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Atlas Infernal Review



This is from Index Nocturnus, whose review and podcast site can be found here.



"Atlas Infernal by Rob Sanders


A 40k novel review by Sam.

Before I start this review, I just want to go on record in saying “Well done Black Library!” “What’s that?” you gasp, “That’s it, he’s finally lost it…” But no! There hasn't been a pure Inquisitorial story since the on-going Eisenhorn/Ravenor/Pariah cycle, and it was a long time between drinks for the last part of that. Prior to Abnett’s masterwork (which I am an unabashed lover of and I believe puts Gaunt in the shade), you have to trek all the way back to Ian Watson’s Jac Draco novels, including their belated omnibus release a few years ago. This is truly bizarre, as Inquisitors are walking story generators and the scope they can bring to a plot is truly unique, outside the usual meatgrinder bolter-porn we are used to from the majority of Black Library books. The concept of ‘Inquisitor’ is so perfect that none other than Lois McMaster Bujold, the First Lady of science fiction, came up with a laboriously tortured ‘Imperial Auditor’ title and backstory for Miles Vorkosigan so he could go off and have adventures (wielding power) in exactly the same way as 40k Inquisitors do by rote. So three cheers for the Black Library in re-introducing this unique aspect of the 40k universe with this novel.

The roots of Atlas Infernal are obvious, and I have mentioned its antecedents in the preceding paragraph. At some points during this novel, I envisioned Sanders grabbing one each of the omnibuses mentioned above, dipping them in acid (the kind that makes you see pink elephants), and then stirring them together in a cauldron, to see how the elements bubble in a new way. First we have Czevak’s trip to the Black Library (Draco did that), and his intermittent battles/rescues with Harlequins (Draco too), while flying all over the galaxy with a Rogue Trader (Eisenhorn) and a Daemonhost (Eisenhorn again), a crazy Navigator (back to Draco), discussing plot points with an inanimate daemon-object (hand up at the back, yes, Gregor and the Pontius); using nulls to kill stuff (Eisenhorn, Ravenor, Bequin), while a Monodominant Inquisitor sort of swings in at the last minute to provide a foe (Eisenhorn); a corrupt Marine (Draco, Eisenhorn in Pariah), hot psyker chicks (Ravenor), and hot Assassin chicks (Draco). Given this list, you scream “Derivative! Get Ye to a Sister Hospitaler nunnery!” (with a grail-shaped beacon … it is a silly place). But no, the whole thing sort of gloms together and works, forging a unique vision from a pile of stewed ideas. And if you are going to steal, steal from the best.

The first chapter of the novel is so ridiculously dense that it took me two or three tries to actually get into this book. The reader is bombarded with a plethora of Inquisitor names, planet names, festival names, ship names, conflict names and non-standard 40k terminology (nexomat, anyone?) and info-dumps about the main characters. By paragraph four, you are assailed with a potted history of the Relictor Space Marine Chapter, and the whole mass is really difficult to absorb (although that could be my poor small brain). Plus the chapters are broken down into Acts and Cantos like it is Dante or Chaucer and not military sci-fi. But we are used to the chapter name flourishes since (you guessed it) Eisenhorn, when Abnett would break down the three acts of each chapter in little snippet headings, for no apparent good reason except He Thought It Was Neat.

Czevak is removed from play and exeunts to the Black Library (literally, not the company in Nottingham, although that would be cool). His long-suffering Interrogator Klute is promoted to Inquisitor during the years of Czevak’s absence, and spends his time roaming the Eye of Terror looking for his erstwhile master. But then the thing takes off! Sanders probably also threw a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy into the mix. You have gag names – Bona Phidia? Epiphani? You have the funniest Freudian cyber-skull in the history of 40k, you have a warp-seer with a fashion fixation, Chucky the child-Daemonhost (he is supposed to be older but I imagined Chucky) and Savlar Chem-Dogs – the most bumbling, hysterically funny Imperial Guard force ever to grace the pages of a Codex. Plus hot vampires and Harlequins and the anti-hero of the piece, Czevak, whose dialogue is just a collection of one-liners strung together. I was 5/5 Gaving and slavering for more.

