'Cadia Stands' – Justin Hill (Black Library)

There was this period of a couple of months, last year, where I'd go on Amazon and whatever book I was looking for, it was invariably £1.99 for the Kindle. It was almost like there was a lockdown on and Amazon knew that we all wanted to catch up on our reading, hmmm... Well of course I loaded my Kindle up with sweet deals that I promptly forgot about, until the last couple of days that is. I've been after a little more Warhammer 40k in my reading and remembered that there's a nice little vein of the stuff on my Kindle, just waiting to be mined. So that is just what I started doing with 'Cadia Stands'...

Under almost constant besiegement by the hosts pouring from the Eye of Terror, Cadia acts as a bulwark against tyranny and death. Its fortresses and armies have held back the hordes of Chaos for centuries, but that grim defiance is about to reach its end. As Abaddon's Thirteenth Black Crusade batters Cadia's defences, and armies of the Imperium flock to reinforce this crucial world, a terrible ritual long in the making comes to fruition and the delicate balance of this brutal war shifts… From the darkness, a hero rises to lead the beleaguered defenders, Lord Castellan Ursarkar Creed, but even with the armoured might of the Astra Militarum and the strength of the Adeptus Astartes, will it be enough to avert disaster and prevent the fall of Cadia? While Creed lives, there is hope. While there is breath in the body of a single defender, Cadia stands… but for how much longer?

So, the Fall of Cadia... Warhammer 40k's attempt at doing something as cool as Warhammer 30k's 'Horus Heresy' and to be fair, it is a pretty big deal. Has it really moved the overall narrative (of the setting) forwards though? No, of course it hasn't. It's not meant to. It's an event that kept money pouring into the GW coffers and war ticking over in the 'in-game universe'. But, lets not have me go all cynical (again), lets take a look at how all the drama around the fall of Cadia comes out in this book.

The short and sweet answer is, 'You know what? It comes out really well. This is a big event and the book does really well to match up to all that. Up to a point that is, but we'll come back to that in a sec (or a paragraph or so, whichever comes first). 'Cadia Stands' is a retelling of the events leading up to the fall and strikes all the right notes in all the right places, in particular in its examination of the stalwart Cadian forces and how they react to the breaking of a line that they've held for ten thousand years. The result is what you'd expect (keep on fighting and see whether victory or death arrive first) but it makes for stirring reading and you can see seeds being sown for future book in the series. In the meantime, there is plenty to see here with what seems like a never ending barrage of warfare punctuated by all too brief trips to the field hospital to be patched up and sent out again. Hill clearly gets it, 'there is only war' and he does well to have it mean something instead of it just being an occupational hazard for the troops. War on Cadia is just a part of daily living; Hill not only raises the stakes here but lets you see just what it means.

If there was one quibble I had (and it is only a little one to be fair), it was that I felt the story was held back a bit by the decision to keep the focus on the Guard at the expense of big hitters that I know would have been around this fight like flies on Nurgle. Don't get me wrong, it was handled well and was the right approach but at the same time, I couldn't help but wonder whether it would have been even more stirring and dramatic to have a few well known Astartes (on either side, I'm good either way) enter the game. I shouldn't be fussy (because it is a completely gripping read) but that was the niggling feeling that I got.

Just ignore me though, middle age is clearly biting hard ;o) 'Cadia Stands' is a gripping read with it's fair share of blood and thunder as well as making it clear what it means to be Cadian in Cadia's darkest hour...