Mechanicum

This book by Graham McNeill is the ninth book in the Horus Heresy series, which I am doggedly working my way through, and oh boy this one is a doozy. Here we have a completely new angle on the events unfolding across the nascent Imperium, as we follow developments among the technology-deifying civilisation on Mars once the ripples from Horus's heresy make themselves felt across the stars. So yeh - other than a very brief glimpse of Rogal Dorn there are no primarchs in this one (we do get a fairly decent lore-dump about the doings and sayings of the Emperor himself though - and a fleeting appearance in a historical prologue), and no Adeptus Astartes at all; instead we have a diverse cast of tech-priests, Titan Legions, officials high and low, corrupt and loyal. The main character though is an ordinary human - the first, and if you ask me realistically probably last, female protagonist in the series so far - one Dalia Cynthera, a scribe with an abnormally good memory and a knack for being able to figure out how things work. Dalia is summoned to Mars by Adept Koriel Zeth, who has some hardcore secret experiments underway while simultaneously navigating tentatively through the ongoing religious schism between the Mechanicum and the Imperium. Of course, once the heresy takes root on Mars everything falls apart very quickly, and long-forgotten esoterica, blasphemous machineries and good old turf wars all play their part in driving humanity's oldest forge-world to the brink of absolute promise and utter doom. I'll be honest, this was probably my favourite one of the whole series so far - I kind of just love the Mechanicum, they're so weirdly not-quite-human but with such distinctive foibles; also Dalia was a much more compelling protagonist than the stoic, distant Space Marines who have stood at the gravitational centre of most of the books prior to this one.

Battle for the Abyss

This book by Ben Counter is the eighth Horus Heresy novel in the series, and the first to feature precisely zero primarchs! Outrageous! Where are our oh-so-flawed demigods? Trust me when I say this book proves you don't always need one around to have an adrenaline-fuelled violent romp through space. In this instalment, the recently (and essentially, secretly) heresy-aligned Word Bearers have received from the shipyards of Jupiter the largest spacecraft ever commissioned in the Imperium's history - a ridiculously big behemoth called The Furious Abyss - and, surprise surprise, they plan on using it to lead a sneak attack on the Ultramar system, a core of loyalist Imperial worlds under the protection of the Ultramarines Legion, so crippling a vital centre of Imperial control before news of the heresy has even reached Terra yet. Events conspire to draw the Abyss into conflict with a loyalist cluster fleet, and a chase through the warp ensues - with a small contingent of the loyalists managing to infiltrate the Word Bearers' ship but with little they can do to stop it from achieving its goal. A haphazard, uncoordinated but determined series of efforts between Ultramarines Captain Cestus, Space Wolves Captain Brynngar, World Eaters (apparently this book takes place before their legion goes full heretic) Captain Skraal and Thousand Sons psyker Mhotep is all that stands between the Abyss and Ultramar - the stakes may not be as high in scope as they have been in most of the previous novels; no allegiances are being traded here, everyone stays standing where they stand - but it's the first sign of the heresy metastasizing past the watersheds of Isstvan and becoming a full blown civil war spanning the Imperium.

Legion

This book by Dan Abnett is the seventh Horus Heresy novel, and the strangest yet by a mile. The Adeptus Astartes are barely in it! For the majority of the narrative we're following regular human soldiers through a largely uneventful* conflict where despite the overall lack of significant threat there is a significant aura of uncertainty due to the secrecy and shadiness of the Alpha Legion, the Astartes supporting them in this arena - secrecy and shadiness only compounded by the Alpha Legion's primarch Alpharius never quite seeming to be exactly the same person twice, though nobody can ever quite exactly tell as all of the Alpha Legion look so similar. The chief secondary plotline follows a mysterious immortal human called John Grammaticus, who is on a mission all his own to manipulate the Alpha Legion into contacting and collaborating with The Cabal, an inter-species collective of concerned parties working for the future cohesion of galactic order. Without giving away too much about what Alpharius and company make of the Cabal, or Grammaticus's role in things, there is a serious bombshell in here about how an Astartes Legion may choose to throw their weight behind the forces of heresy not out of disloyalty to the Imperium but out of sheer, cold, calculated pragmatism for the greater good. This is a disarmingly gripping instalment in the series - no major epic battles, but a deeper, sharper war over trust and truth.

* So much so that there is a solid six-page passage devoted to describing a weird little game that the troops play amongst themselves wherein they have to find a rock head only just smaller than the next biggest rock head someone else has. I found this bit thoroughly entertaining.

