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So I just finished the book and I'm full of questions, all of which will totally ruin the book if you haven't finished it yet. If that applies to you please go away now. Mr Abnett likes to hold a lot of stuff back in his novels (frustratingly little of which is actually revealed at the conclusion of this novel), and despite what recent research suggests, you'll be much better off approaching the book from a position of ignorance.
Before I descend into spoiler tags I will just say that I thought the book was excellent, and I very much recommend that you get yourself a copy. I'm far too attached to the series to reliably rate it against past favourites such as Necropolis, but I'm fairly sure that it belongs at the higher end of the scale. The book has its weaknesses, but they mostly amount to things that I wanted to see more of.
Now for those of you who have read the book:
Spoiler:
I feel as though my ebook was mistakenly sent to me minus the final chapter. There are 23 chapters right? Or is there a 24th where the rather significant 'There's a freaking battleship right on top of us' thread is resolved. And at least some passing mention is made of Costin's demise and the need to track down his partners in crime. And Meryn's seemingly flagrant mutinous behaviour is addressed.
Don't get me wrong, I can totally understand that things like Mabbon's agenda are going to be withheld until the final book of the arc, but having the Rex show up in the final chapter only for the book to abruptly end a few pages later was rather jarring. Unless the next book is basically Salvation's Reach 2, picking off right where this book left off, I'm going to feel even more cheated than I did when Dorden, in a manner reminiscent of Horus Rising's memorable opening line, 'died' in chapter 14.
On the subject of chapter 14, way to take a spit my coffee all over my kindle moment and turn it into a I only fell for this because I didn't think Abnett would stoop so low moment. Well done for subverting my expectations. Please don't do it again.
I'll rattle off my other complaints - I don't want to give the impression I didn't like the book, but these things stuck out to me: Am I the only one that is dubious of a raid intended to be blamed on the Blood Pact that is spearheaded by three Astartes in a great big boarding ram, all conspicuously painted in loyalist colours, supported by loyalist guard with a distinct lack of Blood Pact grotesques? I also feel that Meryn's cowardice and disregard for orders was overdone. It doesn't seem plausible to me that a company captain can be that blatant, particularly towards the end where he decided to hide rather than attack the objective he was assigned, and then to abandon his duties again during the withdrawal. I suppose we don't actually know if this did go unnoticed, given the way the book ended.
Now that that's out of the way, what do you think we can expect in the next book? Until the sudden ending I was convinced that the Rex was going to be thwarted by Sek's forces, assuming it to be part of the raid, and thus allowing the Armaduke to escape. I was also expecting Mabbon to be outed as loyal to the Blood Pact, but he seems to be in on the scheme to pin the blame on them for the raid. His fantastic line about his favourite literary genre seems to rule out any real allegiance to the Imperium, so I'm still in the dark as to his motives. The motivations of the Blood Pact agent and fleet are also still an open question. They were obviously made aware of the Armaduke's destination, and might well have decided to let them take a crack at Sek's labs unaware of the plan to blame it on them. I'm really not sure what to expect of the next book. If it hadn't been for the cliffhanger ending courtesy of the archenemy battleship, I would have expected the usual opening narration to detail the messy divorce of the two enemy factions and then focus in on a major Imperial attack on Sek's distracted forces. I guess we'll find out in.... an annoyingly long time (I read books 1 - 13 in one long binge, so I'm not used to the wait between books).
Oh, almost forgot - what's with that two-headed eagle?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/10/01 14:10:06
