‘Fifteen Hours’ – Mitchel Scanlon (Black Library)

 

Page Count: 254 Pages

I’m not a hundred percent where the weekend just went; it was there for a second and then all of sudden, we’re back to Monday… I hope you had a good one though :o)

Mine wasn’t too bad to be fair, there just wasn’t an awful lot of time for reading, despite the carefully curated pile next to my chair. We’ll see how the rest of the week goes then but for now, lets talk about the one book that I did manage to read…

Basic Training: Four Months
Planetary Transportation: Seven Weeks
Life Expectancy… Fifteen Hours

The stalwart troops of the Imperial Guard are the first line of defence against the numerous foes of the Imperium. Their heroism and courage is renowned across the galaxy and their armoured might has crushed countless rebellions and invasions.

A lone guardsman finishes basic training and is dropped straight into a combat zone where the average expected lifespan is a mere fifteen hours. Fighting hand-to-hand against the barbarous Orks, he must draw upon all of his training if he is to live to see another dawn…

I’ve read a few WH40K books in my time (not loads but, enough) and right now, I’m really hard pressed to think of another WH40K book that not only captures 41st Millennium warfare, for the average guardsman, in such detail but the cruel irony of the Imperium itself. An empire that must treat its citizens as pure resource, if it is to survive, but is far more reliant on that resource than it realizes. One mistake, in a set of co-ordinates, and our hero finds himself fighting Orks instead of helping quell a planetary rebellion. So, that’s essentially two planets lost then… Not that anyone even really notices, they’re just following the orders that they are given.

It’s the kind of setting then that makes me want to hang out with my ex-partner’s cats after I’ve finished reading (I’m a ‘dog person’) and Scanlon has really nailed it here. In a universe that coined the term ‘grimdark’, it doesn’t get a lot more ‘grimdark’ than it does here. If the Orks don’t get you first, you will either be shelled by your own side or killed by the monumentally inept bureaucracy of the Imperium. And no-one will notice your passing.

By keeping the focus firmly on our hero Arvin Larn, Scanlon is able to really drive this message home instead of risk it being diluted across a much larger cast. The horror of war and the merciless dispelling of Larn’s beliefs is not only right up close, and personal, but is maintained across pretty much the whole book. I say ‘pretty much’ as we do get a few brief interludes where the war is seen through other eyes, again showing how Imperial bureaucracy hinders the war effort just as much as it props it up.

Some of the dialogue can veer into ‘trying to explain itself too much’ territory when the plot is already doing a fine job of getting its point across. On the whole though, from where I was sat, Scanlon does a near perfect job of portraying a setting where constant warfare is necessary but futile as well, all at the same time.

Highly recommended by me then but (if you’re looking for the paperback) not at the prices on Amazon; eBay is your friend here…