The Lion: Son of the Forest

By Mike Brooks

The second Primarch has retured. In the 41st Millenium, sees the return of Lion El’Jonson, to tie in with the release of the physical Games Workshop model.

Shocked by the state of the Imperium, and the pall of despair that seems to have befallen it, he nevertheless throws himself into action, with his rational, measured approach. This is the approach Mike Brooks took with the book, too, portraying the Lion’s personality well without overdoing it, and telling an interesting story that is fairly familiar but one which has interesting characters and perspectives.

The book tees the Lion up against the chaos warband The Ten Thousand Eyes led by Seraphax, a chaos lord sorcerer, and Baelor, his adjutant known as ‘The Imposter’. As a chaos warband, they have distinct enough characters to be engaging as antagonists. Indeed, thankfully Seraphax’s motivation goes beyond just obtaining the powerful fantasty-sci-fi object, which I won’t get into to avoid spoilers.

The Fallen

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Lion confronts some of his fallen sons too. This latter aspect made for some of the most interesting parts of the book: decisions of the Fallen whether to rejoin their Primarch or to oppose him. The Fallen, Risen and interesting chaos characters mean that from both protagonist and antagonist angles you enjoy the read and are keen to see how things develop, even if you’re not a huge Dark Angels fan.

As for the first legion characters, Zabriel is a fairly junior Dark Angel, a former Destroyer. His perspective gives an interesting middle ground between the mighty heroes such as the Primarch, or sorcerous chaos lord. One section described how he viewed his teachers in training, something that – even he as a space marine could only aspire to. For sections, he is the first person perspective.

Lion El’ Jonson isn’t too overdone. He certainly feels powerful, but Brooks ensures he doesn’t lose all sense of danger by having hyperbolic primarch power and plot armour. I’d say Brooks strikes the balance perfectly here. The Lion also comes across more reflective, measured and caring for his sons, adding greater depth behind his brute force. He muses on being raised up as a God, for example:

In his lowest moods he has considered ordering punitive measures against the most vocal proponents of his deification, but then he remembers Guilliman’s account of Monarchia. If people are so eager to find a god nearby, rather than the distant figure of the Emperor on Terra, then better Lion El’ Jonson than the alternatives.

Chaos characters embody their evil corruption in weird and wonderful ways, especially the fantastic Markog, a former chaplain who, when he talks, has the subtle sound of a choir of screaming voices. Or there’s Urienz, whose voice by Timothy Watson is suitably disturbing.

It was great to see the beastmen pop up. They’ve begun to get more attention in recent 40k, and although they’ve always existed in the lore as a form of mutant, it is cool to see them pop up more and more.

I read a mix of books, ebooks and audiobooks, and here I listened to the audiobook. A strength of Warhammer books on audio is some of the narrators are excellent such as Jonathan Keeble or Timothy Watson, the latter reading this one with a host of varying voices for the characters. I loved the performance, and actually see it as an advantage of getting the audiobook rather than a detriment when the delivery is this good.

Descriptions are good, and it was nice to see thought has been put into the varying attitudes of the characters. Baelor’s balancing acts to appease Seraphax, or the Lion in dealing with different threats are all well described without feeling tedious.

Most of the action is decent enough. One extended scene towards the end of the book, where the Lion seems to have some kind of vision against multiple, ‘ghosts, is how I’ll say it to avoid spoiling it, was excellent and my favourite part of the book. It gave a good sense of the Lion’s personal dilemma, a dilemma of power and responsibility and self-esteem. The action never feels overdrawn or boring, and again strikes the right balance between maintaining a flow and moving back to the characters and story.

Some parts featuring other characters at the very end of the book felt bizarrely speedy, and felt like it could have had more time spent on it. But having said this, more time was spent on the ‘ghosts’ section, which was well worth it. As a result, its quite difficult to critique this book as it doesn’t do anything majorly wrong. There’s probably room for improvement with the pacing at times, as some sections there felt like not much was going on, but this is fairly pedantic when the book strikes a great balance of characters, story and action generally.

Final Score

I suspect many will be Dark Angel fans or fans aiming to keep up-to-date with events in 40k that read this book, and perhaps although the revelations aren’t super profound in this book, its strong blend of action, description and reflection make it a strong read. Although it perhaps could have had more to the plot, or more going on for the wider 40k story, it was a very enjoyable read that struck an excellent balance between scene setting, focus on characters and exploring the Dark Angels Primarch and his legion.

8/10