Descent of Angels

This book by Mitchel Scanlon is the sixth instalment of the Horus Heresy mega-series. In this one we open into a time before the Great Crusade had even properly taken off yet - those days when the Emperor (who we do get a snapshot glimpse of partway through for the first time in the series) was still collecting the primarchs from across the galaxy - in this case, Lion el'Jonson* of the planet Caliban, which is home to knightly orders sworn to protect the citizenry of their world from the great and terrible beasts which pretty much control the deep, dark forests covering most of the planet. Throughout the book we follow cousins Zahariel and Nemiel on their journey from supplicants to the Lion's knightly Order, to their establishment within the ranks as fully-grown knights, then the utterly unexpected arrival of Imperial forces turning Caliban's forests into factories and its culture into a mere expansion of the Emperor's divine mission to unite humanity - the shock of this transition is tempered significantly by the acceptance of both into the ranks of el'Jonson's new Astartes Legion, the Dark Angels, and these brave children of Caliban join the Crusade rolling through the galaxy to whatever end. So ultimately this book is less epic in scope than most of the previous instalments, but it provides a vitally interesting window into what worlds (and primarchs) may have been like before the Emperor came along to bestow upon them their Imperial destiny, and explores the potential sources of friction from this grand inclusion.

* Easily my favourite primarch so far - he just oozes chivalry and charisma.

Fulgrim

This book by Graham McNeill is the fifth Horus Heresy instalment. In this one, we again skip backwards a few years to follow the strands of story around Fulgrim and his legion, the Emperor's Children - who pride themselves on being the legion that most strives for, and in large part attains, perfection in all they do. Like the Luna Wolves had before, the legion has a cohort of civilian remembrancers attached to their crusade fleet to record the great deeds achieved in the war to reunite humanity. The aesthetic experience in a temple-like construct of a defeated alien race called the laer seems to have a profound and disturbing effect on many of the legion and the remembrancers alike; this influence builds slowly over the course of this novel into a horrifying excess of expression and enjoyment. But before that peak is reached, Fulgrim is brought into the confidence of Horus's new direction and sides with the Warmaster - then, given the task of persuading Ferrus Manus, primarch of the Iron Hands legion, to join the cause also, Fulgrim tries his best but ultimately fails. This uncloseable breach between the brothers opened, Fulgrim draws the Iron Hands to Isstvan V - where, just mere days after the terribly scenes of Isstvan III, the civil war among the legions rears its head once more in all-out slaughter - including the death of Ferrus Manus himself (the first primarch to die). Despite having been forewarned by an eldar farseer earlier in the book, Fulgrim is by this point so full of pride and surety that even Horus is looking at him askance by the end: and rightly, as those feelings are not the only things Fulgrim is full of - he has been completely consumed and possessed by a daemon of the warp. His life is no longer his own - he has become a passive instrument of the dark powers. So while the chief instigator of the titular heresy is of course Horus, arguably Fulgrim fell further faster.* Quite the trajectory for one book, but trust me, it's well-paced enough that not of it feels rushed nor anything less than inevitable.

* There are a handful of other traitor primarchs who were well underway with their downward spirals before Horus too (especially looking at you, Lorgar), but we'll get to them in turn. This is a long series, folks.

the Flight of the Eisenstein

This book by James Swallow is the fourth Horus Heresy novel. Rather than following straight on from the third book, this one skips backwards a few years to trace the journey of Mortarion's Death Guard legion, viewed through the personage of captain Nathaniel Garro. We follow this legion through a handful of military struggles and victories, before catching up with the broader narrative at Isstvan III - where, while everything is kicking off down on the planet's surface, Saul Tarvitz of the Emperor's Children manages to send a warning to Garro (who is waiting in space) that a betrayal of epic proportions is about to take place. Shortly thereafter a small gaggle of civilian refugees from Horus's own ship (where all the remembrancers who had been assigned to them had been slaughtered once the heretical new direction of the Luna Wolves - now renamed the Sons of Horus - had been decided upon) manage to reach Garro on the Eisenstein, and inform him of the developments that are taking place. Determined to inform the Emperor of the treacheries taking place, Garro commands the Eisenstein to flee into the warp and make headway as fast as possible for Terra (i.e. Earth). They have a close shave breaking away from the rest of the fleet orbiting Isstvan III, but they eventually make it - and at the novel's closing Garro has succeeded in passing his news on to Rogal Dorn, primarch of the Imperial Fists legion who are stationed at Terra, who is quite understandably shocked and outraged at the report.

Galaxy in Flames

This book by Ben Counter is the third of the Horus Heresy series. Loken and the other Luna Wolves, in large part unaware of the heretical direction taken by their Primarch and much of the legion, team up with Fulgrim's legion the Emperor's Children, Angron's legion the World Eaters, and Mortarion's legion the Death Guard to put down a reported rebellion on the world Isstvan III. Little can the loyalists of these Astartes legions know that this whole little trip is a dark ploy to ensure the ultimate compliance of these four legions to their Primarchs' new loyalties - that is, to the Warmaster above to the Emperor... the stage is set for tragedy and slaughter as civil war amongst the Imperium's finest breaks out in earnest.

