The Damnation of Pythos

The Damnation of Pythos by David Annandale is the thirtieth installment in the Horus Heresy series. It follows a force of Shattered Legions marines who discover the Death World Pythos and become hosts to a strange community of exodite mortals.

Shattered Legions. Alien dinosaurs. Shattered Legions fighting alien dinosaurs. On paper, The Damnation of Pythos has everything. In reality, it is a miserable excuse for a Horus Heresy novel. The writing is dramatic and engaging enough, but there simply aren't any characters worth caring about and the plot, well...The plot starts nowhere, meanders through a lot of truly gratuitous violence and then finishes with the second-worst ending any story can have, above only 'and then they woke up and it was all a dream': everyone dies. Upon finishing this book, the reader is left wondering why they wasted their time.

The only reason to buy this book is to avoid leaving a gap in your Heresy collection. Do not read it, unless you consider your time worthless or particularly enjoy sci-fi violence and horror for its own sake. For those of you who still may be curious, I will provide a brief outline...

 
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<THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: I COULD HAVE WRITTEN A BETTER HERESY BOOK THAN THIS>

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Garro

Garro by James Swallow is the forty-second installment in the Horus Heresy series. It collects the Garro audio-dramas and novella into one prose novel, presenting Garro's adventures as a Knight-Errant in chronological order for the first time.

Garro opens close to where The Flight of the Eisenstein left off, with Nathaniel Garro entering the service of Malcador the Sigillite. Garro is then dispatched on the first of a series of recruiting missions, arriving on Calth during the height of the battle between the Ultramarines and Word Bearers as per the events of Garro: Oath of Moment. After recruiting Ultramarine psyker Tylos Rubio straight off the battlefield Garro dives into the events of Sword of Truth, he and Rubio investigating a refugee fleet led by loyalist World Eater Macer Varren. Drama unfolds as a traitorous faction is revealed (much less of a surprise post-Scars as it would have been before the release of that novel) and Varren ends up joining the Knights-Errant.

Garro boasts some excellent supporting characters but as its name suggests the novel is really only about one man, and Garro's fellow Knights-Errant fade into the background fairly quickly as Garro's story increasingly becomes one of a lone agent abroad in the galaxy, acting as much out of his own inner conflict as in abeyance of Malcador's directives. After failing to liberate an Imperial Fist Librarian from the Phalanx (as per Burden of Duty) and terminating his former battle-brother Meric Voyen who doomed himself through his misguided attempt to cure Nurgle's Rot (as per Ashes of Fealty) Garro leads Rubio and Varren to the wasteland of Isstvan III, where the last of Malcador's desired recruits lingers like a vengeful spectre, a diabolical Legion of One. Loken seems like a lost cause, but Garro is able to restore his mind and bring him back to Terra.

As the tone of Garro's adventures becomes darker he begins to branch out on his own, helping an Administratum scribe get the bottom of a vast conspiracy whose mastermind turns out to be Garro's boss, as per the events of Shield of Lies. Increasingly detached from his role as Malcador's agent Garro begins to seek a higher purpose and tracks down Saint Euphrati Keeler as per the events of Vow of Faith. James Swallow uses the novella to wrap up multiple plot threads he had left hanging in his earlier works, but by its end Keeler ends up in Imperial custody and Garro reluctantly returns to the fold. Swallow's author afterword makes it clear that there is more in store for Garro and that his true fate it yet to be revealed, but with two novels now written for him one can't help but feel that the ideal time to wrap up his story may have already passed. Whatever Garro's fate is, its revelation belongs to the nebulous future of the Heresy series.           

The Flight of the Eisenstein

The Flight of the Eisenstein by James Swallow is the fourth installment in the Horus Heresy series. It follows the trials of Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro of the Death Guard, who must escape the Isstvan system and bring warning to the Emperor of Horus's betrayal.

The flight of the frigate Eisenstein from the events of Isstvan III is a long-established part of the Heresy lore, but Nathaniel Garro's involvement has not always been canon. Indeed, only after several retcons did the loyal Death Guard Battle-Captain become the man at the helm, and in this novel James Swallow finally settles him into his role. The Flight of the Eisenstein is a refreshingly straightforward novel, moving at a steady pace through the Death Guard's conquest of an alien ship to their involvement in the virus-bombing of Isstvan III. Events here overlap with those of the previous book and Swallow doesn't dwell too much on what has already been covered, giving us a slice of perspective from the loyalist Death Guard on the ground but keeping the focus on the action in orbit, where drama unfolds aboard the Eisenstein.

Garro is one of the loyalists marked for termination by the nascent alliance of traitors, but an injury on Isstvan Extremis consigns him instead to the Eisenstein, where the men of the Death Guard Second Company under Ignatius Grulgor are given leave to kill him. Getting the upper hand over the would-be murderers, Garro and his loyalists take on the refugees from the Vengeful Spirit then make a desperate bid for escape, determined to warn the Emperor of the betrayal unfolding around them. Damaged during their flight, the crew of the Eisenstein are flung into the Warp and must face the Nurgle-possessed corpses of Grulgor and his men, who have been reanimated to become the first Plague Marines. Only after enduring this and several other horrors are they rescued by the Imperial Fists, who transport them to Luna where Garro has to face one final trial before finding a new calling.

The Flight of the Eisenstein is a good novel that draws you in and pulls you along as events critical to the narrative of the Heresy unfold. It establishes Nathaniel Garro as a likeable and interesting hero and leaves him at the beginning of a new and even more intriguing chapter in his story, one covered by the future novel Garro. Overall The Flight of the Eisenstein it is a solid installment that should be read by all fans of the Heresy series.