Members of a seemingly loyal cult devoted to the Emperor make a pilgrimage to the world on which their order began. But what they find there puts all they believe into question…

The galaxy is vast, and worship of the God-Emperor by His faithful takes many forms. The Spiral Dawn is one of the countless sanctioned sects of the Imperial Cult. As a gathering of Spiralytes make their holy pilgrimage to Redemption, the sect's world of origin and a shrine world of the Imperium, they find not a haven of enlightenment and introspection, but a soot-choked hellhole where their order's founders and an unorthodox regiment of Astra Militarum maintain an uneasy coexistence. As tensions between the serene congregation and the superstitious Guardsmen mount, the new arrivals begin to unravel the dark secrets concealed at the heart of their faith.

First off, I apologize for all the radio silence. It wasn't my intention to stay away for so long, not in the slightest. Things have been weird in life, moving stress and what not, and I made the (possible) mistake of starting Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (and am halfway through that monster). I'm almost 20 entries behind schedule on my Goodreads challenge too! Anyway, I hope to get back into the groove soon. Stay tuned.

For now, however, I feel the need to make this post here. It is a repost of an earlier review. Today the long overdue paperback edition of Peter Fehervari's Legends of the Dark Millennium: Genestealer Cults finally went up for order, under a new title: Cult Of The Spiral Dawn, which is massively better than Genestealer Cults. If only the cover was as unique as the novel itself, I'd be all-round happy.

Since the title and cover changed, I had the choice between a) changing the original review accordingly and b) reposting using the new info. Since the former would involve problems with people looking up the original release (which they still are!), I figured reposting with this disclaimer.would avoid confusion better.

Apart from the updated technical info, the review remains unchanged from its original October 2016 version. Please note however that the paperback edition here also includes the additional prequel short story Cast a Hungry Shadow, so even if you've read the ebook or original hardcover, this edition will be worth picking up. And I'd sincerely urge you to do so because I'm a massive Fehervari fanboy at this point. It even made it onto my Highlights of 2016! Incidentally, you can find out why by reading Cult of the Spiral Dawn ;)


-------------------------------
This is a difficult review to write, and probably to read. I've tried to keep things vague and abstract to not spoil the fun of the book. To put it bluntly: I'd highly recommend the novel. It is a great read with a lot of flavor and thrilling scenes. I certainly loved it and believe it is one of the best things to come out of Black Library's printers in quite some time.

The Story:

"Members of a seemingly loyal cult devoted to the Emperor make a pilgrimage to the world on which their order began. But what they find there puts all they believe into question…

The galaxy is vast, and worship of the God-Emperor by His faithful takes many forms. The Spiral Dawn is one of the countless sanctioned sects of the Imperial Cult. As a gathering of Spiralytes make their holy pilgrimage to Redemption, the sect's world of origin and a shrine world of the Imperium, they find not a haven of enlightenment and introspection, but a soot-choked hellhole where their order's founders and an unorthodox regiment of Astra Militarum maintain an uneasy coexistence. As tensions between the serene congregation and the superstitious Guardsmen mount, the new arrivals begin to unravel the dark secrets concealed at the heart of their faith."

This novel was previously available under the title Legends of the Dark Millennium: Genestealer Cults. This edition also includes the additional short story 'Casts a Hungry Shadow'.

The Review:

Legends of the Dark Millennium: Genestealer Cults, despite its highly generic title and cover, are anything but. The hint is in the author's name: Peter Fehervari.

While this is only his second novel for Black Library, he has a host of short stories and a novella under his belt, all of which share a common theme: The Dark Coil, which, at this point, seems synonymous with Fehervari's trademark atmosphere, sense of hopelessness and spiralling descent into madness, unravelling the characters to the core.
The "grim darkness of the far future" is something that is invited with every Warhammer 40,000 story, but barely any of them nails that as well as Fehervari. When you pick up his stories, you're in for tightly-knit nets of implications, revelations, and psychological horror, rather than the all-out bolter porn a lot of 40k stories devolve into.
You're in for well-crafted characters who are on the brink of breaking, walking a knife's edge between revelation and damnation. You're also in for inhospitable worlds, whether they be the thick deathworld jungles of Phaedra, the eternal night of Sarastus, the frozen surface of Oblazt or, with Genestealer Cults, the volcanic and ash-tainted claustrophobia of Redemption. A lot of thought goes into the stages for Fehervari's stories, and they always seem to strike you with a feeling of isolation and imminent danger.

While this novel is noticeably shorter than Fire Caste, in line with Black Library's short novel policy these days, I didn't feel that it detracted from the book. I would certainly have wanted more content - why wouldn't I? - but Fehervari did very well with the space he was given, and even snuck in a lot of references and parallels to his other works - something that I've come to expect from his works. Specifically, the novel features characters from Fire Caste and his Fire and Ice novella, printed in Shas'o / The Tau Empire (get the latter in paperback, it includes the former plus an additional novella), along with multiple short stories by him. Generally you can read any of his stories on their own, but the more you get involved in his sub-mythos, the more you'll be able to take away from his works.
This is especially true with Genestealer Cults. It straight up sees characters with ambiguous fates return to the fold, while introducing a load of new angles at things he previously talked about.

