‘The Lion: Son of the Forest’ – Mike Brooks (Black Library)

Dammit… I should have reviewed this ages ago but I left the book on the living room table and you all know what that means. Yep, another book pile grew in that spot and I completely forgot that ‘Son of the Forest’ was holding it all up, until last night when I was doing cleaning… And there it was :o) I really need to be better at keeping books on shelves.

Anyway, better late than never and all that ;o) I’m a little late to the party (actually, the party might be over, where is everyone?) but that doesn’t make ‘Son of the Forest’ any the less worth talking about. You see, it’s a very good book…

After ten thousand years of dreaming, locked in stasis at the heart of his shattered home world, Lion El'Jonson wakes to the nightmare of Imperium Nihilus.

In this midnight age, the dying embers of humanity are threatened on all sides by the hungry darkness. Alone, even the Lion has no hope of prevailing against such evil – but there are those who would aid him in his quest. Hunted to the edge of endurance, many among his Fallen knights have long-awaited the day their liege would return to redeem them. The Lord of Shadowed Paths must gather these lost loyalists to his side once more, and stride forth to vanquish a traitorous son and the twisted Chaos warband that calls him master.

Faced with these strange times, the Lion can be certain of nothing and no-one, except for himself. But in a galaxy without the Emperor, without the Imperium, without his Legion, and without Caliban… who is he?

I missed the return of Roboute Guilliman (I’m not even sure that there was a book… was there?) so despite knowing very little about the Dark Angels Space Marines Chapter, when I saw that Lion El’Jonson was returning in his own book, I knew I had to have some of that. In Games Workshop’s continued mission to keep the setting balanced just so, humanity needed another Primarch and seeing as the Lion was only asleep, he was an obvious choice to make a return.

And I loved the way that Brooks handles that return. Nothing is ever easy in the 40K universe and Brooks holds to that approach by making the Lion have to rediscover who he is in a universe that has never been more deadly than it is right now. It all makes for a better story anyway but for the likes of me (like I said, not a huge Dark Angels fan), it made the plot much more accessible as my understanding grew at the same time as the Lion’s did.

And that’s what I really ended up sticking around for. Don’t get me wrong, ‘Son of the Forest’ is very much a 40K novel in that the Lion has to fight to progress and does it very well. Of course he does, he’s a Primarch, Brooks clearly has that covered. What I was really there for though were the moments where the Lion realises that not only is the Universe a far worse place, than when he left it, some of the mistakes that he made directly contributed to that. Not only that, he’s not the young Primarch that he used to be… It’s all change then and watching the Lion adapt and adjust to all this is a real joy. It’s not often that you get to see a Loyal Primarch doing his thing and Brooks shows us exactly why the Lion is such a special character in the setting.

The outcome may not be in doubt but that’s besides the point as far as ‘Son of the Forest’ goes. No, this book is more about throwing a Primarch sized stone into a universe sized pond and seeing what the resulting ripples do. It’s safe to say that no-one who meets the Lion remains unchanged.

A bloody good read then :o) I’m going to assume that anyone who was thinking of reading ‘Son of the Forest’ has probably done so by now but if you haven’t… Do yourself a favour and pick the book up sooner rather than later. You won’t regret it.