Reading Lamp

Review: United States of Japan by Peter Tieryas

This book has been on my reading list for most of the year. For some reason it always slipped my mind, until I ordered a print copy. But when I started it just this week, I ended up devouring and loving it.

The Story:

"A spiritual sequel to The Man In The High Castle, focusing on the New Japanese Empire, from an acclaimed author and essayist.

The Axis won WWII and now, in the late 1980s, the Japanese Empire rules over the western US states, their power assured by technological superiority (giant mecha, etc.) But when a video game emerges that posits a worldwhere the allies won, a game censor and an Imperial Government agent discover truths about the empire that make them question their loyalty."

The Review:

Earlier this year I decided to read The Man in the High Castle. The idea of what might have been had Nazi Germany and the Axis won World War II back then is an interesting one to me. Not only because I am german myself and see what effects, positive and negative alike, the outcome and ensuring stigma had and has to this day, but also because it would have been a domino effect for a lot of things in the world to take different routes. The United States of America would likely not nearly be as dominant in the world as right now, various wars would not have happened, or in a very different way, and ideological directions might have been shifted away from self-devouring capitalism into authoritarian kinds of socialism instead.
A lot of things would have been worse off, while some others might have seen more rapid developments, especially on the technological front.

United States of Japan tackles those points excellently. It builds upon The Man in the High Castle, runs further down that road, and provides a shocking thriller in a world dominated by fear, oppression and violence. Set around 40 years after the conclusion of the second World War and victory by the Axis, propaganda is rampant, and any hint of doubt in the japanese emperor's divinity or the regime may see you lynched and executed. Mechas are patrolling the streets of the United States, now belonging mostly to Japan, and every form of media is heavily censored and may even include bait for potential dissidents to swallow and get tracked through. It is a horrible world where wrongthink is punished excessively, and a simple accusation, no matter how false, can see your head on a spike.

Many of the rapid technological advances, such as the far earlier widespread adoption of mobile phone technology through "Porticals" and the Internet via the "kikkai", and virtual reality gaming don't serve to increase liberty but get perverted into methods of persecution and brainwashing. Even today, in our otherwise more enlightened age, voices are still popping up here and there claiming that video games, for example, make Gamers violent or sexist, but in the USJ, gaming is actually used as a way to shape public opinion on a grand scale, and indoctrinate children, teenagers and even adults.
Non-asians are regarded as lower class citizens and heavily scrutinized. While on the surface, everyone who worships the emperor is considered equal, erasing a lot real of sexism and bigotry from the USJ, the truth is quite different, and a single suspected traitor in the family can doom everyone related.
The many ways in which United States of Japan describes and visualizes actual fascism go beyond the wildest imaginations of easily-offended people on social media - and its success here is utterly terrifying.

Enter Beniko Ishimura, son of a mixed couple from the old United States of America. He was born not long after his parents were freed from the concentration camps for asians the Americans raised during WW2, yet seemingly gave his family up as traitors during his childhood. He is regarded well enough by his peers, but has a reputation for laziness and is locked in his position as a Censor of video games. When he is contacted by an old superior through highly questionable means, his hope of finally getting promoted is dashed and he is paid visit by agent Akiko Tsukino of the secret police.
Turns out said superior, general Mutsuraga, is accused of being a traitor and his contact with Ishimura tainted the latter's reputation. Beniko's life becomes a lot more complicated from here on out, as he sides with agent Tsukino in trying to expose Mutsuraga, who seemingly allied with the american rebels, the "George Washingtons", and even created a propaganda video game for them, depicting an alternate version history could have taken, had the Axis lost the war - our reality. With unsettled business between him and Mutsuraga, Ishimura is prepared to go the whole way and set things right.

I loved Ishimura's character. He is outwardly lazy, yet highly competent and intelligent. There are a lot of surprises spread out through the book, and while he may seem sleazy at first, my opinion of him rose further and further as his past experiences and reflection unravel the half-truths and outright lies of the regime. What may have been a highly entertaining revenge story instead turned into a complex, layered, innovative venture for justice. It is a novel of buried grief and false pretenses, of fear and underhanded resistance. The further you get, the more of an understanding you get of the deeper scars of all the major characters and their entanglements.

Agent Tsukino, too, was compelling and maybe showed the most growth in the cast. She goes from being a stern, impulsively dangerous woman in service of her emperor to becoming more self-aware, more righteous than self-righteous and, overall, more honest with herself. Her change from utter hardliner to developing a more open mind due to all she has to go through, from political persecution, scapegoating and violent torture, was a major draw of this book.
And yes, there is torture, and excessive violence. If you cannot stomach that, you'd best not touch the book. Everybody here suffers on some level, some psychologically, others in very real, very tangible and very shocking ways. Tieryas didn't pull any punches, and the first major torture scene hit me like a brick. I almost couldn't believe that he'd go through with it on this level, thinking it was an act, something he could write himself out of.
He didn't. As disturbing as the results were, they were impressively handled and, for all their cruelty, made the setting and characters feel much more alive.

The way the George Washingtons fully adopted a perverted version of christianity was stunning as well. Their utter belief in their god, with additions to and vile interpretations of biblical texts were bordering on mania. Their hot-blooded religious zeal contrasted well with the cold-blooded belief of the secret services acting in their god-emperor's name. It also showed that neither side's extremism is a good answer, and that all things can be turned to evil if only the justifications are strong enough in the perpetrator's mind.

Everyone here is haunted by elements of their past, whether it be Ishimura, Tsukino, Mutsuraga or the George Washingtons. Nobody is clean here, and everybody is trying to do something they believe is right. For team Ishimura & Tsukino, it is a long, hard road of cooperation despite mutual misgivings about one another, and one that shapes the novel just as much as the ghosts of the past and buried war crimes. If there's anything to take away from the book, it is that fanaticism and extremism don't solve anything and only cause further destruction and grief.

Straight-up references to The Man in the High Castle are relatively sparse. I spotted a few easter eggs here and there, but mostly the familiarity is down to the setting. United States of Japan is a spiritual successor to Philip K. Dick's work, bringing up similar ideas and themes, yet also mixing it up and adding a lot of substance and action. As much as I enjoyed Dick's novel, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed at its conclusion, and I can certainly see it being too slow for a lot of readers. With USJ, it is almost the polar opposite: The book's pace is incredibly quick, spanning only a few days as far as the present-day plotline is concerned. There is more than enough action to keep blockbuster fans engaged. Plenty of intrigue and specks of new information keep you thinking and connecting dots, before everything becomes utterly clear in the end and blows up big time.

