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CCLAP Fridays: On Being Human: Warhammer 40K Space Marines

Posted on April 6, 2012 by | Leave a comment

I continue my CCLaP essay series “On Being Human”, this week exploring the dark world of Warhammer 40K and the Space Marines.

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Mechanicum (The Horus Heresy, Book 9) by Graham McNeill

Posted on April 24, 2010 by | Leave a comment

The Horus Heresy series continues in Graham McNeill’s epic Mechanicum.  Graham McNeill is one of the Black Library’s “dream team” writers.  The other members of the trio include the hyper-prolific Dan Abnett and Ben Counter.  The trio wrote the first three novels of the Horus Heresy series.

The first three novels functioned like a self-contained trilogy, chronicling the Warmaster Horus and his descent into heresy and madness.  James Swallow’s Flight of the Eisenstein (Book 4) was a taut thriller with crisp writing and wonderfully orchestrated space battles.  Since then, the Horus Heresy has had its ups (Legion by Dan Abnett) and downs (Descent of Angels by Mitchel Scanlon).  This reviewer happily reports that Mechanicum brings the series back up to fighting trim.

In the novel, the readers encounter the adepts and forge masters of Mars.  Centuries ago, the Emperor and the Fabricator-General created a union between Terra and Mars.  The Mechanicum is one of the pillars of the Imperium of Man.  The novels functions as an institutional history, similar to earlier volumes that chronicled the origins of a specific Space Marine legion.  Only Graham McNeill could pen a compelling narrative based on supply chain logistics and portraits of the mechanically modified denizens of Mars that humanize them.

The novel includes many competing plots (and competing plotters).  Adept Koriel Zeth wants to build the Akashic Reader, a device capable of giving someone unlimited knowledge.  Fabricator-Generator Kelbor-Hal wants to open the Moravec caverns, sealed by the Emperor’s command.  Finally, Dalia Cythera, a lowly transcriber drafted by Adept Zeth to construct the Akashic Reader, deals with her visions of a dragon and a secret long buried in legend and deception.  During this historical period of the Imperium, there is no single interpretation of the Omnissiah, the so-called Machine-God worshipped by the Mechanicum.  To use more familiar figures, Adept Zeth, a champion of scientific exploration and eternal skeptic, could be seen as Dr. Richard Dawkins.  She does not believe that the Machine-God actually exists.  Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal, a cold-blooded figure of monumental avarice and ambition, could be seen as Reverend Pat Robertson.  Kelbor-Hal, a servant of the traitorous Warmaster Horus, will use every means at his disposal, including unleashing the demonic forces sealed away by the Emperor.  And like Pat Robertson, he is not moved by the death of millions, but only uses it as a means to acquire more power in the name of the Machine-God.

While these machinations and theological debates occur, the Mechanicum suffers catastrophe after catastrophe.  The atrocities lead to the inevitable split, with those loyal to the Emperor arrayed against those loyal to the Warmaster.  The novel also includes great battle scenes with rival Titans, Reavers, and Knights fighting each other.

The novel is a wonderful continuation of the Horus Heresy, bringing a mix of space battles, ideological debates, and gothic imagery.

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Legion (Horus Heresy, Book 7) by Dan Abnett

Posted on October 4, 2009 by | 1 Comment

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Can Dan Abnett save the franchise?

After the underwhelming Descent of Angels by Mitchel Scanlon, the Horus Heresy series is in desperate need of revival.  None is better equipped to revive the flagging franchise than the prolific Dan Abnett.  Abnett, author of Eisenhorn, the Ravenor series, the Gaunt’s Ghosts series, and other titles for Marvel and Doctor Who, has the rare gift to write well and to write a lot.  Like the space fantasy version of William T. Vollmann, he churns out full-length novels at a ridiculous rate.

