Tag Archives: Horus Heresy

Scars – Chris Wraight

First released as a twelve-part serialisation before being recombined as a standard novel, Chris Wraight’s Scars is the 28th novel in Black Library’s Horus Heresy series. It opens with the White Scars isolated on the fringes of the Great Crusade, only just beginning to receive contradictory reports of the events taking place elsewhere in the galaxy. Railing against the powers aiming to manipulate him – Russ’ Wolves request aid against the Alpha Legion in the Alaxxes Nebula, while a separate XXth Legion fleet blockades the Scars within the Chondax system – Jaghatai Khan chooses his own path and sets out to discover the truth of what’s really happening.
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Who’d Be An Author?

Yesterday I posted my review of a Horus Heresy short story by Gav Thorpe – Inheritor. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and gave it an appropriately positive review – to me it gave a nicely fresh view of part of the Heresy that’s been covered quite a lot, and did a good job of telling a fun little story within a story. It also highlighted the virtue of letting different authors tackle similar themes, as Gav’s take on the World Eaters and their Butcher’s Nails felt interestingly different to how they’re normally portrayed. While it wasn’t perfect, in my opinion it was definitely an entertaining read.
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QUICK REVIEW : Inheritor – Gav Thorpe

Set during the Shadow Crusade on the Imperial world of Kronus, Gav Thorpe’s short story Inheritor is the latest in the Heresy Series to return to the 500 Worlds, but this time the focus is on the fragile bond between the Word Bearers and the World Eaters. Under orders from their primarchs, Eliphas of the XVII and Eres of the XII Legion have forged a tenuous alliance in pursuit of a common goal, in spite of their clear differences. Despite its billing on the Black Library website, this isn’t a story of outright conflict between legions but rather an exercise in tension as the ties between them are tested.
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QUICK REVIEW : Grey Angel – John French

First released as an audio drama alongside James Swallow’s Burden of Duty, and now available in prose form, John French’s Grey Angel takes place on Caliban and sees Garviel Loken and Iacton Cruze infiltrating the Dark Angels’ fortress of Aldurukh. Sent by Malcador to determine the loyalty of Luther and his men, Loken has let himself be captured in order to engineer a meeting with Luther, while Cruze continues to make his way deeper into the fortress in search of answers.

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QUICK REVIEW : The Sigillite – Chris Wraight

2013 saw the release of Chris Wraight’s Horus Heresy audio drama The Sigillite, while 2016 sees its release in prose form as part of a week of Knights Errant short stories. Unlike the usual such stories this features not a Space Marine but a human – Captain Khalid Hassan of the Fourth Clandestine Orta, returned in shame from what he sees as the failure of his latest mission and brought before Malcador the Sigillite himself within the Imperial Palace on Terra. Unsettled by his opulent surroundings and the powerful presence of the Sigillite, Hassan gradually realises that he hasn’t been summoned for punishment, instead a different fate awaits him.
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QUICK REVIEW : Luna Mendax – Graham McNeill

NOTE : If you haven’t read Vengeful Spirit, this review will contain spoilers.

Originally only available in the event-only 2013/14 Black Library Anthology, Graham McNeill’s short story Luna Medax follows on from the Garro audios Legion of One and Grey Angel, and fits in before McNeill’s own novel Vengeful Spirit. It finds the former Luna Wolf Garviel Loken in sombre mood, having found a measure of peace in solitude away from Malcador and the war in which he no longer understands his role. Troubled by gaps in his memories, when he is visited by an uninvited guest Loken fails to recognise him at first, though when he does at last realise who his visitor is he struggles to understand how it could be possible.
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The Horus Heresy Cover Art Collection

2016’s first Limited Edition release in the Horus Heresy series isn’t a novella but a plush art book, in the shape of The Horus Heresy Cover Art Collection, a landscape-format hardback showcasing original cover art from the Heresy series so far. Featuring covers for novels up to Deathfire, novellas up to Garro : Vow of Faith and audios up to Raptor, all but one of the pieces are from the hand of Neil Roberts, the one exception being False Gods by Phil Sibbering. It’s testament to both Roberts’ work rate and the phenomenal success of the Horus Heresy series that there’s a massive seventy-six pieces included here.
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Garro : Vow of Faith – James Swallow

After six audio dramas, and eight years after his first appearance in the Horus Heresy series, Nathaniel Garro is back in a new book entitled Garro : Vow of Faith, James Swallow’s first novella-length contribution to the series. Picking up where Shield of Lies left off, with Garro growing increasingly dissatisfied with his role as Malcador’s Agentia Primus, it sees him putting that role to one side while he embarks on a personal mission to find the living Saint Euphrati Keeler. While he searches for her trail, agents of the Warmaster are also on the hunt for Keeler, aiming to disrupt the defences of Terra with her death.
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Pharos – Guy Haley

Please note, if you haven’t read The Unremembered Empire then this review will contain spoilers.

Mysteriously numbered as 34 in Black Library’s Horus Heresy series despite Deathfire coming in at number 32, Pharos by Guy Haley continues the wider Imperium Secundus arc, picking up plotlines from Dan Abnett’s The Unremembered Empire as well as Haley’s own short story A Safe and Shadowed Place (from Death and Defiance). While the new Emperor Sanguinius sits uneasily upon the throne, Guilliman continues to tend to the Imperium Secundus with the aid of the alien artefact discovered on distant Sotha, as directed by the unlikely pairing of Barabas Dantioch and Alexis Polux. Meanwhile the Night Lords have been watching from the shadows, and choose their moment to launch an attack on Sotha.
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The Unburdened – David Annandale

The second in the set of Black Library books released to coincide with the new Betrayal at Calth game, The Unburdened is the companion piece to Rob Sanders’ The Honoured and sees David Annandale delving into the darkness once more to tell the Word Bearers’ side of the story. Set primarily on Calth at the very beginning of the Underworld War, it actually takes things back much further to begin with, to Monarchia and the humbling of the Word Bearers by The Emperor and his XIIIth Legion. We meet Kurtha Sedd at a turning point in his life, taking his first steps on a path that will lead him to Calth and a fateful confrontation with Captain Aethon of the Ultramarines, a man he once called friend and brother.
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