A 'Did Not Finish...' - 'Space Marine' – Ian Watson (Black Library)

It's only been in the last few years that I've finally realised that I don't have to finish every book that I pick up. Maybe I'm just getting a bit older now and there's a creeping suspicion, at the back of my mind, that there's not as much time (as there used to be) to read all the good books, let alone the ones that don't agree with me. Maybe I've just lost a little bit of the tolerance that I used to have for reading books that weren't quite up to snuff. It's more than likely that the truth sits somewhere in the middle of the two and to be honest, it's not that big a deal. If a book isn't working for me then I'm gracefully bowing out and moving onto something else.

It's still a shame though when a book doesn't work out. Especially when it's a book that you've always fancied picking up but never got round to. Especially when it's a book that felt like it was just the book for me... Yep, I'm talking Ian Watson's 'Space Marine'.

Believe us when we tell you that Space Marine is quite unlike any other Warhammer 40,000 novel you’ve ever read.

First published in 1993 – though completed some years earlier – at a time when the background to the Warhammer 40,000 universe was still in a state of flux and not yet fully coalesced, the book follows three young Imperial Fist recruits from their formative years in the underhive gangs of Necromunda through to fighting as part of the First Company within the bowels (literally!) of a Tyranid bioship.

Not only will you find squats in this novel –Tzeentch-worshiping squats at that – but also Space Marines controlling Titans, Space Marines with lasguns, the Pain Glove and more than a small amount of toilet humour. Oh, and a Zoat. How could we forget the Zoat?

Although the temptation was great to rewrite significant portions of this book to make it conform to current background, as a curiosity piece, an historical snapshot of the Warhammer 40,000 universe circa the early 1990s, this book is invaluable. It also serves as a shining example of what can happen when a respected genre author at the height of his powers is let loose on an established shared universe.

I really wanted to enjoy 'Space Marine', a book that is pretty much the opposite of canon but also a book that the Black Library clearly can't bear to let slip away into the abyss. I enjoy a good Black Library book (I even enjoy some of the bad ones) so this felt like it would be right up my street.

And it was, in it's own way, with a lot of Space Marine action and a real sense to be had of a wider universe that had yet to be really explored at the time.

Any Black Library book that takes time out for a page on how Space Marines fart, in enclosed spaces, should be a 'must read' for me but this one clearly wasn't. So, what happened? Well, a feeling that things were dragging, when they should have been flowing, is never a good thing. It felt like Watson was having a little too much fun flexing his muscles in this new universe and not paying as much attention as he should to moving the story along. Even that wouldn't normally be a deal breaker but right now, I really need a book to take me somewhere and not leave me hanging. I thought I was around eighty percent through the book and my Kindle told me it was more like fifty two... I couldn't do it anymore, no more 'Space Marine' for me.

While I would recommend 'Space Marine' to fans of the setting who want to see where it all began (and spot the differences), it's not one for me. It's a shame but that's the way it goes sometimes.