‘Nightsider Imperialis’ – Victoria Hayward (Black Library)


Page Count: 38 Pages

While I’m trying to finish off longer books (‘Son of the Forest’ and ‘The God is not Willing’, both excellent reads so far), this week is very much about the shorter reads but also, short reads that I know I’ll enjoy. Life isn’t bad right now, just a lot of stuff happening and you know what that means… I don’t want to be faffing around with books that I’m not sure about, life is too short for that right now. I’m after reads that I know I’ll enjoy and having thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Carbis Incident’ and ‘Blood Sands’; I knew I’d enjoy ‘Nightsider Imperialis’ too. The long and short of it is that I really did enjoy ‘Nightsider Imperialis’, let me tell you about it…

When the t’au bring down an Imperial Navy Lightning Strike Fighter, Major Wulf Khan must venture deep behind enemy lines to rescue the pilot before they – and the secrets they carry – fall into xenos hands.

Well damn, what a read 😊 I thought waiting on the phone, while IT support tried to fix my laptop, would be torturous but thanks to ‘Nightsider Imperialis’ it was anything but. Hayward starts her tale with an actual explosion and the action doesn’t let up from there, not once. We’re talking a high stakes mission undertaken by an engaging cast who are being stalked by an implacable foe, what’s not to like? Well, quite a lot actually if it wasn’t handled well but there’s no worries on that score. Hayward bounces these two groups off each other in a decent mix of full on fire fights and little ‘hunter becoming the hunted’ moments that all drive the plot at just the right pace. If you’re thinking ‘Predator’, that’s the target that Hayward hits with ease. ‘Nightsider Imperialis’ is another one of those short reads that I think would work really well as a half hour animation on Warhammer +.

It's not just the action though… I’ve never read a ‘Catachan’ book and I’ll be honest, I was expecting a lot of brute force and not much else, given what I’ve seen of these soldiers on other book covers. Shows how wrong I was. Khan’s squad are hard bastards but there’s a lot more to them than that and I loved seeing how this played out between Khan and Bass. It really added an edge to the story that placed the whole mission at risk; I didn’t need another reason to keep reading but I wasn’t complaining here 😉

This is the paragraph where I’d normally say that I thoroughly enjoyed the read and would love to see these same players in a novel length tale. Well… I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Nightsider Imperialis’ and as if by magic, ‘Deathworlder’ promises more of the same but with a much higher page count 😊 I’ll be all over ‘Deathworlder’ when it’s released. In the meantime, ‘Nightsider Imperialis’ is very much worth your time.

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