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| Not as good as the first cover again, but an improvement on the second one. I like the skulls. |
Lord of the Night reviews the third and final book in the Dark Word
trilogy, Dark Creed by Anthony Reynolds.
"A
superb ending that takes many unexpected turns in the greatest battle of the
series, the culmination of the series results in a great book that no fan of
Chaos should miss." - Lord of the Night
Dark Creed was a book that I hesitated over because I didn't want to
see the last of Marduk and the 34th Host, I always feel that way when I come to
the final book in a trilogy, and there's always a lot of expectation that the
final book will surpass the rest of the series and be worthy of all the plot
strands that have been building up to it. It doesn't work all the time, but
Dark Creed is definitely one of the books that surpassed its prequels and
became the best of its series. Reynolds surprised me quite a few times in the
book, as did the characters who several times did things that I did not see
coming, and crafted an epic battle whose outcome I was on edge to find out the
entire read through. It may feature more Imperials than the last two books, but
Reynolds doesn't disappoint here and manages to make them just as interesting
as the Chaos marines and create a war where the reader may end up rooting for
both sides.
The time has finally come. Now a Dark Apostle of the Word, Marduk leads
the 34th Host to war alongside the hosts of Grand Apostle Ekodas. Their target:
Boros Prime, an Imperial fortress world under the protection of the White
Consuls chapter and the location of the Boros Gate, a network of wormholes that
will allow the Word Bearers to ravage the Imperium unchecked if they can take
them. And with the Nexus Arrangement finally unlocked, the Word Bearers secret
weapon is poised to ensure their victory. But an old enemy is returning to
reclaim what is theirs, and punish those who stole it. With enemies within and
without threatening his position and his life, Marduk will have to use every
trick he has to stay in power over the 34th Host and survive machinations ten
millennia old that threaten to tear the Sons of Lorgar apart as their enemies
wait for the right moment.
Dark Creed's story is first and foremost a trilogy ender, so in order
to understand the plot and character developments and references to events past
you must have read the previous two books. Reynolds picks up shortly after the
end of Dark Disciple and finally begins what has been building since the end of
Dark Apostle, the dark crusade against the Imperium. But of course things never
go as expected and the story quickly becomes not only one of action but
intrigue, the Word Bearers plotting against each other and scheming to be the
Apostle that leads the campaign. The Chaos side to the story deals with the
characters finally coming to a head with each other, and another element that I
won't name for spoilers causing quite a bit of trouble within the Legion. But
Dark Creed isn't just about Chaos, it also features the Imperials almost evenly
and Reynolds uses their side to tell the story of the actual war, how things
are going on the ground and the Imperials efforts to survive the onslaught of
the Word Bearers while the Chaos side deals more with the intrigue going on
behind the scenes, but does have some POVs dedicated to the ground war.
Reynolds really does pull out all the stops on the story, even making
connections to the Horus Heresy, and I think it pays off as the events in Boros
feel suitably epic, a real confrontation that could be the beginning of
something much bigger and infinitely more dangerous to the Imperium.
The characters are mostly a returning cast on the Chaos side with a few
new additions, and an entirely new Imperial cast. Marduk, Burias and Kol Badar
all return and with Marduk's ascension to Dark Apostle, the relationships
between these characters take some interesting turns. Reynolds surprised me
once or twice with some of the things they did or said, especially near the end
when one character's actions became a real game-changer and I did not see it
coming. One character changed a bit too much for my liking, I didn't care for
how he acted during the book but that was a personal dislike and not a dislike
of his portrayal or the writing involving him. New supporting characters like
Kharesh Inshanbel who I wished had played a bigger role in the story, for his
few scenes showed a devious mind and sharp wit that I liked, or Grand Apostle
Ekodas who was an interesting look at the higher ranks of power in the Word
Bearers. However one new character I did not care for, the new First Acolyte
Ashkanez who I felt was wooden and the one-dimensional schemer type. The
Imperial characters were written quite well, a step-up from the Imperial cast
in Dark Apostle in that these characters actually had their own stories and
were in the book for more than just dying against the Word Bearers, though they
are only two White Consuls Space Marines. Both of these marines faced different
issues about being in the Boros Gate and I really wanted to see how they'd
resolve them, as both characters were actually interesting to read about and
because these characters were used to show the war on Boros Prime, how the
Imperials fare against the Word Bearers and later events, and we get an
Imperial perspective on some of the main cast that is rather amusing.
