Graham McNeil - The Ultramarines Omnibus

Most of the Warhammer 40,000 books I've reviewed so far have taken place in the setting's underexplored corners or have followed its underdogs, which is to say puny humans, no matter how heroic. Not The Ultramarines Omnibus. Oh no. Here, we jump into the setting's very heart. It's time, ladies and gentlemen, for the eight foot super soldiers.

There are, of course, problems with protagonists so inhumanly overpowered, and McNeil knows them well. In his introduction, he writes: It's been said that you can't write for Space Marines, because they're not human and are faceless warrior automatons, but that's not true (p. 9). Alas, every one of the collection's seven hundred and sixty-five pages prove that last bit wrong.

Still, despite their difficulties, Space Marines are rather awesome. McNeil is aware of that too. To quote again from the intro: Space Marines… is there anything cooler in the Warhammer 40,000 universe? (p. 8) Alas, their very coolness is where the first problems set in. McNeil's characters are not so much human beings as they are walking avatars of badassery and military virtue. When reading, one gets the feeling that McNeil is not so much writing a story as he is hero worshipping every Adeptus Astartes he names. Constant speeches about honor, courage, and FUCK YEAH SPACE MARINES make the novels here sometimes read like propaganda for a regime that doesn't exist. One particularly horrific bit tells us that the main character, dear Uriel Ventris, dropped to one knee, overwhelmed by the honor his very existence brought him (p. 49).

In terms of theme, McNeil mostly concern himself with either truisms or issues that could not possibly matter to anyone who is not clad in blue power armor – or, at times, both. The worst of these is brought out in the short story that kicks off the volume, "Chains of Command." There, Uriel struggles with the idea of deviating even slightly from the Codex Astartes, the documented warrior code that the Ultramarines follow. In case you think this might have some universal significance, I should point out that Uriel is not talking about the moral rules of war. The Codex Astartes has nothing at all to do with how one should conduct oneself or the justifications for violence; instead, it deals with vital life questions like the proper way one should assail a gun nest.

Besides that fascinating debate, McNeil presents us with two contentions that form the basis for the Ultramarines warrior spirit. The first is the realization that the people of the Imperium are, well, people and should not be killed. As this is something all of us who are not genetically engineered for martial perfection have picked up some time ago, we'll move on quickly to what is likely the novels' heart. In a rousing speech to his supermen, Uriel says: "Never forget that every man is important; every man can make a difference." (p. 255) It's not a bad sentiment, though it might be a bit easier to follow, especially in this universe, if you happen to be so fearsome as to be colloquially known as the Angels of Death. In fact, despite a few polite nods to the toothless plebs along the way, Uriel just about confirms the credo's exclusivity in the next book: In giving up the chance for a normal life [and becoming a Space Marine], he had gained something far greater. The chance to make a difference (p. 519).

Admittedly, thematic complexity is not the reason why one reads a Warhammer 40,000 novel, but, by showing how vapid its themes are, I hope to get across how shallow the entire book and everyone in it is. The above are not solely questions for McNeil and the reader to debate. They are the questions that Uriel and his fellow marines ponder; they are the only questions that they ponder. Not a Marine in here has a thought besides war. The Ultramarines have less depth than a heavy bolter has subtlety. After following Uriel Ventris around for three novels and a short story, I can say that he has about as much characterization as a secondary or maybe even tertiary character in your average novel.

The civilian characters that abound in Nightbringer and Warriors of Ultramar are not an improvement. Each of those novels has, in addition to its alien foes, a human menace, a traitor. These are of the cackling variety. They are fools so bent on cowardice and wanton slaughter that their higher functions seem to have entirely shut down in their quest to injure everyone around them. When the dastard behind Nightbringer's evil is confronted by a peer, he responds thusly:

"You're just too stupid to understand. […] Events are moving in a manner decided by me. Me! I have invested too much, lost too much, to have things messed up by a globulous waste of space like you, Taryn. […] No, Taryn, we are not friends. You are just a pathetic piece of filth I stepped on on my route too immortality. And now it's time I discarded you." (p. 172)

Later, we get another glimpse of that bastard's malice: Blood, death, suffering, mutilation and torment unknown for millions of years filled his skull; it felt so good (p. 256). Right then. You enjoy that suffering. Lest you think the problem is limited to that one fellow, or even to properly human foes, the Chaos Space Marine antagonist of Dead Sky, Black Sun does not speak but rather sneer[s] (p. 574) and has this gem: There was nothing left but vengeance for hate's sake and malice for the sake of spite (p. 739).

