‘Huron Blackheart: Master of the Maelstrom’ – Mike Brooks (Black Library)

 

Page Count: 202 Pages

The hospital was pretty busy yesterday so there was a bit of a wait to see the Doctor and then, an even longer wait to pick up my tablets afterwards. Was I annoyed though, or even slightly bothered? Not this Graeme... If I’m going to be sat in a hospital waiting room, you can be damn sure that I’ll have a book or two in my bag and that’s exactly what I had yesterday ;o)

It’s been a little while since I read some Warhammer 40K but I’m not quite ready to jump into another long series (not yet anyway) so Mike Brooks’ ‘Huron Blackheart: Master of the Maelstrom’, and its slim page count, seemed like a good alternative. A bite sized chunk of ‘grimdark far future’ and a leading man whom I’d heard a lot about but never really seen much of. It couldn’t go wrong, could it…?

Of course it couldn’t, and it didn’t.

The renegade leader of the Red Corsairs must adapt to an Imperium led by Roboute Guilliman, all while struggling to retain power in the face of dissension among his vicious followers.

Huron Blackheart is the master of the Red Corsairs, but keeping power is never certain for those renegades who have renounced the Imperium. With the galaxy thrown into turmoil by the return of Roboute Guilliman, and new challenges to his authority emerging within his own ranks, Huron must call on every trick he knows to stay in control… and alive. But even a warrior as ferocious as the Blood Reaver must be wary, for although there are still bargains open to him, not all are ones he should rush into…

Now you may not know this but I’ve got a lot of time for any book that opens with an intriguing question, distracts you with an equally intriguing plot and then, just when you weren’t expecting it, draws the curtain back and has you realise that both were connected the whole time. Bonus points if the author shows us all of this through the eyes of a character that is a right bastard. Well, lets just say that I had a lot of time for ‘Master of the Maelstrom’. What? You need a little more than that? Ok, let me try and expand on that a bit…

As much as I love the Warhammer 40K setting (and I really do), I find that the overall narrative can sometimes be as frustrating as it is fascinating. Because, well… It moves so slowly doesn’t it? And that’s understandable to a point, Games Workshop need to be making money so the war can never end can it ;o) It’s frustrating though as you’ve got all these awesome heroes and villains who will never complete their arc, they’re not allowed to.

With these ‘main characters’ in particular then, the challenge for any Black Library author is to write a compelling tale that gives us insight into these ‘big hitters’ and while it may have a conclusion, does absolutely nothing to advance the overall narrative. Sounds a bit weird but Mike Brooks does it with ‘Master of the Maelstrom’ and does it bloody well.

I’ve already mentioned how I felt about the book opened and concluded. That’s all I’ll say about it here as I think it’s so beautifully done that I don’t want to spoil it. Lets just say that the conclusion is a perfect way to underline the Machiavellian brutality of life in the Maelstrom. Honestly, the rest of this universe is bad enough but in the Maelstrom, you need to be thinking several weeks ahead of yourself if you’re going to stand any chance of making it through any given day.

It’s a good job then that this book is about Huron Blackheart then, any other character wouldn’t have made it to the end of the first chapter.

Huron may be an utter bastard but that just makes him more of a fighter and given what he’s up against, well… The combination really does make for compelling reading.
Huron is a man at war with everything; the wider Imperium, his own Red Corsairs, right down to the constant war he fights with his own broken body. And on top of that, the four Chaos powers circle, ready to ensnare him. The stakes are high on every page then and while you know that Huron will win through (not a spoiler, he’s a big deal in this universe and there’s a new model of him), Brooks not only still deals out surprises, he lets us know just what a huge deal Huron is, by what he must face. The results are positively cinematic on the page, especially when accompanied by all the gunfire that you’d expect from a WH40K novel (on a planet made of glass, what were they thinking…?) as well as the kind of politicking that literally gives us a ‘maelstrom within the actual Maelstrom’.

The 40K universe may continue to teeter on the edge of annihilation (for the foreseeable future) but ‘Master of the Maelstrom’ not only shows us that there is still room for entire tales to be told, it gives us the best kind of insight into one of the Galaxy’s major players.

I’m on the side of Humanity here but I’ll be honest… The next time I see Huron Blackheart in action, I’ll be sneakily cheering him on.