Edoardo Albert’s debut Black Library novel, Silent Hunters is a tale of sinister predators, familial bonds, the consequences of extreme age and relentless, single-minded dedication to duty, set amidst the horror and wonder of the Warhammer 40,000 setting. Chaplain Tangata Manu of the Carcharodons leads the Hunt, a millennia-long search for a lost relic once entrusted into his Chapter’s care, but when he finally has success within his grasp, he sees the prize snatched away by the devious drukhari. With one final chance to complete the Hunt and regain his honour, Tangata Manu embarks on a journey that will take him to all manner of wildly strange places, and eventually to the Dark City of Commorragh, accompanied by no more than a handful of his brothers and an unassuming pair of Chapter serfs.
On the face of it this sounds like a fairly standard Space Marine-heavy 40k adventure story, but for all of its familiar elements – the Imperial POV, the quest, the human characters to provide contrast with the Space Marines, the inevitable boltguns-blazing action – it is in fact an inventive, unconventional novel that feels very 40k but at the same time very different to anything else in the canon. Right from the start Albert’s somewhat baroque, sophisticated prose imparts a sense of strangeness to proceedings that brings the 40k galaxy to slightly (or in some cases decidedly) sinister life. From the mist-shrouded waters of ocean world Sagaraya to horror-laden Commorragh itself, by way of the creepily silent, almost oceanic depths of Carcharodons voidships, the impossible twists of the webway and even the impossible “infinite ouroboros” of Takushika Reach’s cloud bazaar, this book is filled with wild imagination, and it brilliantly expands the scope of 40k as a setting.
It does the same with its depiction of the Carcharodons too, exploring both their thematic ties with marine predators (they are the ‘Space Sharks’, after all) and the nature of the Void which they claim as their territory. Cold, calm, brutally efficient and eerily silent, whether seen from the perspective of Tangata Manu, Iraia the Chapter serf or any of their unfortunate enemies, these are deeply strange, unsettling Space Marines, and Albert does a great job of showing both their mindset and the workings of the Chapter. Carcharodons stories usually hold them up against the other monstrous denizens of the galaxy, and in a sense this is no different with the drukhari providing the antagonists here, but Albert makes the case that it’s the Carcharodons who are the true monsters. The various drukhari characters – including a deeply melodramatic dracon and a crushingly world-weary archon – are brilliantly written, perfectly balancing between black humour and appalling darkness, but even they pale in comparison with the sheer bleak creepiness of Tangata Manu and his brothers.
Albert’s prose style, characters and narrative choices consistently subvert expectations when considered against most other Black Library stories (perhaps with the exception of Peter Fehervari’s Dark Coil), offering up insight and philosophy where you might expect bombast and finding unexpected angles on familiar tropes. While this may be unconventional by BL standards, confidently exploring themes of love and family ties alongside obsession, brutal duty and hyper-violence, it never loses the fundamental essence of the 40k setting, or the factions involved in the story. It’s very much a development of the Carcharodons, rather than a slavish recreation of their previous depictions, but that’s the joy of 40k as a shared setting – in isolation this is a bold, wildly imaginative story, but when taken in context of what’s gone before it adds depth, nuance and another perspective on the characters and setting. Original, thoughtful and occasionally even playful, in the end this proves as bleak and powerful as any 40k story, and is tailor-made for fans interested in a fresh new perspective on life on the fringes of the 41st millennium.
See also RAPID FIRE: Edoardo Albert Talks Silent Hunters.
Review copy provided by the author – huge thanks to Edoardo Albert for sending me a copy of Silent Hunters, in exchange for my honest review.
Order Silent Hunters from my store on Bookshop.org*
Order Silent Hunters from Amazon* – also available as an audiobook via Audible*
If you enjoyed this review and would like to support Track of Words, you can leave a tip on my Ko-Fi page.
*If you buy anything using one of these links, I will receive a small affiliate commission – see here for more details.
Thank you, Michael!