The Black Flags, this story's Astra Militarum regiment, is even made up of forces from across worlds previously named, and offers a natural way to reintroduce old friends. It is made up of stragglers and remnants from other regiments across the Vassago Abyss, reshaped into a somewhat coherent force with very peculiar mental tendencies. A lot of them are broken men and women, including their Witch Captain or Colonel Talasca, who often retreats into his tower to scribble madly at his walls. Everybody has his ghosts here, defying their past, present and future.

The primary protagonist of the book, Captain Cross, is a newcomer to the Black Flags. He freshly arrives on Redemption at the start on the book, alongside an imperial cult's pilgrimage to the shrine world. He feels that all the Sacred Spiral hogwash is fishy and doesn't trust it, prompting him to accompany the pilgrims, and Ariken Skarth, who he shortly befriended during his voyage. He gets involved in matters despite his better judgement, and the coil twists and turns til he is irrecoverably drawn into the unfolding holy war on Redemption, and the machinations of higher authorities.

Ariken herself is a strong character as well. A healer by trade, she joined the Spiral Dawn pilgrimage to Redemption yet isn't as firm in her beliefs as most others. She is, in many ways, a driving force in the Black Flags' resistance, and her character develops heavily throughout. She was presented as intriguing, caring yet also increasingly ruthless as the stakes increase. Ariken, too, is drawn deeper into the spiral to the point of no return to ignorance.

But all that praise basically comes down to one thing: Peter Fehervari was the perfect choice for writing this first, defining novel about the modern incarnation of the Genestealer Cults. His skill set is focused on subterfuge, insidious plots, ambiguous characters and spiralling madness. This makes him the ideal pick for presenting the insidious nature of the Genstealers' indoctrination and the cult's inner workings. He touches on psychological aspects far more than any other author writing for the publisher, and that is exactly the close-up that this faction needed to flourish on the page. He dives right into the cult's activities while maintaining a front of ignorance on the side of the imperial troopers, up until the point of escalation.

Few things on Redemption are clear-cut. The Black Flags are made up of ambiguous figures, and from the beginning it is clear that there is more than meets the eye on the planet. While we, as the readers, are aware from the start that, hey, a Genestealer Cult is at work on the world, Talasca and co are oblivious as to what is going on. They suspect the Cult of the Spiral Dawn of treachery and danger, but the cult's fascade and stealthy indoctrination of their own troops, keeps them in the dark until it is almost too late. The initial reveals of hybrid monstrosities hit home, showing how out of their depth the loyalists are. Where they suspect the taint of Chaos, the reality of the situation is quite different.
However, the Genestealer Magi actively use the fear of the regiment to turn them on one another, and sway further soldiers to seek refuge in the Spiral. It really was nicely put together, and highlighted the psychic manipulation of the cult, and showed why these xenos infiltrators are as successful at undermining whole societies as they are.

From the first page on, up til the very last, the Genestealer infestation is showing its magic. In fact, right in the prologue we get to see the first steps in the Patriarch's evolution through the first infection on Redemption. They grow their strength and even penetrate the sanctity of the local Adepta Sororitas abbey! The whole prologue and later sections dealing with the more alien hybrids and aberrants are utterly inhuman and as close to the Tyranid psyche as you're going to get.

Honestly, this is the most difficult type of review to write for me. There are so many cool scenes and characters in here that I cannot really touch on without spoiling hugely enjoyable parts of the book. Across all of Fehervari's stories, the sense of mystery and satisfaction of discovering twists and turns and connections between stories is one of the things I cherish most, and I'd be doing any potential reader a disservice if I were to address them directly. So I have to talk in the abstract far more than I would like.

To give you a more direct example of how grim, gruesome and terrifying the Cult is depicted here, let me quote you one snippet:

[character a] sighed. ‘The last time I saw [character b] she was two months pregnant, though it looked closer to six. Their spawn grow fast.’ He shook his head. ‘She was overjoyed because she’d been honoured by the cult Iconward.’

Yep. That really twists your stomach, doesn't it? I know it did mine. And I loved the book for it. It doesn't try to hide the utter perversity of the infection. It hits right where it hurts, on multiple occassions. Not a single major character here is ever safe from the cult's influences and attacks. They can die in droves, just like that, without big acts of heroism or the often criticised plot armor. Fehervari was never afraid of getting his original characters fall to madness or an enemy's (or ally's) guns, and this is true here as well.

To my delight, there are various plot points left open for the future. While the plot itself is wrapped up as well as one can expect, Fehervari leaves the door open for themes and characters to feature in his future works, carrying on the Dark Coil's legacy. Thus the spiral turns again, deepening the overarching mysteries while delivering a damn fine read in its own right.

Genestealer Cults is one hell of a novel. It kept me awake at night, staying up longer than I should have, just to finish one more chapter, one more chapter. I ended up taking a few days off from reading more, just to let it simmer a little and not burn through it too quickly. After all, I waited years for Fehervari's next novel, so why cut the experience short. But even when I got back to it, I was drawn right into the thick of Redemption again, as if nothing had happened. The book does a fantastic job staying interesting and engaging all throughout, without any dull downtime, and when the cold war escalates and the Spiral Dawn reveals its true nature and purpose, things never let up again.

I'd highly recommend this novel to anyone with even a passing interest in Genestealer Cults as a faction, or anybody really who wants more out of the 40k IP than just numb bolter action flicks. I'd call Legends of the Dark Millennium: Genestealer Cults one of the best books to come out of Black Library this year - and they had a lot of pretty good stuff this time around...

