‘Typhus: Herald of the Plague God’ – David Annandale (Black Library)
In a time of increasingly shorter blog posts (so many other things demanding my time right now and there’s only so much Graeme to go round unfortunately…), I’m about to go for broke with what could well be the shortest post yet 😉 ‘Herald of the Plague God’ is an almost painfully slender nine pages long (which makes me wonder why Black Library charged full price for it, I still paid it though…) but still delivers a decent punch in the limited space that it has. Let me tell you all about it…
A world of perfect faith and matchless purity,
Annunciation is one of the holiest planets in the Imperium. Of course, the
higher the rise, the further there is to fall. This, Typhus knows well. As one
who once fell from grace, he is determined to bring Annunciation to the same
fate. And he is determined to do so alone. But what can one Chaos Space Marine
do against a world of countless billions of souls?
Because it doesn’t have
a lot of room to play with (which makes me wonder how these tales are
commissioned, does BL specifically ask for tales of this length?), ‘Herald of
the Plague God’ comes in, does what it needs to and then leaves in a flurry of
plague bearing insects. And you know what? I can get behind this approach as it
really seems to tie in with what Typhus is all about. He may be a devotee of Nurgle
but he is still a Space Marine at heart, albeit a traitor. As such then, he’s
all about prosecuting the mission and that’s really the tone of the story,
efficiency and getting the job done. The outcome is never in any doubt but that
was never the point really, it’s all about Typhus getting shit done and that’s
exactly what he does here. It feels low-key but when you think about the
backdrop of the story, and what it will become, you soon realise that it’s
anything but that. And as a quick aside… For a story that’s so concise, the
backdrop feels almost ‘wide screen’ and cinematic. It’s nicely done 😊
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