This novel is not the best, and that is mostly the product of odd choices made by the author. Gav Thorpe shows us Lorgar's discovery and upbringing through the eyes of Kor Phaeron, who at this point is an exile wandering the desert with a band of followers, and Nairo, a slave in Phaeron's group. Both characters have close, mentor-mentee relationships with Lorgar, but the primarch himself is not a point-of-view character in his own book. Only seeing Lorgar through the eyes of others is somewhat fitting, for of all the primarchs Lorgar is the least likely to choose his own path, but it also cuts readers off from the thoughts and feelings of the character we're most interested in.
The story itself is passable but there wasn't much I found exciting. Lorgar eventually forges the growing band of religious outcasts into an army which takes on the Covenant and there are a string of battles, ending with Lorgar and Kor Phaeron's victory. Gav has put a lot of effort into creating a realistic setting, even inventing a seasonal cycle to explain how humans have adapted to conditions on Colchis, but though it benefits from these details the story takes a long time to get anywhere and doesn't engender any emotional stakes in the outcome. Bearer of the Word is not terrible, but neither is it good.
When this book was released my local Warhammer store ran an event for people to review it. Rather than write a new review here, I have instead copied and pasted what I wrote for the event.
"I finished this book a few days ago,
and personally I found that while it didn't quite live up to its own
advertising there was still lots to enjoy. Rather than do a big long post I'll
break it down into short points.
Cons:
Fulgrim conquering a world with seven
warriors. Sounds awesome, but was a bit of a let-down. The seven warriors
didn't get much character development and felt interchangeable. They also
didn't do anything particularly cool or difficult.
The plot was okay I guess, but I had trouble
getting invested. Fulgrim uses a combination of politics and war to conquer
Byzas, but it felt like by trying to show both the book didn't do a great job
of portraying either. The politics is simplistic and the battle scenes weren't
that exciting.
Pros:
Josh Reynolds has paid a lot of attention to
the wider setting and it shows. The book is set early in the Great Crusade when
only eight of the primarchs have been found, and this effects all sorts of
dynamics. Part of Fulgrim's motivation is that he wants to impress everyone
because the two primarchs who have been discovered since him, Rogal Dorn and
Roboute Guilliman, had both achieved a lot more than him before they met Big E.
There's also some details dropped about the Second Primarch, who has yet to
'vanish' from all records at this point.
The past. Josh Reynolds intersperses
Fulgrim's thoughts with references to things from his past, building the sense
that he is a being with history. Events we've never heard of before colour Fulgrim's
thoughts and influence his decisions just like they do for real people. They're
also great seeds for short stories.
The cover. It is easily the best in The
Primarchs series so far, and one of the best in the entire Horus Heresy.
Overall it was
all the juicy little stuff that made me like the Palatine Phoenix. Goes to show
that even bland meat can make a good meal if well seasoned."
The Ladder:
1: Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia by Guy Haley2: Leman Russ: The Great Wolf by Chris Wraight
3: Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix by Josh Reynolds
4: Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero by Graham McNeill
5: Lorgar: Bearer of the Word by Gav Thorpe
6: Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar by David Annandale