Cult of the Spiral Dawn on Goodreads

read more »

Inquisitor Covenant and his warband go on the hunt for a traitor within their holy order.

War rages in the Caradryad Sector. Worlds are falling to madness and rebellion, and the great war machine of the Imperium is moving to counter the threat. Amongst its agents is Inquisitor Covenant. Puritan, psyker, expert swordsman, he reserves an especial hatred for those of his order who would seek to harness the power of Ruin as a weapon. Summoned to an inquisitorial conclave, Covenant believes he has uncovered such a misguided agent and prepares to denounce the heretic Talicto before his fellows. But when the gathering is attacked and many left dead in its wake, Covenant vows to hunt down Talicto and discover the truth behind the mysterious cult apparently at the heart of the massacre. In the murky plot into which he is drawn, Covenant knows only one thing for certain: trust no one.

This one took me a while to get through, and a while to review. Like, you know, about everything these past six months or so. Apologies.

I'm not feeling too good about this review, to be honest. John French is a solid author overall and I've enjoyed most of his works. His Warmaster audio drama script is one of my favorite pieces of Black Library fiction ever. Reading over this review, I feel like a fusion of Negative Nancy and Debbie Downer. So I want to preface by saying that I still consider Resurrection worth reading, despite my many gripes.

The Story:

"Inquisitor Covenant and his warband go on the hunt for a traitor within their holy order.

War rages in the Caradryad Sector. Worlds are falling to madness and rebellion, and the great war machine of the Imperium is moving to counter the threat. Amongst its agents is Inquisitor Covenant. Puritan, psyker, expert swordsman, he reserves an especial hatred for those of his order who would seek to harness the power of Ruin as a weapon. Summoned to an inquisitorial conclave, Covenant believes he has uncovered such a misguided agent and prepares to denounce the heretic Talicto before his fellows. But when the gathering is attacked and many left dead in its wake, Covenant vows to hunt down Talicto and discover the truth behind the mysterious cult apparently at the heart of the massacre. In the murky plot into which he is drawn, Covenant knows only one thing for certain: trust no one."

The Review:

Resurrection feels like a tricky novel to rate and review. I was anticipating its release a great deal, it being one of the two new Inquisitor novels this year, and unlike Chris Wraight's The Carrion Throne with its original cast, John French's series promised to drag Inquisitor Covenant into the limelight. Covenant originally appeared in the Inquisitor specialist game by Games Workshop and, as a result, is about as venerable a character as Gregor Eisenhorn. Him and his henchmen deserved the best treatment possible, which I was sure John could deliver.

Sadly, I came away from it with mixed feelings all around. Resurrection was far from what I was hoping for, at times formulaic and at others pretty out there. Its biggest problem, especially when put up against the classic Eisenhorn: Xenos, is that it doesn't feel like a compelling, self-contained narrative. Many points set up future novels, like the sequel Incarnation, due in 2018. But in the process of setting up many branches, the core of the novel felt strangely out of focus. This I'd attribute mostly to how John chose to present "his" Inquisitor. Whereas Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy gives us a first person narrative from the man himself, and Wraight's Carrion Throne offers viewpoint chapters for Inquisitor Crowl, Resurrection places Covenant into an awkward position. He is a peripheral character in his own first novel outing, felt just beyond your field of vision, but rarely at its center. Understanding him as a character proves a difficult, nebulous endeavour - which I will assume was the author's intent. It just so happens that it did not manage to grip me as a result of that.

Now, I'm no stranger to having to puzzle things out on my own. Heck, that's one of the main reasons I adore Peter Fehervari's stories so much - they make the reader get involved and think through implications, hints and connect dots themselves. I just did not feel like French managed to pull it off here. There's too little to go on to form any halfway solid picture of Covenant. Even what is straight up said about him by his henchmen, like preacher Josef Khoriv, himself a character from Inquisitor, only gives the reader rough strokes while keeping his master mysterious. We find out tidbits about Covenant's past from second hand sources, biased ones at that, and everybody in his retinue seems to avoid discussing much of anything beyond the immediate action. What worked in short stories like The Purity of Ignorance, which I loved, or the Agent of the Throne: Blood and Lies audio drama, didn't really hit home here. Covenant is not the hero of his own novel, and that is a damned shame.

Likewise, Covenant's retinue didn't really appear to have a proper connection to the master. Josef would probably be the most interesting and fleshed-out character of the bunch, having been with Covenant for long enough to care for him, and even Idris, to a great degree. His character arc felt a bit stunted, though. It was still satisfying, but I expected certain things to happen that never did. The book also ended without really exploring the changes to his mindset properly, which I assume will be a larger point in the sequel.
Sister Repentia Severita meanwhile was, as is to be expected, almost entirely defined by her own zealotry and I never warmed up to her much. Koleg, in the Dramatis Personae only described as "Specialist", was a character I often forgot existed.
At least the Von Castellan siblings Cleander and Viola were great to read about for how they juxtaposed Cleander's selfdoubts and feeling of being out of place in his own role with Viola's inherent competence and meticulousness. I hope their roles will stay as interesting in the follow-ups.

