Edoardo Albert’s first Black Library novel tackled the sinister, almost inhuman Carcharadons, but with his second novel, Kasrkin, he returns to telling stories about regular human soldiers in wild, harsh environments (like short stories Last Flight or Green and Grey). It follows a single squad of Kasrkin – the elites of the Cadian elite – delving into a vast desert in search of a downed Valkyrie and the general it was transporting, attempting to retrieve their target before the forces of the T’au Empire find him. Led by the veteran Captain Obeysekera and accompanied by an inexperienced but politically-connected Commissar, the Kasrkin are challenged as much by the desert as by their enemies, although it’s not long before they realise that Dasht i-Kevar holds a terrible secret beneath its burning sands.
BEWARE – after this point there will be spoilers! I don’t normally write spoiler reviews, but there’s lots to talk about with Kasrkin, and rather than make vague allusions I thought it would be worth going into a bit more detail. This is also a somewhat longer review than usual, so strap in for the ride.
At over 400 pages in paperback Kasrkin is relatively long for a Black Library novel, and it very much feels like a book of two halves. The first half is deliberately slow-paced and light on action, taking its time setting the scene and introducing the key characters as they get to grips with the desert’s dangers and wonders – the heat, the indigenous nomads, the shifting sands that are at once utterly deadly and strangely beautiful. There’s a strong Dune influence at play (including hints of the inevitable sand worms), but what desert-set SF novel doesn’t draw from Herbert’s classic? Albert brings his own identity to this part of the story too, with evocative, descriptive prose that brings the setting to life beautifully – you can almost feel the brutal heat and hear the song of the sand.
The gentle pace won’t be to every reader’s taste, but those who enjoy the less militaristic side of 40k fiction will probably get a lot out of this section. With relatively little action there’s plenty of time to dig into the relationship between Commissar Roshant and the Kasrkin, in terms of both the general difficulty of working with Commissars, and the specific complexity of handling Roshant, who’s truly wet behind the ears whilst also very aware of his privilege as the son of the Lord Militant. Between this, the travel and the general squad dynamic, Albert does a great job of depicting the Kasrkin as real soldiers, full of character and able to think for themselves – very different to the faceless, unfeeling Tempestus Scions seen in many other 40k stories.
If the first half sets the reader’s expectations a certain way, the second half takes things in a completely different direction. The initial change comes after the Kasrkin find the missing general, with the introduction of their first real enemy to face – a kinband of Kroot, led by Shaper Tchek. Not only do the Kroot herald the onset of a lot more action, but they also bring with them a new stylistic approach, as Albert starts alternating between human and Kroot POVs – first in alternating sections and then, at times, in some interesting, unusual split perspective scenes. This is perhaps not something that would be comfortable to read for a whole novel, but it does prove surprisingly effective in small doses, ramping up the tension as the two parties clash, Obeysekera and Tchek testing their wits against one another.
You might have thought that was enough of a shift, but there’s still one more change to come (and this is where we start getting properly spoilerific). While the Kasrkin and Kroot are clashing aboveground, below the sands lies a (mostly) slumbering Necron tomb, the only occupants of which that are awake being a number of Flayed Ones and the somewhat out-of-touch-with-reality Lord Nebusemekh (along with a machine intelligence called the World Mind). Inevitably the action moves underground, taking the plot in another different direction as Obeysekera and Tchek lead their surviving warriors in search of a way out, while dodging lethal Flayed Ones…and Nebusemekh gets increasingly confused.
Once things move underground the plot doesn’t flow quite as well as earlier on, although it does do some interesting things, putting different challenges in front of pretty much all the characters. After the vivid descriptions and gentle world building of the first half though, the action-heavy and somewhat narratively convenient second half feels a bit more like a generic 40k novel – there are some surprises still to come, but the momentum does drop a little, and the plot beats become a bit more predictable. The highlights of the second half are definitely the scenes with Nebusemekh, with hints of a similar sort of psychological complexity found in Nate Crowley’s Necrons stories.
So, there’s a lot going on in Kasrkin. The Kroot and the Necrons obviously aren’t the main focus of the book, but Albert gives himself enough room to give them plenty of character, from Nebusemekh’s idiosyncrasies to some intriguing details of Kroot culture and communications. As the focal point, the Kasrkin make for slightly different Cadian characters to most – there’s definitely a sense of how different they are (by necessity) to regular Shock Troopers, although there’s definitely less of a focus on Cadian culture (and the impact of the Fall) than in other Cadian novels. What they provide, however, is a regular, relatable human perspective on the hell of war and the rampant inequality of the Imperium, along with a few glimpses of some unusual (for the Imperium) philosophies.
All told, there’s a lot to like in Kasrkin. It’s hard not to see a degree of editorial intervention in the somewhat over-complicated plot – the book did come out alongside Games Workshop’s Kasrkin-vs-Necrons Kill Team box, so draw from that whatever conclusions you want – but for the most part it does all fit together, and make for an entertaining tale. This is helped throughout by Albert’s excellent prose, which brings the story to life with evocative description and strong characterisation, clearly looking beyond the existing body of 40k fiction for inspiration (which always feels good) and maintaining its own tone, a little different to anything else in BL’s range. Well worth checking out, in particular for that slow-build first half.
Review copy provided by the author
See also: all of the Edoardo Albert reviews and interviews on Track of Words
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Thank you for the lovely, and thoughtful, review, Michael!