‘Fulgrim: The Perfect Son’ – Jude Reid (Black Library)

 


Page Count: 306 Pages

When you’re writing about the Chaos gods of the 40K universe, it’s a fairly straightforward job for 75% of the ‘Big Four’. Writing about Khorne? Just make his followers really angry and always up for a scrap. How about Tzeentch? Easy… Just make it all about the intrigue and the ‘long game’; have his followers stab each other in the back in their quest for knowledge (and be completely at the whim of a god who has it’s own myriad plans…) Nurgle’s fairly simple as well. Lots and lots of plague with a generous helping of ‘fungal body horror’ on the side. Enjoy your next meal ;o)

Okay, I’m probably over-simplifying it but you know what I mean. You know what these lot are about and it’s not a huge deal to show it on the page.

Slaanesh though… That’s a little different. We all know what Slaanesh is about but for a god styled as the ‘Lord of Excess’, writers need to practice restraint when talking about his followers. Because, well… You know ;o) And what would Games Workshop’s shareholders have to say about it all…?
So when I saw that Jude Reid had written a novel about Fulgrim and his Legion (well, what’s left of it), I had to give it a read...

For too long the Emperor’s Children have been denied their birthright. Their once-glorious Legion has been fractured into disparate warbands, condemned to ravage world after futile world in the pursuit of ambition and excess. But no longer.

Lord Fulgrim – ascended Primarch of the III Legion, the Perfect Son, the Emperor-in-Waiting – has issued a challenge to his scattered warriors: vanquish the Imperial world of Crucible, and bring him the head of the Black Templar charged with its defence.

But Fulgrim’s plans go far beyond the conquest of a single planet, and what should have been a swift and bloody offensive turns into a gruelling siege. With success uncertain, a world in flames around them, and the Legion turning their weapons inwards as well as out, the would-be champions are forced to confront a bitter truth. What must they sacrifice for victory and the favour of their Primarch, and what will be left of them when the war is over?

After all that build up, I’m going to have to start with the obvious. Reid very much plays to the ‘excess through fighting the perfect war’ attitude, that the Emperor’s Children, display and that’s as it should be. Aspiring to that perfect state is bred into these Astartes so that is what should drive the plot. What is interesting though is that not only is Reid happy to push those boundaries a little (so that’s why the galaxy hasn’t seen much of Fulgrim…) but she uses these hints to really show her readers that excess is fleeting. It drives Fulgrim and his Legion but it never actually moves them forwards. Sensation fades, a battle will inevitably conclude, the ‘perfect moment’ always comes with a sense of doubt that ultimately kills it. And the only thing that’s guaranteed is that Fulgrim’s attention will wander, leaving his Legion chasing a ‘perfect union’ that they will never achieve. There’s a sense of real tragedy that Reid draws out here with a once noble Legion that may well be flamboyant but is all hollow on the inside.

The good news is that all of the above may not do a lot for the likes of Marduk Tamaris but does a hell of a lot in terms of driving the plot forward with every single one of the Emperor’s Children out for themselves and not afraid to indulge in some backstabbing along the way. The actual stand up fights are worth a watch, although I can’t help but wonder if the Emperor’s Children were helped by the most ineffective Emperor’s Champion ever (or was he simply chasing his own ‘perfect moment’?) Either way, what I ended up staying for were the machinations of the Traitors and an intriguing mystery that twisted and turned… just like Fulgrim when he’s a snake ;o) The ending may not be in any doubt but looking back at what I’ve written, I think that’s kind of the whole point.

I’m very glad I took a chance on ‘The Perfect Son’ then, although I hope that the next Emperor’s Champion learns a lesson from Johannes Berengar and just thinks things through a little (I think I may be missing the point here…) I got some real insight into the irony of excess, in 40K, and it took the plot to some very interesting places. You can’t ask for much more than that (unless you’re in a Slaanesh cult that is...)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

'Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone’ – Zub, Scharf, Canola (Titan Comics, Heroic Signatures)

Image
It’s starting to look like this could be the week where I make a half decent dent in my ‘Comics TBR Pile’, lets see how we do... I’ve really been struggling with the ‘Savage Sword of Conan’ collection just recently (more than one reason but I want to finish the collection first before I talk about it) and I thought that I’d have to take a little step back from ‘Conan’ comics and come back when I was in a better mood for it. Until I realized that there was another ‘Conan’ comic lurking in the TBR pile and maybe I could give that a go instead. So that’s what I did. I’ve caught little glimpses of the ‘Black Stone’ storyline, in other ‘Conan’ comics, but I can’t help but feel that the event has kind of passed me by a little. That’s on me though to be fair, I’ve got the attention span of a goldfish right now and there are so many books that I just haven’t been able to focus on; I suspect a couple of them talk about a Black Stone… Oh well, I’m here now. Where better a place to catch up on ‘B...
Read more

‘Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth’ (1992)

Image
Every time Halloween comes round, I promise myself that I’ll watch more horror films and read more horror fiction; we’re halfway through the month and you can see how that’s going so far… There’s still plenty of October left though so lets see how I do from now until the end of the month ;o) First up is ‘Hellraiser 3’ which I watched last night, mostly because I love it (you can tell how this post is going to go, sorry…) but also because it was cheap on Prime and I’m still just on the wrong side of payday. Here goes… TV reporter Joey Summerskill’s life is changed forever when she witnesses the horrific death of a teenager, torn apart by bloody chains. Joey’s search for a story leads her to the Lament Configuration Box but it has already been opened, waking an old evil from its slumber… Now Pinhead walks the earth once more, creating a new army of Cenobites from the transmuted flesh of his victims; his one desire to reclaim the Box. Even with help from an unexpected source, Joey Summers...
Read more

‘Dig Me No Grave’ – Robert E. Howard

Image
  Page Count: Fourteen Pages, eight lines and two words (sorry, it has been one of those weeks) I was looking for something short and sweet, to end the week on, and came across ‘Dig Me No Grave’ courtesy of Paperback Warrior’s write-up . Having read it, I can attest to it being short (all of fourteen and a bit pages in ‘The Dead Remember’ collection) but sweet? Not at all and that is meant in the best possible way :o) ‘Dig Me No Grave’ was originally published in the February 1937 of ‘Weird Tales’ and while it has appeared in other collections since then, I read it in ‘The Dead Remember (The Dark Man Omnibus: Volume 2) and also found it in my copy of ‘The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard. If you’re an e-reading type, you can grab yourself ‘Dig Me No Grave’ over at Project Gutenberg. John Kirowan is woken, in the middle of the night, by his friend John Conrad, bearer of bad news and come to beg a favour. The occultist John Grimlan has just died and Conrad asks that Kirowan att...
Read more