Great Start to the Waaaaghus Heresy

I had some trepidation picking this up and don't think I would have if I hadn't grabbed it in a sale and was finally going through my backlog, but this was a genuinely great start to an event series and I actually want to check the rest out now.

While it's impossible to replicate the Dark King and the Lightning Tower in a bottle of the Horus Heresy with it's history, characters, mythology, and the rest, this has great writing with a mix of perspectives, locations, and action with the absolute shambles of the aristocratic fascist Council of Terra and it's many unfriendly appendages.

I can only hope the rest of the series is as good.

I'm a total Toby Longworth fangirl, but I always forget how great Gareth Armstrong is and this is fantastic performance. ( )

Shockingly good. It's amazing how much better 40k gets with a touch of Discworld-ish wryness mixed into the grimdark.

Ever since Rogue Trader, 40k books and fluff have subtly been buying into their own emo-seriousness to the point you now wonder if the creators actually get how ridiculously the Imperium's fascism contributes to the dystopian aspect of the setting. Abnett is one of the few Black Library authors that can spin a good turn of fluff and inject some vibrancy of 40ks origins back into the universe. ( )