A Couple More 'Horus Heresy' Short Stories...

Yesterday was one of those Thursday's where I find myself repeatedly muttering things like 'just get through it mate' and 'not long until the weekend'... Not the worst day ever, just very intense with a lot of stuff to pack into not enough time. Oh well, not long until the weekend ;o)

I wasn't up for much yesterday evening then, stuck a couple of 'Hellraiser' movies on in the background and read a couple of 'Horus Heresy' short stories that I had on my Kindle (well, the Kindle App, I still have no idea where my actual Kindle is...) Turns out that short stories are just good for the bus ride home from work, they're also good for while you're waiting for your dinner to heat up. Let me tell you a little bit about them...

'Ordo Sinister' - John French (Black Library)

Page Count: 22 Pages

The webway – a bizarre alien landscape created by the eldar in ages long past; a network of otherworldly tunnels that burrow through time and space. When the wards protecting the webway are accidentally breached by the primarch Magnus, hordes of daemons are able to exploit this weakness to attack the heart of Terra directly. While the Emperor himself tries to hold the wards in place, a desperate battle takes place in the webway itself – a battle that requires very special combatants – among them the Psi-Titan Borealis Thoon.

'Ordo Sinister' was very much a story of two halves... On the one hand, we get another look at the Battle in the Webway and that is never a bad thing, especially when there's a Psi-Titan involved, standing off against a wave of demons. Cue an awesome spectacle of a battle and plenty of opportunities for Borealis Thoon to show what it can do; annihilate demons of course. This is a grimdark future though so this is tempered with a little insight into what powers a Psi-Titan and what that means for everyone involved. And considering this is meant to be the more 'enlightened' 30th Millennium... I love reading about it but I'm always really glad that I don't live there. It makes for a brilliant read though, that's the main thing.

On the other hand though... Hydragyrum, pilot of Borealis Thoon. 

Hydragyrum is a Pariah, born without a soul (I think, he certainly doesn't have the connection to the Warp that normal humans have) and as such, the kind of guy that no-one wants to be around. And I couldn't work out whether John French had written the character a little too well or if Hydragyrum was just an ass at exactly the wrong moments. Either way, he wasn't easy to spend time with and that's an issue when the story is only 22 pages long. Oh well, the good outweighs the bad overall and Hydragyrum gets a good send off.

What I really want to know though is, who was it who looked at the Psi-Titan (fresh off the factory line) and decided to call it 'Borealis Thoon'? 


'The Long Night' - Aaron Dembski-Bowden (Black Library) 

Page Count: 22 Pages

Jago Sevatarion, First Captain of the Night Lords Legion, languishes in a gaol cell under the watchful eye of his Dark Angels captors. Escape is not Sevatarion's main concern though, at least not yet. Sevatarion is alone in his cell, so who is the girl who talks to him in his head...?

I enjoyed reading Aaron Dembski-Bowden's 'Night Lords' books (far too long ago now but, still enjoyed them) so 'The Long Night' was an easy, and intriguing, choice for a quick read. I loved how Dembski-Bowden examines what is left of Sevatarion's desire to enforce justice (and by expansion the Night Lords as a Legion) and then immediately puts this to the test as the mystery of the girl is solved. I'm still more 'loyalist leaning' but I've definitely got more of a soft spot for the Night Lords now and I wouldn't mind reading more about Jago Sevatarion. 'The Long Night' was well worth the read.



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