I'm re-reading the Horus Heresy in preparation to start the sub-series Siege of Terra, and this is my review of Heralds of the Siege , book 52 in the series. Heralds of the Siege is an anthology, consisting of several short stories, and I'm going to review each one. The Grey Raven is the second short story in the book, written by Gave Thorpe, and it's all about my favourite faction, the Mechanicum.
I love anthology books, and have since the days of Starlog and Analog. In the days of the Internet, I guess some people feel that anthology books are redundant. Why publish short stories in a single volume when you can just publish them online? And indeed, the stories in Heralds of the Siege were published online, for $0 in 2016. So this isn't just redundant, it's charging money for something that was previously complementary. And I'm all for it. If I had a dollar for every hour I wasted scraping the Magic: The Gathering story website so I could get the latest Ravnica short story in a convenient offline format, I'd easily have enough to buy an anthology book. I love that some content is $0 online. It's a cool feature to have. But I honestly appreciate the option to have it in paperback or EPUB so I'll actually sit back and read the thing.
Anyway, about The Grey Raven.
This review contains minor spoilers.
The Raven Guard, or 19th Legion, is the Space Marine chapter of the shadows. That's their thing. Uncharacteristic as it may seem for the Adeptus Astartes, the Raven Guard use cunning and even stealth as core components of their battlefield strategies.
There's not much more you need to know about the chapter beyond that, at least in Warhammer 40,000. But this isn't 40k, this is the Horus Heresy, and the Raven Guard was influenced strongly by the events of the Imperium's civil war. Their loyalty to the Emperor never waned, and it's no wonder because the Raven Guard was almost entirely wiped out by the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V.
In a way, the Raven Guard's opposition to Horus is personal. And that's why The Grey Raven is painful. The psyker Balsar Kurthuri (psyker Space Marines are called Librarians) is returning to system Sol from a mission on Yarant Three. He's been instructed by his Primarch to seek an audience with the Emperor's own psyker advisor, Malcador the Sigillite. Corvus Corax, Primarch of the Raven Guard, had forbidden Balsar from using psyker powers, but the question still remains whether Balsar could even be trusted in the ranks of Space Marines.
When Balsar arrives, his ship The Wrathful Vanguard is met with suspicion and then even boarded by several Adeptus Custodes for "in-person authentication".
This is a good scene. Very effective. It's almost confusing, it's so good. I had to re-read it several times to make sure I wasn't confused about allegiance.
Raven Guard.
Custodes.
All on the same side.
What is going on?
What's going on is that the Custodes want to kill Balsar. Specifically not anyone else on the ship, just Balsar.
The next segment of the story is one of those run-and-gun dialogue scenes. You know the kind, because it's in every other action movie made since Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. The heroes and villains fire impotently at one another, then the heroes run for cover. While they politely wait for the villains to catch up with them, the heroes deliver interesting exposition.
During this run-and-gun sequence, you get a crystal clear picture of what the Raven Guard is all about. You understand what they value, how they think, how they interpret the world around them.
You get an understanding for the Custodes, how very very good they are at close combat, and you get to see their weapon of choice in action.
And you get a feel for the brotherhood within the Space Marines regardless of chapter.
This is an exciting sequence for several reasons.
First of all, the exposition is really strong. You're not really reading a chase scene, you're processing what's essentially a mystery along with the main characters.
You're bonding with the main characters, too. In just a few short pages, you develop a sincere admiration for Captain Noriz, who protects Balsar at all cost, and solely based on the trust invested in one battle brother for another. That's not something I'm generally interested in, but it really works.
And finally, you start to understand the scope of the interplanetary politics happening because of how Horus has forced the hand of the Imperium. It runs deeper than you may have realised.
In the end, Umojen, the Chief Librarian of the Salamanders, shows up and all is, well, not quite revealed. The last line of the story is "This is Umojen. He'll explain." Great, except that's where the story ends. Umojen doesn't explain. If you don't remember who Umojen is, or what exactly Malcador is up to, then this feels like a pretty vague cliffhanger.
That said, I don't know the right answer. Maybe just one more line: "Welcome to the Knights-Errant, Balsar." Or something to prompt the reader to understand that Balsar is being reassigned and promoted to something new and exciting sounding.
Then again, as always, I have to allow for the fact that a good portion of the anticipated audience reading book 52 in a series would be familiar with the Knights-Errant.
This is another good one in the anthology. I'd read it again, almost less for the characters and more for the combat. The action in this story is the kind of description that informs how you move your toy soldiers around on the gaming table, and exactly what kind of "pew pew" and "grrrrrr-chaaaaaaang" sounds to make as one soldier saws through the other's ceramite armour with a chainsword.
All images in this post copyright Games Workshop.