Review: Sigismund, the Eternal Crusader

by John French. A no spoiler review.

Sigismund is one of the seminal characters of the Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000. The ultimate noble warrior, duty filled, stoic and determined. In this book French explores the background of this champion of humanity.

I have to admit I was particularly excited for this one. The black templars were my first 40k army, and Sigismund later becomes the First Black Templar in the Warhammer background, so this one was on pre-order for me. I came into it conscious of fanboy bias kicking in.

Yet this book surpassed even my high expectations.

French has written some amazing books for Black Library, the Ahriman series being particularly noteworthy, so I was glad a writer with great prestige was chosen for writing Sigismund.

Sigismund and eternal war

The book begins with Sigismund’s early days becoming a legionary, but moves to different times from Sigismund’s past as the story progresses. We won’t talk too much about specifics as some of the cameos are what makes the book interesting. Throughout the memories and interactions, the book explores Sigismund’s motives and opinions of the great war through his conversation with a remembrancer, Solomon Voss, one of the chroniclers of the wars humanity is fighting.

John French does have a tendency to jump around from scene to scene in different timeframes with little explanation in his books, which I do sometimes find jarring. It can make it quite hard to keep up with whats happening, especially if you often read several books simultaneously or leave it for a week. He does do it here, but I find it more justifiable and manageable given this is a smaller book (clocking in at only 185 pages). I still think French could do with a little signposting when the time has changed as it can take a little bit of re-reading to realise we’ve jumped to a completely different timeframe.

The book is brilliant because it is very good at relating back to Sigismund developing is worldview of the war and his sense of duty and honour. The whole book is predicated on the question of ‘will the war ever end’, and what Sigismund thinks of this. It’s a relevant one given the Warhammer 40,000 motto of ‘in the 41st millennium there is only war, and that 10,000 years separate the Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40k.

Along the way we have many cameo appearances from some other warriors of great renown. I won’t mention who but I enjoyed the involvement from other legions and it never felt forced.

Emperor's will made manifest

The imagery is fantastic in this book. Some of the descriptions of the Primarchs and the contrasting of the Imperial fists against the other more brutal or cruel legions really stayed with me. I kept finding myself re-reading the imagery at certain parts of this book, as it was written so well.

The book interspersed the action well with dialogue, so it didn’t feel slow or dull nor have action for action’s sake. There was a good balance.

Stoic Sigismund

The book is centred around Sigismund and does a great job of looking at his perspective of the war. He was somewhat thrust into his role, so this exploration of the Stoic and dour demeanour of the Imperial fists could be quite difficult to write: seen as somewhat unemotional – even for a space marine – it could be challenging to make the reader relate to him. But French navigates this well, with smartly chosen interchanges with other characters and the progression of Sigismund through time in short recounting of events.

Other characters are interesting and varied, which makes the characterisation more engaging through the contrasts that are made. Since quite a few different prominent characters from the Horus Heresy pop up, it’s likely one fans of legions other than the Imperial fists will enjoy,

Readability

This book loses some marks for the jumping around, despite it being necessary in a short book to ensure there is progression and depth to the story. I could imagine a new reader finding it quite difficult to follow what was going on.

Originality

John French has also written The Crimson Fist novella which featured Sigismund, but this one obviously is far more centred around him. It does stand out somewhat in the horus heresy series as having a clear philosophical exploration at the centre of the book whilst still masterfully exploring the character of Sigismund through various interactions, which makes for an interesting and unique read.

Final score

It’s a great book – with fantastic imagery, interesting dialogue, great cameos from various different characters, all packs into 185 pages. I was conscious of my excitement for this but it actually surpassed the high expectations I felt for it. One of the best entries into the Horus Heresy series that I’ve read in a while. Only some really minor nitpicks prevent this from being a 10.

9/10