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A review by chingwan7
Penitent by Dan Abnett
3.75
Like The Infinite and the Divine, I saw this about a year ago during my hype. When I was searching through the Black Library site for the first time, I saw 2 new releases with captivating covers and hardbound format: Pariah and Penitent. Well, those were not the only reasons that had me looking at those 2 specific books but because they are related to the Eisenhorn series— a highly recommended novel series by Dan Abnett. After a year following the series, I have finally caught up to the latest book in the Eisenhorn series, and I cannot state how hyped I was to finally read it.
Unfortunately, the rating I will give will be lower than my expectations/
Beginning with the positives, I liked some of the locations as they were described vividly.
Now discussing the issues I had with this book. I really like Alizebeth Bequin in her first book but sadly, she has flaws in Penitent. She just stumbles on significant points needed without seeing real effort put in finding those points. I also disliked how easily Patience agreed with Bequin on a separate quest.
Eisenhorn and Ravenor felt too incompetent and shadowed in this book and not like in their respective trilogies.
Meanwhile the prose used in the book was too heavy, and 'smart' made me confused and slow at some times. I also thought the introduction of a larger scale narratives (i.e. Horus Heresy related things) into this book made me sad; because the smaller scale of the Eisenhorn series is what made it charming.
Lastly, the most talked about scene that had me rethinking my thoughts was the numerology chapter—also known as the plot reveal thread. Every paragraph slowly revealing the importance of the number Bequin needs really had me mouth watering and gawping. Once I reached the final line of that chapter, I was in shock. But after recollecting my thoughts on the entire book, I think that scene tried way too hard to be smart, and the revelation from that specific character was really doubtful. It was overly complicated for the sake of being complicated
I would have given this book a 5/5 just because it gave me hype for the series' tie-in to the larger setting of WH40k, but I realized this book has some flaws. I give Penitent a 3.75/5.
Unfortunately, the rating I will give will be lower than my expectations/
Beginning with the positives, I liked some of the locations as they were described vividly.
Now discussing the issues I had with this book. I really like Alizebeth Bequin in her first book but sadly, she has flaws in Penitent. She just stumbles on significant points needed without seeing real effort put in finding those points. I also disliked how easily Patience agreed with Bequin on a separate quest.
Eisenhorn and Ravenor felt too incompetent and shadowed in this book and not like in their respective trilogies.
Meanwhile the prose used in the book was too heavy, and 'smart' made me confused and slow at some times. I also thought the introduction of a larger scale narratives (i.e. Horus Heresy related things) into this book made me sad; because the smaller scale of the Eisenhorn series is what made it charming.
Lastly, the most talked about scene that had me rethinking my thoughts was the numerology chapter—also known as the plot reveal thread. Every paragraph slowly revealing the importance of the number Bequin needs really had me mouth watering and gawping. Once I reached the final line of that chapter, I was in shock. But after recollecting my thoughts on the entire book, I think that scene tried way too hard to be smart, and the revelation from that specific character was really doubtful. It was overly complicated for the sake of being complicated
I would have given this book a 5/5 just because it gave me hype for the series' tie-in to the larger setting of WH40k, but I realized this book has some flaws. I give Penitent a 3.75/5.