Author Archives: Michael Dodd

QUICK REVIEW : The Devine Adoratrice – Graham McNeill

Originally part of 2013’s Limited Edition The Imperial Truth, Graham McNeill’s The Devine Adoratrice is one of only two of the included stories to have found a general release so far, alongside Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Lord of the Red Sands. A direct prequel to Vengeful Spirit, it follows the young siblings of House Devine as they prepare for the ceremony that will bond the brothers with the warrior-spirits of their Knight armour. Meanwhile, hidden factions on Molech work to direct events to their own ends, and the day doesn’t go quite as smoothly as all involved had hoped.

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QUICK REVIEW : Army of One – Rob Sanders

Released back in 2012 as part of Black Library’s 15th birthday celebration, Rob Sanders’ Army of One was one of the first (perhaps actually the first) Horus Heresy short stories to be released as a standalone ebook. Very much a ‘quick read’, it takes a whistlestop tour of one man’s history as he relives the unexpected way in which he was caught up in the Heresy. Unwanted by the Imperial Army, he finds his place in the war in a less obvious role.

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QUICK REVIEW – Garro : Ashes of Fealty – James Swallow

Released to tie in with an upcoming box set collecting together all of the Garro audio dramas so far, Garro : Ashes of Fealty is a brand new 18-minute short audio that re-introduces an old character from Garro’s past. Set at an unspecified point in the overall story arc, it shows a bitter, unhappy reunion with his old comrade Meric Voyen, the apothecary last seen in Flight of the Eisenstein having chosen to dedicate his life to finding a ‘cure’ for the terrible affliction that blighted his Death Guard brothers.
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Blades of the Traitor – Black Library Anthology

A few months after Death and Defiance, the first novella-length, non-limited edition Horus Heresy short story anthology, comes Blades of the Traitor, a collection of five short stories from some of Black Library’s best-known authors. Interestingly, Black Library are offering readers a choice straight away of how to purchase these stories – the physical book is due for release soon (after pre-release at the Horus Heresy Weekender) while the ebooks are available either as a well-priced collection or as individual stories. It’s therefore up to readers whether to cherry pick the stories they’re most interested in or read them all as a collection.

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Tallarn : Ironclad – John French

Following hot on the heels of the general release for Tallarn : Executioner comes John French’s latest Limited Edition novella, Tallarn : Ironclad. Yes, it’s an expensive hardback novella that won’t please everyone, but for those willing to fork out for it, aesthetically it’s an absolute beauty, complete with creepy daemons embossed beneath the dust jacket. Following on from Executioner and Black Oculus it widens the view of Tallarn to take in the entire conflict, with Perturabo’s legion opposed by a ramshackle mixture of loyalist forces, while an emissary of Horus asks pointed questions regarding the Lord of Iron’s use of resources in this meat grinder of a battle. We see through the eyes of characters on both sides of the struggle, as it gradually becomes clear that for all its complexity, ultimately everything about this battle boils down to a single question – what are the Iron Warriors actually doing on Tallarn?
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QUICK REVIEW : Wolf Mother – Graham McNeill

Graham McNeill’s Horus Heresy novel Vengeful Spirit spun together a huge number of character threads, some of which were left crying out to be followed up in later stories. With Wolf Mother, McNeill picks up a few of those characters in the immediate wake of Vengeful Spirit’s conclusion, focusing on Alivia Sureka as she is forced to work alongside the Knight Errant Severian in order to rescue her adopted daughter from a resurgent fragment of Molech’s Serpent Cult.

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QUICK REVIEW : Chirurgeon – Nick Kyme

Alongside their primarch Fulgrim, Apothecary Fabius is perhaps the most important member of the Emperor’s Children legion, his flesh-craft driving them ever onwards on their dark path. In Chirurgeon, Nick Kyme looks a little closer at what drives Fabius himself, and why. As he operates on a living legionary in order to understand the blight affecting his body, he thinks back to pivotal events that took place before Fulgrim had taken up his position at the head of the legion.

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QUICK REVIEW : Twisted – Guy Haley

In a series the size and scale of the Horus Heresy, it’s inevitable that some characters’ involvement will wax and wane. Such has been the case with Maloghurst the Twisted; introduced at the beginning of the series, he was absent for much of the time up until his return in Vengeful Spirit. In Guy Haley’s Twisted, we look closer at Horus’ equerry as he sees the safety of his position crumble while the legion changes around him. Plagued by the whisperings of the Neverborn, he turns to a dangerous, unlikely source of support.

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The Slow Regard of Silent Things – Patrick Rothfuss

As a genre, Fantasy isn’t generally known for beautiful prose, generally focusing more on plot and worldbuilding. With his first two novels, The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear, Patrick Rothfuss went some way towards reversing that trend, and now with his novella The Slow Regard of Silent Things he has proven once and for all that great Fantasy can be beautiful as well. Set within the world of his Kingkiller Chronicles, this explores the character of Auri, the shy, semi-feral woman who lives deep beneath the University in a place known only as the Underthing.

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QUICK REVIEW : Distant Echoes of Old Night – Rob Sanders

The Death Guard are still somewhat under-represented in the Horus Heresy series, but Rob Sanders’ Distant Echoes of Old Night goes some way to filling that gap. Here we see Death Guard Chaplain Morgax Murnau as he leads a Destroyer squad through a dying world to finish off a detachment of Imperial Fists from a downed ship. The brutal, implacable Death Guard will have to use every awful weapon at their disposal if they are to prise the dug-in Imperial Fists from their tenacious defences.

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