After all that, McNeil's novels are still not without worth. It all goes back to how he begins his intro: Space Marines… is there anything cooler in the Warhammer 40,000 universe? (p. 8) For all the myriad problems that there excessive coolness causes, Space Marines are still cool, and watching them slaughter their way through Dark Eldar starships, Tyrannid hordes, and the Eye of Terror is still pretty awesome to watch.

It's that awesomeness that gives a potential reason to trudge through the first two books' weaker aspects. Though the politicking that makes up much of its first two acts is mediocre at best, Nightbringer still is the best paced of the novels here. For a time, the Ultramarines are battling the very very very sadistic Dark Eldar, but the novel not only broadens out but also explodes (in a good way, like a bolter round) at its end, pitting Uriel against rebels and then a waking Necron menace. The last of those is a suitably rendered menace of Lovecraftian scale. Warriors of Ultramar is a far more linear read, in which Uriel and assorted friends must defend a planet from the invasion of innumerable Tyrannids. It's a perpetual, last stand-style grind that grows rather monotonous but still does have its share of simply cool feats.

It's Dead Sky, Black Sun, however, that is by far the collection's most memorable read – though that is not necessarily to say its most pleasant. In it, Uriel and his loyal sergeant are forced to make their way across a demonic world deep in the Eye of Terror. Here, McNeil uses the settings' over the top nature to bring forth a whole host of inventive, vivid, and absolutely sickening sights. Like everything in these novels, he describes it with not only the single perfect word but several dozen moderately acceptable substitutes, but the overwhelming details work when every facet of the view is a twisted embodiment of Chaos. To give just one example:

A huge grilled platform filled the centre of the depression. Agglomerated layers of dust coated its every surface and its perforated floor dripped and clogged with jelly-like runnels of fat and viscera. Tall poles jutted from the platform, held in place by quivering steel guys that sand as the unnatural wind whistled through them. Hooked between the poles were billowing sails of flesh stretched across timber frames that the scouring, wind-borne particles might strip them of the leavings of their former owners.

[…]

Uriel turned in a circle, seeing row upon row of faces in the skins circling the platform – dead, slack features of men and women staring down at him as though he were the subject in an anatomist's theatre.

"Burn it," he said. "Burn it all." (pp. 579-80)

In terms of plot, Dead Sky, Black Sun is a rather simple affair that consists of wandering through hell and fighting constantly. As one or Uriel's companions sums it up, they go from one death sentence to another (p. 686), and the novel never lets you breathe. Still, the Eye of Terror flees McNeil from even the lightest bounds of common sense, allowing him to twist the plot in ways that are totally absurd and yet all the better for it. Simply put, the sheer, relentless, and imaginative gruesomeness of its every detail and development make this one a hard hitting read, even if much of its power comes from excess and extremity.

Graham McNeil is not a particularly good writer. Alas, he writes about cool things. There are far, far better books out there, but these do have the simple fun of genetically engineered super soldiers beating demons to death.

Sandy Mitchell - Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium

Ciaphas Cain is a hero of the Imperium. He is a commissar that knows and inspires his men, that leads from the front, and that has saved his soldiers, his sector, and his hide more times than can be counted. More than any of that, Ciaphas Cain is secretly a coward. Or, at least, so he believes himself to be. Hero of the Imperium collects the first three of Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain novels along with three short pieces. These are the story of the man behind the legend, the exploits of the unbelievably incredible commissar in his own self effacing words, the three books excerpts culled from his sprawling unpublished memoir that have been compiled and annotated by the Inquisitor Vail of the Ordos Xenos. 

Mitchell is a fantastically clever writer. By balancing Cain's narrative with added fictional histories (each of which, of course, is crippled by its invented author's obsessions) and copious footnotes courtesy of our inquisitorial editor, Mitchell manages to combine a deeply in character, and deeply self-centered, narrative with a grasp of the wider picture. The footnotes, in particular, are enjoyable. Mitchell generally refrains from using them as a formatting excuse for endless info dumps and, as the reader continues through the books, the relationship between Inquisitor Vail, who Cain comes to know as Amberly, and the commissar grows increasingly amusing and even warming.