On top of the issue of characters never feeling fully formed throughout, the plot has some problems as well. At the center, Covenant is hunting a radical colleague who has been creating daemonhosts left and right and may be part of the Horusian sect within the Inquisition itself. The Horusians share their origins with the Thorians, which Covenant himself counts himself among, but their purposes follow far more sinister lines. Where Thorianism concerns itself with the resurrection of the God-Emperor and follows more puritanical philosophies, the Horusians are radicals working towards harnessing Chaos to create an unholy avatar for the Emperor's soul. Resurrection tries to play off these two sides of the resurrectionist coin, and doesn't do a bad job at it when it takes center stage, but I felt that it could've used more time in the oven.
In fact, the whole Thorian angle didn't get put into the open until almost halfway through the book, and the Horusians only got declared as such, and their methods elaborated on, until later still.

Contrasting this with Eisenhorn again, where we saw various philosophies at play even in the first book, all feeling distinct and somewhat at odds with one another, all with their own methods, Resurrection felt relatively light on the matter. While it opens up with a great assembly of the Inquisition, telling us how everybody has his own perspectives, it fails to really show those ideas to the reader. It pays lip service to the concept, but doesn't spend the time to really drive the point home. Said assembly quickly devolves into rampant action due to a Horusian plot, forcing Covenant and co to make an emergency exit. Covenant also adopts his colleague Idris's acolyte Enna Gyrid in the process, as his old friend is lost in the radicals' plot.
This presents another problem to me, because we didn't get to spend much time with Idris and Enna at all, while the novel itself is overshadowed by Covenant's past alongside Idris. Again we learn very little about it all until absolutely necessary, which meant that I really didn't care as much about any of it as I should have.
While yes, I can see how fitting the lack of information would be in the wider shadow war theme within the Inquisition, it made for a bit of a frustrating read.

It didn't help that the initial action-heavy escape from traitor traps gets roughly repeated two more times throughout, one being at the very end. Every time we get close to some answers, some hints, some evidence, some revelations, things are cast in doubt again and force the protagonists to fight and run for their lives. In many ways, the book felt very reactive.
I don't mean to hold up Eisenhorn as the gold standard again, but both Resurrection and Xenos have their respective Inquisitors follow leads to uncover a great conspiracy. Both hunt their prey in their own ways, make alliances on the way, adopt new specialists to their retinues and have old friends and allies. Both end up in tough spots, but for some reason Covenant himself never really felt at risk to me. Gregor Eisenhorn got tortured in Xenos, while Covenant always seemed more or less aloof, in control, when I was hoping for more emotion even if he is a stoic bastard. Likewise, Eisenhorn hounded his quarry and got in its way on multiple occasions, figuring things out along the way. Covenant's findings seemed rather limited and most hints occured out of the blue, at the end of it all. He always felt just three steps behind his target until the climax. As a result, the Horusian antagonist felt even less substantial to me as the reader.

During the final chapters, there was also a big event taking place that, in the end, holds more implications for the setting as a whole than for the novel itself, and I am not entirely sure yet why it was in here to begin with. I assume it will be tied more closely into the resurrectionism theme in Incarnation, but right here, it felt like a jump from A to D rather than a more natural progression of events and character growth. It was one of the things that felt like they happened for some greater reason, rather than that the plot of this particular novel required it to be this way.

What I did like was how French managed to depict the inherent suspicion between colleagues within the Inquisition. Even Enna Gyrid isn't trusted into the inner circle, mind-probed by psyker Mylasa, kept at arm's length. Covenant's alliances with Lord Inquisitor Vult likewise are strained to the limit and riven by doubts. "Trust no one" really is the tagline here, and something that, thematically, Resurrection does better than Eisenhorn, where Gregor seems to have friends all around (outside of the more radical characters like Molitor). Resurrection showcases just how dysfunctional the Inquisition has become as an institution, how at odds with its own goals, how arrogant its members and associates. It presents us with the problems of giving a large group of individual agents nigh-unlimited authority while lacking a central, unifying purpose and code of conduct. In that regard, it is as grimdark as it gets.
I must also praise the use of "silver coins" throughout the book. Their symbolism wasn't lost on me, and gets only more important in hindsight. It is small details like these that add a lot of atmosphere to the book and underline the mystery without getting in the way of it.

But in the end, this is part one of what looks like it is going to be at least a trilogy, hopefully more. Many aspects here serve as setup for plotpoints down the line, and while that may prove to be a great strength as the series progresses, it hamstrings this particular novel as a one-off experience. I seriously enjoy the overall approach to the series that John has taken by spreading it out through various character-focused short stories, a mostly separate audio drama series in Agent of the Throne, and a core novel series. I just felt that the short stories did the nebulous mystery angle a good deal better than Resurrection, where I was hoping for a tighter, more insightful story.
Looking back once the series is over, it might turn out that my assessment isn't really fair anymore, in the broader scheme, but on its own, right now, I feel disappointed and disillusioned.

