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So, managed to polish off Temple Of The Serpent last night, second book in the Thanquol and Boneripper series, penned by C L Werner.

Overall, pretty damned good. Offers a good insight and new way of erm, thinking about Lizardman thought processes. Thanquol remains suitably devious and double standard bearing, and barring one bit, the action is split amongst the various parties quite satisfactorily. And even better, Boneripper himself gets quite a bit of page time, and developed as a character. However, it is pretty much typical C L Werner. Slow to begin due to character setting, then all kicks off in the last half. Personally, I like his style, you may disagree. That in mind, I'd rate it a solid 3.5 Squeaks out of 5!

Also on my reading list, is Fear The Alien, the latest 40k Anthology offering. Read the first few and currently half way through, this review will be brief! Like all Anthologies, a real mixed bag. Abnett is on top form as ever (I do hope this is a taster of his next series, rather fond of Magos Drusher!) Salamanders entry might make more sense if I read the other books, then we come to a real curiosity....not just a story dedicated to Dark Eldar...oh no....but a LOVE STORY about Dark Eldar. Clearly this is going to be somewhat Marmite, but I highly enjoyed it. A surprising and well written break from what I expected! Currently ploughing through a story told from Orky perspective, which is damned enjoyable as well! Going on what I've read? 3 out of 5 just now, which can of course go up and down depending on the next few stories!

I prefer the ork story to be honest, although I think it's somewhat disingenuous to describe it as purely an ork story. It's exactly the sort of piece that should be in a codex IMO: captures the orkish mindset quite nicely indeed.

The DE one... "marmite"..yeah...yeah. Nice idea and it's competently written and I applaud the attempt to do something different... but... I'm not quite sure it works. Reads a bit to me more like something from Codex : Vampire the Masquerade than Dark Eldar. I think it would have benefited perhaps from the further introduction of specific Dark Eldar terms and words, especially for things like "opera" which, given their culture, should be quite, quite different from "our" experience of that artform.

Very true. But it is a unique story and worth reading. Plus it's very short.