'Wolfsbane' – Guy Haley (Black Library)

I know, I really should be reading these in some kind of order ('Wolfsbane' comes before 'Titandeath' which I have reviewed already)... I just keep telling myself that it's ok, it's not like the 'Horus Heresy' is a story where the ending is a big secret, it's well known what happens next ;o) Reading these books is just filling the gaps in really and I'm filling those gaps in wherever I can. There's also the fact that I finally decided to do something about the TBR Pile under the bed, a few weeks ago, and that's where 'Wolfsbane' was hiding. As soon as I found it, I knew that I had to get it read. But above all, 'Wolfsbane' promised a fight between two of the mightiest Primarchs and even though I knew roughly how it had to end (see Point 1), I still wanted to see Horus and Leman Russ throw down. So I did and that bit was worth it. The rest of it though... I'm half and half.

The time has come for Leman Russ, primarch of the Space Wolves, to fulfil his vow and attempt to stop Warmaster Horus before he breaks through to the Segmentum Solar. In the face of opposition from three of his brother primarchs, Russ withdraws the Space Wolves legion from Terra and makes all haste for Horus’s position. Reports from Malcador the Sigillite’s agents suggest that Horus is utterly changed, and infused with a diabolical power so great that no man can stand against him. A warrior of Fenris would never willingly abandon his oaths, but with Horus beyond the touch of mortal blades, the Lord of Winter and War may have doomed himself for the sake of honour…

You really can't have a good Heresy without putting Leman Russ and Horus together on a spaceship and letting them battle it out. It's the fight that Russ, in particular, was literally made for and Horus needed a warm up fight before going onto the main event... And there is the problem that this book is faced with before it even begins. How do you make a fight like this mean something when everyone knows that Horus has two more big fights left in him before the Civil War ends? Well, if you're Guy Haley, you approach this question by chucking a whole load of mysticism in the way of Russ tso that he can confront who he really is and just what he actually hopes to achieve in a fight that he cannot win. I think you need to be a bit of a Space Wolves fan to really get what Haley does here as there is a lot of Fenrisian lore in play here as well as examining how Russ' decisions are affecting his Legion. I'm not a huge Space Wolves fan myself (always had a soft spot for the Imperial Fists, don't know why...) so I found that these moments held the plot back a little, for me anyway. What I did enjoy though is how Haley brings out a little Thor in Leman Russ, a brawler who is self aware enough that he won't fall into traps that are too obvious; just like the ones he faces during his trials in the Warp. So not quite for me then but there was enough good stuff here to keep me going in the meantime.

Those moments kept me going until the climactic battle on board Horus' flagship, the 'Vengeful Spirit'. The fighting through a ship of horrors, one Legion that never wanted their name against another Legion that changed theirs. Marine on Marine combat is always a brutal affair and it was no different here, it was even brought into sharper focus through the fighting taking place in cramped quarters. No quarter asked and none given. It is all a build up to the 'final' showdown but what a build-up! You really get a sense of how every last footstep is fought for and bathed in the blood of the loser (sometimes the winner as well). Without giving too much away, the fight between Horus and Russ does exactly what it is meant to, shows us what Russ learned in the Warp and how he brought that to bear in the fight. I think it will open up a nice line of exploration into Horus himself over the next few books. That was almost incidental though when you see what comes next, a fighting withdrawal that is one of the most powerful moments I've seen in a 'Horus Heresy' book. I'm not going to tell you any more other than that you should read it yourself, it's that good.

There's a lot to like then but there's also an entire plot, running in parallel, that really didn't work for me. I liked the way that the 'Mechanicum Chapters' introduced a character that is making quite the name for himself in the fortieth millennium, showing him as more or less human and at the start of a very special journey. There just didn't seem to be anything to connect that to the main plotline, other than that the battle on the 'Vengeful Spirit' takes place in the same sector of space as the Mechanicum outpost. This is cool enough but it doesn't advance the main plot at all and that being the case, I had to wonder why it was there. I mean, it was there to introduce a big player but I'm not sure if that's enough and there was a little too much of this for my liking.

'Wolfsbane' was a great look into the motivations of all your favourite Space Wolves (although most of them are probably dead by the end of the book, serves you right for picking favourites...) and does a lot of good work in answering the question, 'how do you write a novel when the ending of the series is well known...' Really not sure about that side plot though...