Warhammer 40,000 Legends Issue Fourteen – Helsreach by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

Issue fourteen of the Warhammer 40,000 Legends Collection is Helsreach by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, the second Space Marine Battles novel to be included in this series. This one came fairly early in Dembski-Bowden’s career, and indeed early in the Space Marine Battles series (second, I think, after Rynn’s World), but it’s still largely considered something of a 40k classic. Set on the war-torn world of Armageddon – which, if you’ve read The Beast Arises, now has a little more resonance – it tackles the Black Templars’ defence of Hive Helsreach, headed up by Reclusiarch Grimaldus.

As with a few of these books, it’s been a fair while since I last read Helsreach. What’s helped, in terms of my memory, is that the exceptionally talented Richard Boylan has been doing some amazing work animating this story, making clever use of the audiobook. I’ve collected all of the episodes (so far) together in one place if you fancy watching them – I’d highly recommend it.

As always, though, the question to address in this article is how Helsreach works in context of this collection. Interestingly, for me personally this novel is one of those books that for whatever reason I didn’t quite get on with at first. Much like Rynn’s World, I read this when it first came out and was a bit…underwhelmed. I remember hearing other people rave about it, and wondering what all the fuss was. Of course I eventually went back and re-read it, and that’s when I realised why it had proved so popular. I don’t think that’s a reflection of the book necessarily, but rather me as a reader back when it was first released.

I talked in my article on Architect of Fate about the Space Marine Battles series, and how that particular book wasn’t really representative of the series as a whole. Helsreach is undoubtedly more representative, not only because it’s a novel rather than a collection of novellas, but also because it tackles a single major event with a focus on one Chapter. Considering the idea of these books introducing factions and/or covering major titles or events…it’s safe to say that this hits both of those objectives. It represents its series, offers a potent introduction to the Black Templars, and tackles one element of the Third War for Armageddon, which is one of the biggest events in the 40k timeline. So yeah, I think it’s a pretty good book to include. But why this one, and not one of the other titles in the same series?

Looking back now on Helsreach, eight years or so after it was first published, it’s interesting to think that the Space Marine Battles series had only just begun and the wider Black Library drive to really explore Space Marines as interesting characters was just kicking off. Before then we’d seen plenty of Space Marines, but this series, along with things like Aaron’s Night Lords trilogy (and, eventually, a load more awesome books) felt like a concerted effort to focus in on these guys and tell a broad range of stories about them. As the title suggests, this particular series ended up focusing heavily on the action elements of 40k stories, which led in some instalments to the actual characters being sidelined (in terms of depth and development, at least) in favour of massive battles and non-stop action. The best Space Marine Battles stories, however, managed to find a balance between action and character, and Helsreach is one of those better examples.

I could talk for a long time about the success, or otherwise, of individual books in the series, but with Helsreach we saw something instantly different to what had been portrayed before – Space Marines as characters who are genuinely post-human, not just in their strength and abilities but in the difficulties they feel relating to ‘normal’ humans. This perhaps led to some readers finding Grimaldus and his brothers a bit too dour and rigid, but that was sort of the point – you see them acting very differently when non-Marines are around, and that difficulty they have is a key component of what makes this book so interesting. It leads to some really unusual relationships developing, and some great moments of narrative tension as Grimaldus interacts with other characters in very specific ways.

Now, I don’t want to pigeonhole this as a book solely about Space Marines and how they can’t relate to humans – because that would sell it short. There’s an awful lot to enjoy here, not least some genuinely spectacular action scenes and a remarkably memorable guardsman. What lingers in the memory, however, is the grim sense of inevitability as the orks come closer and closer to overrunning the hive, and the almost impossible to truly understand resolve of Grimaldus and his brothers to stand their ground and do their duty. This isn’t a happy book, not really. It’s dark and grinding and brutal…but very well done. It perhaps doesn’t quite live up to the standard of some of Dembski-Bowden’s subsequent work, but it still stands up pretty well. I can’t see too many people objecting to this being included in the Warhammer 40,000 Legends Collection, that’s for sure.

As always this edition of the book very much looks the part, with the close-in detail of Jon Sullivan’s original cover art looking impressively moody with the black and white treatment. The internal art section thankfully replicates the original maps, which while not actually all that detailed are still a welcome inclusion – got to love a good map! As I mentioned last time, it’s also worth pointing out that Helsreach isn’t currently available in paperback so this is one of the best options if you’re looking for a physical copy. Ok, it won’t match the rest of its original series, but it still looks pretty damn cool. Lastly, in case you’re keeping track, this one has number 41 on the spine.

Click here for the main Warhammer 40,000 Legends Collection page.