Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3065 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 416 pages

Synopsis
This is the next novel in the ground-breaking, bestselling series that tells the story of the Horus Heresy - the civil war that nearly tore the human Imperium apart, ten thousand years ago. This novel explores the early history of the Dark Angels Legion and their Primarch Lion El'Johnson. When news of Horus' treachery reaches Caliban, the loyalties of this proud and mysterious Legion are tested to the limit, wth tragic consequences.

Customer Reviews

Not that great
I'm enjoying the Horus Heresy series but this is the weakest so far and does lend itself to the suspicion that books are being published to cash in on the fact that the Heresy is so vast in scope the series could easily stretch to 100 novels or more.

Most of this novel is set on Caliban before the Emperor arrives and thus lays the psychological groundwork for what we know the future will bring. The idea of the planet's warrior code and the descriptions of the world are well written but the big failing is the dialogue which is pretty terrible. On page 65 we have the line "I'm not fat protested Eliath I'm just big boned" which as a fan of South Park made me laugh out loud and didn't exactly encourage my expectations for the rest of the novel.

In short, only buy if you are a "completist" (as I am) because it's not a very good novel on the whole and doesn't really belong in the same company as the rest of the Horus series.

horus heresy or not???
following on from the great book which was Fulgrim (5star book) i was looking forward to this one, (spoiler alert). Fans of warhammer 40,000 crave to know more about the background of the dark angels and all there secrets etc, and you wont be disappointed with the inclusion of primarch lion el'johnson , planet caliban (the rock) etc but we are talking about a book set in the horus heresy, and sadly this is why i rate this book 2 stars, its not aweful because you get snippets of backstory and how secretive the dark angels really are, BUT and its a big BUT!!! there isnt a single thing in this book to do with the heresy and just when the book starts picking up pace it ends (90% of book with no marines) 10% of rushed writing. This book should of been a standalone book. Buy for completions sake but be warned its not what the cover title says itis.

I tend to agree with much of the sentiment of the other reviews
Quite honestly I don't know what the point of this book is. It's set before all of the other novels in the heresy series and has no relevance to the other books at all. It has only the vaguest reference to the Dark Angels chapter that it claims to reveal all the hidden truths about. Primarch Lion El' Jonson is treated more as a subsidary character who remains on the periphery of the story all the way until the end. It seems to be the story of some guy who nobody's ever heard of or cares about becoming an astartes. The books not the worst 40K novel I've read but it just isn't anywhere near as interesting as the others in the series. The other Heresy books enlighten you about the main players in the Horus Heresy that have always interested me since I first got into 40K all those years ago; Horus, Dorn, Sanguinius, Fulgrim. Not to mention giving a real sense of imperial history. This one just seems a needless spin off. I'll say no more.