Continuing his exploration of the shadowed corners of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, The Greater Evil is a typically dark tale from Peter Fehervari, digging beneath the surface of the T’au Empire to a strange truth beneath. Accompanied by an enigmatic Ethereal, a small T’au embassy investigates the reappearance in the Damocles Gulf of an emissary long thought lost, and the possibility of bringing an Imperial world into the Greater Good. One of the embassy’s human auxiliaries, Ulver Voyle, carries with him a darkness from the days before his conversion that sees him drawn deep into the web of coming events.
It’s another sinister, psychological Fehervari story, adding to his slowly-growing body of work exploring what he calls The Dark Coil. While not directly linked to his previous works, it shares both stylistic cues and the same overall setting, not to mention his way of showing a surprisingly sinister side to the T’au. Here the contrast between Voyle’s haunted, driven perspective and the calm, measured viewpoints of the T’au serves to underline just how naive and innocent this young species is. It’s beautifully written, more complex than your average 40k story but compulsively creepy. If you like thought-provoking, interconnected storytelling then this is another must-read.
