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.      

Corax

Corax by Gav Thorpe is the fortieth installment in the Horus Heresy series. An anthology, it collects all of Thorpe's Raven Guard short stories and novellas into one volume, ending with the original novella Weregeld which brings the story of the Raven Guard within the Heresy to its conclusion.

*Note: Corax contains the novellas Corax: Soulforge and Ravenlord, which have already been reviewed elsewhere on this blog. Links are provided in the places where they would sit in the anthology.

Corax opens with the novella Corax: Soulforge, taking the reforged Raven Guard into the thick of the Heresy for the first time since the attack on Deliverance. The novella is followed by The Shadowmasters, a micro-story originally found on the inside of the dust jacket for Corax: Soulforge. The Shadowmasters is set during the same final battle from the novella and follows a squad of Raven Guard Mor Deythan commandos as they carry out a mission that aids the loyalist victory.

The story takes a darker turn in Ravenlord as Corax and his followers confront the darkness within their own Legion, and this mood prevails throughout the rest of the anthology. The Value of Fear is a simple short story in which a Raven Guard sergeant and a loyalist Night Lord who has joined his squad exchange battlefield banter while pursuing a fleeing foe, but Raptor confronts the issue of Corax's mutated sons by placing them alongside another example of Astartes gene-seed gone wrong, the Wulfen of the Space Wolves. The Raven Guard discover the Space Wolves holding out against Sons of Horus in a remote keep and assist them in destroying the foe, but knowing that the Wolves' mission was to assess Corax's loyalty and report back to Malcador, Raptor leader Navar Hef decides to kill the surviving Wulfen to keep the Raptors secret and his primarch safe.

Corax closes with the original novella Weregeld. Set at the very end of the Heresy, it follows Corax and his ragtag army of Raven Guard survivors and loyalist allies as they decide what their last actions in the war might be. Increasingly fatalistic and guilt-ridden over his creation of the mutated Raptors, Corax leads his forces to the aid of the Space Wolves on Yarant III, where Leman Russ lies badly injured and comatose while his men fight a last stand against Sons of Horus, Thousand Sons and Alpha Legion. Deciding on death in combat, Corax joins the suicidal last stand but at the last minute is reminded of his greater duty to the Imperium, ordering a retreat. Later, after the Heresy has ended, Corax confronts his failure and puts the mutant Raptors out of their misery, finally ending the sad, heroic sage of the Raven Guard in the Heresy.

Corax provides a fitting ending to the Raven Guard arc, carrying the series closer to its looming finale. The stories it contains were originally presented in a number of different formats and this makes the anthology and the overall Raven Guard narrative feel disjointed, and part of me wishes it could have been tied up with a second novel. However, it is the nature of the Raven Guard to be overlooked, fighting against all odds and doing their duty without need of recognition. Weregeld brings their guerrilla campaign against Horus through its darkest moments to a suitable conclusion, leaving nothing left but one final, famous word.

Nevermore.

Mechanicum

Mechanicum by Graham McNeill is the ninth installment in the Horus Heresy series. It chronicles the civil war that erupts on Mars following the revelation of Horus's treachery.

Mars, the Red Planet. Named for the god of war, homeworld of the mighty Mechanicum who supply the ships, arms and armour required for the Emperor's Great Crusade. It is an evocative setting, and Graham McNeill brings it to life in his third Heresy novel by exploring the events leading up to and during the Schism of Mars from four different perspectives. First there are the mighty Adepts themselves, both loyalist and traitor, then there are the men of the Legio Tempestus Titan Legion and their smaller cousins, the Knights of House Taranis. Last but most importantly there is Dalia Cythera, a seemingly ordinary girl from Terra recruited by Adept Koriel Zeth for her eidetic memory and intuitive knowledge of machines. The stories of these four groups intertwine to form the plot of Mechanicum, providing a deep and enjoyable insight into Mars' darkest days.

Mechanicum is one of the few Horus Heresy books not to heavily feature Space Marines, and while this might not have made it the best choice of story to write so early in the series, it does allow it to explore a number of different perspectives on the technological society of Mars. The key to the story is Dalia Cythera, who is saved from execution on Terra to work for Adept Koriel Zeth, Mistress of the Magma City. Zeth's atheism and opposition to the hidebound traditions of the Mechanicum mark her out as an opponent of Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal and his coterie of traitors-in-waiting, and the revolutionary work she undertakes with Dalia's help is doomed never to be realised. As tensions rise on the red planet, Adept Regulus returns from Horus's side to finalise his pact with Kelbor-Hal, who opens a forbidden vault and unleashes malignant scrapcode across Mars. Protected by her upgraded networks, Zeth and her allies Ipluvien Maximal and Fabricator-Locum Kane only make themselves targets, and both the Legio Tempestus and the Knights of Taranis garrison the Magma City in preparation for the storm. Vastly outnumbered by the corrupted hordes of newborn Dark Mechanicum, the loyalist triumvirate goes down in a blaze of glory with only Kane surviving, evacuated to Terra by the Imperial Fists to become the loyalist Fabricator General.