Czevak is discovered, having escaped the library; and we are told, almost in passing, that Ahriman of the Thousand Sons is after him because of the valuable information in his head, which he absorbed eidetically in the library due to a ‘meme-virus’ which allows him to record all data, like a savant (oh, add that to the ‘pinched’ list under Eisenhorn’s savant, Amos). ‘Meme-virus’ is a very non-40k concept; I was looking up my back issues of Transmetropolitan for something similar, as it sits much better in the scarily advanced technological society of Spider Jerusalem than the quasi-religious arcana of the 41st millennium. I am not sure the Mechanicus Biologis would approve of meme-viruses. The question of ‘what should be part of the Warhammer universe?’ can be extended into another, completely different popular science fiction franchise: imagine a character wearing a very weird and clashing Technicolor Dreamcoat, exiled from his race, with a line in pithy comments, who refuses to use guns but has no problem with his companions blazing away, who can travel in space in time, is continually getting younger (albeit this is liable to change at Christmas 2013), and uses his brains and knowledge to battle terrible enemies. Remind you of anyone?

Then we are off into a surreally executed and amazingly convoluted plot without actually seeing Czevak’s confrontation with Ahriman happen. Okay, take a breath, regroup, because here we hit the biggest problem with Rob Sanders’ writing. His first novel, Redemption Corps, was told in these giant big fat chapters that bounced around between a squad of Imperial Guard escaping from a prison and alternating with the greater plot, which involved Genestealer Orks. I hated it (1½/5 Gavs – see, two reviews for the price of one!). I thought Sanders had only just discovered the colon (:), and he thought an elliptical plot structure seemed a good excuse to write a 30,000 word first chapter, as Black Library at that time were only accepting Chapter 1 of finished novels under their submission guidelines. I thought the ellipsis was unnecessary, the huge chapters weighed the whole thing down and the experiment failed to go off. And we have a similar problem with Atlas Infernal. The core narrative is intercut with pretentious ‘Interregnums’ (interludes, for the rest of us), that zap us back to the stuff that happened to Czevak between him being taken to the Black Library and being restored to Klute and company. Which means that although Ahriman is the primary bad guy of the piece, you only find out why and how in the middle of the third act. This means that Czevak's motivation for two acts is based on him saying “Oh yeah, and Ahriman doesn’t like me.” I don’t know if Sanders thinks that intercutting between past and present makes the narrative more Prestigious and Important to go with his Cantos, like when Iain M. Banks does it (although he does it properly), because he seems pathologically unable to write a story from beginning to end without hopping about all over the place like a kangaroo on roids. Lack of motivation ends in confusion from the reader, and that is a potentially mortal wound for a novel like this.

We also have a ‘Coruscating Clause’ list (see the Index Nocturnus Rules section) – Sanders gets fixated on a single word and decides to use it repeatedly in one section, then never again: “They walked down the twisted tunnel, which was twisting away.” Words include ‘colossal,’ ‘infernal,’ ‘ferrouswood,’ 'lancet' and ’argent.’ In the ‘Pros’ column are some sensational created words, including ‘gorespittle,’ ‘automatron,’ ‘industriascape’ (actually, lots of things –scape),’ ‘dia-log,’ ‘immateriology,’ and ‘adamanticlad.’ We love created words, and these really pep up the narrative; Sanders really took the breaks off with these, and they are incredibly inventive.

Some plot holes do open in a story so serpentine, the basic one involving a webway portal that Czevak keeps on the Rogue Trader’s ship, which fortunately does not look like a blue box. He has a book allowing him to navigate the webway with pinpoint accuracy, he has a webway portal, yet the ship flies practically up to the front door of an Inquisition base so he can walk through the webway and out of the portal in its basement. Why? So they can be chased out of the system with much action and hi-jinks. Czevak could have parked anywhere, on some backwater planet or just randomly in space, gone through, come back and got on with it. But then we wouldn’t have the exciting Star Wars space escape from the Death Star. Apply the ‘webway’ rule to a lot of the plot contrivances and the whole structure starts creaking under its own spaghetti weight.

As you may surmise from this novella of a review, I am seriously conflicted about Atlas Infernal. The set piece action sequences are a lot of fun, particularly the Nurgle-world blimps (everything is better with blimps) and the Khornate kamikaze-starship. The daemonic artifact and its clues are extremely clever, as is the alien-autopsy-on-daemons conceit that causes a lot of the plot. This also reminded me of Douglas Adams: the zillion ideas just burst to life and are so far from the mundane of Black Library fiction they are a credit to a speculative author. I had to go and lie in my hermetically sealed isolation tank for a while, mulling the bizarre, derivative yet original, clunky yet elegant, binary opposed contents of Sanders’ cauldron.

