The Primarchs Review

I've been anticipating this book for a long time, considering it charts the stories of two of my favourite primarchs; Ferrus Manus and Lion'el Johnson. As anyone who has read the first few books of the million-selling Horus Heresy series will know, Ferrus Manus' head has long been separated from his body, so anything about him so much later in the story will be interesting to say the least. I'll look at each of the novellas in turn.

The Reflection Crack'd. 

This is a fascinating story, as it continues the "Fulgrim-possessed" storyline begun in Fulgrim and continued in the limited-edition novel Aurelian. It is a creepy novel as the daemon-Fulgrim is not a nice guy. A well-known character dies in this novella, but in truth he had it coming. I've disliked him ever since he made an appearance in Galaxy in Flames. Vespasian was far better.....

I like the description of how Fulgrim single-handedly brings down two Warhounds with his mind, bringing to mind the scene in Aurelian where he throws Lorgar across the room and forces Horus to back off, all with his latent psychic powers. I also enjoyed the scene where Lucius and a group of his fellow commanders try to exorcise Fulgrim, and the carnage that follows. You can imagine how that plan turns out. This is then followed by a huge twist. 

All in all this is a ripping read, with some great action scenes and others which are downright creepy. I'm looking forward to Graham Mcneill's next novel Angel Exterminatus, which apparently sees Fulgrim and Pertuarbo joining forces to make a super-weapon with which to destroy the Imperium. Pertuarbo's good at getting big guns (see the end of Fallen Angels).

Feat of Iron

By Nick Kyme, this novel is set during the limited edition book Promethean Sun, long before Ferrus was beheaded by Fulgrim. The most famous things about the Iron Hands, being their motto "Flesh is weak" and their extensive bionics have never really been explored before Fulgrim, and seeing this legion of what are essentially automatons is eye-opening, particularly in the callous way they treat their Imperial Army cohorts. Fighting their way through a hostile desert, we are introduced to Bion Henricos, a great character whose humanity is a huge boon towards the end of the book. The scenes in which the massed Iron Hands fight against what seems to be eldar pathfinders or rangers riding giant beasts into battle are fantastic, but it seems to be a ritual for the Legions to kill eldar in their thousands (see Fulgrim, Aurelian, Butcher's Nails, Promethean Sun, that's off the top of my head).

There comes a time in the book where the motif of science fiction books comes about, and everything that makes the Iron Hands so strong is turned against them. In the middle of this carnage Ferrus Manus is abducted by the Eldar and told of his impending fate should be continue on his current path (surprise surprise see Fulgrim). You can guess what Ferrus says to the eldar, judging from his current fate.

The rest of the novel shows how the Iron Hands' strength has been turned against them, and it falls to Bion and his mortal troops to carry the day. The soldiers that survive the day are henceforth known as Chainveil. Sounds familiar doesn't it?

I loved this book, even with prior knowledge that every named character would have likely perished on Istvaan 5. Bion meets his own fate, but if you've read the entire series you'll already know it. Sad, seeing how much I liked his viewpoint on the flesh.

The Lion

This novella continues onwards from the short story Savage Weapons in Age of Darkness, where the First Legion are fighting the Eighth out where the NIght Lords will eventually make their haunt. From where I stand, this novel is more about the characters and the storyline than the battles. Sure, daemons are cool and are the choice of desperate combat in void battles, but 1. Night Lords are better to depict as they are the mirror of the Dark Angels and 2. The return to Caliban is what the Dark Angels of the Heresy are famed for. 

The Lion sure is an interesting character. Most of the other Primarchs have had their personalities explored indepth, mainly being the traitors and those that fought at Istvaan (seeing as that is the most pivotal event portrayed in the Heresy so far, bar Calth). The main exceptions being Jaghatai and Vulkan, seeing as Roboute, Sanguinius and Pertuarbo have been confirmed in future books (I hope Angel Exterminatus fleshes out the Fourth's Primarch). I'd also hope to see Kurze, Russ and Mortarion explored a little deeper, especially Mortarion, whose mind is never shown. I still hate Dorn. What a jar-head. 

The Lion was, before the series started, one of the lesser known Primarchs during the war itself, as alongside other fringe legions like the Night Lords and Alpha Legion there was little detail about them. Descent of Angels was a shock to all those who had been following the Istvaan storyline, the start of a scattering of books about seperate legions. Angels of Darkness was the pivotal book in my opinion, as it suddenly cast the Lion into a whole new light. This was continued in Savage Weapons, and in The Lion as well. He is shown to be a calculating, deep, brooding character, a mix of all those writers who have sought to portray him before. I like it. As with Reflection Crack'd, a well-known character dies, and more-so in this than Mcneill's book, it feels slightly out of place, as the character does absolutely nothing wrong before being violently dispatched. Its similar to the scene in Deliverance Lost where Corax kills the Word Bearers chaplain without listening to his protestations. More and more in the Heresy, I'm starting to see blatant scenes where man's stubbornness and pig-headedness absolutely screws up the Imperium. There's at least one in every book, and though I'm looking at it from the lofty vantage point of knowing exactly what's going to happen, some characters' actions seem blatantly designed to stuff the loyalists up as much as possible.

By the end of the novel Johnson's motives are starting to become clearer, after some minor altercations with a group of Iron Hands and Death Guard, led by the venerable captain Typhon who we haven't seen for quite some time. It's a good book, and makes mention to one of the Heresy's newfound storylines in the Second Imperium, which I expect to be fleshed out with the sequel to Know No Fear. 

The Serpent Beneath

I still laugh when thinking about the Alpha Legion. They, in the space of a few books, have gone from being the least-known of the traitors, to being perhaps the greatest troll in the entire Heresy. From the mysterious Cabal in Legion to their strange actions in Age of Darkness and its follow-on in Raven's Flight and Deliverance Lost, they have always seemed to be a bit too powerful in shaping the destinies of loyalists and traitors alike. I also enjoyed Long Games at Carcharias by Rob Sanders (the author of The Serpent Beneath), where the Alpha Legion absolutely annihilated an entire chapter in one of the nicest and grimmest short stories I've read. Here, it gets even crazier. Alpharius and Omegon have discovered a leak in their ranks and send a crack team of their most vicious killers to stop it, but like The Lion what shines the most is the story and its relationship to the wider plot. As explained by previous Alpha Legionnaires none bar the twin primarchs know the true reason for their allegiance to Horus, but here their strange motivations are questioned and distorted, as no-one knows who the Alpha Legion is truly working for. 

There isn't much to say about this novella without spoiling too much, but I liked Omegon a lot. He's a sneaky, cunning bastard who will do anything to further his own goals, including blindsiding his twin. As this book is about the Alpha Legion, at the very end there's a little twist which is not at all surprising if you consider how Alpharius and his sons have been named in the past.

All in all, every novella excels in a particular area, and I see all of them progressing far with their respective threads. Feat of Iron still perplexes me as every character from that novella is dead in the present, though we'll see how the sons of Medusa survive. I'm still waiting for White Scars, and I hope that they are explored, though with Fear To Tread, Shadows of Treachery, Angel Exterminatus, Betrayer, Abnett's second Ultramarines book, Kyme's Salamanders book, and the much anticipated Night Lords book by Demski Bowden, who is now the best writer from Black Library in my humble opinion coming out, they had better get some limelight alongside Russ, Mortarion and Dorn. 

Sorry for the long review, but I love the Heresy haha

9.5/10