Shroud of Night

by Andy Clark

Impressed by Mike Brooks’ Alpharius: Head of the Hydra, I decided to delve more deeply into the machinations of the Alpha Legion 10,000 years later. This book follows a band of Alpha Legionnaires not during the Horus Heresy, but in the latest part of the timeline, where primaris marines have been introduced and primarchs are returning.

The plot for this one is that the Alpha Legionnaires end up working with a Slaaneshi Chaos Lord, racing to secure an imperial shrine. In addition to the threat of betrayal, they also have to contend with a Khornate warband attacking the planet of Tsadrekha – led by none other than Kharn the betrayer.

So the scene is set, but how good of a read is it?

One of Many

The band of Alpha legionnaires are interesting enough in of themselves, with a diverse cast of characters. Kassar is the determined leader who is both rather selfless and focussed on the objectives, perhaps hearkening back to earlier harrowings of the legion during the Horus Heresy. Thelgh is the silent sniper, perhaps a little too committed to the stereotype of a symbolically silent dealer of death from afar, but feels like he has a suitable place within the squad. Other legionnaires fit the same moulds – the characters do feel a little simplistic and one-dimensional, fitting to molds you’ve probably seen before.

The writing itself is adequate, but this word is a bit too fitting for the book as a whole. For much of it really is just adequate. Too much time is spent on the squad talking amongst themselves to navigate certain objectives. It was, I think, an attempt to show their thought process and the Alpha Legion approach of everyone being one of many, and therefore everyone’s opinion counting. But instead it tends to result in tedious paragraphs as the characters navigate what’s going on. It’s simply not interesting, and sucks the pace and interest out of the characters and action. The dialogue should at least be used to show depth to the characters, but it certainly fails in this respect.

Similarly when the action does ramp up – such as the inevitable encounters with Kharn, they can sometimes be a bit brief by contrast. The action sections do tend to be decent, with some tension, tangible sense of threat rather than space marines destroying everything in their path. You do really feel like characters could die and are in danger. It’s just that often these bits are often over too soon, to make way for more unnecessary dialogue.

Hooks and spikes

The book is fairly predictable too – one key character hook, which I won’t spoil, was engaging enough, and added depth to the interactions of the squad itself, but more groundwork should have been done to either make us care about the squad members as individuals, or to be disgusted or feel pity for them. Great examples of how to do this can be seen in the Night Lords series by Aaron Dembski-Bowden.

The finale set piece was quite obvious really at the denouement. It’s pretty clear how it’s going to go, really and it was representative of the book as a whole: despite the moments the book does well, it’s almost always standard bolter fare – just with some deceit and spikes added in.

Final score

Shroud of Night isn’t a terrible book but if you enjoy Warhammer 40,000 or chaos you really will have already read books like this and unfortunately read books better than this. It doesn’t really excel anywhere, and although the characters are introduced well and felt like they had their own personalities, it isn’t explored deeply enough to provide substance. Couple this with the plot being predictable, it’s hard to get away from the feeling that this book is quite simply one of many.

If you haven’t already, you’d be better off reading Alpharius: Head of the Hydra. I will also be reviewing renegades: harrowmaster in due course, which is another 40k book based around the Alpha Legion.

5/10