I've recently finished reading through this latest offering from the BL. I know Malika has been engaged in discussion on Warseer, but I thought it would be good to start our own topic here and see what the ASP thinks of the anthology.
Blood Games - a good fun read with Dan Abnett doing well in describing Terra. Major gripes with this for me were the sudden relocation of the Imperial Palace from Nottingham, England to the heights of the Himalayas. I also found it a little bizarre how fractured and disparate Terra seems. This is mainly due to the rapidly condensed timeline the HH novels have taken with the Great Crusade and the time just prior to it. I always imagined the Emperor would have created a very unified, monolithic and forward looking Terra before even embarking on the Reconquest.
Wolf at the Door - appalling. I stopped reading it. The marines are supposed to be the first recruits from Fenris, Russ' drinking buddies, they are portrayed as being far too generic for Space Wolves, the only real distinction being their names. Oh and they fought Eldar, yet nobody actually realises it apparently...
Scions of the Storm - The concept behind this story was quite good, but the boring fighting scenes didn't help it along to the end well. The 'enemy defences' just seemed a bit trite and added in to justify the ending and provide some 'difficult' opposition to the Word Bearers.
The Voice - A fair insight into the Sisters of SIlence, set alongside a slightly gripping horror story. I'm not sure of the ending and what it was getting at, who was the 'big bad'?
Call of the Lion - Fail! Nothing of interest here for me really. Gav Thorpe does nothing for portraying the evolution of the Dark Angels and the coming together of Terran and Calabinite marines. The characters were too 2D and boring to make an interesting story. The 'First Contact' theme didn't come across well...
The Last Church - A really interesting read, with some fun twists. The arguements given were perhaps a little 'cookie cutter' but this was not what the tale was about for me. An interesting insight into the Pre-Crusade state of Terra and the manner in which it was unified.
After Desh'ea - I found this a cracking story. It generates a few really interesting thoughts about the Legions before they found their Primarchs. The main characters also come across well and their motives/beliefs given some good thought.
Over to the rest of you.
Tynesh