If nothing else, you'll get a kick-ass dystopian action thriller with all bells and whistles. But there is much more to United States of Japan; enough to make it one of my favorite and quickest reads of what 2016 had to offer. Give it a whirl and be amazed at what Peter Tieryas constructed here. It won't be pretty, but is highly compelling!

United States of Japan on Goodreads

Review: Corax by Gav Thorpe

Well, we've reached #40 in the Horus Heresy series now. Despite the naysayers in comment sections across the net, the series is definitely on its final approach to Terra - and Corax takes us close to it. In fact, it even goes beyond the Siege of Terra and shows us a glimpse of the Scouring-era Raven Guard, and their Primarch. This anthology wraps up the Raven Guard story arc started with Raven's Flight and Deliverance Lost, which I recently re-read and reviewed in preparation of this one.

The Story:

"The Lord of Ravens, Master of Deliverance, Primarch Corus Corvax of the Raven Guard takes centre stage in a collection of works by Gav Thorpe that explore his campaign of vengeance against Horus' allies and his desperate attempts to hold his Legion together.

After Isstvan, after Deliverance, the Raven Guard still endure. Their primarch Corvus Corax has rallied countless warriors to his banner, striking back at the forces of the Warmaster on every front – from the degenerate hereteks of the Mechanicum to the cruel legionaries of the Sons of Horus, none shall escape his wrath. But although Corax has managed to stall the physical corruption of his own Space Marines, what of their spirit? And what sinister end must await those who dwell forever in the darkness?"

The Review:

Corax is an anthology of three novellas and three short stories. With the exception of Weregeld, the exclusive final part to the Raven Guard story arc, I have read them all before, with somewhat lukewarm feelings on most. Re-reading them all so soon after re-reading Deliverance Lost, all in conjunction and without months if not years of wait between the installments, made me appreciate the whole thing a lot more than I did piecemeal. Every bit adds another piece to Corax as a character and the Raven Guard's struggles after the Dropsite Massacre. While not a sweeping, continuous narrative, the somewhat episodic nature of the novellas and shorts allowed Gav Thorpe to explore various defining elements of the Legion and their Primarch and keep piling up drama, before making it crash down on Corax in the finale.

I was contemplating just how to approach this review. With it being an anthology, reviewing the individual parts might be appropriate, but then I also think that a kind of strict separation would do the book a disservice. While yes, all pieces have been released individually over the years, they still form a compelling hole and carry character arcs throughout, and the satisfaction I got from it was in large parts down to seeing things flow from one to the next, whereas individually I wasn't sure about the novellas. So I am going to be all over the place with this write-up, trying to do both.

The book opens up with a prelude cut out of Weregeld, the new novella. It takes the reader right into the action of the finale, showing us a gravely-wounded Leman Russ, his Wolves and the Raven Guard surrounded by Alpha Legion, World Eaters and Thousand Sons. Now you may ask how that comes to be (and so does Corax, at the end of this prelude), the Thousand Sons haven't officially joined Horus yet, after all, and Russ has barely left Terra at the end of The Path of Heaven. The answer is simple: Weregeld is placed later in the timeline than anything else before it, with Horus about to take the key system to attack the Sol System in force.
What exactly Russ was up to isn't elaborated on, but various hints were and are given which make me look forward to whatever Chris Wraight may be up to with him (since it is a safe bet he'll be in charge of the next, and potentially final piece of the Wolves' plotline before the Siege, given his track record).

After this damn exciting prelude, the book goes back to the start: Corax: Soulforge, here without the prefix. It is set maybe a year after the conclusion of Deliverance Lost, and Corax and his Legion are still raiding supply lines, ships and freeing planets that had fallen to the traitors. One such boarding action gets Corax, Branne and Agapito onto a Word Bearers ship, and shows the mad hunger for vengeance Agapito has been harboring since Isstvan V. Due to his actions, the whole thing almost goes bust, and he becomes a central figure to the plot afterwards. His need for vengeance is a focal point in Soulforge, and stands in for the Raven Guard's collective need to get back at the Traitor Legions.
While this Agapito character arc was fairly predictable in its outcome (him getting over it and getting his priorities straight again), it was nice to see the collective trauma of the Legion being addressed in a personal manner. It also reinforced the whole "attack, retreat, attack again" mantra of the Raven Guard - Agapito was all too willing to commit to a fight unto death, rather than using the guerrilla tactics the ravens and liberators of Lycaeus have been known for.

The novella itself leads Corax and Agapito to a Mechanicum world. A delegation of Word Bearers has seemingly come to turn the highest-ranking Mechanicum adept and instigated a row of despicable experiments attempting to merge daemon and machine. Yep, this is where we see the first Defilers making their way into the universe. I liked that it wasn't just the more recent Chaos machine breeds, but the iconic spider-legged monstrosities. They have been relatively overlooked in recent years, whereas they've always been something monstrous and cool in my eyes, and set the Chaos Space Marines of 40k apart from the loyalist Chapters' tanks.
Either way, Corax is hell-bent on stopping the Word Bearers and Archmagos Delvere, and allies with the loyal/undecided adepts to achieve victory. First contact is made through Corax running in on a secret discussion between the adepts, trying to figure out a course of action for their barge-city, and whether or not to recognize Delvere's leadership and the Dark Mechanicum as a whole. Corax joins in and convinces them that they can take back the planet, and subsequently assumes command of the barge-city of Atlas.

This part of the book mostly shows off just how much of a tactical genius Corax is, commanding disparate forces from multiple sources and maximizing the effect every piece in the game has on the outcome. He stokes a civilian uprising, distracts the opposing forces with his own legionaries under Agapito, and then swoops into the action himself for the deciding decapitation. While I can see complaints of Corax not being shown as kick-ass like other Primarchs who engage more in open combat, I felt that the rebel leader role of Corvus and his Legion's guerrilla spirit are well-presented here. Corax, despite his close combat gear, is more interesting to me as a tactician, overseeing the greater whole of a war rather than stumbling into the thick of it.

