crushing Orks left and right, including their war machines. It is over the top action that set him clearly apart from any Space Marine, but is not without precedence if we look at the HH.
Direct ties to the HH series are kept to a minimum, though, and a lot about Vulkan himself is left open and mysterious. The small tidbits we get are neat, but nothing that will blow your mind with revelations for the Heresy.

The Hunt for Vulkan is the first book in the series that I'd really say the Imperium is striking back against the orks in. For the first time, they are not just reacting to a threat but forcing the orks on the defensive. A lot of that is down to Vulkan's battle prowess, but also to the newfound unity under Koorland's leadership. Unlike before, the everybody for themselves mentality got replaced by everyon for the Imperium. Where before we had some characters and groups act with the Imperium in mind, or even offering sacrifices, they were always somewhat contained to their respective situations. Now they are acting for a greater purpose, and the result is an important victory for the Last Wall and the wider Imperium.

Fans have long criticised that the other, non-Imperial Fists Chapters were missing from the stage. We have been told that various big Chapters were engaged in their own parts of the galaxy, but now we have a call to Terra that promises Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Ultramarines for future installments. We only get a glimpse of their reactions here, but they are promising and in-character.

Yet still, at the end of the book I was surprised it was already over. It didn't have as much going on for it as previous novels with their various plotlines all over. There were various angles to it, of course, but mostly confined to the action on and around Caldera. The Hunt for Vulkan is the heaviest book on action so far, and rightfully so, but I was still disappointed by the lack of complexity in the wider sense.
It could have been more, but then, it didn't need to be. This was Vulkan's show to run, and as such, it succeeded.

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Review: Infomocracy by Malka Older
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It's been twenty years and two election cycles since Information, a powerful search engine monopoly, pioneered the switch from warring nation-states to global micro-democracy. The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything's on the line.

With power comes corruption. For Ken, this is his chance to do right by the idealistic Policy1st party and get a steady job in the big leagues. For Domaine, the election represents another staging ground in his ongoing struggle against the pax democratica. For Mishima, a dangerous Information operative, the whole situation is a puzzle: how do you keep the wheels running on the biggest political experiment of all time, when so many have so much to gain?
Upon seeing the cover a couple of months ago, and reading the premise of it all, I was excited by the idea of Infomocracy. It builds upon various things we see today and blows them up to the point of science fiction, giving us a very interesting idea for what the future might hold.

The Story:
"It's been twenty years and two election cycles since Information, a powerful search engine monopoly, pioneered the switch from warring nation-states to global micro-democracy. The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything's on the line.

With power comes corruption. For Ken, this is his chance to do right by the idealistic Policy1st party and get a steady job in the big leagues. For Domaine, the election represents another staging ground in his ongoing struggle against the pax democratica. For Mishima, a dangerous Information operative, the whole situation is a puzzle: how do you keep the wheels running on the biggest political experiment of all time, when so many have so much to gain?"


Disclaimer
I specifically requested this title from the publisher when I got the chance to ask for ARCs. Sadly, the post was very slow, which resulted in me getting it pretty late and it conflicted with other books I wanted to read asap. As a result I am only reviewing it now, about a week past its release.

The Review:
Upon seeing the cover a couple of months ago, and reading the premise of it all, I was excited by the idea of Infomocracy. It builds upon various things we see today and blows them up to the point of science fiction, giving us a very interesting idea for what the future might hold.

One of the key points that made me eager to dig into it was the concept of a massive search engine growing into a political tool and playing field, spanning almost the entire world with a scary amount of authority. I am already weary of Google, who have long since abandoned their "Don't Be Evil" tagline in favor of corporate interests. Seeing a company like that gain this type of influence over everybody made me wonder just how much would go wrong there.

It was surprising to see how genuine a lot of Information's engagement actually panned out, even though they still employed some questionable tactics. Unlike corporate giants today, they actually tried to create a fair stage for the next superelection, which was never going to be easy when most government parties are comprised of corporate alliances trying to push their own products and patents onto the rest of the world by gaining more traction in different regions.

The book also highlighted the laziness of the general population as well as their apathy to elections. Even when presented with a whole lot of information and details about which parties would act in their best interests, they would vote for the people with the flashiest advertisements, or buy into obvious propaganda. It is all too real a problem, and I cannot see it ever change, so I liked that the author maintained that mindset even among all the idealistic content and characters of the novel.

One such idealist, at least starting out, is Ken. He is a campaigner for Policy1st, one of the parties up for election, who believe in, well, policies first, and don't try to promote themselves with attractive faces or specific people to latch on to, avoiding the cult of personality in favor of good ideas and directions. He gets sent around the world to sway voters and investigate dirt on competitors. His character develops quite a bit and it felt interesting to see things through his eyes, an inside take on the election process, followed by a progressive shift in viewpoint.

Counter to that we have Domaine, an anti-election activist, who is working on propaganda to get people to realize that the whole process is stacked against them and not all that its made out to be. He didn't feature as much throughout as I initially thought, especially after the early chapters, but I didn't mind that. He moved the plot forward when it counted and provided a neat balance to Ken and Information employee extraordinaire Mishima.

Mishima was a cool character to me. She's sort of a special agent for Information, flying around the world to investigate governments breaking the rules but also serving as security at events and debates. At times I felt the author took it a little too far (like equipping her with Shuriken and making her perform elaborate acrobatics), but overall I was satisfied with how she came together. She has a narrative disorder which both helps and hinders her at her job and personal life. She sees conspiracies where none might exist, for example, and ties unrelated things together to the point of paranoia. It made for an interesting read, although when it came to her growing relationship with Ken, the reader already knew when she was on the wrong track, so it blunted the tension a bit.

The overall election process was interesting to follow, and while it may seem overwhelming at first, throwing around plenty of special terms like Supermajority, Centenals, micro-democracy and more from early on, it should be easy to grasp the situation within the first few chapters and get engrossed in the complexity of the world Older has crafted. Following the campaigning, political subterfuge and eventual disasters and the reactions of politicians was entertaining and exciting, while also being somewhat of a warning for the future.

One downside that I got to accept more as the book went on were the product and brand names that popped up once in a while. Of course, this isn't such a far future that strong companies from today would be extinct by then, so seeing corporations become governments like Sony-Mitsubishi felt kind of logical. On the other hand, I was a little uncomfortable seeing Nestlé "breast milk substitute" being talked about as promotional gifts. It fulfilled its purpose, of course, by reinforcing the notion that certain parties are backed by mighty corporations, and it is easy to see Nestlé as one such, just like the Coca Cola Company. Still, I have a natural aversion to what might be considered product or brand placement in fiction, so I'd like to point out that it happens here. As I said, I got used to it and it wasn't a big deal in the end.

At the end of the day I was very satisfied with the book. It delivered political intrigue and highlighted the underlying bureaucracy and pitfalls, both romanticizing the election process a little while also showing that it is not all that great. Disillusionment is a theme I tracked throughout, as more and more goes wrong in the world and the system is slow to react or proven vulnerable and at times unreliable. It showed a momentary shift in mindsets, but by the end, I doubt that many regular people will change as a result, something that isn't true for the protagonists.
After all, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

As a debut novel, I'd like to praise Infomocracy for its bold ideas. It tried to do something different and present something more in the spirit of science fiction than the usual tropes, while still maintaining a strong human focus and exploring different mindsets. I think that is commendable, and I'd love to read more like it from Malka Older.

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