Day eleven in Black Library’s 2015 Advent Calendar sees the second Iron Warriors story in short order, in the shape of Graeme Lyon’s Black Iron. Warsmith Kallus, tired of standing as castellan on his legion’s home planet Medrengard, approaches Abaddon the Despoiler with a view to selling his to the Black Legion in exchange for a chance of action and greater glory. Sent on a mission to capture an Iron Warriors-held forge world in the name of his new legion, he leads his warband against his former brothers without second thought.
Unlike Siegemaster, which paints the Iron Warriors as purposeful and driven, here they come across as much less interesting, less sympathetic characters. It’s a fairly standard, lowest common denominator story – not bad specifically, just not particularly exciting. The writing is serviceable, keeping the pace moving but never really doing anything special, complete with slightly clunky, generic dialogue and stock action scenes that go through all the right motions but never quite feel properly gripping. The narrative is entertaining enough, if a little predictable, and it’s a clever idea to take the Iron Warriors out of their usual niche, but overall it’s the sort of story that just feels a little lacklustre and below par.
Click here to go to the main Black Library Advent Calendar post and see the other reviews.
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