Book report time or.....

...DO WHAT HANDY SAYS!

Another short list of books I moved through this month. All 40K related stories again and another quick rundown of them

Damnation of Pythos

 

Another in the Horus Hersey series that deals with the fallout of the Istvaan battle. Just what we needed after Unremembered Empire and Vengeful Spirit, more moping about the treachery in the Istvaan system. Ugh!

Here we get a group of Iron Hands that have survived along with a smattering of Salamanders and Raven Guard. They are escaping through the universal warp storm and end up on Pythos. A crazy death world where the flora and fauna both love them some killing and the associated blood involved. So…there is a battle on the planet with Marines fighting killer reptiles and plants that love blood.

 

Then a ship full of crazy humans shows up and lands. They go about starting a small settlement. They tend to die a lot and love it! Throw in a creepy underground building that is full of crazy stuff too. This all leads to the reveal that the crazy human travelers are Davinites and they are trying to summon the chaos powers. You know that old chestnut.

 

It all becomes tedious with the Iron Hands moping over the death of their daddy, or being dicks to the Salamanders, Raven Guard, and every human on the planet. The reveal isn’t much of a reveal either. You know exactly what these people are doing. It is a pretty lame novel. Hell, it should have been a short story in one of those anthology Hours books. It is way longer than it needed to be. The characters are all drek. The action isn’t really anything special. It just another speed bump in this series that keeps refusing to get to the point. If there is a redeeming quality, and a tiny one at that, it is that it ended like I hoped it would. The good guys lose and lose badly! Chaos rises and destroys everything Imperial on this world. That was the only satisfying bit of this story.

 

There. Now there you have no reason to read this book.

 

Kharn: Eater of Worlds



 

Oh how I  love me some World Eaters/Khorne Berzerkers. How does one not love the battle cry :BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!” or “SKULLS FOR THE SKULLTHORNE!”?

 

Here is a  quick read by one Anthony Reynolds, I remember him from a Word Bearer trilogy for a few years ago.

 

The Horus Heresy is over. The traitor legions have fled to the Eye. The World Eaters are splintering due to lack of a leader/Primarch. They are losing their minds due to the combat implants in their brains, The Nails. They are killing each other because they are going kill crazy or are bored. They have no new recruits to train, so their numbers are falling. Plus, any hope at leadership is wrapped up in Kharn, the equerry to Angron, and he has been in a coma since the assault on Terra. It is an all-around bad time for them. What to do? Well go start some fights to feel better is what you do.

 

“BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!”

 

Well the majority of this book is bit of post Hersey stuff and positioning for Kharn’s return. It isn’t terrible and has some fun stuff in it. The assault on the Emperor’s Children on the world of Skalathrax sort of happens. This is one of those big character moments from the game fluff we all know about. It is where Kharn was named Betrayer after the events there.  Sadly, it is basically and end credit stinger and not the main story.

 

There is not a ton of ground breaking stuff here though. There is an attempt to give more insight to the World Eaters and there post Horus history. We all know that the World Eaters went nuts and eventually fell into line with Khorne and his chaos pantheon. No real big revelations there either.

 

Plus for a book with this title you would think there would be a lot of Kharn.

 

Wrong. Like the last 1/3 has Kharn up and about doing stuff. A huge disappointment there.

 

Plus we get another bit with the humans that exists with and help the Space Marines. That of lousy attempt at an “everyman” in a Space Marine story chestnut. UGH!

 

Not terrible if you want some chaos stuff to read or to fill a void before some other book. Nowhere near a must read unless you really love the World Eaters (which I kind of do).

 

Deathfire

 

The sequel to both Unremembered Empire and Vulkan Lives.

 

Here we know Vulkan is dead and resting on Macragge. The surviving Salamanders from these two novels want to take Vulkan home to pitch his body into a volcano. There is also Artellus Numeon a Salamander who knows Vulkan is alive still and is doing this to bring him back to life, or so he thinks.

Then there are the Word Bearers and Death Guard who are still after the Salamanders and Vulkan’s body.

 

What we get is an extended chase through the galaxy wide ruin storm. A few battles. A whole lot yelling arguments of “VULKAN LIVES!” and “ NO HE DOESN’T!” Plus a ton of space marine daddy issues.

 

I was underwhelmed yet again with another Horus Hersey novel. Can we not get another novel about the Raven Guard, Iron Hands and Salamanders? So we need more info about the legions broken from Istvaan?

 

By the end  I didn’t care if Vulkan lived or not.  Let me not waste your time with this book.

 

“VULKAN LIVES!”

 

Yeah he is still not dead and that means more Salamander novels in this series. Hooray! PFFFFFFTTTTT!!!!

 

Can we get back to the stuff we all want? You know more Horus stuff? Maybe some backstory with the Night Lords or Death Guard? Can we just get on with this series and get to Terra?

 

Damn!