The real joy, however, comes from Cain's narration. The famed commissar, you see, is boundlessly and delightfully sarcastic. Many of the best lines come in descriptions of Cain's malodorous aide, Jurgen, such as when Jurgen manages to look as though his uniform never quite touched his body, which given his casual attitude to personal hygiene and perpetual eruptions of psoriasis, you could hardly blame it for (p. 516). Furthermore, Mitchell has a great deal of fun with some of the sillier or less consistent aspects of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, such as when Amberly adds in a footnote that: Sometimes [the necrons] seem almost preternaturally able to detect an enemy, while at others, as in this instance, they overlook targets almost literally under their noses (p. 413). Finally, the familiar Chaos battle cry (Blood for the Blood God!) is here met with "Fine, he can have yours." (p. 684) But despite how funny the books can be, Mitchell knows restraint well and never allows himself to descend into simple parody. For all the crackling humor on display within them, Cain's adventures manage to keep the reader's invested in the characters and their struggles.

Needless to say, Ciaphas Cain is the chief character of his series, and his purported heroism and omnipresent terror might well be the series' calling card. Nonetheless, Cain is never really cowardly in the way of characters like Flashman, whom he is often compared to (in the book's introduction, as well as elsewhere). Cain does, of course, do his best to escape danger, and the author/Emperor/demands of plot always smack him in the thick of it as his reward. But there are just as many times when, for all his frightened mental monologuing, he willingly charges into the depths of hell. In an attempt to rationalize his actions, he writes: It all came down to picking the course of action that offered the greatest chance of getting out with my hide intact, however great the immediate risk might be (p. 705). But while that might rule out selflessness, it certainly does not rule out bravery.

Other quotations occasionally slip out that do even more to damage the idea of craven Cain. Once, certain he was staring death in the face, he reveals that he was determined to defy it for as long as possible (p. 289) – hardly the thought process of a fainthearted man. Despite Cain's constant attempts to establish and maintain his supposedly fraudulent reputation for heroism through elaborate speeches, it seems, by the volume's end, that it's actually his cowardice that needs justification. Judged solely by his deeds, Cain is every bit the hero he is proclaimed to be, and his favorite rhetorical trick – feigning modesty to increase his reputation – works just as well on the reader as on the soldiers.

No matter what their setting and broad plot outlines might make you think, the Ciaphas Cain novels are only tangentially Military Science Fiction. True, each of them does take place in a warzone. But the war is never Cain's primary focus. Instead, he is always off to the sidelines, hunting down some (in the first two novels, literally) underground piece of intrigue and averting a disaster far greater than the one everyone else is focused on.

Cain's fantastically titled debut, For the Emperor!, establishes the formula to come with style. Cain and the Valhallan regiment that he serves with find themselves in a tense standoff with the Tau. Neither side wants to fight, but they are being pushed towards armed conflict by a shadowy conspiracy that neither can quite spot. The book introduces Cain, begins his relationship with Amberly, gives him a large cast of supporting characters to play off and look at suspiciously, and manages a nice contrast between the powerful and alien, but communicative and reasonably sane, Tau and the mindlessly brutal Tyrannid threat they find below.

The follow up, Caves of Ice, is not as successful, in large part because it's a smaller and less interesting retread of its predecessor. Like inFor the Emperor!, the Guard is here stationed on a world to oppose one foe (this time the Orks), while Cain begins to see a far greater threat lurking underground (this time, the Necrons), which he then goes into the tunnels to pursue, until he eventually comes into horrific contact with it, and loses everyone he had with him. The key problem is not even that the two books are so similar; Mitchell's writing is amusing enough for me to (somewhat) forgive him that. But Caves of Ice's cast is miniature compared to For the Emperor!'s, and what few characters there are spend the vast majority of it off screen. Amberly doesn't enter until the end, and, here, both alien threats are of the mindless slaughter variety. All of this means that Cain has no one to really interact with, and he spends his time laboriously entering and exiting the same set of tunnels and going about his mission.