When he finally makes his move, it is to great effect, even though he does get a bit of a beating before the end. On top of that, he gets confronted with the nature of the Warp once more, and sees its corrupting influence first hand and at a larger scale than before. This causes new doubts and fears in the Primarch, returning the plot back to the mutated Raptors and his experiments in Deliverance Lost. While the Raptors themselves only featured in the first chapters of the novella, their increasing degredation is undeniable, and Corax draws obvious parallels with the Word Bearers since Isstvan.

After this novella follows the short story The Shadowmasters, featuring and, in fact, introducing the Mor Deythan, an elite part of the Raven Guard, based on legionaries that seemingly inherited Corax's ability to make themselves near undetectable. It is an infiltration-type story that supports Soulforge from the shadows. It isn't necessary to the overall plot but still a nice bit that connects the additions from ForgeWorld's Horus Heresy line to the ongoing Raven Guard plot. Originally this story was part of the Limited Edition of Soulforge, so I'm glad to see it in print for everyone now.

Next up is Ravenlord (which always bugged me for not having the Corax:-prefix of its predecessor), the second novella. Where Soulforge tackled the vengeance topic and the abhorrent experiments of the Dark Mechanicum and Word Bearers, this one deals with the Legion's paranoia post-Deliverance Lost, and has Corax issuing a call to arms to re-unite the scattered loyalist forces under his banner. It also makes dealing with the Raptor-problem unavoidable for Corax, as it throws the experiments Fabius has been working on in the meantime right in his face.
It also shows the measures of psychic screening that the Raven Guard adapted after Deliverance, with Balsar Kuthuri, who featured before, taking on the task of mind-reading and, surprisingly, encountering barriers around secrets in a Raven Guard force that seemingly managed to escape Isstvan V long after the Primarch.

Ravenlord kept me guessing. Like Deliverance Lost, it threw the possibility of a traitor among the ranks into the air, and tried to mislead the reader. It works to reflect the Primarch's own paranoia and distrust, even when reunited with one of his closest sons. Secrets and shame, arrogance and betrayal all factor in here. Corax, with his "I don't need a bodyguard" bravado from Raven's Flight, is walking on a knife's edge here, and even when support arrives his paranoia starts to make him run in circles, second guessing the intentions of his lieutenants.
In many ways this novella threw me back to the pre-Imperium time of Lycaeus, with Corax reminiscing about it and reconsidering his actions, decisions and the way he granted some of his early supporters absolution for unworthy deeds, in recognition of their services to him and the rebellion. To me that just showed that Corax is willing to compromise justice and integrity in a bid for a greater good, and that this may lead to further troubles down the road.

Where Soulforge had Corax firmly on the path of vengeance, Ravenlord sees his doubt about everything he has done, every fibre of his nature, grow and almost consume him. He is haunted by his past, both of his life on Lycaeus and the Raptors experiment. Some people claim that Corax is just "emo", but I think differently. If Fulgrim, Ferrus, Angron, and even Horus have their vices, doubts and grudges, then Corax is in good company with his own struggles. He is as broken as all the rest, yet still getting back up for a greater good.

The vile experiments of Fabius and the Sons of Horus were nicely done here, and exemplified just how much of a risk this line of research poses to the Imperium. The "New Men" or "Astartes Superior" are brutal, and brutally efficient, and catch Corax off-guard. His own experiments might have led him to similar results, had he chosen to continue them. To the reader it also makes clear just how much of a cost the Primarch's arrogance had; without him losing the gene-tech to the Alpha Legion, these things would have never succeeded in the first place. While he himself is seemingly unaware of his own role in the matter, it shows him how close he came to his own corruption and loss of integrity.
On the flipside, the Raptors under Branne are confronted with the failed experiments in a very grim and regretful way, making them doubt their own origins and use to the Legion as well. While at the start of Soulforge, Navar Hef was doing relatively fine, his condition has worsened significantly here. They start to see the lie in Corax's attempts to integrate them as fully respected Raven Guard.

Other elements I enjoyed with Ravenlord were the overall structure, with each chapter being timestamped in relation to the "Day of Vengeance", Corax's attempt to free the war prisoners of Carandiru. It gave the whole plot a sense of scale, and made the planning stages more believable. It also gave room for the assimilated loyalist forces to join up and receive some training by the Raven Guard. To my delight, both Captain Noriz of the Imperial Fists and Arcatus of the Custodian Guard are back, though not the focus. Surprisingly, Arcatus has come to agree with the Primarch's decision of taking the war back to Horus, and plays a key role in convincing the loyalists to stick around. Seeing Soukhounou interacting with a youth on Carandiru, talking about the value and bravery of rebellion against oppressors also made me happy; the commander certainly received a lot of attention here, and as a Terran-born Raven Guard, these scenes made him feel more part of the Legion than I expected.

The relationship between Corax and his former bodyguard Gherith Arendi is explored nicely as well, giving us a lens through which to see the Primarch's mental struggles, arrogance and paranoia. I am not entirely certain, but this might also present the first occassion on which a Primarch has been called out for being an idiot in no uncertain terms. Arendi even highlights Corax's own hypocrisy, teaching his Legion to think and act independently, while forcing his own opinions and mistakes on them and rejecting their advice when he is clearly in the wrong. Had Arendi been around during Deliverance Lost, things might have turned out far better for the Legion - after all, every Primarch needs a naysayer, unafraid to object to their lord when needed.

My initial reading of this novella, on its own back in spring, left me a bit underwhelmed. But in context of everything else and with more awareness as to Corax's development from story to story, I felt it was rewarding and I kept wondering why exactly I didn't enjoy it that much back then. Corax takes a more active role in the fighting, gets whooped for his arrogant behavior and more problems and doubts are piling up, almost to breaking point. It is a good story that drives the tragedy of the ravens further home.

Before the final novella Weregeld, we have two more short stories to go through. The first is called The Value of Fear and presents a decent excursion following a Raven Guard supposedly "training" one of the loyalists Corax attracted in Ravenlord. It wasn't a world-changing story, but neatly played on the parallels between Night Lords and Raven Guard - something Corax has been contemplating since Isstvan V, where he faced the Night Haunter and fled. It is presented through an argument between both characters, on how to best flush out the traitors they're chasing. Their philosophies clash slightly, but the mesh of both turns out quite beneficial.