In Legion, Abnett throws the reader into a desert landscape, a war that has lost forward momentum, and paranoia sweeping the ranks.  The parallels to modern desert warfare and the situation in Iraq are unmistakable.  The Imperium of Man wages a war against the inhabitants of Nurth.  We follow the Geno Five-Two Chiliad of the Imperial Army, a unit of the Imperial Army that traces its lineage back to Terra and its genetic heritage to that of the Space Marines.  Their formidable nature and fierce loyalty make the military stalemate even more frustrating.  The Chiliad operates through uxors and hetmen.  Uxors are psykers and communicate through the hetman officer corps mentally.

John Grammaticus, a powerful psyker, meets up with the Chiliad in the guise of Konig Heniker.  Grammaticus is a member of the Cabal, a secretive interspecies organization that has important knowledge it needs to communicate to the Alpha Legion of Space Marines.  Grammaticus has to get close to the uxors to impart this knowledge.  He describes the uxors thusly: “As he sat down opposite Uxor Rukhsana, he reached out.  Instantly, he tasted feeble immature ‘cepts, chitter-chatter minds, the moist, unwholesome mental architecture of the pubescent aides.  The technical inability to conceive made most uxor-aides gruesomely promiscuous.  Grammaticus was repelled by the lurid, shallow thoughts that washed towards him.”

Eventually, Grammaticus gets in touch with the Alpha Legion, the newest and most enigmatic legion of Space Marines.  Abnett even subverts the “legion-primarch trope” in this volume, highlighting a Space Marine legion that specializes in stealth and espionage.  Even though the Space Marines, like their brother legions, are genetically engineered superwarriors that stand nine feet tall, he makes their covert tactics seem plausible.

The Alpha Legion already know what Grammaticus knows, but under a different name.  In one form or another, the Imperium has been battling the forces of Chaos.  The Cabal has a different name for the predictable enemy: the Primordial Annihilator.  The name is clinical, menacing, and opaque all at once.

The Cabal offer the Alpha Legion a choice, but the reader is kept guessing while the stakes increase on Nurth.  Factions have their own agendas, whether it’s the 670th Fleet Commander, the Imperial Army, the Cabal, or the Alpha Legion.  While conditions on Nurth deteriorate, people are forced to act.  In Legion, you are left guessing to the last page.

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Book Review: Descent of Angels (The Horus Heresy, Book 6) by Mitchel Scanlon

Posted on September 6, 2009 by | Leave a comment

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The Horus Heresy series continues in its sixth installment, Descent of Angels, written by Mitchel Scanlon. The series makes a major reversal with this series. Scanlon has written previous novels for the Black Library, but his work involves the Warhammer brand, the epic fantasy sister ‘verse to the space fantasy of Warhammer 40K. Unlike previous volumes, the action occurs on one planet under circumstances one could label “low-tech.”

Descent of Angels begins with an original story, telling the tale of how humanity settled on the planet Caliban.  The settlers became separated from the rest of humanity because of warp storms (the Warp being the means of interstellar travel).  The separation lasted 5000 years.  In that space of time, the human settlers created their own mythology, culture, and defense systems.  The major obstacle to settlement on this heavily forested planet was the great beasts, nightmarish monsters reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos.

The novel follows Zahariel, Knight Supplicant of the Order, in his rise to full knighthood.  The Order, unlike other knightly orders, considers all men created equal, regardless of birth or position.  Zahariel is in awe of the Order’s future Grand Master, Lion El’Jonson, a superhuman giant found in the woods battling beasts with his bare hands.

During Zahariel’s ascent to full knighthood, he becomes aware of a “gift” he possesses, an uncanny ability to “read” people.  He keeps this gift secret until members of the Dark Angels Space Marine legion descend upon Caliban, ending 5000 years of separation.