And the final score: 5 Gavs, -2 for the narrative structure, +2 for getting this flawed gem through the publishing process, +½ for making me giggle and gasp and be enthralled by 40k fiction again = 4 1/2. More where that came from Rob, I will eat it up with a spoon."

The Serpent Beneath Review


This is from Index Nocturnus, whose review and podcast site can be found here.


"The Serpent Beneath by Rob Sanders


A Horus Heresy novella review by Sam. Published in The Primarchs.

I am liking the work of Rob Sanders more and more, because unlike most Black Library authors, you never know quite what you are going to get. If he was the money or the box, you would always go for the box. That’s quite a surreal image. In this novella, he is let loose on the Alpha Legion, who are by far the most interesting bunch of Marines when it comes to narratives (unfortunately they are dead boring on the battlefield, but because our job is review stories, we love them here at Index Nocturnus). And you can bet Rob loves them too, they are one of Abnett’s most genius fleshing-out-ofs (I’d say ‘creations,’ but that’s not accurate, so back off geeks).

“Your mission, Jim, should you choose to accept it …”
Diddle dum, diddle dum, dum dum.

The Alpha Legion are the Black Ops sneaky gitz of the Marine legions, and this novella demonstrates that fact even better than Legion or Deliverance Lost (see podcast of the latter). The story opens with Omegon, the ‘good’ Primarch who is surreptitiously battling his twin for the final direction the legion (Horus or the Imperium), discovering that a great big alien pylon that is supposed to channel psyker power (the exact purpose is vague) is being built under cover by his legion. The project must have been started by Alpharius, and Omegon decides to shut it down. He defines the mission (diddle dum) to loyal supporters around a boardroom table, and the narrative continually cuts back to them brainstorming ideas on how to knock out an installation of their own legion, with all the cloak ‘n dagger that implies.

Step one is to find some truly Spy vs Spy legionnaires, Right Little Worms, whom we cut to making a nuisance of themselves with the White Scars on some backwater planet. They then all stop to play basketball.

With the what now?

The squad in question are “running interference on the 915th Expeditionary Fleet.” Evidently the White Scar sergeant has the ball and is passing back and forth on the three-point line. He drops back, SHOOTS and is DENIED by some tenacious D by the Alpha Legion backs. Boo yeah! Alpha have the ball, approaching mid-court, a bodacious pass out wide, in to the hoop and DUNK! Although using jump packs is clearly cheating. The crowd goes wild – literally – they lay about with chainswords. These White Scars are bad losers.

This phrase, "running interference," is so indelibly dated to our own era that it stands out like a gibbon’s cherry-red ass. If only the turmoil of the loyalist and traitor legions could be solved by shooting a few hoops. But no, it’s just the Alpha Legion jive-talking, muva-faka, amongst themselves. What they meant n’ the hood is that the squad of Annoying Little Tits are blowing up canyons to force clans of Orks together, so the Orks can present a united front against the advancing White Scars and keep them busy. The end goal here is that the Khan’s men are too busy fighting greenskins they do not finally figure that there is a Heresy going on. The White Scars are, of course, riding bikes, and get butchered by the Perfidious Little Backstabbers.

Back to the boardroom: we have our operatives, the Weaselly Little Snots, Lord Omegon sir. One of them even looks like Tom Cruise and can go on the movie poster. Check.

Right, next up, we need an Alpha-level psyker, as they grow on trees. Cut to Xalmagundi, this waif little girl wreaking havoc on a whole hive (that’s how it reads!) by toppling entire spires. My understanding of a hive spire is that it is basically a long polnty sky city, population several billion. So this girlie is pretty serious. She throws around spires like Pick Up Sticks but can’t seem to take out a Silent Sisterhood gunship that is trying to bring her in. Probably because it is full of nulls. The Alphas summarily blow the gunship out of the air with a missile launcher, thus Gaining Her Trust.

I told you Rob Sanders was whack, didn’t I? Devious Little Toerag.

Cut back to Omegon: we have the Alpha-level psyker. No, we’re the Alpha legion, she’s the alpha psyker. Who’s on first? Check.