While the majority of the characters meet their ends in the final battles of the Schism of Mars, the same is not true for Dalia and her band of friends. A latent psyker, Dalia pursues her visions of the Dragon of Mars into the Noctis Labyrinthus even as the red planet is engulfed in civil war, ultimately discovering the Void Dragon's prison. Dalia becomes the Dragon's new guardian, fulfilling her destiny even as the rest of Mars falls to the traitors.

Mechanicum is an excellent book, sure to please servants of the Mechanicum and unaugmented fleshlings alike. It weaves human emotion through its narrative of destruction and loss in a technical world, triumphing as a solid entry in the Heresy series.

Limited-edition novella review: Cybernetica 

Cybernetica by Rob Sanders is the tenth limited-edition novella released as part of the Horus Heresy series. It follows Dravian Klayde, a Raven Guard Techmarine turned Knight-Errant, on a mission to traitor-occupied Mars.

Cybernetica opens with a rare glimpse into the world of the Techmarines, as Dravian and his fellows await the ceremony that will grant them their full rank. Disaster swiftly strikes when the Schism of Mars erupts and Dark Mechanicum forces attack the Techmarine barracks, leaving Klayde the only survivor after a dramatic fight scene. Escaping Mars with the evacuating Imperial Fists, Klayde then brings the story to Terra, where Malcador has recruited him into the ranks of the Knights-Errant. Klayde listens in as Malcador, Rogal Dorn and Fabricator General Kane debate the fate of Mars now that it is held by traitors, and Klayde and Malcador come up with a plan to release an imprisoned tech-heretic and his army of sentient robots to wipe Mars clean of life. Klayde infiltrates enemy held Mars and carries out his mission, but ultimately fails thanks to the opposition of Aulus Scaramanca, a former comrade from the Techmarine barracks who survived the attack and was converted to the Dark Mechanicum.

Cybernetica is an interesting and well-written novella with plenty of action and a frankly cool main protagonist. It disappoints, however, by failing to resolve its own storyline and creating yet another loose plot thread in a series already full of them. Read it for Klayde and the awesome battle scenes rather than the plot.                     

Praetorian of Dorn

Praetorian of Dorn by John French is the thirty-ninth installment in the Horus Heresy series. It follows the efforts of the Imperial Fists as they combat Alpha Legion terror operations within the Sol system itself.

Well before Praetorian of Dorn was released speculation had begun about how many books the Heresy series would include. Frequently, these conversations would hinge around which Legions had yet to star in their own novel, the assumption being that each of the eighteen would get their turn in the limelight before the series reached the Siege of Terra. As the series closed in on forty installments the absence of a novel focusing on Rogal Dorn and his Imperial Fists became more and more conspicuous, and yet Praetorian of Dorn still came as a surprise because it unexpectedly pitched the Fists against the Alpha Legion. In hindsight however this match up makes perfect sense, as the insidious Alpha Legion are the perfect choice to weaken the Sol system's defenses ahead of Horus's invasion. Praetorian of Dorn covers the opening phase of this 'Solar War', the war-within-a-war that took place as the traitor noose closed around the very heart of the Imperium.

The Solar War is the final phase of the Horus Heresy, the last theatre to be fought in before the traitors reach the Imperial Palace. The cynic in me believes this theatre of conflict was invented so that Black Library could stall there for a bit while they tie off all the loose ends the Heresy series has created, but from a lore perspective it makes perfect sense and John French gets it off with a bang as the Alpha Legion launch a series of coordinated strikes against Terra. In a delightful act of foreshadowing the novel's protagonist, veteran Imperial Fist Archamus, interprets this as the first act of Horus's final attack and triggers the appropriate protocol, but Dorn sees the truth and tasks Archamus with hunting down the traitor operatives loose in the Sol system. The pace of the novel slows down a bit as Archamus and the operatives play cat-and-mouse, but everything builds to an explosive climax when an Alpha Legion fleet drifting in the void is reawakened and launches a full-scale assault on Pluto.