The second story is Raptor, originally released as an audio drama. It stars Navar Hef and his contingent of "Rough" and "Smooth" Raptors, investigating a Space Wolves ship in distress. The Wolves turn out to have made planetfall and are being bothered by the Sons of Horus, and prepared for a glorious last stand and suicide-bombing of their stronghold.
Here we get to see the Raptors' own abilities as Raven Guard in action, but also their problems with their suits, Hef's mounting speech problems and the fear they hold for being discarded or causing Corax ill by their mere existence.
Raptor is regretfully grim, showing Navar Hef making bad decisions out of good intentions, and causing a big problem for the future. It's a sad story about self-loathing and fear, and intolerance, and the hypocrisy of the Wolves regarding their own Wulfen.

With Hef being moved into place through this story, we can talk about Weregeld at last, the only new (but significant) story in this collection.

Weregeld is set many years into the Heresy, close to the Warmaster's strike on Terra, and starts out with the Raptors boarding a Night Lords ship, showing them as truly devolved. They are distorted creatures, and often losing themselves to their own bestiality. This is something that becomes more and more apparent through Hef, who is a truly tragic figure here in my opinion. Before long, he reveals his shameful acts to Corax, and as a result drags his entire brotherhood further into doubt and leads them to sacrifice. Hef, more and more, feels like an outsider, an inferior legionary, and in a way despises Corax's comforting lies. He longs for release, more than anything.

This tragedy and need for an end is prevalent with Corax as well, who descends further into nihilism as things come tumbling down. He seeks to continue his war of vengeance against Horus, yet is unwilling to commit his Legion to any large engagements. Cornered by a Night Lords fleet, he scatters his gathered forces instead of facing the threat, losing a commander's host in the process, and abandoning much-needed supplies. His commanders are appalled at Corax's indecision and avoidance of conflict, especially as he keeps turning down invitations from loyalist Iron Hands to join battle at Beta-Garmon, a vital system for Horus to take as it offers passage to the Sol System.

The Primarch's previous bravado is gone. He doesn't believe that Horus has been bled enough to stop him from reaching Terra. Everything is poised for the Warmaster's final assault, and Corax wants to stay behind the lines, pick off supply lines and the likes, rather than throwing his Legion away for lost causes like Beta-Garmon. He does, however, attempt to summon reinforcements, which reach him from as far as Deliverance.
A thousand new Raven Guard stand ready, as do Marcus Valerius and the Therion Cohort. We haven't seen Valerius since The Divine Word, set after Deliverance Lost. In said story, he found his way to the Lectitio Divinitatus, attributing his prophetic dreams to the Emperor. This is an important plot point here, though I feel more could have done with it. Valerius doesn't get as much attention as he would have deserved, and his involvement in the story basically adds the final nail in the Legion's coffin. At least Valerius's fate is going to be addressed in a short story later this year, as confirmed by Gav.

On top of it all, a delegation of Space Wolves arrive to meet with the Primarch, and ask about the Watch-Pack sent by Malcador and Russ to guard/observe Corax. This, of course, has never reached the Primarch, thanks to Navar Hef and co, and the latter feels obligated to confess his sins to his lord. While Corax plays it cool in front of the Wolves, he is clearly shaken by this new knowledge, confines the Raptors to their cells and decides to throw everything away, sending the non-Raven Guard loyalist elements home to Terra and travels to a system close to Beta-Garmon in a gamble to save his brother Russ from death at the hands of multiple Legions.

Weregeld really brings the whole Raven Guard arc to a close. It shows the end game of the Heresy, the loss of hope and morale, the spiralling fears and the result of all mistakes coming crashing down. It is Corax's darkest hour, his time of relinquishing all control and will to live. He wishes for a "good death", Wolves-style, and to purge his sins. He has come to very troubling conclusions about the Primarchs and his own connection to the Warp, and it takes some very touching, important scenes harking back to what we have seen in Deliverance Lost, to decide the Legion's fate.

In many ways, this novella is a crossroads for other plotlines too. Balsar Kuthuri's departure for Terra will likely see him join the Knights Errant, while the return of Noriz and Arcatus as well as the other "Long Shadows" will add some welcome diversity to the Siege of Terra when it arrives. Russ and co are obviously missing a piece to bridge their departure from Sol to where they are here, and The Crimson King might catch up the Thousand Sons for this one.
One odd thing stood out to me, though: The commanding officer of the World Eaters is named Delerax, who, as far as I remember, was executed by the Alpha Legion in the short story The Face of Treachery, which is set parallel to the opening chapters of Deliverance Lost. I wasn't too keen on his inclusion here, since it didn't really add anything and it was just a simple name-drop without facetime. [Edit: Gav just let me know via Twitter that it is a nod towards the Alpha Legion's presence, which makes sense. Guess poor Delerax was simply replaced ;)]

The worst thing I can say about Weregeld is that the ending was a bit abrupt, albeit reminiscent of Raven's Flight's escape from Isstvan V, which was also featured shortly in DL. The abruptness fit the story, however, and the prologue/epilogue combination wraps up a big plotline entirely while implying a lot for the rest of the Heresy.
Besides that, I was thoroughly engaged and satisfied with the novella. Corax finally loses control, Ephrenia gets a key role, the Raptors realize their inevitable fate, and all the secrets and lies from the story arc are revealed at last, resulting in massive character drama. There are more bits of information about the pre-Legion days, and the Wolves are shown as defiant even in doom. Heck, Gav even included the Spear of Russ and its meaning to the Wolf King!

One thing I am uncertain about though is the way an infested Night Lords ship is described, however. I took it as daemonic infestation, which makes sense in the scenes it appears (which is to say, it is wrapped up quickly), but Gav certainly dropped some hints and links to the Tyranids' coming. It doesn't feel like a Tyranid threat in any tangible way, though, so I consider these links more of easter eggs than anything else, until proven otherwise. [Edit: Confirmed as Not Tyranids by Gav. Put the pitchforks away!]

