Age of Darkness

Age of Darkness, edited by Christian Dunn, is the sixteenth installment in the Horus Heresy series. It is an anthology of nine short stories, each exploring an aspect of the 'Age of Darkness', the period of general ignorance and chaos that occurred between the Isstvan V Dropsite Massacre and the Siege of Terra. Its publication was something of a watershed for the series as authors Nick Kyme, John French, Chris Wraight and Rob Sanders all made their Heresy debut with short stories in this collection.

The first short story in the collection is Rules of Engagement by Graham McNeill, which takes place in Ultramar at the height of the Heresy. Ultramarine Captain Remus Ventanus, hero of the Battle of Calth, leads his 4th Company in a series of battles across the Five-Hundred Worlds, battling Death Guard on Talassar, World Eaters on Prandium and Salamanders on Quintarn. Only when Macragge itself falls to the Sons of Horus is it revealed that all of the battles were fake simulations carried out in order to test primarch Guilliman's new battlefield omnibus, the Codex Astartes. This short story offers a glimpse of things to come, not only introducing Guilliman's paradigm-altering publication but also containing the first mention of the Imperium Secundus.

Liar's Due by James Swallow is set on the insignificant backwater world of Virger-Mos II, and explores the consequences of Town 44 receiving false news that Horus has slain the Emperor and now rules the galaxy, thanks to the manipulations of an Alpha Legion agent. This short story is actually a 30K take on a Twilight Zone episode, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, in which the people of a quiet American town are manipulated into turning on each other by the mere threat of outside attack. Liar's Due is an intelligent short that shows us a refreshingly different but disturbing side of the Heresy.

Forgotten Sons by Nick Kyme follows two loyalist marines, Arcadese of the Ultramarines and Heka'tan of the Salamanders, as they advocate for the Imperium on the neutral world of Bastion that has yet to decide its allegiance. Two separate traitor plots ensure that this ends in disaster, and despite the marines' heroic efforts Bastion is destroyed as a warning to other worlds considering siding with the Imperium. This short story doesn't have much to offer other than its average plot.

The Last Remembrancer by John French follows Rogal Dorn, primarch of the Imperial Fists, and Iacton Qruze, agent of the Sigillite, as they decide the fate of Solomon Voss, a famed remembrancer who has spent the war at Horus's side. The shortest of the nine stories, its main theme is the pain Dorn suffers upon coming to realise that the ideals of the Imperium have been destroyed by the dark necessities of the war, necessities like his executing of Solomon Voss.

Rebirth by Chris Wraight follows Captain Menes Kalliston of the Thousand Sons as he return to Prospero to see what has become of it after the Space Wolves' invasion. Captured by Kharn of the World Eaters, who have come to Prospero on a mission from Horus, Kalliston learns of the Heresy and offers to heal Kharn's mind but is beaten to death for his trouble. This promising debut from Chris Wraight has more depth than your average short story and enticingly hints at a link between a survivor from Kalliston's squad and the origins of the Blood Ravens.

The Face of Treachery is Gav Thorpe's follow-up from his audio drama Raven's Flight, adding a World Eaters ship captain determined to attack the rescue fleet into the narrative of Corax and the surviving Raven Guard's escape from Isstvan V. This story is mostly just fleet maneuvering, but segues nicely into Thorpe's first Heresy novel Deliverance Lost by revealing the Alpha Legion's infiltration of the Raven Guard.

Little Horus by Dan Abnett brings the series back to the Sons of Horus for the first time since Galaxy in Flames, in the form of an attack on the planet Dwell led by 'Little' Horus Aximand who is struggling with unnerving dreams. Little Horus packs action, great writing and universe expansion into a small word count. Here we find the first appearance of characters Shadrak Meduson and Hibou Khan, making this short story a crux around which later writings will revolve, and the final lines in particular are masterful.

The Iron Within by Rob Sanders is a siege story set in the catacombs of Lesser Damantyne, where loyalist Iron Warrior Warmsith Barabas Dantioch resists attempts by his traitor brethren to overcome the Schadenhold, a fortress built into a giant stalactite hanging from a cavern ceiling. While there is no shortage of action the best feature of this short story is Dantioch himself, a superb character who calmly remains one step ahead of his foes the entire way. The Iron Within is a promising start for Rob Sanders.

Savage Weapons by Aaron Dembski-Bowden introduces us to the Thramas Crusade for the first time, where Dark Angels and Night Lords battle it out across the sector. The story is simply a meeting between Lion El'Jonson and Konrad Curze on Tsagualsa that predictably goes sour, but Dembski-Bowden's writing makes it entertaining regardless, as does the presence of everyone's favourite Night Lord Sevatar. Savage Weapons' true value is that it introduces a corner of the universe that has been revisited several times since.                