Thankfully, the last novel, The Traitor's Hand, is a great deal more fun and plays with the formula just enough to keep things fresh. Cain and the Guard are deployed to stop a ravaging Chaos fleet, but, before it can arrive, they find themselves embroiled in a guerilla war against a local Chaos cult, which is hell-bent on summoning a rather nasty demon. Though both serving the Ruinous Powers, the two Chaos factions despise each other even more than they hate the Imperium. The interplay between the two, and the way that the great secret danger part of the plot here comes out to interact with the rest before the big finish, serve to keep everything more nimble and exciting, even if each of the mystery's pieces are gift wrapped and delivered in the most convenient way possible and at the perfect (read: last) moment. Unlike For the Emperor!, which stayed relatively still geographically, and Caves of Ice, which moved about but had a whole planet painted with the same brush, The Traitor's Hand ferries Cain between all sorts of different settings and situations. Best of all, it gives him a myriad of secondary characters to mess with, including a rival in the Commissariat for him to humiliate and then pay the costs for doing so. I must say, though, that the ending confrontation between Cain and the "preternaturally seductive" (p. 749) and brutally destructive demon Emili was somewhat odd to read about right before I went to go speak to my not particularly destructive girlfriend, Emily.

The three short stories included successfully add to Cain's story and experiences, albeit in different ways and with differing levels of success. "Fight or Flight," which opens the volume, gives us a good first glimpse of Cain and some of the most convincing cowardice-cum-accidental-heroics we get through the whole thing. "Echoes of the Tomb" serves mostly to fill us in on Cain's glimpse of the necrons before he has to fight them full-time in Caves of Ice. The majority of it is the slow decision to head towards, and then journey to, the site where he's to meet them, and the payoff, when it comes, mostly consists of Cain running about frantically for a moment or two before the tale abruptly cuts off with his rescue. It's not bad, but it's not much of anything good either, and it suffers more than the other two by the narrow focus forced upon it by the lack of other perspectives and footnotes. Finally, "The Beguiling" shows Cain's encounter with Chaos (and the demon Emili) before The Traitor's Hand. In addition to providing welcome backstory and emotional depth to the events of the novel, it's an enjoyable short story in its own right, which makes good use of Cain's wit, some of genre fiction's more questionable tropes, and dramatic irony.

Though somewhat formulaic and predictable, Sandy Mitchell's first three Ciaphas Cain novels are simply an incredible amount of fun. Dive in if you are looking for some light, pulpy, and thoroughly amusing Science Fiction, and remember: Regrets are a waste of good drinking time. (p. 331)

Dan Abnett - Ravenor: The Omnibus

The Ravenor trilogy, collected in this Omnibus, takes place in the bleak setting of Warhammer 40,000, where there is only war. Oddly enough for a 40k story, however, Ravenor has no war in it (though that's not to say no action). This is not a frontline tale of the Space Marines holding back the Tyrannid swarm but rather a story set in the heart of the Imperium most of the setting's novels are working so hard to protect. We follow the crippled but psychic Inquisitor Ravenor and his band of heroes and killers as they work to investigate, expose, and destroy heresies and foes. As a result, Ravenor shows us a great deal of the Imperium's fascinating internal workings, and it also reveals the consequences – both small and galactic – of the setting's reality-altering (and smashing) events and players. But for all its successes, Ravenor is badly crippled by plot.

When reading at the pulpier end of the Science Fiction spectrum, it's generally fair to expect mediocre prose glossed over by a rip-roaring plot. Abnett thwarts both expectations. The prose, I'll come back to. Right now, though, let's look at the series' chief failing: Dan Abnett cannot plot. The plots of all three books are simply a string of setpieces. Each one exists solely to get us to the next setpiece. As soon as that next setpiece is reached, the previous one becomes irrelevant, its purpose served. Though its cast might be considered detectives of a sort, these are totally linear narratives, moving ahead (albeit in an oblique fashion) and never looking back.

