Monthly Highlights – June 2018

It’s July already, which means we’re halfway through the year – and also means it’s time for another roundup of the best books and short stories that I read over the course of June. As with previous months it was a difficult decision narrowing things down to just a handful of stories to talk about out of the fourteen reviews I posted across the month. In fact, it was so tough that rather than picking one highlight with a couple of notable mentions, this month I’m going to pick out three equal highlights and talk a little about each of them.

I’ve chosen one short story, one audio drama and a novel – By Your Command by Gav Thorpe, Martyrs of Elysia by Chris Dows and Slaves to Darkness by John French. I really agonised over which titles to pick, as some of the others were genuinely great – Spear of Shadows and Ghosts of Demesnus by Josh Reynolds, Ghost by James Swallow, Mechanicum by Graham McNeill, they’re all fantastic stories and well worth checking out…but this article would be VERY long if I talked at length about all of them.

I’ll start off by talking about Gav’s short story By Your Command, which I’ve included here because of the way it depicts battle robots of the Adeptus Mechanicus. It was first released as a ‘bonus’ short story in the special edition hardback of Gav’s Adeptus Titanicus novel Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah before being made available as a standalone e-short only a few weeks later. I don’t want to focus on the question of whether releasing this so soon after the special edition devalued that hardback or not – I guess the answer to that will depend on whether you bought the SE hardback or picked it up in standard edition. Instead, let’s focus on the story itself.

While it’s set within an Imperator Titan, this is a story about the Adeptus Mechanicus rather than the Titanicus, and it’s told from the viewpoint of a Kastelan battle robot named Alpha-6-Terror. If you’re wondering how effective a protagonist a robot can make, I’d say that’s a fair question – it’s not an obvious choice on Gav’s part, but I was really impressed by the way he handled it. If you’re an existing 40k fan then I assume you’re already familiar with the Adeptus Mechanicus’ prohibition on artificial intelligence, which means even the most inhuman of their cyborg constructs has at least a scrap of humanity buried deep within it.

That flicker of humanity is what Gav taps into for this story, balancing out the tech-y sounding code speak and furious combat with moments where Alpha-6-Terror tries to figure out how to fulfil potentially conflicting orders, or pushes against its programming. In amongst all of the action, as the Kastelans defend the Titan Casus Belli against invading Chaos Space Marines, it’s fascinating to see the way Alpha-6-Terror tries to use cold logic to work out what to do when its core mission – to take the fight to the invaders – conflicts with new orders acquired on the fly. Underneath that cold logic there’s a fiery temperament, and Alpha-6-Terror really seems to want to fight.

There’s also one particular line of machine-code (or at least how it’s visually represented) which really made me chuckle, as Alpha-6-Terror attempts to pray to Omnissiah:

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There’s just something wonderfully 40k about that line, and the way it represents the melding of man and machine in the Adeptus Mechanicus. It’s little touches like this that turn this short story from a short but satisfying depiction of how a Titan’s defenders go about their roles, to something genuinely characterful. You can have a read of my review of By Your Command by clicking here, and if you’re at all interested in the Mechanicus then I’d really recommend giving this a try.

Next up I want to talk about Martyrs of Elysia by Chris Dows, which is the third instalment of Chris’ Elysian Drop Troops audio drama series. In case you haven’t been following these stories, the idea is that Sergeant Zachariah of the 158th Elysian has been accused of murdering a superior officer, a crime which the ruthless Commissar Mastroval is investigating. The first two parts – Scions of Elysia and Renegades of Elysia – each looked at Zachariah through the eyes of different characters during their interrogation by Mastroval. In Scions we had Veteran Adullam (who’s also in Chris’ Elysian short stories The Mouth of Chaos and Monolith) advocating for his long-time friend, while in Renegades it was the turn of rookie Uldek.

In this, the third and final instalment, it’s Zachariah himself who’s finally being interrogated by Mastroval. As with the first two parts, it’s nicely structured with the interrogation – just Mastroval and Zachariah talking in a quiet room – balanced out with explosive action scenes, in this case featuring a chaotic grav platform drop assault and an attack on a heavily defended fortification. While the action is brought to life brilliantly by way of the voice actors and the sound work, it’s the interrogation that holds the greater drama, as Zachariah gradually realises that in telling his story he’s revealed something to Mastroval that he didn’t really want to. It helps that Mastroval is voiced by Jonathan Keeble, whose gravelly tones work perfectly for this character, but it’s testament to Chris’ writing that the battle of wits between these two is so engaging.

