Tallarn

Tallarn by John French is the forty-fifth installment in the Horus Heresy series. An anthology, it gathers together all four of French's Tallarn stories to provide an overview of the Battle of Tallarn.

Tallarn is a somewhat unusual anthology. Written entirely by one author with specific subject matter, it is much more focused than a typical anthology, but unlike the similarly assembled Corax, Tallarn does not tell a linear story. Instead it provides a mosaic-like view of the Battle of Tallarn, each narrative filling in some of the missing information until the overall picture becomes clear. This approach must have sounded good in theory, but in practice it makes for a somewhat dull reading experience.

Tallarn opens with Tallarn: Witness, a short story from the perspective of Tallarn's new governor as he tours the battlefields in a Titan after the battle is over. Structurally this was a good choice as it sets up expectations for the stories to come. However, the redundancy of its never to be seen again characters telegraphs a problem that plagues the rest of the anthology: without a single ongoing storyline, characters and plot elements have no room to develop, and so the structure of the book becomes as suffocating as the toxic air of Tallarn itself.

Tallarn: Executioner is the high point of the anthology. Set at the very beginning of the Battle of Tallarn when the loyalist Imperial Army are just beginning to fight back, it has the strongest characterisation and most compelling sequences. As a reader, I felt like I was right there in a claustrophobic tank with the rag-tag loyalist crew as they crawled through the toxic wasteland that used to be their home. Things end badly for them, but the self-contained story is just one piece of the overall narrative. 

Tallarn: Siren is the transition point between the major phases of the Battle of Tallarn, revolving around the efforts of both sides to secure the planet's last functioning astropath. It is a necessary and tightly written piece of the overall story, but as a former audio drama it comes across as bland on paper and lacks the atmospheric quality that made Executioner enjoyable.

Tallarn: Ironclad is the longest story in the anthology and brings the recently escalated Battle of Tallarn to an unsatisfying conclusion. Ironclad features perspectives from both sides and some of the anthology's best characters, and here there is actually room to give them all proper stories. Unfortunately, while their individual stories are compelling all they lead to is a vaguely confusing tangle of plotlines and an abrupt ending that doesn't answer any of the readers' questions or provide any meaningful resolutions. I was left feeling like this anthology was a waste of time, and that impression hasn't changed.