Cypher: Lord of the Fallen

By John French

Cypher: the enigmatic, elusive and errant figure of 40k. He is one of those figures that have not been completely explained in 40k lore, and to my mind this is a good thing. Sometimes that element of mystery just works, as I think it did with necrons back in the day. Anyway, this book tells a story from the perspective of Cypher, but don’t be surprised if quite a few secrets remain after finishing the book.

John French has a knack for writing about some of the more psychedelic characters of 40k. His style for the Ahriman books was fitting: exploring but not pulling back the curtain fully on a figure who visited the fabled Black Library itself. It’s a tricky balance, to maintain interest in the character whilst also ensuring there remains some mystery. Although 40k has developed further in recent times than it has in a long while (something I’m glad for when not much really changed for about fifteen years), there are certain aspects that are probably better left a mystery.

Cypher is one of those aspects, at times going against the Imperium and at times acting against Chaos. What does he really want?

The plot of this book goes as follows. Cypher is captured by the Imperium and taken to Terra, and when the Dark Angels find out they are prepared to go to any length to secure him for themselves. This fits with the long-standing background of the Dark Angels; that they are ashamed of the duplicity of some of the Chapter back when it was a legion and will go to any means to hide it.

Unsurprisingly, though, things don’t all go to plan. The story is told mainly from the perspective of Cypher retelling the story of what went on, which is a good way of balancing giving enough information while holding back key meanings behind plot details.

Disgruntled Dark Angels

Portions of the book follow Hekkarron the Custodian and Ancia, a clairvoyant psyker called a doomscryer, as they try to obtain the object Cypher seems to be following and aim to unravel what’s going on. We also follow Mordachi the Dark Angels Epistolary Librarian, single-minded and passionate in pursuing Cypher alongside his Dark Angel brothers. By contrast, there are interesting differing motivations within Cypher’s Fallen warband, with one appearing truly loyal to the Emperor still, and others less so.

With superhuman warriors it is easy to give them a superman-esque invincibility, where they seem to beat everything before them. With primarchs or someone like Cypher, who always seems one step ahead, this can be dialled up to eleven. Some readers will likely be turned off by how Cypher seems to always have an explanation or be prepared, but the book actually often does a good job of explaining – especially as it is often from his perspective – how or why events happen as they do.

The action and descriptions are very 40k, and a big plus point in my estimation. There feels a sense of scale but also pessimism, and the action rattles through. A custodian fighting feels like a custodian fighting, at one point tearing through several space marines. French is almost always effective in his books at writing descriptions such as this.

The dialogue can sometimes be a bit irritating, not giving you much detail but sometimes lording it over you. For example, one section where Cypher is – fittingly, I might add – talking about what is important is not finding the truth but rather having secrets verges on annoying when directed to the reader, even though it is certainly in character. This is where the tricky balance that I mentioned at the beginning of the review can fall down slightly.

Can you hear the voices too?

Jon Rand’s narration of the audiobook is good, although I feel he does less of a good job of providing dynamic voices for differing characters as Jonathan Keeble or Timothy Watson. Having come from Timothy Watson’s reading of The Lion: Son of the Forest, I was really missing his narration of disturbing chaos voices. Jon Rand’s narration is by no means bad though.

As a no spoiler review, it’s hard to talk plot points too much. The book doesn’t reveal too much about Cypher, but there are some links to the Emperor that are certainly interesting. The ending was quite a cliffhanger and raises more questions than it answers, and will probably be divisive in terms of what people think of it.

Personally I liked it, and it made me want a sequel. But there is danger in finding out the truth, as Cypher warns us repeatedly, and perhaps it’ll remove a lot of the exciting mystique if we find out too much.

Final score

In conclusion then French was certainly the person to write this book. It asks questions, keeps you guessing, but has an interesting and diverse cast of characters to take you on that journey whilst maintaining the pessimistic awe of the 40k universe. It may frustrate some people, Cypher being one of those characters always one step ahead, but his journey has definitely been prepared as a crucial one, which this book seems to indicate, and is well worth following as a result.

8/10