If The Path of Heaven showed the White Scars' weariness and grief, then Weregeld does the same for the Raven Guard. The way they express it is different, but very down to character of their Primarchs. It is the culmination of everything that has gone before, forming a logical conclusion to the story arc. Overwhelmed by his own failings and connection to the warp, Corax becomes a tragic figure full of misconceptions and pain, looking for a way out.
To me, Weregeld also presents yet another telling difference between Konrad Curze and Corvus Corax: Whereas the Night Haunter longs for his actions to be vindicated, for himself to be proven right by history and his enemies, Corax seeks to hide the results of his arrogance, and when everything goes belly-up, he seeks absolution. He realizes his failings and wants to atone, or at least escape them, whereas Curze owns them while also shedding responsibility by claiming that the Primarchs are puppets of the gods.

I have been talking a damn lot about Corax, the Primarch, haven't I? The reason for that is that in my eyes, Corax, like Deliverance Lost, appears as more of a character study spanning the whole Heresy. Where a lot of novels in the series make certain events, certain battles the narrative focus, with these stories I always felt that the Legion and their Primarchs themselves were the important point being explored, and the battles and warzones vehicles for further exploration. That is an approach that I wish other authors had taken with previous novels, rather than focusing overly much on the action. In Corax, the focus is clear and well-developed, and even if you've read the previous novellas individually, I would strongly suggest reading all three plus short stories in sequence with this book.

With the Raven Guard story of the Heresy firmly under wraps, I cannot wait to find out what Gav's next contribution to the Heresy series might be. After Angels of Caliban, I am honestly hoping for more Dark Angels...

Corax on Goodreads

Review: Shadow of Ullanor by Rob Sanders

Writing this review has been one of my least-favorite things to do in 2016. And I had to get surgery to fix a hernia this year. If that doesn't express my frustration and disappointment with this semi-finale, I don't know what will...

The Story:

"After two failed attempts to annihiliate the orks, and the deaths of countless heroes, the Imperium may finally have a solution. But to win the war will take unthinkable sacrifice…

The Imperium’s attempts to defeat the ork menace seem doomed to failure; it is only a matter of time before the greenskins triumph, and mankind is wiped from the face of the galaxy. Yet there is some cause for hope – the psychic weakness of the orks has been discovered, and a few Sisters of Silence yet survive. Supported by the full military might and technology of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Space Marines head to the orks’ home world one final time. This time there will be no retreat, no surrender. They must succeed… or die in the attempt."

The Review:

Shadow of Ullanor is my biggest disappointment of the The Beast Arises series. Not only because of its inconsistencies with the rest, lost opportunities and continuity problems, but also because it wrapped up the threat of the Beast of Ullanor in such brevity and without much originality at this point in the series.

Let me preface by saying that this is the first book in a long while that had me mark sections on my Kindle and add notes, just so I wouldn't forget problems and continuity issues by the time I was finished. I also noted a lot of criticisms over on Bolter & Chainsword while reading, simply to have a way to vent my frustrations and not off-load them on my girlfriend. For me, this book was a massive frustration, and beats I Am Slaughter for my least-favorite installment. In a way, it has soured the series for me with its lackluster conclusion and disregard for some of the stellar character development preceding it.
While individual scenes and setpieces were well-done and some even great, there were few saving graces for me.

First off, I'll address the elephant in the room: This is the final attack on the Beast of Ullanor, and the final book, The Beheading, is bound to deal with the political fallout instead of the ork menace. That means that, within about as many pages as the shortest books in the series, Rob Sanders had to wrap up not only the reformation of the Imperial Fists and the death of the Beast (well, all of them). He had to deal with the loss of Koorland, and lead Vangorich up to his infamous deeds.
And it didn't really work.

I had speculated before that, since Rob Sanders already featured the Life-Eater Virus in Predator, Prey, it might be coming to the Imperial Fists using that devastating weapon to wipe out the Beast of Ullanor, rather than facing it in direct combat and wasting countless lives for the third time. While the psychic vulnerability was a cool aspect and almost worked in The Last Son of Dorn, a m0re pragmatic approach like that would have felt... cleaner.
Now, to go off further on that tangent, I think that would have made the book massively better, even if the final blow had to have been struck personally.

Koorland was an idealist. He had an idealistic need to be the one to end the Beast. He had to be there for all manner of reasons. But Maximus Thane, his successor and former Fists Exemplar Chapter Master, represents the pragmatism of the Imperial Fists Legion successors. The Fists Exemplar were the first to agree with Guilliman's assessment that the Legions needed to be split, and the idealistic Dorn didn't like that for a while.
While Thane does make some pragmatic choices in Shadow of Ullanor, he still went for a highly idealistic approach to the third and final attack, basically retreading the same steps as Koorland before him yet expecting different results. In my eyes, it would have been a far more suitable conclusion to have Thane opt for the Life-Eater approach, saving lives and resisting the urge for a personal confrontation. It would have been a fitting end to Ullanor as an ecosystem and usable planet for the Imperium - effectively discarding the glories of the past and the horrors of the present. A clean cut to safeguard the future of the Imperium.

Instead what we got is a book that, as far as Ullanor and the preparations are concerned, retreads most of the same ground The Last Son of Dorn did.
The Deathwatch manage to capture two more Ork psykers off-screen (even though it was stated that the Beast would keep them safe now that he knows that the Imperium figured out how to use them as a weapon, making the strictly-synchronized capture-missions in TLSoD a necessity), making the Imperium attack Ullanor with a trio of them.
Thane explains basically the same plan of attack to Vangorich and Fabricator General Kubik that Koorland did last time, but they're somehow surprised anyway. The Sisters of Silence once again swear to help out, though their powers don't seem at all nullifying this time, more like dampening, and their overall effectiveness is massively decreased.

Thane, like Koorland, forces the High Lords of Terra to cooperate, albeit in a different manner, and throws everything the Imperium had left at Ullanor. How many times have we heard that now? Oddly enough, this time the assault is far better prepared, more numerous and better equipped than in either of the previous two attacks. Bike squadrons, Land Raiders, at least a company's worth of terminator-suited Space Marines and, oh, by the way, the Phalanx is there too. Not even a hint of where the giant star fortress has been for the past 10 books, even though it is crucial to the invasion. While fans know for a fact that the Phalanx existed and were confused as to where it has been all along, Sanders failed to give us a believable explanation as to how it could be that it is now part of the strike force - or any explanation at all. Not even a simple "it had to undergo repairs after Armatura", nothing.
On top of that, it also appears that the Imperial Fists now have access to Centurion armor, which was supposedly not rediscovered until the Age of Apostasy, around 4-5 millennia after the Beast's Waaagh. What's up with that?

