The Keeler Image

QUICK REVIEW: The Keeler Image – Dan Abnett

It’s day seven of Black Library’s 2016 Summer of Reading campaign, and the stops have definitely all been pulled out with Dan Abnett’s much-awaited Eisenhorn story The Keeler Image. It finds Eisenhorn attending an auction hosted by Medonae the Eater, which includes a staggeringly rare pict taken by Euphrati Keeler – once a remembrancer in the Great Crusade and subsequently (as Saint Euphrati) one of the founders of the Imperial Creed. Among the interested parties attending the auction is someone Eisenhorn has been hunting for years, drawn out by what Keeler’s pict could mean.

Rumours regarding this story have been floating around for years but now it’s finally available, and it’s worth the wait. Abnett just has a knack, especially when writing Eisenhorn, of drawing upon the best aspects of the 40k universe to provide a backdrop for thoughtful, character-led storytelling that maintains the ‘war’ in Warhammer but offers so much more as well. Here Abnett takes the opportunity to tie in with his early work in the Horus Heresy series, but also to take a philosophical look at what the Imperium is as we know it, and how it came to be. It’s everything you want from an Eisenhorn story, and a cruel reminder of how long we’ve had to wait since 2012’s Pariah.

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