'Assassinorum: Divine Sanction' – Robert Rath (Black Library)


You would have thought I'd learnt my lesson but no... Four days until payday and apparently, I will still buy Kindle books to cheer myself if I've had a bad day. And yesterday wasn't even that bad a day... Oh well, at least 'Divine Sanction' is hiding out in my Kindle instead of making one of the TBR piles, in my flat look even bigger.

It does me good, every now and then, to remind myself that the grim darkness of the far future isn't just about Space Marines fighting the good fight and Imperial Guard (sorry, Astra Militarum...) trying not to get trodden on by everything else. There are other factions out there, taking the fight to the enemy when a little more finesse is required. I'm talking about Imperial Assassins of course, in particular those shape changing Callidus Assassins who have a habit of popping up when you absolutely do not expect it... Their approach is very different to the 'shoot first, shoot again and just keep shooting really' approach of everyone else so when yesterday's trip to Amazon turned this title up, I knew I'd be giving it a read...

A Callidus Assassin's mission is imperilled when an agent of another temple interrupts her. Can she salvage victory, or will her task end in ignominious failure?

As you've probably guessed from the two sentence blurb, we're looking at another Warhammer 40K short story... or is it? 'Divine Sanction' has a very open ended and vague ending, just the kind of ending that you write when you have further plans for a character that you are clearly enjoying writing. Sycorax, the Callidus assassin, is very cool, no question, (more on that in a bit) and I would definitely read more of Rath's work if Sycorax was in it. In terms of the story at hand though, this approach left the ending hanging a little too loosely to really draw a line that said 'this is the end'. And that's probably the whole point but I prefer a slightly more definite ending to short stories (otherwise I don't really think they're short stories). You may not and that means 'Divine Sanction' will really work for you. I'll be sat over here, thinking of 'Divine Sanction' as more of an opening chapter and hoping for more to come.

Because that's the thing, 'Divine Sanction' really does have it all and Rath is clearly bloody good at throwing about a million curveballs into a situation and having Sycorax' reactions just show how good she is at what she does. If the fight scene was in a movie, it would have been done in just the one shot; it's so kinetic and the penitent engines add just the right amount of brute force to be a real challenge. I'm not normally one to enjoy a short story that's basically one giant scrap but Rath makes it really easy to enjoy just that. Most of that is Rath gently letting us know that Sycorax is nothing short of awesome by how she navigates the fight and just her life as a Callidus assassin. Sycorax isn't a particularly easy character to get on with and that's as it should be. Just enjoy watching her do what she does best.

'Divine Sanction' also offers the reader a glimpse at life away from the front lines, a life that can be just as dangerous and where star systems can fall just as easily to an enemy that comes at you with smiles. Early references to 'the greater good' give the game away a little bit but then you realise that you're actually in the middle of a different game entirely so that's ok.

'Divine Sanction' is almost the ideal introduction to what I'd say is the coolest Assassin Temple of the fortieth millennium. I say 'almost'... The vague ending is bugging me though. I think the only way to solve that problem is for us to find out what Sycorax does next (this story really feels like it should be followed by a much longer one). Over to you then, Mr Rath...

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