While Black Library’s Siege of Terra series is closing off the Horus Heresy with eight novels covering the major story beats, Graham McNeill’s Sons of the Selenar marks the first in an additional set of novellas which tackle slightly smaller subjects within the context of the Siege. In this case, the story of Sharrowkin, Wayland and the Sisypheum continues as, returning to the Sol System, loyalties within the crew begin to fracture. Drawn to embattled Luna, the few remaining Shattered Legionaries must put division aside and act as one if they’re to ensure vital secrets remain out of the traitors’ hands.
Taking place roughly simultaneously with the events of John French’s The Solar War, the narrative itself is relatively straightforward, as determined by the novella format. The action moves from the void over Jupiter to a supposedly abandoned installation deep beneath the Lunar surface, and sees the crew of the Sisypheum – rapidly approaching the limits of their endurance – seemingly held together only by the prospect of one final mission and the need to prevent what could be a total disaster. The mission to Luna and the brutal fighting beneath the moon’s surface are fast paced and action-packed, and shed a little more light on the secretive Selenar gene cults, but the heart of the story is very much the final, painful journey of the battered crew of the Sisypheum as McNeill ties these character threads off in dark but satisfying fashion.
After appearing in various stories, beginning back in 2012 with Kryptos and then Angel Exterminatus, by now these characters are well developed with an established dynamic and an arc which was always going to end painfully, but McNeill really doesn’t hold back here. It’s a story about bonds of brotherhood having been stretched to breaking point by appalling pressure, but ultimately holding despite – or perhaps even because – of everything that’s gone before. It’s about the legacy that a warrior can expect, and whether in the darkness engulfing the galaxy anything, even the most heroic of deeds, is ever going to be remembered. It’s epic (despite its brevity) and heroic and unrelentingly dark, as these characters are pulled apart before being tested one last time in the brutal crucible of war.
You could read this in isolation if you wanted, but it rewards an awareness of both what’s gone before with these characters, and what’s taking place elsewhere in the Siege. Check out The Horus Heresy – Preparing for Sons of the Selenar for a recap of which previous stories to be familiar with before tackling this. As a conclusion to this particular story it’s a powerful, at times emotional ride, with high personal stakes and a nice connection to what’s happening in the Siege as a whole. There’s more than enough in these character arcs to have fleshed out a longer story, not to mention the backstory to the Selenar, so in a sense it’s a shame this couldn’t have been expanded to a longer book…but as it stands, while it might not be one of the eight main Siege stories it feels very much part of the wider story both tonally and narratively, and provides a dark but satisfying conclusion to this particular story arc.
Check out this Rapid Fire interview with Graham McNeill talking about Sons of the Selenar.
Visit the main Horus Heresy reviews page on Track of Words.
