‘Rotten to the Core’ and ‘The Trial of Lucille Von Shard’ (Black Library)

It was a day in the office today so I treated myself to a couple of Black Library short reads that I could zip through, on the bus, and still have time for a quick nap before my stop. I’ll be honest though, you might not see too many more of these posts from me… The quality is still there (kind of, more about that down the page) but the stories feel like they’re getting shorter, or Black Library are padding things out with more unnecessary extras, and I’ve realised that I’m getting to a point where I’m asking myself if financially, it’s worth continuing to pick these books up. It’s not like I don’t have other stuff to read in the meantime 😉 I’ll probably change my mind by this time next week but it’s worth thinking about. Anyway…

I grabbed myself copies of ‘Rotten to the Core’ and ‘The Trial of Lucille Von Shard’, let me tell you about them.

‘Rotten to the Core’ – Sandy Mitchell (Black Library)

Commissar Ciaphas Cain and his faithful Jurgen undercover a malign psyker seeking to cause chaos by destabilising a key Imperial void station.

I used to love reading about Cain’s misadventures, way back in the day, so saw ‘Rotten to the Core’ as a opportunity to get back into the character’s life and see what he was up to. As it turned out, ‘Rotten’ wasn’t rotten as such but it was a disappointment. To be blunt, there wasn’t enough room for Cain to be Cain which is really the whole point of reading this series. So no real humour then, just a quick job that if you’ve read any ‘Cain’ previously, you’ll already know how it concludes. ‘Rotten to the Core’ was alright (although how does a Khorne cultist manage to hide in plain sight on board a void station…?) but there are far better places to find what Cain is all about.

‘The Trial of Lucille Von Shard’ – Denny Flowers (Black Library)

Flight Commander von Shard stands accused of disobeying orders and abandoning a tank column to fight without air support – but the ad-hoc trial learns that all isn't as it seems, and that von Shard's censure might only further the cause of their enemies…

This was more like it though. Plenty of Ork action, a Imperial fighter pilot whose egotism makes her a compelling character to follow (I’ll definitely be picking up a copy of ‘Outgunned’ now, I only need to wait until May, I can do it…) and a nice little line in ‘How does the Imperial Guard (sorry, Astra Militarum…) manage to get anything when they’re pretty much fighting themselves the whole time’? It’s brilliant for the plot though so I’ll take it 😉

‘The Trial of Lucille Von Shard’ has a lot to recommend it then and it has my very much interested to read ‘Outgunned’. I’ll let you know how that pans out 😊

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