And yes, we all knew it was coming: The Imperial Fists are reformed by the Successor Chapters, with Thane at their head. The way it is depicted here struck me as awkward, however.
First the Last Wall celebrates the Feast of Blades on Inwit in Koorland's honor, duelling for the Dornsblade. Thane presents himself as the representative of the Fists Exemplar and ends up, naturally, winning. We only see him duelling the Excoriators champion Tychor, but that duel seemed to take up more space and time than the following proposal by Thane to reform the Imperial Fists from the Last Wall Chapters. No real arguments or opposition are being made clear, and even Bohemond of the Black Templars has nothing to add. Thane is simply accepted as "the man" and declared new Chapter Master, with the successors throwing their veterans at the newborn Chapter. There are no indentity problems here, no arguments of faith from former Black Templars, and Thane is the only one to my knowledge who even makes spoken reference to his former allegiance, in the form of a curse on Ullanor.

The second part of the reformation, the public one, happens on Terra, in Thane's bid for strength. Revealing the full Chapter to the Imperial Palace's powerful, scribes and serfs, the scene is awesome for sure. I liked that chapter of the book in particular, but that is also down to Vangorich making his move in support.
In general, Vangorich's parts were highlights here again. He has fully set his sights on the target we knew he had to come to, and makes sacrifices for it already. One early chapter even sees him asking an ecclesiarch for absolution after confessing his doubts about the way things are going to him.
The assassin's blade is in place for a fantastic conclusion on the political end of the series, at least.

But then there are further inconsistencies and a disregard for series continuity that I hated reading the book.
After the brilliant development of High Marshal Bohemond of the Black Templars in recent books, there is nothing of note about him here. He is mentioned in passing only. In my eyes, he should have been the one to duel Thane in the final round of the Feast of Blades, as he would have been the man to honor Koorland that way, personally, without representatives. He deserved a more prominent role in the book, especially after the tear-jerker of the last book.
Magos Laurentis, who featured alongside Bohemond last time, is completely absent here. So, too, is the Mechanicus adepts' use of tranquilizers on the ork psykers. Or, in general, so are all the adepts beyond Fabricator General Kubik. Inquisitor Veritus is only mentioned once in the entire book, and misspelled as Veritas. Wienand, the Inquisitorial representative, is mentioned but doesn't affect the story in any way beyond being said to be with the Deathwatch during the assault on Ullanor.
It also appears as if Vangorich is supposed to choose a new High Ecclesiarch for the High Lords, even though Koorland made a big show of ousting the Ecclesiarchy from the council and re-declaring a dedication to the Imperial Truth.

There are so many small things and absences of details and characters that were most enjoyable to me throughout the series that I can only wonder how much care the editors in charge put into this penultimate book of the series, and how they expected it to match up with the rest. There is a clear disconnect here that, regardless of a bunch of great scenes, makes the whole book seem like a weak excuse for a finale to me. It is no secret that the series has been on ice for years in Black Library's vaults, and that heavy rewrites were necessary in the meantime, but come the hell on. This is not the satisfying conclusion of one of the two major threads of the series that readers deserved, and I know that Sanders could have done better if the editorial direction had been more appropriate and time & page constraints not as strict.

But the real, the biggest bummer has got to be the ending. After spending a lengthy chapter just for the arrival on Ullanor, and most of the following chapter on slaughtering hundreds of orks to reach the Beast's throneroom, the actual confrontation with the big bad greeny is short and, again, retreading familiar ground. Once again a Chapter Master challenges the Beast, and gets pushed aside by his trusted lieutenant (which, at least, makes the introduction of Tychor sensible), echoing TLSoD. Once again a Chapter Master is near death at the hands of the Beast. Once again the Sisters of Silence unleash their payload.

With the climax being so similar to that of The Last Son of Dorn, it is unavoidable to compare the two. The result is clear to me: Shadow of Ullanor pales in contrast to David Guymer's contribution. It doesn't have the same emotional payoff, not the same sense of it being a showdown for the future of the galaxy, not the buildup for the ork psyker's power... Beyond mention of the other four surviving Beasts, the Great Beast is the only one to appear in the story as well, with the rest being taken care of off-screen apparently.
It is an all-around disappointing way to wrap up the Ullanor plotline and shows just how wrong the series went with having the Imperium go for a third attack on Ullanor. With little variation beyond the inevitable success of this attempt, it is hard to see a reason for this attack to even have occured on a separate occassion rather than being rolled into a previous book.

Thankfully, there were some cool scenes involving Lady Brassanas, and using the orks' strategy of using asteroids for planetary assault was neat. I just wish that the book hadn't spent so long on the latter part compared to the action on the planet.
A lot of the big and dramatic scale was merely glanced at and narrated in passing, but never actually focused on. The Phalanx is being boarded? All we hear about it is curt and detail-barren reports to Thane. Few (none) of the new Imperial Fists captains are explored in any depth, and even the Chief Librarian is reduced to doing communication jobs. The book is even worse at portraying the Imperial Fists as anything but faceless yellow-armored Space Marines than I Am Slaughter did - at least that one introduced the previous Chapter Master and had the Wall Veterans. All Shadow of Ullanor could offer were names and erratic reports, but no hands-on experience.

This review might be long and rambly at this point, and maybe I am being a tad too harsh, but as someone having followed the series for the past 11 months, reviewing installment after installment, this book just feels utterly wrong, disappointing and a waste of my time. The amount of things that could have been changed to make it more compelling is pretty big. It spent too much time on things that, in the grand scheme of things, didn't matter much, while neglecting what would have made for great payoffs. I was in awe of the second assault on Ullanor, yet this third one leaves me cold.

I cannot even be happy that this is one of the shortest books in the series. For all I know, a few additional chapters might have turned a poor semi-finale into a great one, by allowing for more intricate ideas to take shape and deviating from the formula. While not terrible by any means in its own right, as a successor to 10 better books, Shadow of Ullanor feels like a culmination of all the problems and missteps of the series, and makes me wonder why I bothered getting excited.
What should have been the biggest, most earth-shattering installment in the series instead turned out the weakest.

Shadow of Ullanor on Goodreads

Review: The Lost Child of Lychford by Paul Cornell

I've finished this one back in August but figured I should post my review closer to release. The book's out on November 1st, just barely scaping by Halloween, but if you're looking for something spooky for the season, this should be good.

