Dan Abnett
2006
Grade: C-
The novel is written solidly and with a talented hand. Abnett does a good job at recreating much of the preexisting aesthetic of the Warhammer 40K universe in a recognizable way that makes it immediately familiar to anyone who has spent time in the worlds of the game.
One of the largest hurdles the author had to face was the immense weight of the preexisting content that underlies the entire narrative. The Emperor, the Imperium, the Primarchs, and the Astartes, all receive subtle introductions that allow some footing for readers unfamiliar with them. This is not done to enough of an extent to admit readers who are completely unfamiliar with the Games Workshop storyline, but I feel like that is not a failure of the writer so much as one of the overall vision of the book series.
While there are several dozen characters with names that are difficult to keep track of, and by dint of their number a struggle for any writer to make distinct as individuals, a few stand out as particularly well drawn. Loken, Karkasy, Sindermann, Euphrati and to some extent Horus are the strongest of these.
The battles are fun and engaging, and Abnett seems to know better than to let them linger beyond welcome or let them become monotonous.
In the main, the problems with this work come not from the writer, but from the needs of the series as a whole. As a stand alone novel this book suffers from being forced to be less interested in telling a complete story and more in telling a small part of a larger story.
The structure of the work centers around three distinct settings; the subjugation of an unaligned human culture, a lengthy battle with an insect race referred to as the Megarachnid, and the outbreak of hostilities with the Interex, a large human civilization with dominion over as many as thirty systems.
The first of these is by far the strongest as it introduces the threat of Chaos. Unfortunately, this threat devolves into one of apparent semantics. The idea that the Imperium has a completely secular worldview, and that the ideas of magic and the supernatural are antithetical to what they believe is an interesting one. However, when one of their number is transformed into a Lovecraftian horror who attacks his comrades, and the characters feel comfortable explaining it as exposure to the warp, this suggests that it’s not the transformation that is abhorrent but rather the notion of assigning it some supernatural power.
The weakest section by far is the second act and the battles with the Megarachnid. The writing is not by any stretch weaker than in other areas, however the plot over this section shows little to no movement and amounts to nothing at all. All of the battles with the xenos of the planet serve only two purposes; to introduce several new characters of the Emperor’s Children, and force the collision of the Interex civilization and the Crusade. The novel is not even interested in explaining what the ultimate fate of the planet was, and the reader is left to assume that the soldiers of the Imperium simply picked up and left after spending six months fighting on the planet. It would be a poignant tragedy if it weren’t dismissed out of hand.
The final moments of the novel are interesting if oddly executed. Because of the weakness of the overall structure there is no proper climax, but the breakdown of negotiations and outbreak of hostilities with the Interex fills that role. The work’s strongest moments are those where Horus is contemplating the virtue of subjugating the cosmos by force. These are his most human moments and the only opportunity the reader gets to look at the Imperium as something worth rooting for.
I always find it difficult to fully invest in protagonists when I’ve no reason to wish for their success. The Empire is portrayed as zealous, its soldiers mindlessly obedient, horrifically honor bound, xenophobic, and willfully ignorant. It makes it nearly impossible to wish them success in their campaigns. If it weren’t for Loken and his burgeoning search for truth, there would be little keeping the reader from wishing all the major characters to die leaving the galaxy a safer place.
Lastly, the revelation that Erebus was responsible for the theft from the Interex that ignited the conflict falls very flat. Erebus as a figure is not prominent throughout the novel, and there was certainly no indication that he was a treacherous or malignant person. The scene plays out like a dramatic turn, but elicited little more than a puzzled “who?” and a shoulder shrug.
The book is entertaining and fluent with believable dialogue and moments of real intrigue. It suffers greatly from being part of a work rather than a work in its own right, and its themes are often contradictory and self defeating. Certainly a necessary read for introduction to the series and hardly a waste of a few pleasant hours.
Comentários