"In Midnight Clad"
This is the call to arms, to armor up for The Night Lords. In the setting of Warhammer 40K they are one of the Traitor Legions. They were once one of the most prized of the Warriors of The Emperor of Man. Once led by one of the Emperor's Sons, their Primarch Konrad Curze (The Night Haunter). Now they are Traitors to their Race and their former comrades.Their legion was raised on the night shrouded world of Nostramo where their Primarch can come to rest. The Legion was raised from murderers, killers, thieves, gangers and worse.
Among the Traitor Legions, they are not nice people.
By the standards of the time, of the setting, they are not nice people at all.
One step above mass serial killers, barely a step above.
They are the Night Lords, and they are one of the cooler Legions in the Warhammer 20K Universe.
About the Book Soul Hunter
The story tells of the tale of Talos, once an Apothecary (Healer) of his Space Marines Chapter. Now he is the de facto leader of a badly under strength squad. Once a part of the 10th Company, he now is plagued with prophetic visions and the captain of the ship he is on is posessed by a Warp Entity and is no longer human in any sense. The other members of his squad are as reliable and interesting as one can make an engineered super soldier.
The setting is familiar. The Imperium and the endless wars that plague it.
The protagonist is different. This is the first Apothacary in the spotlight that I am aware of. As it is a character that would skin his foes alive to increase their terror makes it a little different at the best. Still this is one of the more fleshed out, more realized Space Marines characters in the overall setting in a long while.
The novel deals with the politics and machinations as the Covenant of Blood and its complement of Night Lords are drawn into a series of battles that are aimed at conquering several worlds in a planetary system. One of the main villains in the setting, Abaddon the Despoiler, a Mighty Warlord of Chaos and essentially the leader of the largest remaining portion of the Heretical Traitor Legions, seeks to add more materials to his warfleets and armies.
Pulled into the schemes by the aspirations of the leader of the ship, as well as his own prophetic powers, Talos becomes central to the plot and eventually begins to realize his past and future are different than that of his fellow Night Lords. With much battle, many wounds, losses as well as victories, Soul Hunter turns into a fight for survival in a universe that is completely against them.
People in the Wh40K setting tend to be very One Dimensional. Especially those like The Space Marines or Inquisitors or any character related to the Adeptus Mechanicus or Adeptus Ministorum. This is in part due to the setting (a Feudal Dark Ages with Ignorance and anyone different is wrong and very like to end up at the stake burnt as a witch) and due to the theme of Unending War and Enemies everywhere. Soul Hunter is no different in this respect. Most of The Space Marines are one dimensional, most of the crew of the ship that Talos serves on, The Covenant of Blood, do not even have names, being too low in the hierarchy to rate that. There are several normal humans that are in the book as essentially indentured servants (for life) to the Traitor Marines. Both end up surrendering their own names and are named for when they were taken into service with the crew. So it is a very dehumanizing setting.
When the rules for the Wargame first came out, the Rogue Trader edition, I read through them and I found it to be one of the most bleak and disheartening settings in fiction that I had read. Since them I have remained a loyal fan of the ideas and the overall landscape. Gothic Horror meets Genetically Engineered Soldiers fighting an impossible war across all of space, with monsters and hidden dangers all around. In the almost 30 years it has been around the setting has deepened and the material has increased.
This is truly one of the better WH40K novels I have read over the decades. It really tells a great story, full of old fashioned GW Battles, with a very different point of view. Few are the stories told of the Traitor Legions, outside of the Horus Heresy Series and the Soul Drinkers, so this is a different part of the 40k setting compared to most of the novels I have read.
With that said, of the well over 30 Novels, intermittent issues over the last 20 years of the gaming oriented magazine White Dwarf, this is one of the more memorable novels. There are two sequels that I am now on the hunt for. It is a worthy addition of a WH40K fan's library. I am definitely on the hunt for the follow on two novels, Blood Reaver and Void Stalker.
Written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Cover Art by Jon Sullivan
Published by Black Library Publications in 2010
My copy was purchased in Books A Million on 06/17/12 and it cost $ 8.99 before Discount and Taxes
