Tag Archives: Night Lords

Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter – Guy Haley

The twelfth novel in Black Library’s The Horus Heresy Primarchs series, Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter is Guy Haley’s third contribution and by a comfortable margin his most unconventional one yet. A twitchy, jittery collection of characters and plot threads, it sees Curze – twisted, haunted, damaged – spending the final hours of his life reliving some of the key events which led him inevitably to a moment he’d long foreseen. Crouched in the darkness, talking in his madness to a (literally and figuratively) distant father, his only thoughts are to justify his monstrous actions and find vindication in light of the Emperor’s own cold contempt.

Keep reading…

RAPID FIRE: Guy Haley Talks Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter

Welcome to this instalment of Rapid Fire, my ongoing series of quick interviews with Black Library authors talking about their new releases. These are short and sweet interviews, with the idea being that each author will answer (more or less) the same questions – by the end of each interview I hope you will have a good idea of what the new book (or audio drama) is about, what inspired it and why you might want to read or listen to it.

In this instalment I spoke to Guy Haley about his latest Primarchs novel, Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter, which is available to order in Limited Edition hardback right now before the ‘standard’ editions go on sale in a few months.

Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: Nightfall – Peter Fehervari

Nightfall is Peter Fehervari’s debut Black Library story, originally published in the Heroes of the Space Marines anthology. On Sarastus, a dying world which sacrifices its youths to monstrous masters, True Night falls and the Night Lords descend to collect their tribute. Among the ghouls left to fight for survival in the abandoned heights of the last remaining hive, young Zeth unconsciously understands that something sets him apart from his fellows. While bitter rivalries twist the Night Lords even as they make bloody sport culling the weakest of the sacrifices, Zeth sees opportunity in amongst the danger.

Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: The Abyssal Edge – Aaron Dembski-Bowden

A slow, quiet tale of perspectives and choices, Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Primarchs short story The Abyssal Edge features two primarchs and two First Captains, but is told from the perspective of a crippled human archivist. Desk-bound after a terrible crash, former fighter pilot Orthos Ulatal finds the tedium enlivened by a report implying conflict between the Night Lords and the Thousand Sons. His investigations lead him to the threatening company of Jago Sevatarion, the truth of what happened between Konrad Curze and Magnus the Red, and a glimpse behind the facade of the ongoing Great Crusade.

Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: A Lesson in Darkness – Ian St. Martin

A suitably dark and grisly tale, Ian St. Martin’s short audio drama A Lesson in Darkness is a Primarchs story concerning Konrad Curze, primarch of the Night Lords. When the human world of Piamen refuses to join in Imperial unity, the Imperium sends Curze and his legion to bring the Piameni to heel. Newly reunited with his legion, Curze demonstrates his instinctive mastery of terror tactics as he brings compliance to the horrified population of Piamen. For his legion, and Captain Nivalus in particular, it’s an early taste of what’s to come under Curze’s leadership.

Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: The Painted Count – Guy Haley

It’s back to the Horus Heresy for day thirteen of Black Library’s 2016 Advent Calendar, with The Painted Count by Guy Haley. Picking up where Gender Skraivok left off at the end of Pharos, we see him back on the Nightfall among his fellow Night Lords, embroiled in a power struggle for the leadership of the Legion. Deeply troubled by the clinging presence of the daemon weapon that he acquired on Sotha, Skraivok nevertheless finds himself in a position where he may well need every source of power he can lay his hands on if he’s to survive.
Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: Massacre – Aaron Demsbki-Bowden

Also available in the Eye of Terra anthology, Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Horus Heresy short story Massacre takes a quick look at the cast of the Night Lords trilogy in their pre-40k incarnations. That’s right, it shows Talos, Xarl, Cyrion and even the Exalted as they all were back in the days of the Heresy, pre- and during the Dropsite Massacre. Seen through Apothecary Talos’s eyes it’s a rare chance to see these fan-favourite characters in their prime – cynical, callous warriors given to black humour, snide commentary and an unfair fight.
Keep reading…

Pharos – Guy Haley

Please note, if you haven’t read The Unremembered Empire then this review will contain spoilers.

Mysteriously numbered as 34 in Black Library’s Horus Heresy series despite Deathfire coming in at number 32, Pharos by Guy Haley continues the wider Imperium Secundus arc, picking up plotlines from Dan Abnett’s The Unremembered Empire as well as Haley’s own short story A Safe and Shadowed Place (from Death and Defiance). While the new Emperor Sanguinius sits uneasily upon the throne, Guilliman continues to tend to the Imperium Secundus with the aid of the alien artefact discovered on distant Sotha, as directed by the unlikely pairing of Barabas Dantioch and Alexis Polux. Meanwhile the Night Lords have been watching from the shadows, and choose their moment to launch an attack on Sotha.
Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW : Child of Night – John French

Of all the merits of Black Library’s Horus Heresy series, perhaps its greatest achievement to date is the way it has cast the whole conflict in a new light and reminded readers that it wasn’t just a case of good versus evil and black and white, but very much shades of grey. John French looks at this in a little more detail with his quick read Child of Night, introducing us to Fel Zharost, the ex-Chief Librarian of the Night Lords. Having left his legion after the passing of the Edict of Nikea and returned to the underhive slums of Terra where he was born, he has remained unaware of the civil war ripping the Galaxy apart. Until now.

Keep reading…

The Long Night – Aaron Dembski-Bowden (audio drama)

Before Aaron Dembski-Bowden got his hands on them, the Night Lords were essentially the most basic of character archetypes; they were baddies by virtue of being evil, as simple as that. Nowadays though they tend to be painted in a different light; far from being just plain old evil and monstrous, in their current incarnation they are portrayed as selfish, nihilistic and massively flawed but in their own way still sort of principled, and bizarrely likeable. From a Heresy perspective, even more than their primarch Konrad Curze, the character who best embodies this conflicted nature is without a doubt Sevatar, First Captain of the Night Lords, mass murderer, liar, cheat and a very dangerous man to be around. Picking up from where we last saw him at the end of the Prince of Crows novella, The Long Night, a 40-minute audio drama from Aaron Dembski-Bowden, sees Sevatar imprisoned by the Dark Angels, talking to the ghosts in his head.

Keep reading…