Across this series Chris has clearly worked hard to add depth and detail to the Elysians, whether that’s how they fight, what their training looks like or how the politics of Elysia work, and all of that detail is pulled together in this final instalment in a way that makes beautiful sense and validates what’s gone before. If you’re a fan of this regiment, or indeed of the Imperial Guard in general, then you’ll find lots to enjoy here. There’s something really satisfying about Guard characters like Zachariah, who’s human and fallible and feels really fragile in the face of everything the 40k universe can throw at him, but who stands and fights nonetheless, and who’s and absolute badass in his own right. What makes Zachariah in particular work, though, is that Chris imbues him and the stories around him with enough realism for everything to feel lifelike and dangerous.

It’s a shame that these three audios weren’t released closer together, or properly advertised as being a series, but if you’re after something a little more meaty than the usual 60 minute audio drama then this series would be a great place to start. I’d suggest picking up Scions and Renegades first, although Martyrs probably would work fine on its own – but it’s real strength lies in the way it ties the wider story together and caps it off in a really satisfying way. You can have a read of my review of Martyrs of Elysia by clicking here.

The final story I want to look at is Slaves to Darkness by John French, which is book 51 in the Horus Heresy series. I picked up an advance copy of this at Black Library Live, and I’m conscious that it’s not fully released until August, but I’ll make sure not to talk about anything which might be too much of a spoiler. I couldn’t talk about my highlights for June without mentioning this, however, as it’s jam packed with fascinating ideas and events which I imagine any Heresy fan will enjoy. If nothing else, it’s a book told entirely from the perspective of traitor characters – there are some loyalists in it, but they’re always shown from the viewpoint of the various protagonists in this story.

You can see from the cover that there are lots of traitor Primarchs involved, and that’s certainly the case with on Konrad Curze being entirely absent from the story. What John has done, however, is carefully chosen which of the Primarchs are really explored here, so that there’s no risk of over-complicating the story with too many characters or viewpoints. In fact, the Primarchs aren’t viewpoint characters at all – the story is split across several protagonists, but they’re all Space Marines, from various Legions, and the Primarchs are therefore always shown through the lens of an Astartes. So we get to see plenty of Perturabo and Lorgar especially, but the focus is primarily on a few really interesting Space Marine characters. Some of these are familiar, and others less so, but in John’s hands they’re all intriguing.

What I thought particularly interesting about this book, however, was that John has managed to make it an accessible, fast-paced read without losing any of the depth and complexity that he’s known for. It’s not the sort of fiendishly twisty story that he’s become known for – it’s less complex than the Ahriman series, or Praetorian of Dorn, for example – but it’s still beautifully plotted, while the structure he’s chosen, rotating through the various viewpoints, helps keeps the pace up with relatively short sections making up each chapter. For a story like this, which needs to demonstrate what’s going on in the traitor camp at such a crucial point in the Heresy, that’s an impressive achievement, and one which I think will endear this to a lot of readers.

Like I said, I don’t want to spoil anything, so there’s a HUGE amount that I just can’t talk about. What I can say, however, is that this might not be the story you expect, and that it shows the traitors in a fascinating position. The title itself is quite a clue to the heart of the story, and by making it about various characters trying to apply control to a situation which, in the absence of Horus (and arguably Abaddon) at the helm, has the potential to rapidly spiral out of control, John has given himself the opportunity to explore some really cool ideas. Have a read of my review here, and keep an eye on the Black Library website for a release date, as this is an intriguing novel that’s essential for any Heresy fan.

So those are my three top picks for June’s Monthly Highlights – By Your Command by Gav Thorpe, Martyrs of Elysia by Chris Dows and Slaves to Darkness by John French I’d love to know what you thought of these stories if you’ve read any of them, so let me know in the comments below or on Facebook or Twitter. I’ll hopefully write another one of these posts at the start of August, looking back at what I’ve read and reviewed in July!