Runo Knows...The Horus Heresy: Galaxy in Flames
Here, under Ben Counter's stewardship, we hit the finale of the initial trilogy, as we follow our protagonists into the after-effects of Horus' near miraculous recovery from his fatal wound.
If you don't know 40K, or the series at all (say, like, maybe, the title) you might think "Hey, I wonder which way he picked" despite the hints (errr, it just flat out says) at the end of the last novel. Here, though, all pretenses are shattered and everyone knows what's coming: to go onto Isstvan III is to die.
But how you die...
Before you can get to Isstvan III, however, there's the small matter of Isstvan Extremis. As the warfleet approaches, Saul Tarvitz runs into an old friend of his on Extremis, only to see the power of Chaos - this time in the form of a "Warsinger". Tarvitz, perhaps mroe than Loken, proves to be the more influential character in this story as he unravels what's going on (with assistance from the rest of the crew) and manages to set up the next book (The Flight of the Eisenstein, which was near legendary in 40K history and equally vague).
Meantime, the Astartes are trapped with a very good view of what happens when a planet is virus-bombed, and then it turns into a brutal battle against their fellow Marines. At some points it turns into "I wonder whatever happened to..." and there's at least one set of characters that, until the final showdown, I honestly wondered what would happen to them.
I tore through this one; by this point in the series I was destroying these books. I guess, in a way, you could stop here, but I couldn't imagine it - while the storyline you've followed has pretty much died off, it is more accurate to say it has fractured, and now is the time to go and find out who can carry on.
In a welcome change from his Soul Drinker Chapter books - which flaunt the edge of being canon in the 40K series - this one sticks with the basics and seems to work pretty darn well. It definitely picks up the pace after McNeill's book previously.
If you don't know 40K, or the series at all (say, like, maybe, the title) you might think "Hey, I wonder which way he picked" despite the hints (errr, it just flat out says) at the end of the last novel. Here, though, all pretenses are shattered and everyone knows what's coming: to go onto Isstvan III is to die.
But how you die...
Before you can get to Isstvan III, however, there's the small matter of Isstvan Extremis. As the warfleet approaches, Saul Tarvitz runs into an old friend of his on Extremis, only to see the power of Chaos - this time in the form of a "Warsinger". Tarvitz, perhaps mroe than Loken, proves to be the more influential character in this story as he unravels what's going on (with assistance from the rest of the crew) and manages to set up the next book (The Flight of the Eisenstein, which was near legendary in 40K history and equally vague).
Meantime, the Astartes are trapped with a very good view of what happens when a planet is virus-bombed, and then it turns into a brutal battle against their fellow Marines. At some points it turns into "I wonder whatever happened to..." and there's at least one set of characters that, until the final showdown, I honestly wondered what would happen to them.
I tore through this one; by this point in the series I was destroying these books. I guess, in a way, you could stop here, but I couldn't imagine it - while the storyline you've followed has pretty much died off, it is more accurate to say it has fractured, and now is the time to go and find out who can carry on.
In a welcome change from his Soul Drinker Chapter books - which flaunt the edge of being canon in the 40K series - this one sticks with the basics and seems to work pretty darn well. It definitely picks up the pace after McNeill's book previously.