As an overall anthology Age of Darkness is hard to judge; some of its stories are good, the best being Little Horus, and some not so good, the least meritorious being Forgotten Sons. The biggest difficulty in judging it comes from the fact that all the shorts have different purposes: some throw out plot threads that are not picked up again until much later (Rules of Engagement, Rebirth, Little Horus, The Iron Within), some are setup for following novels (The Face of Treachery) and some are simply short stories (Liar's Due, Forgotten Sons, Savage Weapons). Overall the quality is good, but Age of Darkness is more a mosaic than anything else.    

Battle for the Abyss

Battle for the Abyss by Ben Counter is the eighth installment in the Horus Heresy series. It follows a rag-tag group of loyalist Space Marines as they attempt to destroy a gigantic Word Bearers battleship, the Furious Abyss, before it can launch a fatal assault on the Ultramarines homeworld Macragge.

Battle for the Abyss is consistently cited as one of the worst if not the worst book in the Heresy series, but the reason why is not readily apparent. There is no one, glaring flaw that lets Battle for the Abyss down, but rather it suffers from a multiple issues that combine to make it a sub-par book. On paper the book sounds fine, exciting even, but when read and compared with other books in the series it comes up noticeably short. The most obvious issue is the sheer simplicity of the character types. Cestus, the main protagonist, is an Ultramarine captain, so therefore he is the stereotypical blond-haired hero who never wavers in his duty and whose only flaw is occasionally forgetting the full scope of the Emperor's benevolence. Zadkiel, the Word Bearer commander of the Furious Abyss, is an antagonist straight out of classic villain school who spends most of his time being mean to his subordinates and monologuing about the righteousness of his cause. Brynngar, the leader of the Space Wolves that join the Ultramarines in their quest, plays into every Viking stereotype by drinking, arguing, wanting to fight everyone and using a lot of violent hunting metaphors. Mhotep, the lone Thousand Son who joins the group, is as cryptic and mysterious as a classic sorcerer can be. Together, this fellowship of stereotypes lower the tone of the book and make parts of it feel more like fan-fiction than the work of a professional author, which is surprising considering the quality of Counter's first contribution to the series, Galaxy in Flames.

The plot itself is simplistic and straightforward, but it moves at a good pace and is easy to read. The tactics employed by the loyalists to bring down the Furious Abyss seem questionable at times, like assaulting a warship full of Word Bearers with twenty marines, but the battle scenes are better-written than anything else in the book and keep the pages turning. The climax is exciting if somewhat predictable, and with all of the characters dead by the end none of them will be returning to trouble the rest of the series. Brynngar's moment of sacrifice in order to destroy the ship is the only part of the novel that evoked my emotions.

Battle for the Abyss is without a doubt a bad book. The author's handling of the characters, as well as being highly stereotypical, doesn't seem to fit with their Legions as portrayed in the rest of the series. To be fair there had yet to be much of a series when this book was published, but that doesn't make reading something that could have come from the imagination of any fourteen year-old reading their first Codex any more enjoyable. Whether or not the book's reception had anything to do with Ben Counter dropping off the face of the Heresy series never to be seen again is impossible to tell, but what is certain is that Battle for the Abyss deserves its reputation as one of the worst books in the series.  

The Primarchs

The Primarchs, edited by Christian Dunn, is the twentieth installment in the Horus Heresy series. It is an anthology containing four novellas, each focusing on one particular primarch: The Reflection Crack'd by Graham McNeill, Feat of Iron by Nick Kyme, The Lion by Gav Thorpe and The Serpent Beneath by Rob Sanders.

The Reflection Crack'd by Graham McNeill follows the Emperor's Children and their primarch Fulgrim in the days after the Isstvan V Dropsite Massacre. Written from the deliciously arrogant perspective of Lucius, vilest of traitors and swordsmaster extraordinaire, The Reflection Crack'd paints a portrait of the Emperor's Children corrupted by hedonistic worship of Slaanesh but not yet fragmented into the ravening warbands we know and hate. Though not light on action, The Reflection Crack'd is largely a psychological thriller as Lucius comes to suspect that Fulgrim is not who he seems to be. Gathering together the Legion captains to voice his concerns, Lucius organises a bold attempt to capture Fulgrim and submit him to torture in order to drive out the daemon possessing him. What follows is fifty pages of some of the best Heresy fiction written as the eclectic Emperor's Children captains ambush, subdue and torture their own primarch in order to free him. Graham McNeill returns to familiar ground in exploring Fulgrim's psyche, having penned the novel Fulgrim close to the start of the Heresy series, and it pays off tremendously at the end of this novella as the primarch casually discusses matters of philosophy whilst being tortured by his subordinates. The twist at the end is masterful, and while the final scene is blatant set-up for McNeill's next novel it also brings to a close possibly the best novella in the Heresy series.   

