Book Review: Space Hulk

Every once in a while I troll the Black Library site looking for ebooks they have published that may have not got as much press as some of the flashier titles. The other week I found Space Hulk by Gav Thorpe.

This is an ebook version of the novella (not sure why it isn't called a short story) that came with the Space Hulk board game from GW. I have played a few of the mission for Space Hulk so I know some of the background information, and it is nice to see that the novella was written with the board game in mind. 

All of the characters from the board game are in the story. In fact, it was like Mr. Thorpe dramatized each of the missions that were in the board game. And to top it off, it was very well done.

One of the things I found a bit odd was some of the speech from the Blood Angels terminators, I really didn't think the Blood Angels were as "holy" as the speech made it sound. I would have thought maybe that the Dark Angels, or Black Templars talked that way, but not the Blood Angels. Please note, this is not a criticism, just something I didn't realize before reading the story.

Book Review: Emperor's Finest

Man I love Ciaphas Cain. If someone had told me before I read For the Emperor, that someone would be able to write a comic take of the Grim Dark of 40k, I would have thought it was doomed to failure. And then Ciaphas Cain came into my life, and the Grim Dark changed.

This book is out of order with the other books (it would kind of have to be after "Cain's Last Stand" taking place technically after Ciaphas retires) and that was a little bit weird for me because there were certain things that the readers knew, but Cain himself didn't know as the action was taking place, but thankfully, as with all the Cain books, we have the footnotes written by Amberly Vail.

Cain has been assigned as an Liason officer to the Reclaimers space marines chapter. I guess he figured with the biggest, baddest bad asses in the galaxy surrounding him, he should be pretty safe.

Silly Caiphas, you should have known better than that. Cain deals almost exclusively with genestealers in this book, and while we've seen him deal with Tyranids before, seeing him tool around a space hulk with terminators was kind of different.

Review: Fear the Alien Part I

So have you ever bit into something you expected to taste like chocolate but it tasted like strawberries instead? I mean, you like strawberries, and it tastes good, but you had your heart set on chocolate. That's how I feel about, "Fear the Alien."

For some reason I was expecting a book of stories written from the alien's point of view, and I was really excited about that. Now I don't know if I just made that up in my own head, or if I read somewhere that it was supposed to be all xenos.

It turns out that on 2 out of 10 stories were written from the xenos point of view. Now that being said, quite a few of these short stories are very, very good.

Audio Book Review: Heart of Rage

So I got my hands on another of Black Library's audio books. This time it is Heart of Rage by James Swallow.

The book details a Blood Angels squad entering a dead Tyranid hive ship in order to find an Adeptus Mechanicus team that had previously been sent in to the ship.

This book is read by Toby Longworth he reads all of the BL audio books and he does an excellent job. I was a little critical of some of his voices in Thunder from Fenris (because one of them sounded like a certain California Governor) but I really have no complaints in this one. He voices about 10 different people throughout the book and manages to make each of them pretty distinct.
As for the story itself, it is a little predictable, the Astartes are sent into the Tyranid ship which they are assured is dead, but lo and behold... not so much. Combat ensues... yadda yadda yadda. 

I don't want to sound like I am detracting the story. It is a bit predictable, but I think it is well done. Perhaps it is the sound effects that go along with the audio book, but it did a good job of keeping me interested.

My big complaint, as with Thunder from Fenris was the length. If this book were in written format, it would be a short story, and I believe that this book would fit in nicely with one of the many anthologies that BL has put out, but this is a stand alone story, and instead of coming in a large book for about $13, it is by itself for about $20. 

I went to the gym this morning, listen to the story while I worked out, and on the way home, I was done with it. Seems a bit too short for the money I spent.

I give the book three slaughtered Hive Tyrants out of five.