The novel can be seen as a Pre-Contact novel, to borrow the phrase from colonial studies.  The majority of the novel does not involve the Imperium of Man and the Space Marines arrive well into the book’s second half.  Ideologically, the book takes place when the Imperium espoused a rationalistic, explicitly atheist position.  A previous volume, Flight of the Eisenstein, traces the transition from this militant atheism to the “Church Militant” phase, when the Emperor was considered a living god.  It is nice to see a franchise not adhere to a rigorously linear storyline between volumes.  The vastness of the Warhammer 40K universe and multitude of Space Marine chapters offers more opportunities to non-traditional storytelling.  In addition, it is easier to drag out a series when it is not the standard linear storyline.  (The sitcom How I Met Your Mother, a 3-camera sitcom, excels in plot contortions and subverting the standard linear storyline.)

In full disclosure, standard fantasy is not my favorite genre to read.  I enjoy the Warhammer 40K space fantasies.  It was enjoyable to read this volume of the Horus Heresy series because it was not the usual Tolkien Boilerplate Knock-off, although Warhammer 40K originated as such in the 1980s.

Descent of Angels is another exciting read in the ever-expanding Horus Heresy series.

***

On a personal note, I was underwhelmed.  In a word, “Meh.”

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Fulgrim (Horus Heresy, Book Five) by Graham McNeill

Posted on August 22, 2009 by | Leave a comment

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The epic tale of the Horus Heresy continues in Fulgrim, the fifth volume of a planned twelve-volume cycle in the Warhammer 40K series. In the previous book, Flight of the Eisenstein, Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro flies to Terra to warn the Emperor of Mankind of heresy. Not just any heresy, but heresy led by Warmaster Horus to overthrow the Emperor.

Fulgrim tells a story parallel to the events of Eisenstein, eventually meeting up where the previous volume left off. The Fulgrim of the novel is the Primarch of the Emperor’s Children, a Space Marine legion priding itself in its fighting perfection.

The Primarch engages an alien enemy and comes in possession of a powerful sword. Fulgrim’s desire for power and aesthetic beauty cause friction with the policies of the Empire of Man. One of those policies is the blanket extermination and subjugation of alien (xenos) races. Fulgrim initiates a policy of his own, using xenos technology and genetics to improve his legion of Space Marines. The combination of human and alien causes dissension in the ranks.

In the novel, we also meet Ferrus Manus, Primarch of the Iron Hands. The friendship between Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus is legendary. Each forged a weapon for each other, which they exchanged. While Ferrus Manus remains loyal to the Emperor, he begins to see telltale signs in Fulgrim: a vanity that expresses itself in make-up and filling his warship with artworks.

Fulgrim is unique in Warhammer 40K novels in its depiction of artistic work and sexuality. While the Warhammer 40K franchise thrives on grim, bloody warfare, whether against space demons, alien races, or human rebels, the depiction of sexuality has always veered on the PG side. One does not see a lot of female nudity, let alone females, in this RPG (role-playing game) setting.

As the Emperor’s Children Space Marines legion slides further into open treason, the astute reader will find references to The Book of Urizen by William Blake and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

This volume is pivotal because Warmaster Horus prepares by separating those loyal to his cause and those loyal to the Emperor. When the opposing sides are finally assembled, the Horus Heresy transforms from covert operation to open rebellion.

Readers who enjoy military science fiction, epic fantasy, and British science fiction will thrill at the strange alien races and the epic battles studding this novel like bullet holes in battle armor.

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Flight of the Eisenstein (Horus Heresy, Book 4) by James Swallow

Posted on May 12, 2009 by | Leave a comment

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In the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, the Horus Heresy represents a monumental event. A galaxy-spanning civil war led by the Warmaster Horus, sundered and nearly destroyed the Imperium of Man 10,000 years ago. Horus, formerly primarch of the Luna Wolves, was appointed by the Emperor to command all Imperial forces. Flight of the Eisenstein by James Swallow, is the fourth book in the series, following Horus Rising by Dan Abnett, False Gods by Graham McNeill, and Galaxy in Flames by Ben Counter.

To read the complete review, click here.

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