Feat of Iron by Nick Kyme sees the author return to the feral world of Ibsen first introduced in his limited-edition novella Promethean Sun, this time following the Iron Hands Legion and their primarch Ferrus Manus as they struggle to subdue the planet's desert continent. Everything about this novella is unforgiving, from Manus's war-ethic to the Iron Hands' treatment of their human auxiliaries to the environment itself. Manus's towering pride drives much of the action and neither he nor his Astartes come across as particularly likeable, the Iron Hands forcing their human allies to keep up or die. Whilst the main plot involves the Iron Hands seeking out and destroying an Eldar node, a more interesting second plot kicks in partway through as an Eldar Farseer essentially kidnaps Ferrus Manus and imprisons him in a surreal subterranean cave system in a bid to alter his fate. That this bid is doomed to failure is made clear from the start, not just from a second Farseer's adamant statements that it will but also from Manus's unbending nature. The picture of Manus we get is one of a primarch storming stubbornly towards his own doom, but his time in the caves does offer a few tasty glimpses of some of the 30K universe's biggest mysteries. Up on the surface the Iron Hands' struggle to continue the campaign without their missing primarch foreshadows the disaster yet to befall them in the larger timeline, but in this story at least Manus returns in time to save the day. That the Iron Hands are forced to rely on their 'weak' human allies in the final battle is a typical storytelling reverse, and by the end of the day they have learned their lesson and come to realise that not all flesh is weak. Sadly, this lesson will not be of any use on the plains of Isstvan V.

The Lion by Gav Thorpe takes us to the Thramas Crusade, where the Dark Angels of Lion El'Jonson wage unending war across the stars against the despicable Night Lords Legion. And then it takes us away on a side quest to the Perditus system, where a force of Death Guard battle a contingent of Iron Hands for possession of a bizarre sentient machine. Lion El'Jonson seems to like leading strike-forces to recover super-powerful devices (see Fallen Angels) and decides to intervene, taking a sizeable chunk of his Legion away from the continuing Thramas Crusade towards Perditus. En route they become stranded in the Warp with no protection and the action picks up quickly as daemons materialise throughout the ship and the Dark Angels meet them head on. The fighting here is archetypal Warhammer, Space Marines going mano-a-daemano with unreal fiends, and the Lion's punching of a sword through Kairos Fateweaver's chest is a suitably visceral end to the battle, but ultimately the entire episode is just a distraction there to fill up pages before the Angels reach Perditus. Once they do the quality of the action drops; desultory scenes of Grave Wardens led by Calas Typhon duking it out with a random company of Iron Hands are soon ended by the Lion's arrival and complete takeover of the situation. Gav Thorpe's Jonson seems to be only out for himself in this novella, to the point where the (as ever) enigmatic dialogue surrounding the Dark Angels' allegiances implies that Jonson opposes everyone except his own Legion and, perhaps, the Emperor. The Dark Angels bring the biggest guns to the Mexican standoff at Perditus and thus get to waltz away with a sentient Warp-engine named Tuchulcha that is capable of great feats of teleportation. but predictably the Death Guard make a last-ditch attempt to steal it back. The Lion is a simple action story that engages in most places, but it lacks the substance of a truly good novella.

The Serpent Beneath by Rob Sanders follows a secret operation carried out by Omegon of the Alpha Legion against a Warp-influencing base held by his own legion. The tale weaves back and forth and forces readers to piece things together themselves, but this effect translates well to make readers feel like they are watching a heist movie in the style of Ocean's 11 rather than reading a Horus Heresy novella. For his mission Omegon recruits Sheed Ranko, a legion veteran; Sigma Squad, a team of ruthless Alpha Legionnaires with no qualms about killing their battle-brothers; Volkern Auguramus, a Mechanicum Adept and Alpha Legion agent; and Xalmagundi, a rogue psyker-girl with devastating telekinetic powers. Together this team infiltrates Tenebrae Base, a high-security outpost built into a remote asteroid that houses a pylon array capable of influencing the Warp. Everything goes according to plan until it doesn't, at which point all hell breaks loose. Omegon in this novella is a straightforward commando, capable of feats of combat and skilled in many other areas without any of the vainglory other Legions bring to battle. But of course this is the Alpha Legion, so even complex infiltration plot aside there is far more going on than meets the eye. Omegon's reasons for wanting to destroy Tenebrae Base are more than he claims, and indeed Omegon might not even be Omegon. Trying to keep everyone's motives straight in this novella can get a little hard as Rob Sanders gives nothing away easily, but the action is excellent in a style not seen before in the Heresy and if you pay attention there are truly shocking implications to be perceived. The Serpent Beneath is an engaging and masterful novella that speaks promisingly of Rob Sanders' involvement in the series.

Overall,The Primarchs is a strong anthology. Like all anthologies it varies in quality, but by containing four novellas rather than a larger number of short stories it allows its contributing authors to give the readers four different, well-crafted tales that are long enough to have real substance but can be read in a fraction of the time it takes to finish a novel. The Reflection Crack'd and The Serpent Beneath in particular make this an anthology that is definitely worth reading.