There are many things to like about Praetorian of Dorn, least of all that it is John French's first Heresy novel after years of contributing short stories. French pays tribute to his first Heresy short by including his remembrancer character Solomon Voss in one of three flashbacks that break up the book, the first covering Archamus's Astartes training, the second a battle against Orks during the Great Crusade and the last an ambiguous confrontation between Dorn and Alpharius. The flashbacks give the novel its structure, adding depth to Archamus and advancing the book's themes despite taking the story backwards chronologically. The last flashback is the shortest but contains my favourite moment from the whole book: Dorn revealing that he has a mastery of stealth and terror tactics at least equal to Alpharius's own but chooses not to employ them, stating that the primarchs, at least in his eyes, are all what they want to be rather than what they were made to be. This one line has huge ramifications for the lore.

Praetorian of Dorn is not quite the novel some wanted; despite its Imperial Fist main character it does not explore the Legion as a whole and is just as concerned with the Alpha Legion infiltrators as it is with the sentinels of Terra. However, it is the novel we needed without knowing it. The action is intense, the main characters are compelling and the finale contains the biggest unexpected treat of all: a primarch killing a primarch. Praetorian of Dorn is an essential read.       

Fulgrim

Fulgrim by Graham McNeill is the fifth installment in the Horus Heresy series. It chronicles the tragic fall of the Emperor's Children and their primarch Fulgrim into worship of Slaanesh and betrayal of the Imperium.

At the time of its release, Fulgrim was the longest and most ambitious Heresy novel to date. It captures the tragedy of the opening acts of the Horus Heresy through the eyes of the Emperor's Children, a proud and vainglorious Legion whose pursuit of perfection degenerates into amoral decadence and horror by the novel's end. The acts of depravity carried out by some of the characters are graphic and brutal, and for this reason Fulgrim is one of the few Black Library novels that younger readers are warned against. However, Fulgrim remains a masterpiece of operatic resonance.

A long novel spread over five acts, Fulgrim begins amidst the Great Crusade with the Emperor's Children making war on the alien Laer civilisation. The Laer's floating coral cities are a suitably outlandish setting for a race enthralled by Slaanesh, and when Fulgrim leads his men to victory after months of brutal fighting and claims a sword from the Laer temple as a trophy the fate of both primarch and Legion is sealed. Unbeknownst to the Imperials a daemon of Slaanesh is housed in the pommel of the alien blade and it begins to assert its will over Fulgrim, whispering lies and temptations into his mind. Fulgrim's corruption differs from Horus's in that Fulgrim has fewer if any personal reasons to betray the Emperor and is turned by an external force, and that Fulgrim's mighty mind barely seems to question the voice inside it makes his fall to Chaos seem easy and cheap. Thankfully Graham McNeill explores a number of other ways that the minds of both Astartes and mortals can be corrupted by Slaanesh: first captain Julius Kaesoron is swayed by hedonistic philosophy, third captain Marius Vairosean simply follows the example of his superiors and artist Serena d'Angelus's mental illness makes her easy prey. Opposing these characters' gradual descent into perversion are token loyalists Ostian Delafour, a human sculptor whose ignorant detachment parables the Emperor, and Solomon Demeter, second captain of the Emperor's Children. Neither survive the events of the book; Ostian is murdered by Fulgrim whilst Solomon dies tragically during the events of Isstvan III.

Central to the events of Fulgrim is the eponymous primarch himself. Fulgrim's descent from honourable loyalty to depraved treachery drives the plotline of the book, Set against Fulgrim as foils are his brother Ferrus Manus, primarch of the Iron Hands who makes several appearances throughout the novel, and the Eldar under Eldrad Ulthran who attempt to warn Fulgrim of the coming heresy only to discover that he is already tainted. Eldrad's appearance is one of the highlights of the novel, as is Fulgrim putting his fist through an Avatar of Khaine's head in the resulting fight. Ferrus Manus proves to be a more durable foe and survives his first battle with Fulgrim when the latter attempts to recruit him into Horus's rebellion, but the tragedy of Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children reaches its climax when Fulgrim takes his brother's head during the Dropsite Massacre at Isstvan V. Appalled by his actions, Fulgrim gives in to the daemon is his sword and becomes possessed, his tortured mind trapped in the back of his skull to suffer impotently while the daemon masquerading as him leads the Emperor's Children into the fires of Horus's war.

Fulgrim is a powerful, tragic novel of corruption and betrayal. Though not for the faint of heart, it is one of the best and most essential installments in the early series and absolutely must be read.

For those who wish to follow the Emperor's Children down their path to depravity, jump to my review of Angel Exterminatus.