I sincerely hope that Incarnation proceeds to show us more, rather than handing us cliffnotes on the characters. I want to understand them on a greater level, get into their heads more thoroughly and anticipate plot developments a little better, rather than running up against twist A, B and C with little pretext. I wouldn't mind the sequel dialing back on action sequences either, as fun as they can be. Inquisition stories are most compelling to me when they focus on the investigations, the hunts, the philosophical dilemmas and individual conflicts between characters, be their friends or bitter foes.
Resurrection has a deal of all of this, but in my opinion needed to be tighter, more focused on making the cast feel real and well-rounded. It needed Covenant to stand up for himself more and dominate the pages rather than isolating himself in his office and remaining quiet and aloof. I have faith that John French will be hitting it out of the park with the sequel, now that the basics are mostly established, however. Growing pains, and all that. I'm sure that I will come to appreciate Resurrection more as John expands on his Horusian Wars in the coming years, and pieces fall into place. After all is said and done, it is undeniable that The Horusian Wars are going up against incredibly strong competition in its own niche of Black Library fiction, and doesn't do too badly in comparison either.

The Horusian Wars: Resurrection on Goodreads

read more »

Long before he brought Chaos and war to the Imperium, the primarch Lorgar was raised on the world of Colchis, used as a weapon by the zealot Kor Phaeron in his bid to control the whole world. But Lorgar's destiny was far greater…

On the world of Colchis, mighty religions rule a decaying society in the name of absent gods – until the arrival of Lorgar. Primarch, prophet, leader of destiny, the Golden One is raised by Kor Phaeron, priest of the Covenant, to be his weapon in a quest for power. As religious war spreads across the planet, spearheaded by the Brotherhood of Lorgar, the primarch is plagued by visions of the future and the coming of the Emperor. To find his place in this new order, he must reach balance between the teachings of his adopted father Kor Phaeron, and the fate that he knows awaits him among the stars.

After a bit of a hiatus, I'm hopefully back in action for the foreseeable future. There are a bunch of reviews half-written on my desk, truth be told, but I figured you may be interested in the next Primarchs novel. It was recently released to the wider public who don't want to shell out a premium for limited editions, and as per usual, that means I got to read it now as well. It really is quite something!

The Story:

"Long before he brought Chaos and war to the Imperium, the primarch Lorgar was raised on the world of Colchis, used as a weapon by the zealot Kor Phaeron in his bid to control the whole world. But Lorgar's destiny was far greater…

On the world of Colchis, mighty religions rule a decaying society in the name of absent gods – until the arrival of Lorgar. Primarch, prophet, leader of destiny, the Golden One is raised by Kor Phaeron, priest of the Covenant, to be his weapon in a quest for power. As religious war spreads across the planet, spearheaded by the Brotherhood of Lorgar, the primarch is plagued by visions of the future and the coming of the Emperor. To find his place in this new order, he must reach balance between the teachings of his adopted father Kor Phaeron, and the fate that he knows awaits him among the stars."

The Review:

Lorgar: Bearer of the Word is a highly unconventional Horus Heresy/Primarchs novel. It features few boltshells fired at all and is relatively light on "present-day" Great Crusade/Horus Heresy content. Instead of showcasing the Word Bearers Legion's conquests, it showcases them only brielfy in interlude sections.
The bulk of the book? Lorgar's childhood and upbringing on Colchis. Almost the entirety of the novel is told not through the Primarch's eyes, but his "father" Kor Phaeron, probably the main architect of the entire Heresy. Besides Lorgar, the second viewpoint comes in the form of Nairo, one of Kor Phaeron's slaves at the time of Lorgar's arrival, whose views are juxtaposed against those of the ever-ambitious and corrupt archpriest of "the Powers" of Chaos.

Indeed, Lorgar: Bearer of the Word is taking the reader back to a time when the Primarchs were figures of myth and incredible awe, rather than the glorified action heroes of the later Horus Heresy series (looking at you, The Unremembered Empire...). While the big focus of the novel, as he well should be, Lorgar is kept reasonably ambiguous in certain respects, while the interpretations of his character through Kor Phaeron and Nairo tell us a lot more about themselves.

Kor Phaeron, true to form, is a bastard of the highest order. This novel does little to really humanize him. He's corrupted by the Powers-that-be from the moment we first meet him here, preaching while raising himself up above others - despite being exiled from the Holy City of Vharadesh. He is abusive, quick to anger, arrogant, an egomaniac for all his worship and sermonizing on the glories of the Pantheon. If you think you've felt disgusted by this man before, you might find that you have underestimated his spite greatly.

Growing up as the acolyte of Kor Phaeron, Lorgar actually did pretty well for himself. Despite brutal punishments even just for daring to raise questions, it seems strange that the Urizen would stay with his father-figure for so long, to the point of defending him and saving his life, obedient to a fault and despite the urgings of Nairo. The final section of the book manage to leave the reader with a new perspective on this, however - and I felt a little chilled thinking about the nature of the Aurelian's own ambition and calculations. If you've ever wondered why Lorgar may be inclined to throw his First Captain into the meat grinder of Calth and expecting him to lay down his life there, this story may give you plenty of reasons for it.

On the other hand, Nairo is a more tragic figure. Being an older slave, he is lucky to still be alive in his lord's service (or not, depending on how you look at it). He has dreams of his own, a different moral compass to all other highlighted characters and could be described as the angel in Lorgar's ear, opposed to Kor Phaeron's status as the devil. He wishes for equality and the abolishment of slavery, urges caution against his master's ambition and develops a deep friendship with the new messiah. His relationship with Lorgar highlights the best of the Primarch and gives us a look at what he might have become, had he not been stuck with the Dark Heart as his adoptive father...
The polarity between the two point of view characters does a solid job showcasing the various aspects that the young Primarch might represent for the preacher, the slave, and Colchis as a whole. Threat? Opportunity? Freedom? Conquest? Religious Truths? Maybe even a son?

