Quick Heresy book report

Back to the Heresy novels!

Angels of Caliban

A Dark Angels story? Now? Why now?

Everything that the previous Hersey  White Scar novel sets up, Angels of Caliban ruins. We wer finally moving toward Terra and then this novel drops and stops that story advancement in its tracks.

Plus, this is a two stories in one novel situation here. Neither story is long enough for a full book and too long for a short story in a compendium

First story.

Here we are back dealing with Ultramar and their little Imperium lead by Robert Gulliman. Here the Lion, primarch of the Dark Angels is the Lord Protector here. He is often hunting Konrad Kruze since he is still terrorizing the system. Well that is until the events of the Pharos novel. Then the Lion gets a bit nuts with dealing with some post Night Lord fallout and almost starts a civil war in the Imperium Secondus. There is also a showdown between the Lion and the Night Haunter that is fun, but predictable if you know anything about 30K-40K lore.

Then there is the second half of this novel.

This deals with the characters left on Caliban from the two Dark Angel novels that came out forever ago. I really didn’t remember anyone sans Luther and the unnamed Cypher so the characters I’m supposed to care about I remember nothing about. It has just been to long to remember  a Caliban story arc I was never super pumped about in the first place. Ugh!

Still this tale basically tells how the chapter split and I have been curious about that for a while. We see the being of the Fallen that have been bandied about forever in 40K lore. It is a good political intrigue story but with really no action. I know a Space Marine story without a ton of bolter fire?  Who knew that could happen? Seeing the origin of the Fallen is the best part of this novel. The whole Lion, Gulliman and Imperium Secondus is drek and I am so over reading about it.

Having a previous novel move toward Terra only to pull back and force more of the Ultramar stuff is terrible! Having a Dark Angel follow up novel after 30 novels in between is just poor planning too.

Praetorian of Dorn

Here we get a story about Terra, Rogal Dorn, his Imperial Fists  and an attack from within the once thought safe Sol System.

Is the war for Terra finally starting in this novel? Well….not really.

This is not really an attack, but a bit of defense testing, sabotage and terrorism by the Alpha Legion. Rember them and their crazy stealth tactics? Yeah they finally come payoff in this novel. Their sneakiness, subterfuge and assault tactics are damn entertaining!

Paranoia is a big theme throughout the novel. The Alpha Legion seems to not trust each other as they work in these small cells that keep their missions secret from each other. There are a lot of secrets and trust issues with the Alpha Legion and even within the Imperial Fists. A nice touch from the usual heavy handed Space Marine fighting stuff novel.

Well that is until near the end where it is obvious what is going to happen and if you can’t see it coming, then shame on you. We all should have seen an event like this approaching after the initial reveal of a certain Primarch back in Legion.

Even better is that this is a full story that takes place on Earth and surrounding solar system. Finally, we are getting action against and on holy Terra. It is about damn time! No more Imperial Secondus shit please! Get on with the battle for Terra already! The build has been way too long and this series needs to get moving! Praertorian of Dorn is a good start in the right direction!

A surprisingly fun read considering the previous novel was a bit of a bummer.