HH: Age of Darkness

A minor sidestep away from the Dark Eldar posts. When I picked up my 5 Wracks to start my DE army, I also picked up the latest book in the Horus Heresy series: Age of Darkness. This is the second compendium of short stories in the Horus Heresy series, the first being the underwhelming Tales of Heresy. There were a couple of good tales in ToH, but overall I don't think it added much, with more misses than hits. I feel Age of Darkness is largely the same.

What has made the HH series so good, is the depth of character given to the Space Marines. The run-of-the-mill action narrative is largely epiphenomenal (thanks, Will Self) to the character development of the main Astartes protagonists. Giving frailty, doubts, torments to warriors who are mostly described as all conquering stoic beings isn't easy, but we care when splits start appearing and we see loyalties changing, due to the superb work of the authors in making us do so - perhaps best illustrated in Fulgrim by Graham McNeil; watching the Emperor's Childen inevitable descent into chaos is both horrifying and fascinating.

And this is where short stories struggle - finding the balance between providing enough of a plot to make it valuable, and enough character development to make the reader care what happens in the plot, is not easy. And mostly I found myself not bothered, even where there is potential in the plotlines.

The standout story (I'm struggling for another word, sorry if repeat story relentlessly) for me is by Rob Sanders (The Iron Within). This is centered on the Iron Warriors, not necessarily the easiest legion to write about I would suggest, but Rob does a fine job of writing a good plot with solid characters. The main Warsmith is given physical weaknesses, which makes him a refreshing change from the usual adjective laden sentences depicting perfect warriors. His apparent vulnerability allows us to feel a little closer to him, and if I think about the whole book now, Warsmith Dantioch might be one of the few names I can recall. I'd echo someone on the Black Library site - let Rob have a go at a full HH novel.

The biggest disappointment, is Little Horus by Dan Abnett. Dan is the author of three of the best books in the HH series (Horus Rising, Legion and Prospero Burns), and writing about the Luna Wolves once more should have got me excited. He even mentions 'Garvial Loken' - the emotional mainstay of the first 3 books. But sadly, I just didn't get anything from it. Shame. There's also some stories about the Dark Angels and Ultramarines, and about Rogal Dorn, but none worthy of much note.

The Alpha Legion get a couple of interesting parts, and whilst not gripping do provide glimpses into the conflict outside of the 'brother v brother' focus of the last few books. I think it's important that there remains a focus on this in the coming books, trying to show a galactic war wider than the main legions would help provide more scale and truly show the 'Imperium' at war.