Despite this being a Black Library novel, action is for the most part glossed over unless necessary to further Lorgar's (or Nairo & Kor Phaeron's) development. Late in the book, cities fall one after the other with no more than a name drop, for example, whereas the first and final compliances are showcased with a little more detail to characterize Lorgar's twin approaches: The Word, or the Mace. I applaud Gav for not making this a Primarch action flick - it is with in-depth characterizations that this Primarchs series scores, not "Bolterporn". The strongest parts of all previous books were when the Primarchs were left to talk and interact with their environments, or butt heads in the case of Russ, and the weakest when the Emperor's sons were reduced to the gods of war that they are. We've seen plenty of the latter throughout the galactic civil war already, and Primarchs should instead focus on giving the reader a greater understanding of its protagonists instead.

Lorgar: Bearer of the Word does that swimmingly. While hardly a bad word can be said about Aaron Dembski-Bowden's foundation for the Urizen via The First Heretic, Betrayer and connective tissue stories throughout, it only briefly looked at where the Aurelian came from, his very humble beginnings in the deserts of Colchis, beaten by his master and all too impressionable. Where Dembski-Bowden's Heresy work gives us a Lorgar that falls from the Emperor's Grace, and vice versa, turning from naive worship and making him a force to be reckoned with and the architect behind the Heresy itself, this prequel hands us the idealistic Lorgar, the ecclesiarch, the one to turn Colchis from the Powers to the Emperor's light, making the eventual reversal all the more tragic.

Stylistically, Gav Thorpe is also playing to his strengths. His origins in writing lore material are evident in a lot of his work, down to his narrative approach. With Lorgar being delivered in a more historically-inspired fashion and married to mythological, spiritual metaphor and accounts by what may be described as the messiah-Primarch's apostles, with a strong focus on dialogue over frantic action, the novel benefits greatly from his fairly unique style.
Thorpe even goes so far as to reinvent Colchis's whole calendar system, turning the world's days into trials in their own right, further reinforcing the hold religious tradition may have on a civilization that experiences as much as seven whole days during one full rotation of their world. While the impacts of the "Translator's Note on Time" included at the start of the novel are rarely make a massive impact on the unfolding story, they do explain much and give everything an interesting vibe. Colchisian culture is just as much a factor in Lorgar's relative childhood as his master and confidant are.

One thing that did disappoint me about the novel was the relatively abrupt end to it. Don't get me wrong, I liked the end, and it ended on an important event for Lorgar. However, I would have really liked to see a little epilogue about the Emperor and Magnus coming to meet Lorgar on Colchis, as it felt like the natural end point to Lorgar's ongoing visions about "The One". That this didn't happen confused me, as it'd have held great opportunity for Thorpe to pitch Lorgar's faith against the insidious nature of Kor Phaeron one final time and giving the reader an understanding of the Emperor's opinions on the zealotry rampant on his son's homeworld.

Another small nitpick would be that Erebus got only token mentions throughout the interlude chapters, but I guess including him in greater capacity would have diluted the exploration of Lorgar's relationship with Kor Phaeron, which I'd consider the highlight of the book.

One final note on the Dark Heart before I wrap this up, though. I saw some comments about Kor Phaeron still being depicted as a meanspirited, vile being with little redeeming qualities and that making it hard to empathize with the character. While I can see the hiccup for some people, I feel that this is exactly as it should be. Kor Phaeron was ruined by the Powers long before Lorgar appeared on Colchis. His exile made him even more bitter and wrathful, the effects of which we see here. We don't need to turn villains into victims of circumstance every time. Kor Phaeron is an utterly ambitious, zealous, calculating madman whose ambition, zealotry and madness needed a little more depth, as did his relation to Lorgar. He needed to be a fleshed-out villain, not a misunderstood tragic anti-hero. He'll never be that, and for that I am thankful. In my eyes, Lorgar: Bearer of the Word did a great job turning Kor Phaeron from an oftentimes shallow, mustache-twirling Bond-villain into a believable antagonist full of spite but also with his own insecurities and doubts, his own burdens and faults. He has become relatable, if not exactly somebody to empathize or even sympathize with.

Be that as it may, I quite enjoyed this book. I'd say it ties with Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia for my favorite in the series so far. It lends credence to Kor Phaeron, makes subtle comments on Lorgar Aurelian, shows the immediate effects of Monarchia in its brief interludes and connects a lot of dots in a creative and engaging way. The new perspective on well-established characters has also made me enthusiastic about the Word Bearers again and I am sorely tempted to re-read The First Heretic sometime soon.
Lorgar: Bearer of the Word manages to uphold the high standard of the Primarchs series with little trouble and is essential reading for any fan of the Word Bearers or devoted acolyte of the Pantheon, if you ask me.

Lorgar: Bearer of the Word on Goodreads

read more »

Shiban Khan has returned to Terra. As the Warmaster draws ever closer, his body is remade and his mechanical shackles cast aside, but there are other, deeper wounds that must still be confronted before he can face battle again.

This may be a mere short story, but I figured it was worth talking about, considering how much it impressed me. The next novel review should be coming soon, once I figure out some things. In the meantime, some gushing about Chris Wraight's White Scars!