Sometimes, it gets to the point where it feels like all the reaction shots were simply edited out. A character is grievously injured at the end of the first novel, Ravenor, and on the point of death. Come the start of the second (Ravenor Returned), he's just fine. A recovery is understandable, but it would have been nice to have at least a single line mentioning it, and it's not the only case. A character's death in Ravenor Returned is felt until that novel's climax, but, by the third novel (Ravenor Rogue), he might as well never have been. After part of the crew is sent an unimaginable distance in Ravenor Rogue and somehow manages to return, we get a single instance of a reunion scene, and then everyone moves on as if the rules of space and even time had not just been proved worthless. The sense that the characters not only do not feel the wonder of their situation but seem clinically deprived of any sort of emotional response at all serves to dampen those responses in the audience as well.

These narratives of disjoined pieces are tied together by the goals of Ravenor's investigation, with each novel, at least in theory, broadening the scope and investigation and further testing Ravenor's resolve and integrity. This works well at first. Ravenor, my favorite of the trilogy by far, focuses on the investigation of flects, a deadly drug that looks just like a shard of glass. Since the reader is as in the dark as the investigators, the piece by piece nature of the storytelling doesn't jar much, and there is a sense of progress as we learn more of the flects' nature and origins. The story's scale is here one of its greatest parts. The Imperium is vast, and, while the flects are dangerous, they are a localized problem. The climax is gritty, brutal, and restrained. It's devastating for a few and irrelevant to most.

The overall goal, however, is not nearly so successful at tying together the parts of the later two novels. In large part, this is because the scale is expanded massively. Things are, in those two, properly and regrettably apocalyptic. Ravenor Returned features a dastardly plot to seize ultimate power through a secret language that can make and unmake reality, and it ends with all the hooded ritual and bombast that one might expect. Here we get viewpoints from the evil characters as well as the good and, while that does broaden the story, it also removes its mystery. The protagonist's ignorance, then, just feels like killing time.

At the novel's end, we discover that Molotch, a villain who died in the prologue, is behind everything. Oh. Uh, that's nice. The conflict with Molotch is also the heart of the final volume. Molotch, you see, is Ravenor's nemesis (p. 656). The two are twined in destiny (ibid). Now, here I'm going to have to plead ignorance a bit. Dan Abnett wrote a prior trilogy about Inquisitors, Eisenhorn, which I have not read, and many of the characters overlap. Maybe Molotch is established and developed there. I hope so, because he isn't here. There are constant references to his brilliance and cruelty and skills and all that, but he's offstage for the entirety of the second book and cooped up for most of the third, save for a single scene where he does get to shine a bit. The rest of the time, however, we simply have to take everyone's word that he's so great and, worse still, take everybody's word that he and Ravenor have some kind of special relationship. All we've seen them do, after all, is shoot at one another a bit.

Ravenor Rogue's problems don't, alas, end with its vague but extreme villain. The first book was driven by the protagonist's investigation, the second by the villain's plan. But, in the third, both sides are reeling, and neither is doing a great deal of great planning. Save for a clever trap or two, everyone basically stumbles around until the climax, at which point what might be supposed to be the trilogy's central arc comes to a climax. Throughout, the characters see and hear ominous hints of the demon Slyte 's birth, which is prophesied to involve both Ravenor and Molotch. The reader, however, need not rely on such hints. We are shown the demon's rather undramatic birth in Ravenor and then get to sit through hundreds of pages of characters poorly ruminating as to who it might be. The pre-revealed reveal, when it comes, does not have, needless to say, the power of a twist.

Abnett's piecemeal and disconnected plotting also serves to hamper Ravenor's themes. One of the main ones surrounding Slyte's birth is how we do not notice evil when it is close to us, how we are blind to darkness amidst our friends and home. Aspects of this succeed, particularly a scene where the infected manipulates a companion to near the point of suicide and wreaks havoc on the streets while speaking to Ravenor, and the good inquisitor remains blind. This also does explain why Ravenor's suspicions never settle on the demon's true identity. Then again, those suspicions are never shown to do much. It would be powerful if he launched a detailed search for the infected and missed it because of his relationship with the guilty party, but having him never think much about the question leaves it just as much at the door of lazy investigation as at the feet of closeness. Finally, what should be the theme's knockout blow falls flat due to passing in between books. One crewmember discovers the demon's identity but, unable to injure her close friend, can't bring herself to reveal it. This should have been a powerful moment, but we don't see a second of her struggle, just vaguely hear about it from a distance.

