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I figured Kid Kyoto has a trademark on the "Retro Review" moniker, so here's my stab at it

At Historicon I picked up a 40k short fiction book from 2001 called Dark Imperium. I got it for 5 bucks. While there's some good stories in here, there's some howlingly bad ones. Here's the cover art:

This is baffling as there isn't a single Night Lord in this book.

Here's a story by story review. Forgive me, as I'm fuzzy on a few of them:

Apothecary's Honour by Simon Jowett - We follow an apothecary of the Avenging Sons chapter. They're basically Blood Angels knockoffs who get possessed by "fury" or something and go into a killing frenzy. This story is pretty standard "Spehss Mahreens kill gak" but it follows in Apothecary so he stops every few minutes to extract some progenoids. For some reason Fabius Bile kicks around at the end. This story is nothing memorable - 2/5

Daemonblood by Ben Counter - This story is about a battle sister and some posessed Ultramarine. This story blows. I couldn't get halfway through it. - 0/5

Nightmare by Gav Thorpe - The first memorable story in this book. A daemon has been talking into the ear of a boy for years, influencing him to do all kinds of terrible things. It doesn't sound like much, but I don't want to spoil it for you if you ever happen to read it. I give it points for being an out of the ordinary story that doesn't follow any sort of hero. 4/5

The Lives of Ferag Lion-Wolf by Barrington J. Bayley - I didn't finish this one. Can't really say why, it just wasn't interesting. Some Chaos Lord who is kind of decadent. Meh - 2/5

Small Cogs by Neil Rutledge - Eldar versus Guard. Nothing memorable again. - 2/5

Angels by Robert Earl - An interesting look at how more primitive civilians see the Space Marines. Is ok - 3/5

Hellbreak by Ben Counter - I really like this one. A commissar is captured by the Dark Eldar and has to fight in their pit arena for their enjoyment, then break out of their torture chambers and lead a revolution. While the premise is cool, it's really poorly written and fraught with run on sentences and poor grammar. 3/5

Battle of the Archaeosaurs by Barrington J. Bayley - This story is stupid, silly and poorly written. Giant dinosaurs fighting titans. 3/5

Know Thine Enemy by Gav Thorpe - Solid story about the Salamanders, guard, Eldar, and an ancient artifact. It has the scout who becomes Chaplain Xavier in it. Well written and solid - 3/5

The Wrath of Kharn by William King - BLOOD! MAIM! KILL! BURN! EVERYTHING KHARN SAYS HAS AN EXCLAMATION POINT! A fun look at how Kharn kills gak. He kills 3000 people or so. 3/5

Ancient History by Andy Chambers - the best story in the book. It's about the slave crews of Imperial ships, who are basically kidnapped and forced to serve on their ships. They travel through the warp and gak goes nuts. This story is full of suspense, good writing, clear characters, and ambiguous answers. This is one of the coolest 40k pieces I've ever read. 5/5

Snares and Delusions by Matthew Farrer - Word Bearers versus Eldar. Take the most enigmatic race in the game, have them fight one of the coolest Chaos legions, and somehow make it suck. We follow the dumbest Chaos Lord/Dark Apostle ever as he tards around a monastery he wants to make his special house. Sucks. 1/5

Hive Fleet Horror by Barrington J. Bayley - I was excited for a story with a cool title like this, and figured it had to be the best story if they were saving it for last. By now I've come to the realization that Barrington J. Bayley kind of sucks, but whatever, I'll read it. This story is a butchery of fluff. I've never heard of half the gak in here ever happening. Basically, the Tyranids attack a planet so the Imperials arm every man, woman, and prisoner with a lasgun. Then, ONE HUNDRED CARNIFEXES show up and instead of having an epic battle, the Tyranids spit webbing on the whole planet? And Eat it sorta? Then we follow the main character, a doctor WHO HAPPENS TO BE A LATENT PSYKER HURR HURR as he and a bunch of people are sitting around inside the hive ship. He listens to the Hive Mind, and goddamn is it uninteresting. Space Marines come in at the last second, save him and nobody else, and the ship explodes. This story sucks, but not as much as Daemonblood. 1/5

So let's total it up - Out of a possible 65 points (13 stories, 5 each) we've got a 32. Sheesh. This book is packed with Black Library authors who I'm sure have since been fired. I enjoy Gav Thorpe's writing, and Andy Chambers was great. I hope I never read another word of Barrington J. Bayley's work again. Whatever, I spent 5 bucks on it.

Ancient history was an awesome piece of work. Kudos to Andy Chambers, I'm glad he isn't writing codexes anymore. And I've always enjoyed Gav Thorpes' writing. Instead of trying to write some 40k battle story, Gav Thorpe writes a story and then fits it into the 40k universe. He also tends to write stories set on a very small scale. Very creative. Angels of Darkness was one of the best BL books ever.

I loved Angels of Darkness - despite the flak Gav gets for his codex writing, he's one of the better Black Library writers. Thanks for commenting, as noone else has :(

William King FTW
KILL MAIM BURN KILL MAIM BURN KILL MAIM BURN