Now we need the Mechanicum magus who has gone rogue and is building the pylon thing (remember that?). Cut to Auguramus the magi wandering through a fauz-Arabian market flanked by four fighty servitors (“Crush, kill, destroy.”). All the Underhanded Little Grots have holo-amulets that allow them to pass as normal humans, which explains a great deal and is a fantastic idea, as it always bothered me how hulking great Marines get away with all these clandestine shenanigans. That’s how. In a sensational piece of sleight of hand, the Dubious Usual Suspects attach their amulets to the servitors, making them look like Marines, so Auguramus panics and yells “Don’t come near me,” thus mindlocking his own guardians. This is one of the cleverest ploys to come out of the Black Library in at least seven centuries, and I was in stitches. Rob Sanders, I drop to my knees and worship your giant pulsing red-veined brain in a jar.

Have magus. Check.

Then we’re into the third act, where Omegon leads his band of Nefarious Little Gimlets into the asteroid where the pylon is. The asteroid is being mined by demiurg, the new Squats of the 40k universe, with huge insect robots, just to add another layer of crazy to the mix. The Lying Little Scrotes have somehow previously gotten Xalmagundi incarcerated in the facility, break her out, point her at the (bad) Alpha Legion starship hangar and set her to kill. After much double, triple and quadruple-think, they manage to knock out the installation, stop anyone escaping and wipe out all of the Alpha Legionnaires who are manning the base. Omegon then pots Xalmagundi, who has suddenly become surplus to requirements.

But wait, there’s more …

Omegon then reveals he isn’t actually Omegon, but one of the Primarch’s offsiders who drank the blood of Omegon and thought he was. It’s a play on the whole “I am Alpharius” riff, but taken to another level. It turns out that the Snivelling Little Scuzzbuckets are not going to be extracted from their mission, they are there to die with everyone else and tie up any loose ends. It’s a short and brutal life in the Alpha Legion, even when you do accomplish your mission (diddle dum).

.

The novella is sometimes a little hard to follow as it is just so dense, and is full of the Sanders hallmark cool made-up words and perverse proper names. We have verminipeds, ratcrap, ghostspire, neckflesh (which is like ‘mouth-parts’), immeteorology, counterclonically, auspectra, opti-sockets, assimularum, subalterix (and his friend Obelix), astrotelecommunications, suprahormones, humpshuttles (sounds rude) and magnareactors. And my personal favourite, the Seventh-Suckle Parthenari Shieldmaidens. Gotta get me some of them some time.

Rob Sanders ekes out a pitiful living as the Head of English at a British secondary school. Sounds ghastly. But speaking personally, why did I never get an English teacher who wrote cracky pixie-stick military scifi on the side? I blame the Australian school system. If I had, I may have ended up writing this stuff, rather than reviewing it. Sniff. 4¾/5 well-earned, a fraction of a point off for intentional fouling. Robert. More please."

Cold Light of Day Review


This is from Index Nocturnus, whose review and podcast site can be found here.

"Cold Light of Day by Rob Sanders


A Warhammer short story review by Leon. Published in Tales of the Archive.

This story was previously published in Inferno! After finishing this story I was confused. We have Kislev, a whaling ship, the high seas, an heiress assuming her father's place as one of the heads of a company, an Ahab/Moby Dick theme, the Marie Celeste, nefarious double-crosses and other shenanigans. A lot happens in this story, covered in about 24 pages of narrative, but the changes happen speedily enough that just as you think this is a predictable tale of man vs whale, everything is flipped on its head.

While, like Moby Dick, revenge is a strong theme, the conclusion of the story sees it explored from another angle. However, I can't shake the feeling that this was a pitch for a longer tale which was shoe-horned into a short story when not taken up. Having said that, Sanders can write. He sets his scenes well and manages to build characters quickly and, with the captain at least, set layers of personality which establish a well-rounded character, albeit one of simple motivations. One can almost taste the sea spray and shiver along with the crew, as they sail ever further north. I would love for this to have been a novel and allow Sanders room to round out one or two other characters and explore his themes further. 4/5"

Distant Echoes of Old Night Review


This is from Index Nocturnus, whose review and podcast site can be found here.


"The reason the Death Guard never get a Heresy showing is they are basically boring dog-soldiers, who walk up to you very slowly and kill you, regardless of where you are or who you are.

