‘Green and Grey’ & ‘Waiting Death’ (From ‘Soldiers of the Imperium: An Astra Miltarum Omnibus’ – Black Library’)

 


The weather is cooling down a bit, at least for now, but my tired (slightly overheated) old brain is taking a little while to catch up so, as you’ve probably gathered, I’m all about the short reads this week. Bits and pieces to keep me ticking over and entertained. And ‘Alien Harvest’, as well, but I already moaned about that yesterday, no more moaning about it today ;o) Anyway…

I’m doing pretty well with my, kind of, resolution to read more books that I already own (it’s still a ‘work in progress’ but I’m happy with it) so it was no surprise that I decided to go for a couple of Imperial Guard short stories from the ‘Soldiers of the Imperium’ collection – a book that has gone unread for… lets just say ‘too long’.

I picked one tale from an author that I’ve never read and the other tale? Well, does it count as a re-read if I listened to the audio-book years ago and could barely remember the plot when I came back to it the other day? Technically, yes, I guess ;o)

Enough of that, lets head back to the warzones of the 41st Millennium and look at a couple of the regular human Imperial Guard; about as far away from ‘Main Character’ as you can get but in their own way, perhaps more heroic for it.

‘Green and Grey’ – Edoardo Albert

Page Count: 16 Pages.

When Lucius Stilo awakens, pain and darkness are his companions. He is trapped alone in the confines of a silent Leman Russ Battle Tank, or at least almost alone. With him are the corpses of his crew, and over the vox his company commander reminds him of his training and his duty to the Astra Militarum and the God-Emperor. And then there are the savage greenskin enemies nearby… It's Lucius Stilo's first mission. It might well be his last...

I told you that I’m all about the short stories, at the moment, and they don’t come a lot shorter than ‘Green and Grey’, with a page count that made this reader want to see if he could sneak in a few extra words when no-one was looking ;o)

Don’t let that page count lull you into a false sense of security though, ‘Green and Grey’ has a lot going on and while anyone with a passing knowledge of the setting knows what is coming for Stilo, he doesn’t and his growing realisation of this is really what makes this tale sing. And the twist at the end just makes it all the more powerful, especially when you realise that Albert already showed us the twist, in a throwaway comment early on.

I had half an eye on Albert’s ‘Kasrkin’ as a possible next ‘40k read’ and reading ‘Green and Grey’ has more or less made my mind up. ‘Soldiers of the Imperium’ has ‘Kasrkin’, as part of the collection, so will remain on the TBR Pile until I read it, hopefully soon.

‘Waiting Death’ – Steve Lyons

Page Count: 18 Pages

Borealis Four has fallen under the sway of an insidious Chaos cult and its dense jungle terrain makes it the ideal battlefield for the infamous Colonel Straken and his platoon...or so it seems.

Way back in the day, when I was lucky enough to receive review copies from Black Library, I was sent the audiobook of ‘Waiting Death’ and it got me through a couple of horrible commutes. Sixteen years on and… While the plot is a nice test for Straken’s Catachans, fighting in their element but out of their comfort zone, the delivery is a little too straightforward and when you’re introduced to a native, of the planet, who is called ‘Kadence Moonglow’… Well, you know what’s coming, possibly a little sooner than Lyons perhaps intended. And it does, there are no surprises here. I’ve heard that Lyons’ Catachan novel, ‘Death World’, is worth a look and that’s also included in this collection so I will check it out at some point. I definitely prefer Lyons’ ‘Krieg’ novels though. If you haven’t read anything by Steve Lyons, you’d be better off checking those books out first.

I’ll let you know how the rest of the tales, in ‘Soldiers of the Imperium’, fare as I read them.

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