False Gods

This book by Graham McNeill is the second in the Horus Heresy series. We're back with Loken and the Luna Wolves, and they're still absolutely bossing their way through the latter days of the Great Crusade - that is, until a mysterious weapon wielded by a possessed-seeming renegade manages to seriously wound Horus himself. On the brink of expiration, the Warmaster's closest confidants decide to take Erebus up on his offer of a means of salvation, even if that means striking a binding bargain with the unknown, unknowably powerful forces of the warp - and with that, the sown seeds of heresy are covered with dirt and given their first big watering...

Horus Rising

This book by Dan Abnett is the first* in The Horus Heresy series.** I got a Kindle for my birthday for the express purpose of being able to read my way through the entire series of these novels, there being well over fifty of them (not counting short stories, anthologies, and audio dramas) so I simply wouldn't have the bookshelf space to read them physically. I have read this and the following six books of the series before, but that was way back when they were coming out originally and thus long before this blog was even conceived of. Also - just a warning note, since there are so many books in this series and the story is so epic, in the interest of not spoiling the overarching plot's many twists and turns as well as keeping myself sane by not having to spend too long on each of what will be several dozen posts by the time I'm done, I will be keeping all posts about the books in this series as short as reasonably possible.

   So, what happens in this one? The Emperor of Mankind has withdrawn from the Great Crusade, the grand mission of reunifying the disparate interplanetary civilisations of a long-separated humanity across the galaxy under a single banner, and having done so has left his favourite son, Horus Lupercal, in charge as Warmaster of the continuing crusade. Horus is one of the twenty Primarchs (superhumans bio-engineered from the Emperor's own genes) and his legion of Astartes (aka Space Marines, superhumans [albeit not as superhuman as the Primarchs] bio-engineered from the genes of the Primarchs), the Luna Wolves, has been absolutely crushing it all Crusade so far, and in this novel, they continue to do so. We spend most of the narrative's time following a captain called Garviel Loken, who is a pretty stand-up dude. The narration also devotes a fair amount of attention to regular humans who have been sent to join the Crusade as remembrancers, that is, to use their artistic and such skills to create cultural records of the grand events of the latter days of the great war. But despite everything seemingly going so swimmingly, an undercurrent of resentment that the Astartes are likely to be discarded once the Crusade is won and their winnings turned over to civilian control is brewing among the legions, and secret gatherings are starting to take shape. Is this the seeds of outright insubordination against the Emperor planting themselves? We'll see as the series progresses...

   I know this is quite a long post despite my saying that I was going to keep all the posts about this series as short as possible, but there was a lot of pre-emptive exposition to throw at you to place the whole series into context. The next fifty-plus posts will be a lot shorter.

   Oh yeah - and fuck Erebus.

* Okay, I know I've read this one already and it's a prequel, so it technically comes before this one, but this one was released first and is formally the initial instalment of the series as a whole.

** A quick note on the post labelling - I've created a separate label for this series because there are so many books in it, and it would otherwise completely dominate the sci-fi label, but obviously given the Warhammer 40,000 (well, 30,000 technically) setting all the books under this label are sci-fi with hints of fantasy.

Valdor

This book is a novel by Chris Wraight that serves as a prequel to the Horus Heresy series (and if that means nothing to you, watch this space, as I fully intend over the coming years to read the entire series detailing the pre-history of the Warhammer 40,000 universe). It follows Constantin Valdor, the leader of the Adeptus Custodes, the Emperor's closest guards, across the dark days when the reconquest and unification of Earth is very nearly complete, and the Emperor thus almost ready to set out to reconquer and unify the galaxy under human dominion. I've read this first as, as I said above, I fully intend to read the whole Horus Heresy series,* despite it being like a hundred separate novels or so, and this seemed like a handy kickstart to that process. I won't give away spoilers, as there are many in this book, but I will say that we get a glimpse of the Emperor's grand plan and unstated intent that completely reshuffled my understanding of much of the basic lore of the universe; also the detached brutality shown by the nascent Imperium is telling of what it will become. If you're not already a fan of the Warhammer 40,000 universe you probably won't get a lot out of this novel; it's well written, sure, but all the characters are such grand figures lore-wise that there really isn't all that much artistic license that can be taken with them and so it boils down to a handful of dazzling secret easter-eggs that only lore nerds will appreciate.

* I'm getting a Kindle for my birthday. Which is why. Had I meant to read the whole series in physical form I simply wouldn't have enough bookshelf space.