The Story:

"Shiban Khan has returned to Terra. As the Warmaster draws ever closer, his body is remade and his mechanical shackles cast aside, but there are other, deeper wounds that must still be confronted before he can face battle again."

The Review:

Restorer is a beautiful story. It perfectly highlights just what power the short story format can have, if used intelligently, as an aside to an ongoing saga. It is not a mandatory read to understand the rest of the Horus Heresy by any means, but just enough of a bonus, an epilogue chapter to a character arc from two previous novels, a novella and some shorts, that it is utterly satisfying and moving for the reader.

If you haven't read Chris Wraight's White Scars novels for the Horus Heresy, Scars and The Path of Heaven, you are doing something wrong to begin with. If you have read them, as well as the Brotherhood of the Storm novella (printed in Legacies of Betrayal), you simply owe it to yourself to read Restorer as well.

It really puts the bow on one of the most striking plotlines from Wraight's Scars stories: The friendship/rivalry between Shiban Khan and Torghun Khan. Where Brotherhood of the Storm established their divergent philosophies of war and showcased Torghun's struggles to accept his place within the Ordu of Jaghatai, and Scars delved even deeper into their origins and paths, with The Path of Heaven handing us the results of their rivalry, which presented the V Legion's own schism in microcosm, Restorer puts past errors, grievances and stubborness at rest in a very introspective way.
An important way, too, if you ask me.

Where many short stories in the Horus Heresy series turn into slices of action across the galaxy, this one brings us to the heart of Terra and gives us insights into the state of the Throneworld in the final months before the Siege. It even gives us a glimpse of the traitor forces' arrival, which may be a first. It does so in a very personal way that speaks volumes about the strength of Wraight's characterization skills. Shiban Khan, for all his faults, invites us to prepare for the impending assault of Horus Lupercal's forces - both physically and mentally.

I honestly believe that Chris got something special here. Even if this turns out to be the final piece in his White Scars saga for the Heresy, it'd be an epitaph worth remembering as one of the most poignant pieces of short fiction across the entire series. It is the final piece that I could only have hoped for after the grim events from The Path of Heaven and puts to rest one of the very few points that book disappointed me with back when I read it.

As far as the depictions of Terra itself go, I can't criticise a thing. There is a clear contrast here to Wraight's recent Inquisition novel The Carrion Throne, with both versions of Old Earth across the Millennia feeling distinct and right, giving just enough of an impression of the world to satisfy curiosity and letting imagination extrapolate the rest. The inhabitants we come across feel troubled and authentic in the situations they are presented in. This is a world just waiting on the edge of its proverbial seat, expecting the arrival of the apocalypse any day now. The dire situation was handled perfectly, in my eyes.

With all that in mind, I cannot recommend Restorer highly enough. It stands as one of the series' finest pieces of short fiction - and with as many dozens of those out there, that's got to count for something.

Restorer on Goodreads

read more »

While crusading to build the Imperium, Perturabo, mercurial primarch of the Iron Warriors, hears ot turmoil on the world where he was raised, and abandons the crusade to return home and save his people.

Born to a life of political conflict, Perturabo was always considered a child prodigy among the people of Olympia – indeed, his philosophical and scientific works were beyond compare. But then, after his rediscovery by the Emperor and decades of thankless military campaigning on the Great Crusade, the primarch begins to resent his Legion’s place in the Imperium. When word reaches him of turmoil on his adoptive home world, he orders the Iron Warriors to abandon their campaign against the alien hrud and crush this emerging rebellion by any means necessary...

Here we go with Primarchs #4, Perturabo. It took me a week to really collect my thoughts after finishing this novel. That I'm still gushing should tell you it's good, right?

The Story:

"While crusading to build the Imperium, Perturabo, mercurial primarch of the Iron Warriors, hears ot turmoil on the world where he was raised, and abandons the crusade to return home and save his people.

Born to a life of political conflict, Perturabo was always considered a child prodigy among the people of Olympia – indeed, his philosophical and scientific works were beyond compare. But then, after his rediscovery by the Emperor and decades of thankless military campaigning on the Great Crusade, the primarch begins to resent his Legion’s place in the Imperium. When word reaches him of turmoil on his adoptive home world, he orders the Iron Warriors to abandon their campaign against the alien hrud and crush this emerging rebellion by any means necessary..."

The Review:

Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia is the best Primarchs novel to date (or at least up to Lorgar, which recently dropped in a limited edition. I won't be reading that for a while). I feel like I'm repeating that with every book in the series, but here I can say without a doubt that Guy Haley moved me more than any of the previous authors managed to. Not just because it is a stellar, character-building novel about one of the most underappreciated Primarchs of the Heresy, but also because it struck home on a very personal level.

The novel is split into two plotlines which obviously relate to one another but still divided by almost two centuries. Both focus for the most part on Perturabo and draw different pictures of the Lord of Iron, without making the character's incarnations indistinguishable from one another.

