http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/3...gion/?p=4846761
"СПОЙЛЕРЫ"Yep, this was good. Freighted with a lot of expectations but still delivered. There were a surprising amount of 'firsts' in it for the second book in the series, which I suppose should've been expected.
Khayon was great. Without spoiling any details, he's evolved and changed quite a bit. It's not as though his character development ceases now he's a privileged member of the Ezekarion. To a degree he's got what he was after in ToH - purpose and brotherhood - but he's not 'safe' or content, so to speak. It's a great look at how it's not a given that he'll retain the favour of Abaddon
Some rambling and too-lengthy thoughts on a few minor surprises and interesting points (spoilers abound):
- The appearance of the Warp Ghosts. Not a huge subject but this was fascinating, both for taking a pretty standard CSM renegades faction and making them interesting and for the time-warpery shenanigans. Made me think of the Blind Oracle from John French's Ahriman books; not 'just' astartes but not on the typical champion's path to daemonhood.
Something weird, certainly not human anymore, and not easily reducible to a set of keywords and special rules. Expanding the range of weirdness and unknowability that chaos offers. It's compelling in a mythical way, as Charon-esque ferrymen and gives them more depth than simply johnny-come-lately raiders when set against the heresy veterans.
- Having Vortigern, a Fallen DA, as one of Abaddon's earliest lieutenants was a nice touch. Shame that Valicar and Ceraxia took a bit of back seat - would’ve liked to know more about how they lost Gallium and joined up - but it’s a big cast and we have a while. It’s kind of lampshaded by ADB when Khayon says that his account will gain nothing by relating every tale of a warband bending the knee or being crushed as they’re largely the same.
- Relationships between the Ezekarion. Khayon isn’t exactly secure in his role. I liked how he could consciously know of the importance of his role as psyker-assassin and executioner but can still feel sidelined, in turn causing Lheor to stare at him and remind him that some of them actually have to lead armies of berzerkers and fight for a living.
Lheor’s matured well. Still the same old brash arsehole but wearing the mantle of command pretty well, certainly better than Telemachon.
It was fascinating to see how Telemachon and Khayon are at a strange intermediary stage. Cool with each other, the events of ToH more or less forgiven, but Telemachon still idly backstabbing and bristling at Khayon’s standing with Abaddon. We knew that they end up trying to kill each other multiple times but now we know that this was closer to a full-scale civil war in the legion. Will be interesting to see their not-friendship sour, probably over Nefertari.
The other members were fairly lightly sketched in but Amurael was a decent straight man for the others to bounce off of.
- Morianna is suitably dislikeable. Already you can see the factionalism that she introduces or embodies. Shades of Morgana or maybe Nimue in Cornwall’s Arthur books.
- If the last book was a detailed look at life in the Eye for warbands, this is a detailed look at how the Black Legion functions or does not function. How it holds together, what warlords are rewarded, how it fights for territory, how resources are gathered. Felt like it was worn more lightly than before though. ToH really had to ram home the important point that the SoH are not the Black Legion, for example, and there’s none of that here.
- A portrait in failure. It’s a brave choice to make your POV character genuinely screw up multiple times and have his friends and allies actually call him out on it and even question his worth. It’s that theme of failure, rather than betrayal, that’s picked up here but also appeared strongly in The First Heretic and the Master of Mankind. It’s a tenuous position Khayon’s in; if he’s shown himself to be useless, he’s not just vulnerable to others of the Ezekarion putting him down, he’s vulnerable to Abaddon shrugging and having his throat slit. It’s a far cry from all the talk of brotherhood in ToH but it feels realistic. He’s a lord of the legion but his closeness to Abaddon won’t save him if he can’t justify himself.
He’s lost his drive too. Now that he has his brotherhood and his purposeful role in the legion, well… he’s not got the same push or ambition or burning hatred driving him on that Abaddon has. He’s not coasting but his heart’s not in it until Abaddon really starts forcing him.
You see it as well in his duel with Daravek’s champion, where he is acknowledged as a pretty poor warrior in single combat.
- Sigismund. As good as hoped, a well-drawn fight that didn’t linger too much over the individual blade strokes. I liked the line about how age had only brought him from a superfluously skilled warrior down to the level of the greatest champions of chaos. Some cunning toying around with fan-service, pulling our viewpoint away at the moment of the final blow, only to return to it later as a flashback. Makes you wonder if Sigismund’s body ever found its way back to the Black Templars fleets or if the High Lords ‘lost’ it or if he’s got a grand tomb on Terra.
- Some good thoughts on the difference between being a skilled 1-1 fighter versus… everything else. Abaddon is strong, a breaker of shieldwalls and a king of battle, crashing into enemy lines like a terminator-clad juggernaut, but Khayon admits that Telemachon or Vortigern, the fallen DA warrior, could comfortably beat him in a duel. All this is before Drach’nyen of course, but it was still interesting.
Khayon can unmake someone with sorcery but in a plain contest of swords, he’s not typically going to win. Can’t help wonder if this to some degree a response to criticism of him being such a powerful psyker in ToH, feels like balancing the character a little. He certainly takes his lumps in this book.
- The scene where Khayon out and out asks Abaddon if he’s Horus’s clone or clone-son or something Bile created. True to form, Abaddon just laughs regally and asks if it really changes anything.
- The whole book has an even longer perspective than ToH. ToH had that with glimpses of the then-future fight with SIgismund and mention of Lheor eventually dying on Mackan but it was weighted towards the end of the book and there’s more reflection here.
Khayon’s dread of Drach’nyen, seeing the talon of Horus as a precursor of sorts, and the division that Moriana sows concerning the will of the gods as a precursor of the disagreements that the sword will foster amongst the Ezekarion. Flashs forwards to what Abaddon will eventually be, surrounded by choirs of daemons, impossible to look at without causing psykers pain.
- I get the impression that this is the Abaddon book ADB wanted to write, the fruition of a lot of the stuff he’s said on his blog and in interviews and on the B&C. ToH was the story to get us here, the background setting and the character setup.
This has less… lore, if that’s the right word, than others. Less metaphysics of the warp than ToH, less exploration of the different angles of a single character than Master of Mankind. Khayon has his very Tizcan little lectures to his listerners but it’s more obviously a second book in that it’s more obviously driven by plot and stuff happening.
Normally that’s not what I’m after but it also felt more ‘mature’, I guess, in its writing? More technically confident, more natural in its flow, less stopping to explain this bit of character background or this aspect of the background.
More writerly tricks, like delving into Khayon semi-possessing other characters (ADB’s definitely done this type of thing before, thinking of the montage in Helsreach), more jumping back and forward in time and how Khayon’s narration is situated, more willingness to leave gaps for the reader to fill in, more confidence that readers have a good handle on the ambiguity of the setting and how different characters can have different perspectives on events that they were both at. It’s good stuff.
- That little line about Abaddon finally tiring of Cadia and wiping it off the galactic map like excrement off his boot was delightfully arrogant but also felt like something slotted in neatly and perfunctorily later in the writing process to fit with 8th ed. I’m probably wrong, seeing as everything has been in development for so long, but it stood out a little.
