A ‘Did Not Finish’… ‘Witchbringer’ – Steven B. Fischer (Black Library)

Because sometimes, life is far too short to stick with a book that’s not working for you. Especially if work is giving you a bit of a kicking, you’ve got an exam that you really need to pass for work and… Hang on, that’s just me ;o)

My first sentence still stands though, life really is too short to not be enjoying something that should be a bit of a treat after a long day. Sometimes though, it’s really not the book’s fault, you and it just happened to cross paths at entirely the wrong time. And that brings me round to Steven B. Fischer’s ‘Witchbringer’.

Suffer not the witch to live, unless by their service they might earn redemption.

This is the creed of the scholastica psykana, a brutal foundry in which those with psychic power might be taught to serve. On the eve of her sanctioning as a primaris psyker within these very halls, Glavia Aerand, former captain of the Cadian 900th Regiment, receives a startling premonition – one concerning her old unit and a dangerous psychic artefact hidden on the planet where they are deployed.
After a reunion she never expected – or wanted – Aerand finds herself mired in a vicious campaign on the psychically active world of Visage, where the shallow seas and endless fogs are rumoured to swallow the souls of the dead. Haunted by growing suspicions of her new commander and the manifestations of the sinister relic, Aerand must trust in her new-found abilities to keep her former comrades alive, and confront an ancient threat that could consume Visage entirely.

I haven’t read loads of Black Library books, so may be entirely wrong, but it feels like there aren’t that many books where the lead is a psyker. Psykers generally tend to be nervous scrawny people who are as likely to be executed by their own side as they are possessed by something nasty in the Warp. Not a job that anyone wants then but if you suddenly awaken psychically, it’s actually the least worst option of a number of really bad options and that just screams potential in terms of a novel. You can guess my reaction then when I saw ‘Witchbringer’, I had to read it.

The opening scenes in the Scholastica Psykana are amazing and it’s fair to say that if the whole novel had stayed in that location, this wouldn’t be a DNF post. Atmosphere, chills and jump scares all hit the target first time, it was like all the best bits of ‘Event Horizon’ and ‘Hellraiser’ got together (and that’s just the Lord Prefector). A novel where the evil of the Warp is run a close second by the evil that the Imperium must do to guard against it (or is the other way round?); I would have stuck around for that. But…

Glavia Aerand left school.

I mean, you can’t stay at school forever but while the planet of Visage had a creepy atmosphere all of its own, the build up (to whatever was coming) was far too slow for me. And that’s not the book’s fault. I get why the build up took its sweet time but I needed something different in that moment so, after a hundred and twenty six pages, I put the book down.

If ‘Witchbringer’ finds some of what made it made it so chilling at the start then I think you’ve got an awesome read on your hands if you pick it up. I’m not in the place to give it that chance though but like I said, that’s me not the book ;o)

Michael (the mastermind behind ‘Track of Words’) got a lot more out of ‘Witchbringer’ and you can read his review over Here.