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A review by ratgrrrl
Battle of the Fang by Chris Wraight
3.0
February 2024 first time read as additional materials after completing the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project - Omnibus III The Burning of Prospero (https://www.heresyomnibus.com/omnibus/iii-the-burning-of-prospero) as part of my Oath of Moment to complete the Horus Heresy saga and just how much Prospero Burns by Dan Abnett demonstrated just how transcendent a story set in the Warhammer 40K universe can be, as well that book making me fall in love with the Vlka Fenryka.
I really don't know how I feel about this one. I'm simultaneously really rather impressed, left cold and disappointed, and eternally tired with the way women are written and discussed by so many Black Library books.
In a vacuum and as a book labelled "Space Marine Battles" it's really good and extremely competent at doing its job. It's certainly on the higher quality end of Black Library books, if a long way from the vaunted heights of the Inner Circle of greatness some of these books rise to. But, this being billed as the A Thousand Sons/ Prospero Burns round two and making use of narrative, emotional weight, pathos, and tragedy already baked into this storyline? Yeah, nah. Not so much.
(The next couple of paragraphs are excessively nerdy and autistic. They are for me more than anyonenelze, so please feel free to ignore)
This is a Warhammer 40K novel released under the Space Marine Battles banner in 2011, six months after the release of Prospero Burns and fifteen months after A Thousand Sons. This certainly makes it seem like something Black Library wanted to release to the slavering Skjalds and Magi possessed by Heresy-mania.
Unlike most 40K books, which generally take place in M41 'in the 41st millennium there is only war', this is actually set in M32, most likely towards the end of the millennium as its seems the Scouring, implementation of the Codex Astartes, and the Founding of Successor chapters are already in effect. In the same way the M30-M31's Great Crusade is considered 'Pre-Heresy', this is very much in the relatively recent 'Post Heresy' era.
*lots of things in the galaxy are functionally immortal, beyond being killed to death, and there are a variety of folx still around in 'present day' 40K that were very much doing their thing before and during the Horus Heresy, ten thousand years before.
I'm not sure how there numbers and dates make me feel, but this being written around the same time as Prospero Burns with the Horus Heresy in full swing (and clearly tying into it) and being as far as I'm aware one of the first to explore this time period (at least within popular canon, especially for the time) perhaps increases my disappointment, maybe. It certainly makes contrasting them to the Horus Heresy Space Wolves and Thousand Sons books seem more explicit and obvious.
(I have one eye sacrificed to the sleeping gods and I can barely keep the other one open, so I'm going to have to finish this review another time.
I really don't know how I feel about this one. I'm simultaneously really rather impressed, left cold and disappointed, and eternally tired with the way women are written and discussed by so many Black Library books.
In a vacuum and as a book labelled "Space Marine Battles" it's really good and extremely competent at doing its job. It's certainly on the higher quality end of Black Library books, if a long way from the vaunted heights of the Inner Circle of greatness some of these books rise to. But, this being billed as the A Thousand Sons/ Prospero Burns round two and making use of narrative, emotional weight, pathos, and tragedy already baked into this storyline? Yeah, nah. Not so much.
(The next couple of paragraphs are excessively nerdy and autistic. They are for me more than anyonenelze, so please feel free to ignore)
This is a Warhammer 40K novel released under the Space Marine Battles banner in 2011, six months after the release of Prospero Burns and fifteen months after A Thousand Sons. This certainly makes it seem like something Black Library wanted to release to the slavering Skjalds and Magi possessed by Heresy-mania.
Unlike most 40K books, which generally take place in M41 'in the 41st millennium there is only war', this is actually set in M32, most likely towards the end of the millennium as its seems the Scouring, implementation of the Codex Astartes, and the Founding of Successor chapters are already in effect. In the same way the M30-M31's Great Crusade is considered 'Pre-Heresy', this is very much in the relatively recent 'Post Heresy' era.
*lots of things in the galaxy are functionally immortal, beyond being killed to death, and there are a variety of folx still around in 'present day' 40K that were very much doing their thing before and during the Horus Heresy, ten thousand years before.
I'm not sure how there numbers and dates make me feel, but this being written around the same time as Prospero Burns with the Horus Heresy in full swing (and clearly tying into it) and being as far as I'm aware one of the first to explore this time period (at least within popular canon, especially for the time) perhaps increases my disappointment, maybe. It certainly makes contrasting them to the Horus Heresy Space Wolves and Thousand Sons books seem more explicit and obvious.
(I have one eye sacrificed to the sleeping gods and I can barely keep the other one open, so I'm going to have to finish this review another time.