Articles tagged with: Books

While you can find now the three Grey Knights books in one Omnibus compilation, I will do individual reviews as I read each book independantly, starting with the first one today.

The Grey Knights are a special chapter of Space Marines, created to fight with daemons and chaos forces, and led by the Inquisition (they act as the Inquisition military arm).

In this book they will hunt for informaton about how to stop the summoning of a terrible chaos daemon that was banished one thousand years ago and is coming back.

Well written, with a nice plot and good characters, thrilling, and with plot twists. Apart from depicting the GKs as ultra-religious and awesome in combat (as they should be in theory), their foes are nicely presented, detailed and suited for the story told. A good representation of chaos and cultists.

If you want to learn more about the Grey Knights definetly a good action book.

Posted on 2011-10-30

Second book about the Deathwatch, this time sending a Deathwatch team to deal with a secret coven between the Inquisition and the Eldar. Of course problems will arise when incidentally the Eldar are suffering attacks from the Dark Eldar.

I actually enjoyed this book a lot. Unlike the predecessor the plot is elaborate and my cons are only related with background (once again) and some plot "convenient situations" unlikely to happen.

C. S. Goto keeps using minor chapters and the Blood Ravens as main ones, but you can easily forgive about it (except for the librarian's "special powers").

Some of the Dark Eldar background (sadistic culture and mixture of lust and masochism) is well represented, and the Space Marines have an additional problem: Dealing with enemies (Eldar) by their duty when they hate them.

Also has nice unexpected plot changes that keep you reading on and on.

Posted on 2011-09-09

Warrior Brood is the first book related to the Deathwatch (elite Space Marines picked from all chapters to work for the inquisition in small kill-teams), written by the apparently infamous C. S. Goto.

And well, while the book delivers action, you must indeed have to allow quite a few mistakes, inconsistencies (with the Warhammer 40k world) and in general inventions of the author.

Some units are wrongly described (Tyranids mostly); others have new ultra-powerful habilities not found in the game; Space Marines appear to be really weak in general...

The book relates a Deathwatch detachment sent to a sector under attack from a Tyranid hive fleet, but where some things are not as simple as they seem.

A dumb successor chapter is introduced, and some Deathwatch marines are from lesser chapters or directly from the Blood Ravens (coincidence that this author wrote the book Dawn of War, based on the videogame that invented this chapter). Allows for some specific argumental decisions but in general I miss more realistic chapters.

As I said the pacing is quite good, you won't miss action and if you forgive the heresies related to WH40k lore, the book is not a bad reading, but neither impressive.

Posted on 2011-08-15

The Killing Ground represents the fourth book in the Ultramarines series of Black Library Warhammer 40.000 books.

Continues the adventures of Uriel and Pasanius, this time in an imperial planet in which there is a killing ground... where the dead are not at peace precisely.

This book has Imperial Guard, ghosts, the unfleshed from the third book, and another sweet surprise I don't want to spoil, but that sadly is badly represented here, being killed almost entirely as mere puppets instead of the "special" thing they are.

The story is predictable in general, nothing incredible, but at least you enjoy reading. I just wish it had more action and less ghostly stories.

Not bad but neither impressive, a mere nexus between the original Omnibus and the following books.

Posted on 2011-06-13

The Ultramarines Omnibus is a compilation of the three first stories of Ultramarines Captain Uriel Ventris and his friend and fellow Sargeant Pasanius.

Each book is a different story evolving the situations adn the state of the main characters but not much else.

The first book tells a dark about Imperial Guard, Dark Eldars and some... political problems. It is nice to grasp how mad this dread aliens are, and has interesting plot twists.

The second book is about a tyranid invasion on the planet Tarsis Ultra and the combined defense of Ultramarines, Imperial Guard and even the Inquisition and other elements I won't spoil.
For me the best of the three and almost the best WH40k book from the few I've read so far. You "live" the alien invasion each page.

The third and last book contained in the omnibus is a travel to the Eye of Terror (home of the Chaos forces, like another space, warped and twisted), so the main theme are Chaos Space Marines and demons. Not bad but the plot here was weak for my taste, and full of opportunism and tricks.

Overall, Ultramarines are the favourite chapter of Warhammer 40.000 of Games Workshop and many people, so this book gives a good introduction to them, with some good narratives and a story about Tyranids that for me makes the omnibus worth just because of it :)

Posted on 2011-04-10