The major plotline plays out just before the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, mere years before the disastrous betrayal at Isstvan. Perturabo and his Legion are throwing themselves into the meat grinder at the tail end of the Great Crusade, attempting to contain and exterminate a Hrud migration. I cannot remember if we ever actually saw Hrud in action in a Black Library novel - I kinda doubt it. This alien race existed for a long time, of course, and was even covered in the ancient lore tome Xenology, but the most we got was a throwaway reference here and there. The most recent examples I can think of are in fact the Horus Heresy stories featuring Barabas Dantioch, Warsmith of the Iron Warriors. Dantioch, to my delight, is a key figure in this novel, leading right up to The Iron Within by Rob Sanders from the Age of Darkness anthology.

The Hrud are a menace upon the galaxy. They don't function in the typical way beings of flesh and blood might - they distort time, travel through it and their weapons and mere presence produce warped fields that can turn humans to dust within moments, or age them for thousands of years. Fighting them proves not only a logistical nightmare, but utterly devastating in morale. This is the campaign that really broke the Iron Warriors, after decades of chafing at being handed dirty, thankless jobs.
We've heard about Perturabo's belief that the Emperor and the Imperium at large neglected him and his Legion, didn't appreciate them and used them poorly, but we never really saw why they might think that. It is one thing to be told they got bad tasks set for them, and another to truly experience how bad it could get. The Hammer of Olympia is that story that the setting, the Legion and the Primarch desperately needed. This is a vital tale to fully appreciate just what would motivate the Lord of Iron, previously shown as so enthusiastic in Graham McNeill's Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero, to break his oaths and side with Horus Lupercal. It does so marvelously.

Haley's writing of the Hrud and the way they defiend time and space reminded me of another novel of his, namely Champion of Mars; I don't want to ruin the twist of that particular scifi adventure for you (though I will say that you should go out and read it, the Kindle edition on Amazon should go for about 3 bucks only and it was very well worth more than that), but there are certain parallels to be drawn. Haley is no stranger to timey-whimey topics and I felt that the whole theme was handled very competently.

Through Dantioch, we see the meat grinder itself, the Legion's doubts and misgivings, and the price Perturabo's sons had to pay for going against their lord's own arrogance and martyr complex. I honestly love that Haley got a chance to show this fallout, after the excellent job he did with the Warsmith in Pharos. Barabas Dantioch, ever since The Iron Within, has been one of my favorite characters in the franchise. The past two years have seen him a hero with a big legacy, so it felt satisfying to follow a younger Dantioch for a change.

On the other side, we get to see Perturabo's early days. We see him arrive at his foster father's court on Olympia, grow up with, if not really under, the Tyrant of Lochos. We see him achieve great marvels and defy culture and religion. We see him reshape his adopted home world, while growing stronger in mind and body. However, we also see him shaped by the court intrigue, the paranoia of Olympia's tyrants, the assassination attempts, the heathen beliefs of priests and demagogues. We see him butt heads with his father Dammekos, bond with his sister Calliphone, and grow ever more petulant, cynical, bitter and untrusting.

Perturabo grows up feeling appreciated only for his many talents, yet not really seen for what he truly is. He feels used and abused, despite all the status and fame thrown at him. He comes to despise many aspects of his home world, subjugating it while lacking the passion to really lead it himself. He thinks others fools, and even his sister, the one person he seems to bond with, cannot be fully trusted. He keeps looking for the stars and awaits the Emperor's arrival, neglecting his subjects in turn.

Things obviously go south before long, and if you've followed the Heresy for a while, you'll probably know how things end for Olympia. I found the final chapters dealing with the Primarch's return home to be hard-hitting, uncompromising and utterly suitable to express the Legion's fall from grace while also showing them as conflicted, complex creatures with broken spirits. The Lord of Iron let his heart grow hard and weary, and it shows on his Legion and their relationship with him.

There is an exchange towards the end, between Perturabo himself and his sister, which really hit a nerve and made me reflect on the Primarch and even myself:

"Always you do things the most difficult way, and in the most painful manner. You cultivate a martyr’s complex, lurching from man to man, holding out your bleeding wrists so they might see how you hurt yourself. You brood in the shadows when all you want to do is scream, 'Look at me!' You are too arrogant to win people over through effort. You expect people to notice you there in the half-darkness, and point and shout out, 'There! There is the great Perturabo! See how he labours without complaint!'"

The entire chapter and Perturabo's conversation with Calliphone are, in my eyes, the definitive exploration of Perturabo. Everything Haley built up throughout the novel, everything we've seen in the past, is boiled down and addressed in their argument in one shape or another. I cannot possibly express just how incredibly satisfying Guy managed to sketch the Lord of Iron in that chapter alone. Even without everything else in this book, that single chapter highlights the qualities and faults of the titular character better than anything else printed about him to date. It instills an understanding of the character that goes beyond what McNeill managed in Angel Exterminatus and turns Perturabo into simultaneously one of the most tragic figures of the franchise, but also one of the most damned and twisted. Haley understood Perturabo on a fundamental level that I can only applaud.

To be frank, this is one of the few books that made me feel utterly fulfilled. It ticked all the boxes I was hoping it would. There was brutal, uncompromising action, disastrous arrogance, tragedy in motion and a sense of fully fleshed out complexity about the titular character that every single novel in this Primarchs series should be striving for. The Hammer of Olympia reaffirmed once more just how spectacular an author Guy Haley is, in my opinion. He understood the Lord of Iron and all his disparate depictions and was fully able to knit them together in a wholly compelling rendition. Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia stands tall next to the best the Horus Heresy series has to offer.

Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia on Goodreads

read more »