The Story:

"It’s December in the English village of Lychford – the first Christmas since an evil conglomerate tried to force open the borders between our world and… another.
Which means it’s Lizzie’s first Christmas as Reverend of St. Martin’s. Which means more stress, more expectation, more scrutiny by the congregation. Which means… well, business as usual, really.
Until the apparition of a small boy finds its way to Lizzie in the church. Is he a ghost? A vision? Something else? Whatever the truth, our trio of witches (they don’t approve of “coven”) are about to face their toughest battle, yet!"

Disclaimer

I received an ARC for this book, and read the prequel, Witches of Lychford, in preparation for this one. Also, I am still disappointed by the author's use of blocklists on Twitter. Those may both be factors that influenced this review, so keep them in mind.

The Review:

The Lost Child of Lychford arrived in my mailbox a few months back, and since I had already planned on reading Witches of Lychford anyway, I figured this was worth reading and reviewing. With all the setup done in Witches, I ended up loving The Lost Child of Lychford more than I did its predecessor. Not only does it fix some of the complaints I had about the previous book, but it also turned into something genuinely creepy.

My biggest disappointment with Witches has got to be the lack of payoff for Lizzie. The new reverend of Lychford had some great early parts, but the conclusion saw her as a bystander for the most part. This novella puts her front and center, to my delight. It confronts her with her own insecurities and the pressure of the holiday season, and throws a wrench into christmas for all involved. While, of course, her friend Autumn is a vital part as well, it is Lizzie who steals the show and comes out the strongest in my eyes.

With preparations for christmas piling up and a couple wanting to marry on the day of days, the reverend is being overwhelmed and frustrated. Songs on the radio annoy her and the recent closeness between Autumn and the old witch Judith leaves her a bit sidelined again. Things just ramp up when a ghostly child starts appearing before her, seemingly asking for help. According to Judith, it might be nothing at all, or an echo of horrors to come for Lychford. It is up to the trio to figure it out and prevent things from escalating to a point of no return.

While this premise is pretty simple, it does the job. It draws the characters in and serves as grounds for big character development and dark mystery. Things are looking really grim for Lychford this time, more so than in Witches, and the tension is building from start to finish. Not only is Lizzie struggling with her personal and professional life, but also with faith and the demands of the strange couple wanting to marry on Christmas Eve. Autumn has to find balance between pursuits of love and friendship, getting herself into awkward situations but also allowing for some acts of heroism, and Judith has to learn to let down her guard around her new friends and reveal parts of her past in the process.
It is an all-around satisfying development for the trio. With the necessary build-up out of the way last time, The Lost Child allows us to get more intimate with its characters, while getting us spooked.

I'm not going to lie: I was halfway through the novella, reading here and there while out or before bed, when I hit a point where I just could not sleep until I had finished the book. The plot got out of hand, bone-chilling and exciting enough to keep me up. I just had to see the conclusion of it all, and how the trio would get out of the mess that was unfolding before them. With Lizzie being the key character, I was wondering how Cornell would play off her faith against the impending doom, and ended up loving that part. Early suspicions exploded and elements new and old came together to make this a suitably halloweeny tale, even if it is set during the holiday season.

Without a doubt, you should read Witches of Lychford first. However, even if you were just about lukewarm on that, this would be a clear recommendation from me. It improves on a lot of aspects that I wasn't so sure about with Witches and tells a damn tense story that puts a new spin on what we'd expect from a christmas-themed story. I'd be happy to see more novellas to come in the future, though it will be tough to beat this one.

The Lost Child of Lychford on Goodreads

Review: Deliverance Lost by Gav Thorpe

I took some time to revisit Deliverance Lost before going for Corax, the latest Horus Heresy installment. I'd recommend you do the same.

The Story:

"As the Horus Heresy divides the Imperium, Corax and his few remaining Raven Guard escape the massacre at Isstvan V. Tending to their wounds, the bloodied Space Marines endeavour to replenish their numbers and return to the fray, taking the fight to the traitor Warmaster. Distraught at the crippling blow dealt to his Legion, Corax returns to Terra to seek the aid of his father – the Emperor of Mankind.
Granted access to ancient secrets, Corax begins to rebuild the Raven Guard, planning his revenge against his treacherous brother primarchs. But not all his remaining warriors are who they appear to be… the mysterious Alpha Legion have infiltrated the survivors and plan to destroy the Raven Guard before they can rebuild and threaten Horus’s plans."

The Review:

Deliverance lost was, admittedly, one of my least-favorite Horus Heresy novels when I read it upon release, many years ago. With Corax finally released, collecting the novellas and finishing the story arc begun with this novel, I figured it would be best to re-read the old novel in preparation for the new anthology.
And what do you know, it is far better than I remembered, and much better than the internet's denizens would have you believe.

In essence, this is a book about the Raven Guard dealing with their trauma after the disastrous Dropsite Massacre of Isstvan V. The Legion is in tatters, with a mere few thousand remaining of their number. Corax is willing to throw even those remaining sons of his away to hurt Horus in simple vengeance missions, but after arriving on Terra for an audience with the Emperor of Mankind, he is offered a new opportunity:
Rebuilding the Legion using the Primarch Project's genetech, and striking back as a Legion again.

On the other hand, we have the Alpha Legion plotting against the Raven Guard and Horus. They have infiltrated the ravens by replacing Astartes at the Dropsite Massacre with their own, psychically implanting memories from the real legionaries into their own dudes, changing faces surgically and the likes. They know of the Raven Guard's gift from the Emperor, ahead of time, and wish to steal it for themselves.

Sprinkled throughout, we find flashbacks to the time up to the arrival of the Emperor on Deliverance, showing Corax and his group of rebels acting to free the prison moon of Lycaeus from the Tech Guilds. Corax is presented as super intelligent, but morally unstable until he gets taught philosophy, history and more by old wise men in the prison complex. Where he seems, at first, eager to just end the guards on his own without fuss, he is taught not to be too rash and consider carefully.
This, to me, seems like a cool counterpoint to Konrad Curze, the Night Haunter, who grew up in darkness as well, but had nobody to rely on or to trust, nobody to teach him right from wrong. Corax himself fears and hates the Night Haunter and recognizes that he could have ended up similar under slightly different circumstances: A terrorist rather than a revolutionary rebel leader.

