Tag Archives: Alpha Legion

RAPID FIRE: Mike Brooks Talks Alpharius Head of the Hydra

Welcome to this instalment of my Rapid Fire series of author interviews – today I’m chatting to Mike Brooks, author of Alpharius: Head of the Hydra. This is Mike’s first Horus Heresy novel for Black Library, and the 14th novel in the ongoing Primarchs series, and promises to be a treat for all fans of the ambiguous XX Legion – the Alpha Legion. I asked Mike for the lowdown on the new book, and despite all the secrets in which it’s shrouded he was able to reveal a little information about what to expect. Alpharius: Head of the Hydra is available to pre-order in swanky Limited Edition hardback on Saturday 16th January, with the standard hardback, ebook and audiobook versions presumably coming three months or so later.

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Sons of the Hydra – Rob Sanders

Rob Sanders has a good track record with Heresy-era Alpha Legion, and now he’s tackling them in a pre-Dark Imperium 40k novel, Sons of the Hydra. It follows the exploits of a small Alpha Legion warband known as the Redacted, led by Occam the Untrue – and no, he doesn’t have a sword called Razor. There’s a typically twisty, convoluted plot as Occam drives the Redacted in pursuit of his and the legion’s goals, and without giving too much away it involves Marines of varying chapters and loyalties, the expected levels of infiltration and false faces…and lots of plasma guns.

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Shroud of Night – Andy Clark

Billed as ‘a novel from the Dark Imperium’, Shroud of Night was only the second Black Library novel to be released post #new40k, and coincidentally Andy Clark’s second novel. Within Imperium Nihilus, away from the light of the Astronomicon, the world of Tsadrekha is a point of light amidst the darkness, its miraculous beacon holding the armies of Chaos at bay. Sent by one of the competing Chaos warlords to find and and corrupt the beacon, the Unsung – an elite Alpha Legion unit – are soon caught between the Imperium’s defences and a brutal assault led by Khârn the Betrayer himself.

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Praetorian of Dorn – John French

The seventh Horus Heresy book of 2016, the thirty-ninth in the main numbered series, and John French’s first ‘full’ novel in the series, Praetorian of Dorn comes with high expectations. Not least because it’s set in the Solar system, where the Alpha Legion launch a coordinated attack on Terra’s outer defences, testing the resolve and skill of Rogal Dorn and his Imperial Fists. With legion operatives, both human and legionnaire, activating across the system, Dorn and Archamus – Master of the Huscarls – are pulled two ways as they attempt to maintain Terra’s defences and stop the Alpha Legion.
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The Serpent Beneath – Rob Sanders

SPOILER ALERT: make sure you’ve read Legion by Dan Abnett before reading this novella!

Originally released alongside three other Horus Heresy novellas in the New York Times bestselling The Primarchs anthology, The Serpent Beneath by Rob Sanders is a tale of tangled loyalties as the Alpha Legion goes up against…the Alpha Legion. Fearing a security breach at a secret Legion installation, Omegon and a small group of Legionaries infiltrate the mysterious Tenebrae 9-50 array in order to plug the leak, permanently. In true XXth Legion fashion however, things aren’t quite what they seem – plenty of surprises await Omegon and his men during the course of the mission.
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QUICK REVIEW: The Harrowing – Rob Sanders

First published in 2014’s Sedition’s Gate Limited Edition anthology, and then in 2016’s War Without End, Rob Sanders’ Alpha Legion short story The Harrowing now gets the e-short treatment as well. Planted among the crew of the Mechanicus ark freighter Omnissiax, an Alpha Legion infiltrator activates to support and facilitate a brutal, calculated assault on the vessel. While their operatives work to sow confusion, the Alpha Legion apply ‘sheer force and tactical relentlessness’ as they take on the vessel’s defence force, using every weapon at their disposal.
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