I don't know a lot about 40K. I mean, I've read Eisenhorn, the first Gaunt's Ghost novel, and two Horus Heresy novels, so held up against the staggering number of Black Library books, I've barely read a thing.
So this book takes place (courtesy of a glance at the official timeline page) somewhere towards the end of the 40K story. Horus has been dead for quite awhile, and a few Chaos Space Marines are looking for his old ship. And that's what sets off events in this novel.
Aaron Dembski-Bowden is a very good writer of this sort of story, giving everything that doom metal feel mixed with guitar riffs from 2000 AD. Everything is dark and horrible, but the bonds of brotherhood still exist among the broken and mutated warriors stumbling around the Eye of Chaos. ADB also knows how to deliver the sorts of action scenes that create small utterances of Holy fuck as you turn a page. He also can create characters that you care about, despite how horrible they are. Be they eldar murderesses or demons inhabiting the dead souls of wolves, I grew to be fond of these monsters.
If you've read a small forest's worth of Black Library books, I'm sure this book would be mindblowing. But even as a casual reader, I was still taken aback by some of the revelations. It was a very fun read, even if I didn't get probably half of the references. Primarchs? What are those? Just how long has it been since Horus bought the farm? Why don't these guys age? Why isn't everyone more insane than they are?
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