The flashbacks, though I didn't like them occuring in the middle of regular chapters, relatively suddenly to lead in other scenes and give them expanded contrast (such as Captain Branne being willing to sacrifice innocents for the greater good, like Corax reluctantly did before the coming of the Emperor), were well-done and reinforce Corax' relationship with various key figures and his early philosophy of being a freedom fighter, not a conqueror.
This stands in heavy contrast to the obsessed, blind figure Corax becomes throughout the book, caring less and less about his fellow Raven Guard and more about his own need for vengeance and the fastest ways to achieve it.

Despite all the bits of pre-Legion history or the Alpha Legion shenanigans orchestrated by Alpharius and Omegon, the book really is about Corax. It is about the gene-experiments and the creation of the Raptors, too, of course, but primarily it seemed to me as a study of Corax' growing distance between himself and his remaining Legion, his obsession with a supposedly simple solution, his impatience and disregard for what he has left in favor of reaching for the stars and risking to lose everything he had left.

Throughout the book, Corax goes from contemplating self-sacrifice in a suicidal charge against Angron of the World Eaters to numb to angry and spiteful, before throwing himself at his father's feet to ask for his blessing in throwing his remaining sons away to hurt Horus anyway possible. While recovering the gene-tech, he risks throwing away his trusted sons to pave the way for the future. When the experiments start back home on Deliverance, he pushes aside obvious problems within the Raven Guard, especially between Isstvanites and the remainers under Branne, and the odd behavior of some Legionaries, to focus on the creation of new super-soldiers.

Corax becomes increasingly ruthless in his pursuits. He ends up disconnected from the actual proceedings and appears to put a lot of pressure on his captains over it. Instead of solving squabbles between two of his most favored and longest-serving sons, he figures he could just replace them if they carry on, but their strife isn't a priority. He keeps making demands of the apothecary and magos working on the gene-tech that are unreasonable and too much, too quickly, and when Branne confronts him about the rash, overzealous nature of the first batches of Raptors, Corax gets significantly angry and shrugs it all off - instead of listening to the sound advice of his senior staff, he wants to expand the recruitment instead of doing a thorough job, to hit some arbitrary goals he set for his Legion.

Deliverance Lost is a story about Corax's obsession and hubris, first and foremost. While the Alpha Legion scenes were great and well-done, throwing the reader off on multiple occassions and seeing their perspective of their host-Legion (and the effect the memory-implantations have on them), it is the Primarch of the Raven Guard that was best characterized. His shame is more than losing his Legion, disappointing the Emperor and screwing up his recruits in the later batches. His biggest shame is neglecting his Legion, forgetting his principles and turning on his friends. Re-reading the book has made that pretty obvious to me, and for that I love the book.

I also want to praise it for the way Gav Thorpe managed to plant the seeds of suspicion within the reader. Piling up erratic behavior through the Alpha Legionaries and certain characters and ramping up the tension of the infiltration, he provided a magnificent red herring for readers to follow. He plays on us to put the hints together in a suitable way, and the resulting reveals end up more surprising than they otherwise would have been. It was well executed throughout the whole book, which shows that Gav does pretty well with intrigue stories; no surprise considering he has been writing Dark Angels for so long.

What I didn't quite enjoy were things like the absence of Marcus Valerius and the Therion Cohort for most of the book. They play a part early on and have a pretty great scene midway, but due to logistical reasons they only take part again at the very end. The Custodes, too, felt a bit too nitpicky and their presence on Deliverance was hardly felt. More could have been done with them, I am sure.

Another gripe is the very end of the book. Corax finally gets his will when the Raven Guard assault the Perfect Fortress of the Emperor's Children in the final chapter, following on from scenes within the same chapter that would have made for a pretty good ending to the book already. But instead of closing it, the story carries on with Corax and his Legion going back to the action.
I can see why this was a necessary part of the book, and that it had to go there after the apparent realizations of Corax. Still, I cannot help but feel that this final part was an afterthought, thrown in to show Corax and co in action, as the majority of the novel didn't have much bolter activity to show. The climax at Ravendelve certainly did, and I thought that appropriate and good enough to not require another batch of combat scenes afterwards - but Corax didn't take an active part in it. As a result, there had to be more to present the restored Primarch.

That said, it felt like the book overstayed its welcome with the Perfect Fortress. It threw the pacing off, adding action to a book whose strengths lay in the subterfuge and internal strife of its characters.
Some people still go on and on about Corax being "emo" and like an edgy teenager, but that's not at all how he is. Rather, he is as driven and prone to obsession as any of his brothers. For him the direction just ended up different. Instead of looking for higher powers like Lorgar, longing for perfection and ever greater stimuli like Fulgrim, or even just for order and structure like Guilliman, Corax turned to vengeance, and it consumed him until the big wake-up call. That doesn't mean that his trauma of Isstvan V is over and he should forget it, or that his mistakes from this novel should not cast their shadow over the novellas that carry on from here.

Gav Thorpe managed to detail a Primarch that is in many ways familiar and like his brothers, but also notably different in tone. I appreciate that and think that Deliverance Lost, as a book, is far more worthy of respect than many fans seem to think. It sets the stage for many things to come, and even answered some questions as to the Emperor's whereabouts and what happened to the Remembrancers within the Loyalist Legions.
It gave some valuable insights into the Primarch Project and the Emperor's plans and showed his genius via the mechanical labyrinth guarding the gene-tech. While I found the chapters dealing with the recovery a little tedious, I cannot dispute their necessity to the story, as the intricately designed lock it presented made the defenses seem plausible and functional.

Deliverance Lost has a lot to offer to fans of the Horus Heresy, the Raven Guard and the Alpha Legion and enriches the setting as a whole. I wish we could all just dispense with the cries of "emo" and condemnation of Corax and Gav Thorpe's vision for him. It is fitting for the Lord of Ravens in my eyes, and never done to the extent that it would reach into the comical. Nothing here is as melodramatic as the simple farewell Corax left to his sons, as per the old background material.
As for myself, I am happy I gave it another shot instead of declaring "Nevermore" and turning my back on the Raven Guard plotline. It was well-worth the time investment.

Deliverance Lost on Goodreads