Warhawk

by Chris Wraight

This is a review of book VI of the Horus Heresy Siege of Terra series.

I feel like I’ve said this for the last three Siege of Terra books, but the inner walls are breached. We really are in the final books now, which is quite exciting. Chris Wraight, who is the main author for Space Wolves and the White Scars, amongst other factions, pens this one. I think he’s got a great track record, too, and is possibly a little underrated, which bodes well for this book.

It’s a similar mix of characters, too; although pitched as the Khan versus Mortarion, White Scars versus Death Guard, there’s more plots and duels here. We follow a Sons of Horus captain, Valdor, even briefly the alpha legion, the crew of a Leman Russ battle tank, it all comes to a head weaving these narratives that have occurred often over several books – if not many more. Some of the longer character and narrative arcs see us encounter Kharn (the Khornate Kharn, I don't mean 'Khan' here - although he of course is present too), Sigismund, Basilio Fo – one of my favourites, Oll and John Grammaticus.

I still believe that the breadth of Siege of Terra has been too broad, rather than giving the chance to focus on the story within a single entry in the series. I will say it felt less noticeable in Warhawk than some of the other books, but it remains an aspect of this book.

Warhawk stood out in other areas too. A couple of early chapters set the scene well, introducing a few key characters and the scope of the battle. I really enjoyed some of Wraight’s descriptions. I remember at least one description of the inferno caused by battle mentioned in chapter 4. The quality of this scene-setting has varied through the Siege of Terra series, but was done quite effectively here.

This book shows that what is familiar can still be exciting. Naranbaatar battling an intimidating demon was quite memorable. Some of the encounters – which I don’t want to spoil for you but I’ve already mentioned many of the key characters - were really quite brilliant.

Some of the newer introductions were strong too. Kaska and the crew of the Leman Russ were an interesting standpoint, slightly different to the usual, albeit there have been books such as Baneblade of similar ilk for Warhammer 40,000.

Paired with these though, were less memorable parts. Sometimes White Scars jetbike runs seemed as brief as the time you have to shoot them and not in a good way. One scene with Sanguinius felt shoehorned in, as if to just make sure he appeared somewhere in the book.

There were some corny and confusing moments too. Erebus gets repeatedly called ‘demon-boy’, and even as someone who likes Word Bearers, I have no attachment - trust me - to Erebus and yet this felt a bit jarring. There are also some childish jibes between the Primarchs. I guess these were attempts to inject humour, but they felt quite out of place and fell a little flat. Most bizarrely, there was, on pages 399 and 401, (of the large paperback) some odd choices which just served to make things more complicated, where one scene ended on a sentence seemingly continuing into the next scene but actually being completely unrelated. For example:

‘No peace now.’ Sigismund said, calmly enough, but with that eerie cause of certainty that could chill even those who fought on his side. ‘No peace, not in this world, not in the void beyond, until I find the First Captain.

(There is a line space here in the book to signify moving to another scene)

They found the First Captain easily enough, in the end

This latter scene is talking about Typhus, which is not whom Sigismund is talking about. A similar incongruence can be found on page 401. I guess this was an attempt to make some kind of flow but it just serves to confuse the reader.

The action is described well, despite this mixed bag, and I often like Chris Wraight’s plot structure. One clash of two martial warriors is left on a cliff-hanger at the end of one chapter, or when a night lord captures his prey you begin to rip through the paragraphs as you know all will not be as it seems. The tension is sometimes well achieved due to well organised scenes and plot developments, even if, as I said earlier, there’s perhaps too many different threads to follow.

“You exist in several futures,” the traitor told him, in a voice that was neither angry nor sinister, but just empty, as if its soul had been harrowed to the bone by the things it had done. (Pp.277 Warhawk)

It takes a while for much gravitas to be felt, though, from all these smaller plot developments. When the battles between the White Scars and the Death Guard; Sigismund and the foe reach their apogee though, the book really does excel. In the aftermath of all the death the book conveys a deep sadness, a change amongst the associated legions. It just takes about 350 pages to get to this point. There is a sense of gravitas, sadness and more here, and you care about the characters, and what’s going on. If the whole book was like this it would score even higher.

The apogee is partly achieved by how well Wraight writes the White Scars. It really was a match made in heaven (pun intended), with their feeling unique, honourable, passionate and skilful, the books he writes on them are consistently enjoyable. Similarly, the death guard were written well with an implacability and clear change from being honourable and loyal to dispassionate liars. That’s the thing about this book, the white scars are written brilliantly, and their parallels and contrasts with the Death Guard are excellent. But the book doesn’t maintain this level throughout.

Final score

This is a complex book to analyse, because it’s so fantastic at certain points but then quite routine at others. Chris Wraight is great at injecting legion flavour, and this is a good example of that. But we have the same old problem of too much ‘warm-up’ just to ensure cameos appear. It really does get good at about 350 pages in, and it could be a truly brilliant book if it maintained this section throughout, and if the Siege of Terra books had been structured differently. Having said that, the small bursts of action, imagery and interactions are fun and engaging to read. It’s a good book, competitive and possibly the ‘best’ 8/10 rating I’ve given in the siege of terra series – but this one still suffers more from the wider plot and story design approach. The fact it excels so much at moments and frustrates – albeit less frequently – means it still manages to get a very strong score.

8/10