- The Horus Heresy: Betrayer, Aaron Dembski-Bowden
"If the Bureau of Ordnance can't provide us with torpedoes that will hit and explode ... then for God's sake, get the Bureau of Ships to design a boat hook with which we can rip the plates off a target's side."
- Rear Admiral Charles A. Lockwood USN, Commander, Submarines, Pacific Fleet, at a 1943 meeting of the Submarine Officers' Conference, quoted in Clay Blair Jr., Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and New York, 1975.
"Status on the ursus claws?"
- Flag-Captain Lotara Sarrin
We're back with the Word Bearers and the World Eaters, conducted by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, who I think has to be the best Horus Heresy author by quite a margin. Betrayer is one of the books Games Workshop has kept in print, and it's a nice change reading a physical book again. I loved Dembski-Bowden's First Heretic, and have been looking forward to this.
**
Once again, Dembski-Bowden fully lives up to expectations. As grand and intoxicating as First Heretic was, this picks up where it left off, with the excellent addition of Angron and his equerry Khârn. Lorgar has some great interactions with Magnus and Angron, and Horus even phones in psychically, but the stars of the show are indubitably Khârn and Argel Tal, two of the most charismatic characters of the Horus Heresy. It's like being with the Mournival and friends in Horus Rising again.
If you remember the Super Star Destroyer from Battle for the Abyss, it turns out Lorgar has two more of them. The combined Word Bearers-World Eaters fleet tears through Ultramar, fighting smurfs all the way. Probably my least favorite feature of ADB's prose is when he pontificates on war, especially as I can't really not fact-check it as I read it. But the battle on Armatura is a delight of mil-sf. The way both the captain of the Conqueror and the Legio Audax titans have to work around the World Eaters' senseless rage is excellent, and I can barely describe my astonishment when the World Eaters get resupplied. Actual logistics!
The prize for best supporting character, by the way, definitely goes to Captain Lotara Sarrin of the Conqueror. I love her, and I hope she gets to bombard a planet soon. After Armatura, the gang heads to Nuceria, where they have a climactic battle for the ages. It's got everything from Warhound Titans fighting an Imperator to Erbs being horrible.
I could write so much, but I don't really want to. I strongly recommend experiencing Betrayer yourself. I feel that if any Horus Heresy books come close to transcending Warhammer fiction, this is one. For my money, Horus Rising, First Heretic and Betrayer are by far the best books in the series, and I'd say Betrayer is the best of the lot. Great characters, great war stories, great drama and tragedy. It's simply epic.
