In the void, the vessels gathered.
- The Horus Heresy: The Flight of the Eisenstein, James Swallow
We're back with the Horus Heresy series, and the fourth book starts with what could be a reworking of the first line of Black Sabbath's War Pigs. This one's by James Swallow, and he takes us back to before the Heresy started, with the Death Guard. Our main character is Captain Nathaniel Garro, who we already briefly met, so we know where this is going.
**
As Garro hangs out with his battle-brothers and fights the xenos with Morty, the vibe is very Horus Rising, and that's definitely a good thing. I really like the first chapters. I like Garro, I like the camaraderie of the Death Guard, and Morty is entirely charming. I still don't get why they storm Isstvan Extremis. The retelling of the events at Isstvan III is very well done, and the various reactions of Garro and his command squad are well portrayed and add depth to the events. I like that the Sisters of Silence are there as well.
When I wrote about Galaxy In Flames, I said it felt like a real shame that we're not getting at all into what really happened to make the traitor legions fall to Chaos, and to be honest, I still don't get it. In the Death Guard, it's very clear that Typhon is in on the plan and Garro isn't. There's tension on the subject of the warrior lodges, with Garro holding very similar views to Garviel Loken of the Sons of Horus. Captain Grulgor of the Second Company clearly resents Garro because he's from Terra, but Grulgor comes across as pretty much an asshole. So as with the Sons of Horus, I feel like we're being given the mysterious warrior lodges and some petty personal prejudices as the reasons entire legions turned on the Emperor, and marines are entirely ready to murder their comrades in cold blood. It's quite unsatisfying.
Once we get to Isstvan III and the titular flight of the frigate Eisenstein, Swallow is in fine form as the horror thriller of a harrowing trip through the warp unfolds. They picked up Euphrati Keeler and her gang, and I was actually a bit surprised by how marginal they ended up being to the story.
One of the weaker moments of the book is their encounter with Rogal Dorn, who is almost buffoonish in his wild mood swings. I'm coming around to thinking of the Primarchs as something like Norse or Greek gods, except desexualized. Dorn's silliness is definitely inspiring me to paint more traitor Imperial Fists.
What is the thing with asexual space knights, by the way? Space Marines and their Primarchs are even less sexual than the Jedi. I'm not complaining about it, but I'm wondering why it's a thing. Sure, there's a sense in which Horus is Mordred, but the Emperor has no Empress, and there's not a Lancelot to be seen.
However, it's worth noting that the female characters are also quite desexualized, which is good compared to some other works in this series.
**
If Flight of the Eisenstein is reduced to a single main theme, it's the story of Nathaniel Garro's conversion. With the aid of his housecarl and Imperial saint Euphrati Keeler, Garro finds the God in God-Emperor. Because it's a conversion narrative and a very silly space adventure, it's easily the most entertaining conversion story I've ever read.
When I studied conversion stories as part of my degree in religious studies, one of the interesting points made in the literature was that conversion stories are almost always written from the perspective of the new faith, and not from that of the pre-convert. So as actual accounts of what led to the conversion, they're not very useful. That's sort of the case here, as we understand what Garro is converting to, but not really what from.
Part of this problem is that so far, the pre-Heresy Imperial Truth doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. It's presented as a sort of almost militant atheism and rationalism, somewhat reminiscent of revolutionary France. But in a space fantasy world of warp demons and psychic powers, its practicioners come across as hapless Scully skeptics, completely denying the observable reality before their eyes. When they chide people for believing in the Emperor as a god, or in daemons, it comes across as prejudice rather than an actual system of beliefs. So sadly, we've now been among the Luna Wolves and the Death Guard, and we still don't really understand why any of them fell to Chaos.
**
Overall, I liked the Flight of the Eisenstein. It was an enjoyable space fantasy, I liked many of the characters, and the thriller/horror elements worked. Good entertainment.
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