But that is the charm of the Death Guard, and why they are my favourite Marine Chapter. They don’t flap about on jump packs like Night Lords or try to sing you to death like Emperor’s Children, they Just. Kill. You. By whatever means possible. Sanders has summed this up beautifully in this short story, which involves a Death Guard Chaplain and a squad of slightly unhinged Death Guard with cool toys trying to dig out fortified Imperial Fists from their crashed starship (designation unknown). Just like the gas on Isstvan, which is frowned upon by pretty much every other Marine Chapter, they use rad grenades and burning phosphor to kill the opposition. Flat. Stony. Dead. They don’t worry about whether blood is spilt for Khorne, or whether there are magic artefacts to harvest for Tzeentch, or if you are scared enough like Curze’s nancys; they use any and all means at their disposal, and it is this bludgeoning, humourless unstoppable force that makes them both credible and really fun to read about.

The hubris of the Death Guard is also demonstrated by Sanders, as they bomb the Fists with this blue clingy burning phosphex stuff (more of that on the tabletop please!) and then force themselves to go in after them and leave no one alive, as that was their original mission. The ship sinks and takes them all down with it, and the Chaplain has a last crisis of confidence about Mortarion being a big wuss, as he dies. Which is a shame, as it undermines the character’s sheer bloody-minded determination – over the brink of insanity – that the author had effectively built up prior. Of course the Death Guard are the bad guys and have to lose, but it may have been more effective and spine-chilling if they held to their beliefs right up to the end.

More Death Guard please, Mr Black Library, sir. There’s a full point of personal bias added into the final score – 4/5 "

Army of One Review


This is from Index Nocturnus, whose review and podcast site can be found here.


"Army of One by Rob Sanders


A 40k eblurt review by Sam.

This blurt has made a liar out of me, because below in the review for Immortalis I stated that it was practically impossible to write a convincing three act structure within the blurt format, and it was much better suited to doing one scene and doing it well.

This story is the ascension of an Eversor Assassin (the particularly psychopathic combat explosive assassin) from ganger to pit fighter to crazed killing machine. The ganger introduction is your standard Necromunda-style stuff, nothing too interesting there. The pit fighter paragraph is really creepy as it introduced the ‘bloated Baron,’ which immediately evokes an image in my head of floaty Baron Harkonnen from David Lynch’s Dune movie, and there is the very subtle intimation of sexual abuse.

The jump to becoming an Eversor is summed up in one sentence about an ‘offworlder’ which is easy to miss, and I did have to read it twice to pick up that some senior Assassin talent-spotter had come and taken the guy off to be trained. But it is easy to miss and maybe could have done with slightly more exposition.

The narrative cycles back so that – naturally enough – the target of the newly born Eversor is the Baron. The narrative is dense and one needs to read it carefully, but is well worth it. Beautifully slain with a neural gauntlet, 4 ½/5"

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Czevak to the Dark Tower Came Review


This is from Index Nocturnus, whose review and podcast site can be found here.

"Czevak to the Dark Tower Came by Rob Sanders


A 40k eblurt review by Leon. Published in the 2012 Advent Calendar.

This blurt is based, of course, on Robert Browning's very famous poem, 'Childe Rolande to the Dark Tower' came; as if this poem hasn't had enough milking over the years. Not only has Stephen King had a good go at it, in all sorts of media - including comics - it was also the subject of The Five Doctors Doctor Who 25th anniversary special. Tried to slip one by us, didn't you Rob?

It is a moment in time with the eponymous inquisitor, subject of Sanders' novel Atlas Infernal (see review). Despite the character's existence elsewhere, Sanders includes enough detail so that we begin to know and understand Czevak in a small way, and this blurt works well as a standalone story. Sanders crams the words into this blurt (on my device it registers as being a whole page longer than other blurts, which is a lot when there is only about four pages of content once the licence, bio and book pimping is accounted for). He weaves a rich tapestry from the moment Czevak bursts from the webway into the streets of a 'college' moon at great velocity on the back of a jetbike.

Czevak's harlequin coat and the Atlas Infernal are referenced; always nice to see the iconic devices get a mention. It transpires Czevak spent time studying at the college and has recently learned information about an alien statue that had been on display in the Dark Tower of the title, a repository of 'dangerous' artifacts and information. As he slows his jetbike, Czevak sees that the populace has committed mass suicide. He climbs the Dark Tower and notices signs of bolter fire - his worst fears are confirmed when he comes across a psychic trace of Ahriman, villainous sorcerer of the Thousand Sons and Czevak's arch-nemesis. Ahriman has beaten Czevak to the punch, destroying the statue to see the future, an act which led to a massive psychic backlash that caused visions of despair leading to suicide on a planetary scale. The blurt ends with Czevak dusting himself off and preparing to continue his rivalry with the sorcerer.

