'Nurgle's Gift' & 'The Tallyman' – Guy Haley, Anthony Reynolds (Black Library)


We're getting to that point of the summer holiday where we're trying to cram as much as we can into what's left before the kids go back to school. And it's been good today, I took my youngest on a little journey round the Natural History Museum and to the 'Comic and Book Exchange' at Notting Hill Gate. Lets just say that she was more impressed with one than the other, I'll let you guess which was which... ;o)

It didn't leave a lot of time for reading though. Funnily enough, it feels like I'll get more reading done when I go back to work tomorrow (and the kids go back to school). Luckily though, I had a 'Warhammer 40K, Quick Read' on my Kindle, waiting to be read, and here I am, ready to share some thoughts on the whole thing.

I've always had a soft spot for the Chaos Marines who are in it for nothing more than to glorify their patron gods by just doing what they do. The World Eaters are an obvious example and I do love my fighty little traitors but I'm all about the Death Guard doing Nurgle's work just by putting one foot in front of the other and being infectious. I'm not big on the rest of the lore but it feels like if their work did topple the Emperor, Mortarion and his men would see it as a handy bonus in the face of the greater work. A whole book about Nurgle and his followers then sounded like a bit of a treat and it was, just not for the reasons I thought I'd be getting. There was hardly any Death Guard basically but that was ok. We got some really atmospheric horror pieces and the return of some old 'friends'...

NURGLE'S GIFT (Guy Haley)

On a world wracked by plague, new arrivals bring hope to the beleaguered populace. When the Sky Warriors emerge from the venomous mist, they come with promises of salvation from the ailments that blight the people. But a sacrifice will be required' Will the price be too high, or will the villagers be willing to give up one of their own to the tainted Space Marines?

Nurgle's gift... You don't need to ask for it but you can't give it back once you have it. The inhabitants of a plague wracked world find this out to their cost in Guy Haley's neat little slice of creeping terror. It's not a long piece but 'Nurgle's Gift' is so engaging, in its build up of tension set against this drab and murky dying world, that I just got lost in it straight away. Warfare in the forty first millennium isn't just about massed ranks of Guardsmen and squads of Astartes, ' Nurgle's Gift' shows a more insidious war taking place on a world that might never see one of the Emperor's finest. And the true horror is that the choice the villagers make is effectively redundant before they even decide. A great piece of WH40K fiction that I wouldn't be surprised to see take it's place in the Warhammer Horror line at some point.


THE TALLYMAN (Anthony Reynolds)

Stranded above a daemon world in the heart of the Eye of Terror, Marduk and the 34th Host of the Word Bearers venture onto the tainted planet in search of missing legionaries. But when they encounter the daemonic servant of the Plague God known as the Tallyman, they realise that their desire to save their brothers may doom them all'

They're back! I never thought I'd see Marduk and his warband again (especially after I had to get rid of my books and saw how much replacement copies would be...) so I was really pleased to see them back in action and venturing into Nurgle's own Garden on a rescue mission. 'The Tallyman' is more of a 'shoot em' up' affair but I liked the change in pace and I thought Reynolds struck a good balance between showing us the horrors of the Garden and then letting us see Marduk and his men fight their way through it. What was the Tallyman counting though? Diseases? I wouldn't mind knowing a little more about that (but that's what Google is for).

'The Tallyman' is also more of a 'bridging story' than 'Nurgle's Gift'. Marduk and crew don't end the story in the same place that they started and that can only be a good thing if that leads us into more tales of the 34th Host. Fingers crossed...

A great way to unwind, after a heavy day, then. If you have a Kindle and you want to get into Warhammer fiction, these shorter reads are the best way to get started; make this book one of the ones that you pick up first.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘The Long and Hungry Road’ – Adrian Tchaikovsky (Black Library)

Image
After not finishing ‘Witchbringer’ (not the book’s fault, I still think it could be worth your time), I thought I’d change pace a little and go for a short, sharp burst of something instead. Something that would blow a few cobwebs away and wake me up a bit :o) Now in my experience, there’s nothing shorter and sharper than a Warhammer short story so that was the direction of my reading taken care of. And as far as the focus went… I’ve read a few Warhammer tales, in my time, but I’ve never read a tale that looks at the events of the 41st Millennium through the eyes of the rapacious Tyranids. So when I saw ‘The Long and Hungry Road’ on Amazon, it pretty much chose itself. To face a Tyranid invasion is a waking nightmare. The skies darken with spores, your mind echoes with alien screeches, and countless weapon-organisms descend upon you with razor teeth and claws. How much greater would your horror be, to realise that the hive ship above thinks nothing of your fate – that it crushes you
Read more

'Mad God' (2021)

Image
It's that time again where Youtube throws me a 'Shudder' advert and I think to myself, 'I'm paying five quid a month for this, I really should watch something, lets give it a go...'   This time round, 'It' was the film 'Mad God' and the trailer was this mad batshit crazy shot of stop-motion horror that was over before I'd had a chance to get my head round it; leaving me pretty unsettled but with no clear idea just why that was... That's all I need sometimes, I was in... It's almost an hour later and, damn, that was grim, bleak and... What the hell just happened? A corroded diving bell descends amidst a ruined city and the Assassin emerges from it to explore a labyrinth of bizarre landscapes inhabited by freakish denizens. That is about all I can tell you about 'Mad God' and that's only because I had a quick look on IMDB and that was all IMDB could tell me... 'Mad God' is any number of things but it's not
Read more

‘Worms of the Earth’ – Robert E. Howard.

Image
Page Count: 27 Pages I have a copy of this on my shelf and the plan was to pick it up for a read on the way into work this morning. Well, that was the plan but I was half asleep, leaving the house, and totally forgot… No matter though, that’s what the Kindle app is for (although if I’d been a little more awake, I’d have read it off Project Gutenberg instead, you can find ‘Worms of the Earth’ Here ). 99p later and my ‘commute reading’ was secured 😉 I always seem to fall into the trap of just reading ‘Conan’ stuff whenever I fancy reading a little Howard. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just that there’s a lot of his other stories out there that are more than worth your time when you come across them. ‘Worms of the Earth’ is very much one of those tales but you knew that already, didn’t you? You didn’t? You should do something about that, take it from me… After witnessing one of his subjects die at the hands of Roman governor Titus Sulla, Bran Mak Morn vows vengeance on Sulla but at w
Read more