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A review by warragh
The Outcast Dead by Graham McNeil
4.0
The Outcast Dead takes place on Terra and has a very unique focus. There are no wars, not glorious conquests and precious few battles, instead the book focuses on Astropaths, more specifically on a single Astropath who survives after the ship he is own gets invaded by demons and then, after getting back to the Astropath City, stumbles upon the most important secret in the Galaxy which everyone around him wants.
This is a very atypical Warhammer book for a variety of reasons. First of all, its main characters are Astropaths (and a Navigator), not the usual Space Marines/Primarchs of most other Horus Heresy novels. Second of all, this is much more story and character focus, with very few action scenes. This leads to a slower book (the main conflict of the book doesn't arise until around halfway through) but on the other hand helps it to build the main character into a believable person, with visible growth throughout.
However, this focus on the story and the lore comes with the caveat that the book takes a series of Major liberties with the established canon and timeline of events. This wasn't a big issue for me personally because once I understood that I just ignored the "bigger picture" and just focused on the story contained within these pages. But I can see why it would be a dealbreaker for others. In the same vein, there are several details which are unexplained and underdeveloped.
Overall I'd say that this was a strange read. A very atypical 40k book with a strong human protagonist let down by some very confusing canon conflicts and a ton of underdeveloped context.
This is a very atypical Warhammer book for a variety of reasons. First of all, its main characters are Astropaths (and a Navigator), not the usual Space Marines/Primarchs of most other Horus Heresy novels. Second of all, this is much more story and character focus, with very few action scenes. This leads to a slower book (the main conflict of the book doesn't arise until around halfway through) but on the other hand helps it to build the main character into a believable person, with visible growth throughout.
However, this focus on the story and the lore comes with the caveat that the book takes a series of Major liberties with the established canon and timeline of events. This wasn't a big issue for me personally because once I understood that I just ignored the "bigger picture" and just focused on the story contained within these pages. But I can see why it would be a dealbreaker for others. In the same vein, there are several details which are unexplained and underdeveloped.
Overall I'd say that this was a strange read. A very atypical 40k book with a strong human protagonist let down by some very confusing canon conflicts and a ton of underdeveloped context.