Phew, I'm exhausted. Sanders' writing style in his Czevak stories is dense; crafted to be elevated above previous Black Library fare in terms of quality of prose. In a novel form this works, in a blurt form, well, it felt a little much. Coupled with the dark themes of suicide and an Inquisitor being thwarted by his foe, it makes for a surprisingly heavy five pages and something different from the blurts reviewed so far. 4/5"

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COLLATING...

"The first story of his I read was Cold Light of Day which appeared in Inferno! magazine #40 - and very good it was too." - Author Jonathan Green

"Legion of the Damned - Blood for the blood god !!! 5 Stars As another one of the space marine battles stories released it was nice to see that one of the less written about legions( Angrons sons) was part of the story.The story was well told with the main character The Scourge being someone you could get to like as he had to deal with hatred from his own brothers, other chapters, the enemy as well as his own personal daemons!!! Not to mention having to deal with pushy mortals as well !!! The pace of the story stopped you from getting bored and the were enough supporting characters to give a good round story. The apocathery being a sensible voice to balance the Scourge's emotional reactions and the squad whips adding abit of friction within the ranks of the 5th company. In future hope to see more of the World Eaters as they hack and slash their way through the Imperium of Man! Us worshippers of Khorne need to read about our hero's as well!!! " - ChainSwordSmile

"Legion of the Damned - Gripping! 5 Stars. Found this book utterly gripping. Could part foresee the plot but dammit I just had to find out how it went. Look forward to more takes of those Damned Legionnaires!" - IshyVishy

"Legion of the Damned - The world in question is another nice addition to the war hammer universe" - The Blowfish

"Distant Echoes of Old Night. 4 Stars. Great story. Well written and it's about Death Guard. Not enough books about them. Wish it was longer." - MagicInc.

"The Primarchs - A collection of decent short stories. 1 great (Alpha Legion at its twistiest). Worth a read." - Oncewerelaziers

"The Iron Within - Quite an interesting story about the difficult choice between loyalty Astartes Primarch and the Emperor. As a thriller - above all praise. As an extension of the history of the Iron Legion soldiers - sound." - Uhu

"The Iron Within - Iron Warriors - well-known masters of the siege, and their knowledge of this craft requires not only the Imperium, but the Warmaster Horus, in revolt against the Emperor. In this story, the first time it comes to the psychology and methods of warfare of the Legion, veterans who are faced with a choice: to protect against their own brothers to the Legion his mountain stronghold in a remote colony of the Imperium, or go against the decision of their Primarch Perturabo but remain loyal to the Emperor. 10/10" - Evengar

"The Iron Within - With Rob Sanders making his debut in the Horus Heresy series, The Iron Within tells the tale of the Siege of Lesser Damantyne, one of many IV Legion strongholds scattered throughout the galaxy. The primary difference being however, this one remains loyal to the Emperor. Warsmith Barabas Dantioch is lord of the Iron Warriors garrison on Lesser Damantyne, and architect of the Schadenhold, a fortress of epic architecture and design that is testament to the skill and mind of Dantioch. When the Legion returns to its world, the crippled Warsmith Dantioch is forced to choose between loyalty to his Legion and Primarch or to his Emperor… Rob’s short is a good one, an interesting take on a Legion never before featured in the Heresy series. Interesting characters, a good plot and vivid descriptions that generate a good mental image." - Child of the Emperor












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From the Web




"I am half-way through the awesome Archaon: Everchosen book which arrived on my shelves last Saturday. I am totally enthralled by the history of this character and have hardly been able to put it down!" - W Derby (Archaon: Everchosen)

"I enjoyed it and finished it in a single night." - Welshoppo (Archaon: Everchosen)

" 'And how about that Alpha Legion caper novella, eh?' - Mossy Toes
'Yeah, I loved that. The twins really do seem to have their own separate agendas.' " -Viking Phil (The Serpent Beneath)

"Very nice and straightforward story. I never thought I would read (hear) some cues of love in grim dark future. I can recommend this audio book. The sounds of animals (Tyranids) were surprisingly rooooooaaaarrriiiing." - Premysl Fiala (The Path Forsaken)