The action scenes are stunning and really move up a step from the
previous books. The cinematic feel is closer to Dark Apostle than Dark
Disciple, but it goes even further by moving into space with running battles in
claustrophobic hallways and immense hangar bays and arming chambers, and the
hell-blasted surface of Boros Prime once the war really gets going becomes a
major battlefield for each army. The urban environment is used nicely to
showcase city fighting, moving through buildings and taking ground and fighting
against mobs of civilians-turned-cultists. But the best part is that the Word
Bearers finally face the foe that can match them in strength and power and blow
for blow, the Imperial Space Marines. The two version of Space Marines finally
meet and their battles are as brutal as you'd expect, and it's a nice change of
pace for the Word Bearers to really be challenged by their enemy. And once the
battle gets underway and an old enemy returns to haunt the Word Bearers, the
battles become even better, the action scenes near the end are some of my
favourites including one character's final moments which were brilliantly
written. I also enjoyed how the returning enemy was portrayed, I felt an
appropriate sense of dread as they approached, a different feeling than you'd
get from Chaos. The use of Chaos as a weapon is resumed here and the madness
that was prevalent in Dark Apostle returns, making each battle feel darker and
more dangerous for the Imperials as they face not just the Chaos Space Marines,
but Chaos itself. I also enjoyed the resolution of the battle, it was not what
I expected to happen and in my opinion was an ending that could only happen in
40k.
The pacing is pretty good. When I first read this book I did it in a
single afternoon, around six to eight hours of reading, so it didn't bore me
even once. Reynolds maintained a good pace on both sides of the conflict,
keeping the reader interested with character development, plot twists and the
growing level of scheming in the traitor ranks, bloody fighting scenes with
armies and personal duels between characters. The POV switches between Imperial
and Chaos were also done quite well, the Chaos side did get more page time but
the Imperials got enough that their stories were told and supplemented the Word
Bearers stories without overshadowing them, which is good as if they had it
wouldn't really have been a Chaos Space Marine novel. The use of the Nexus
Arrangement, and the revelation of its purpose, was interesting and though I
often loathe superweapons as being a deus ex machina or a simple solution to a
complex problem, I liked the Nexus as a weapon that was not a weapon and found
Marduk's use of it to be ingenious, and the potential that it shows is very
seriously handled which worked in its favour, making the Nexus Arrangement a
powerful weapon that completely changed the war in the Boros Gate, but had
limits and could not win the war for the Word Bearers, only help them win it
themselves. One plotline in the story connects to the Horus Heresy, however this
connection never actually appeared in the Horus Heresy due to writing schedule
conflicts, but it was very cool to see something that happened in the Heresy
influencing the events of this book directly, it adds weight to what happens in
the Word Bearers ranks and makes it feel like a continuance of what happened
before.
Now for my favourite quote, this a common
quote in 40k but it's never had greater meaning than it did in the final few
pages of this book
"Death to the False Emperor!"
"Death to the False Emperor!"
The ending of the book is the natural one once you realise what is
happening in the final third of the book, there's no great twist like in Dark
Apostle but unlike Dark Disciple which also had a naturally occurring ending,
Dark Creed features what I like to call the promise of things to come that
we'll never see. Things that sound very cool but will only happen after the
current timeline of Warhammer 40k, which it will never proceed beyond, so what
we get is left up to speculation and the idea of what could happen during the
13th Black Crusade where the 40k timeline leaves off. I like these kind of
things, they provide lots of things to speculate about and possibility which is
always fun to think about, though some may find the ending somewhat
anticlimactic for the Chaos forces since it did take them three books to end up
here. But I find the ending to be in keeping with the nature of Chaos, in the
end Chaos is its own worst enemy because it's very nature is to work against
itself and for reasons that are unfathomable. The cameo in the beginning and
the ending was a cool addition, though it did feel as if that character was
added in solely for the purpose of appearance, since Marduk is just a Dark
Apostle another character could have filled the role that the cameo character
did without any real issue, but it was still cool and a nice nod to Heresy fans
to see this much-love-to-be-hated character appear in the 41st millennium.
So for a great ending to one of my favourite trilogies from Black
Library I give Dark Creed a score of 8.8/10. This is a novel that I enjoyed
every minute of, even if I wish things had ended differently for one or two of
the characters. As with the previous entries in the series I would recommend
Dark Creed to any fan of the Chaos Space Marines or just to people who like
reading about villains in general, if you prefer the norm of reading about
heroes then while this book does feature more "good guy" perspectives
than any of the previous books, it is still primarily a Chaos book and I do not
think anyone who doesn't like villain POVs will enjoy it. But then again perhaps
you should try the series and see if it can convert you to heresy.
That's it for this review. Next I think will be a new(ish) book, the
recently released Imperial Guard standalone novel Baneblade by Guy Haley, his first full novel entry into Black Library
and one that i've heard good things about, but we'll see. So until next time,
AVE DOMINUS NOX!