‘Man of Iron (Blackstone Fortress)’ – Guy Haley (Black Library)


Page Count: 19 Pages

I’ll be honest… I don’t play the Warhammer games (have never been able to get my head round the rules) so don’t know much of anything about the Blackstone Fortress game. I know that a Blackstone Fortress was crashed into Cadia but that’s it. I do know two things though :o) Robots are always cool, especially when one of their arms is a massive machine gun, and Guy Haley is a top tier writer for the Black Library. So when I saw the cover for ‘Man of Iron’, it didn’t take much for me to pick up a copy.

I spent most of yesterday sat in my favourite chair watching movies (more on that another time) but I did find a little time to give ‘Man of Iron’ a shot. And...

Of all the explorers in the Blackstone Fortress, the towering robot known only as UR-025 is perhaps the most mysterious… and dangerous. An automatous tool of Magos-Ethericus Nanctos III of Ryza, the machine's true reasons for joining the muster at Precipice and venturing inside the ancient alien labyrinth of the fortress is unknown. When it enters the twisted, ever-changing corridors of the alien construct alongside a force of other explorers from the Adeptus Mechanicus, secrets may come to light… and they are to be feared.

‘Man of Iron’ won’t be troubling my, as yet unwritten, list of ‘favourite WH40K books by Guy Haley but it was a lot of fun to read and that is really all I’m asking from my reading right now. There’s no plot as such, ‘Man of Iron’ is very much an introduction to UR-025 (and what it is, the clue is in the title) without a lot of room for much else. I’m guessing that its story continues in the ‘Blackstone Fortress’ novels. And that’s ok. Haley uses the page count to give his reader real insight into UR-025 instead and that is just as much fun.

UR-025 has the advantage of surprise on its side so the finale is a foregone conclusion but I loved watching the robot outwit the Mechanicus team without even really having to try that hard. The humans of the 41st Millennium have forgotten so much that it’s easy for UR-025 to constantly be one step ahead. At the same time though, UR-025 is completely alone and outnumbered so cannot press its advantage as much as it would like. And that’s where the tension comes in, things are not as easily resolved as you’d think. Haley does a great job balancing these two opposing sides through to the conclusion.

Not a bad read then. Not that I don’t have enough books to work through already, but… I wouldn’t mind reading more ‘Blackstone Fortress’ stuff is ‘Man of Iron’ is anything to go by.

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