'Baphomet by Night' – Peter McClean (Black Library)


I was going to read some other stuff first but I really got into the tale of Corporal Cully, in 'Blood Sacrifice', and wanted to see where it all began. So I did :o)

This of course means that over the last couple of days, I have managed to take a duology and read it in entirely the wrong order... I'm not even surprised at myself as this type of behaviour is turning out to be par for the course this week. I would promise not to do it again but there are two 'Sharpshooter' books, on the shelf, that are daring me to even try and work out where they sit in a series that I haven't managed to collect yet. Oh well...

But back to 'Baphomet by Night'; a tale that also stands very well on its own (even if you read it after its sequel...) and invites you to read the next tale rather than ending on a cliffhanger and demanding that you keep going. If you're anything like me you'll keep going but even if you don't, 'Baphomet by Night' is a nasty little tale (in the best way) to savour all by itself.

The war for Baphomet is over. The Chaos cult which brought the planet to its knees has been defeated, and the ruined forge world is back in Imperial hands. Sergeant Rachain and Corporal Cully of the Reslian 45th are assigned to garrison duty in an outpost in a shattered city – a nice easy job… or so it seems. When an attack from the smokeshrouded darkness leaves several of their number dead with no sign of enemy casualties, the Astra Militarum troopers start to wonder just what is out there.

While 'Blood Sacrifice' makes use of the Warhammer 40K setting to deliver horror with a 41st Millennium flavour, 'Baphomet by Night' is more of a straight war story laced with an element of supernatural horror very appropriate to the setting. I found this to be a great approach, to take, as it essentially gives us double the horror for the price of entry. We're getting the horror of war and the particular horror that Warhammer 40K is best known for, all crammed into just thirty three pages. I've got a lot of time for any author that delivers what his editor is after but, at the same time, stamps his own mark on a new series of books. I think that I might just have to search out more of McLean's work if this is anything to go by.

Is it an approach that works though...? Well, kind of... Depends on what you're coming to the book for. 'Baphomet by Night' is more about the horror of warfare (at least, from where I was sitting) than the supernatural stuff, which gradually creeps in as the book progresses. It's done incredibly well (not wanting to name your comrades until you're sure they'll stick around past the first fight, naming them and then watching them die in any number of brutal ways and that's just for starters) and I would love to see McClean do more of the same but in a longer Astra Militarum novel. I think he's got the potential to be able to do for the Imperial Guard what Aaron Dembski-Bowden did for the Night Lords.

That wasn't the horror I came for though, I was there for the supernatural stuff and what it would do to our beleaguered heroes. We do get that here and it is built up very gradually, in the atmosphere and the background until we are left in no doubt that the rank and file of the Imperium can never hope to come away unscathed in the eternal fight with the Arch Enemy. There just wasn't enough of that for me though and that's not the tale's fault, that's on me for wanting something that the story wasn't set up to deliver. If you're after the type of horror read that I'm usually after, it might be worth bearing this in mind.

So the balance wasn't quite right for me but what 'Baphomet by Night' does is done incredibly well and it's a short story that I would highly recommend to anyone who is looking to read more Warhammer 40K or if you just like good military sci-fi and fancy a quick read in your lunch hour. Either way, I'd check it out if I were you.

P.S. Looking at the Amazon page... I thought 'Baphomet by Night' was a 'Warhammer Horror' tale but it doesn't look like it is... If it isn't, I'd still say that the 'horror balance' swung too far in the favour of 'the horror of warfare' as the whole thing about the WH40K setting is the horrors of the Warp. Still a bloody good read though :o)

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