Graham McNeill’s Horus Heresy novel Mechanicum is book nine in the series, and McNeill’s third contribution, but it’s a book of firsts as well – the first proper look at Mars and the Mechanicum (ever, really, but certainly in the Heresy series), the first depiction of Imperial Knights in Black Library fiction, and the first female-led Heresy novel. Young scribe Dalia Cythera is whisked off to Mars by Adept Koriel Zeth, who puts her innate understanding of technology to use working on a ground-breaking project. Meanwhile tensions are mounting between rival factions on Mars, even bringing the Titan Legions into conflict.
The headline story here is the beginning of the civil war on Mars, and the ‘death of innocence’ – the loss of knowledge and the start of the journey towards stagnation – that ensues. It’s also an exploration of Mars and the inner workings of the Mechanicum, and the relationship between the Mechanicum and the Imperium – so there’s plenty to take in. Featuring Knights and Titans, adepts, tech-assassins, artificial intelligence and all manner of weird and wonderful (and creepy) technology, it manages to be about both the clash of ideologies within the Mechanicum and its semi-mythological roots; and about both political intrigue and grand adventure. It’s ambitious, but it works. It feels different to most of the rest of the Heresy – if nothing else, there are very few Space Marines involved – but it still features the usual themes of divided loyalty and, like many of the early books especially, has a strong sense of tragedy at what could have been.
It’s great to explore Mars, spending time inside grand forges or out in the abandoned wilds, and with Dalia as the main protagonist McNeill is able to give a young, naive perspective to things which contrasts nicely with the overall tone of the Heresy. Characters like Kelbor-Hal and Regulus prove to be suitably creepy antagonists, while Dalia and her friends – and to a certain extent characters like Adept Zeth – add a welcome human element to what might otherwise have been a rather cold and emotionless story. Dalia’s journey often feels more innocent than you might expect from Black Library, but then the expected McNeill darkness rears its head and grounds things back in the wider context of the Heresy and the horrors taking place on Mars.
There’s lots going on here, and if you’ve read McNeill’s short story The Kaban Project then you’ll get a little more of the story, but it works well as a standalone piece within the Heresy. Interestingly, despite the new 40k-era developments which have happened in the ten years since this came out, everything here still feels largely appropriate and accurate, especially the Knights. When this was first published it felt incredibly fresh and new, and even now it stands up as an exciting, entertaining story which delves into one of the most interesting factions in the setting, answering a few questions but – as usual – leaving plenty more teasingly unanswered. With Dalia as the protagonist it’s also still one of the few female-led Heresy stories.
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