The novel's other key theme is how far one may go to combat evil. Though weakened by Molotch's flaws, Ravenor's growing obsession with his nemesis' arrest is powerful, as he moves farther and farther from the bounds of procedure and maybe even right with the passing volumes. When, in Ravenor Rogue, he declares: I am no longer an Inquisitor. Perhaps I'll be damned, but I'll surely be damned if I don't know (p. 725), the reader feels his pain and his boundless determination. His counterpoint, the crewmember infected with the demon, is not nearly as effective. Despite its heretical presence within them, they remain loyal, but they don't reveal the demon. They seek to master it, to bind its powers to the Imperium's cause. Needless to say, this doesn't end so well, but that's not where the arc's weakness comes from. No, it's weakness comes from the fact that we never see it at all. There is no witnessed struggle to stay in control, no growing realization of failure. We just hear him mention it in conversation, calm and removed from the battle of will that is raging inside of him. Not exactly a visceral living of theme, that.

Despite these myriad flaws, I read the three books of Ravenor straight through over just four days. Ravenor has three main successes. First, its characters. None of the cast here is spectacularly deep, but they are all well defined, and their interactions with one another are believable and often a joy to watch, a mixture of killing edge and care. There are a great number of players here, but Abnett quickly differentiates each with central characteristics before, as they act and proceed, delving deeper into their psyche and actions. Little quirks give them life and the book warmth. The teenaged Zael refers to the crippled Ravenor, who lives encased in support systems and mechanisms, as "the chair." When Ravenor goes gunning for one of his foes, Zael says: "I think someone's about to have a really bad chair day," (p. 205, Ravenor) a line that got both a groan and a genuine laugh from me. While on the subject of characters, I should point out that Abnett seems to have developed something of a crush for the acrobat-cum-killer Kara Swole. Since I started counting just after the first volume's end, he describes her as "voluptuous" no less than five times (pp. 278/322/357/578/649).

Second, there is the matter of the trilogy's setpieces. I know, earlier I criticized the plot for being nothing but. I stand by that criticism. But that's not to say that the setpieces themselves are not amazing. Whatever his faults over the course of the novel, Abnett is downright excellent at plotting out a thrilling scene. As he does with the carnival Carnivora setting, Abnett can evoke the vibrancy and character of a setting in just a few pages. In just as few, he can then set a dozen pieces in motion. And then he can tear through the stage he's just created, a cascade of well written action, clever planning, unanticipated consequences, and an absurd amount of fun. The aforementioned Carnivora, the mechanical and soul-crushing Administratum in Ravenor Returned, the quickly coming and passing displacements of time and place in the final volume, and a dozen others are all simply awesome.

Finally, we come to Abnett's prose and diction and, coming forth from those, the atmosphere he can create. Abnett writes relatively short scenes with frequent changes in perspective, which serves to not only speed up the pace but provide frequent and well done contrast. The most striking of these perspectives by far is Ravenor's own. In stark contrast to the traditional (past, limited 3^rd) point of view of everyone else, his part of the story is told in present tense and first person. His tone is educated and powerful, longing from the restraint his ruined body forces upon him, menacing, and powerful. His every utterance feels memorable; he is a monolithic figure in his own world portrayed well enough for the reader to feel that he, without question, deserves his status there as not only a strong man but a wise one as well.

40k novels have by now developed a fair amount of jargon to cement the setting's feel, and I, a relative newcomer to the setting, can't say how much is common ground here, but setting-specific phrases like "dehyd," "cogitator," "kitbag," and "tintglass" combine with expertly odd uses of general language like "decruited" to give everything an inescapable, strange, blunt, and oppressive feel. Moving above the level of individual words, Abnett has a gift for powerful phrases, such as when Ravenor says a madman is illuminated beyond the remit of sanity (p. 103) or that Hindsight is a worthless toy (p. 577).

The story arcs and themes of Ravenor meander about and fall apart over its length. Nonetheless, the individual scenes and prose are fantastic. Though not perfect, Ravenor sheds light on a seldom seen part of the Imperium, does so with style and strength, and is well worth reading for any fan of the setting. The first novel, in particular, is a great example of dark and gothic Science Fiction.