A few months back Gav wrote a post in his blog regarding cutting out “faffy” words. A lot of writers use a lot of excess language to get a point across where Gav tends to cut to the meat of the story and carves his way through the pages at a fevered clip.

The Shadow King is another great example of this. To be honest I was hesitant about whether Thorpe could pull that off. I mean…over 500 pages. That seems pretty wordy to me. So I sat down and set about consuming and digesting this thick tome (larger than anything he’s written to date I believe page-wise. Don’t quote me but I *think* that is accurate.)

As per usual Gav gets right to it. The stage is set and things start going to hell…fast. This is the second book of The Sundering, following Malekith.

Courage and Honour is the fifth book in the hugely successful Ultramarines series featuring the Courageous Captain Uriel Ventris and his Veteran Sergeant Pasanius.

This book is in many ways like coming full circle in the series. Uriel Ventris’ first mission as captain was to put down a rebellion on the Imperial world, Pavonis and this novel has the 4th company returning to the same troubled planet.

Following shortly after the events of The Killing Ground, we are shown flashback scenes of the testing of Ventris and Pasanius. Testing them both for purity: Mind and Body. After all, these two Astartes have been alone and fighting their way back from the Eye of Terror, a mission which should have most likely claimed his life (and possibly his soul).

Review by Jeff Preston

This is Book Nine of the Black Library Horus Heresy series, the second novel of the series by Graham McNeill.

Thus far I have read the entire series. The series is overall exceptional; easily the best work but out by Black Library to date. There have been a few small “bumps” along the road. I point to Descent of Angels as the low point of the series as far as catching and holding my attention as well as staying true to the feel of the other books.

My favorites of the series so far are Flight of the Eisenstein by James Swallow and Legion by Dan Abnett. My reasons? The former is a standalone that neatly dove-tails in to the previous novels: the latter is a standalone that really challenged my own personal bias (I’ve always loathed the Alpha Legion).

Review by Jeff Preston