‘The First Wall’ – Gav Thorpe (Black Library)
My readthrough of the ‘Siege of Terra’ books has been perhaps the most haphazard, and out of order, read through that I’ve ever done. Okay, there’s no ‘perhaps’ about it… Sometimes, you’ve just got no choice but to just read the books as they come to you ;o)
Luckily, I already knew the rough outline of the Siege, and the Lexicanum helped too, so it hasn’t been the worst thing in the world but yeah, definitely not the recommended reading order. Anyway, here we are :o)
I’ll be honest, I’ve been avoiding ‘The First Wall’ for a while, we’ll get into the ‘whys’ later on. The other day though, something finally clicked and it was time. I’m not quite sure what happened but again, sometimes you just have to go with the flow.
So, that’s what I did. And…
The war for the fate of mankind blazes on. Though the outer defences have fallen, the walls of the Palace itself remain inviolate as Rogal Dorn, the Praetorian of Terra himself, uses every known stratagem and ploy to keep Horus's vast armies at bay. In Perturabo, the Traitor siegebreaker, Dorn faces an adversary worthy of his skill. A terrible, grinding attrition ensues. The crucial battle for the Lion's Gate spaceport is at the heart of this conflict. With it in their possession, the Traitors can land their most devastating weapons on Terran soil. Dorn knows it must not fall. But with enemies attacking from within as well as without and the stirrings of the neverborn drawn to the slaughter, can the Imperial defenders possibly prevail?
I don’t think there are many Black Library authors who know more about the various settings than Gav Thorpe. Dan Abnett, maybe? While I’ve enjoyed Thorpe’s books, I have found that a tendency to ‘lore-dump’ gets in the way of the plot though. At least from where I’m sat.
That’s why I left ‘The First Wall’, until now, but it turns out that I really didn’t need to. I should have remembered that not only is the whole point of the ‘Horus Heresy’ and ‘Siege’ series about the lore, there is so much going on that it’s more or less impossible to get bogged down in it. I’ll be honest, I’ve read books, in this series, that did more for me but, Gav Thorpe gives us a tale here that can hold its head high with the rest.
‘The First Wall’ is very much ‘a book of two halves’, that’s what ultimately stopped me from enjoying it as much as I had the others.
When it concentrates on things like the battle for the Lion’s Gate Spaceport, the first meeting between Dorn and Perturabo and the initial signs of daemonic activity within the Imperial Palace, ‘The First Wall’ is a brisk, thoroughly entertaining affair that knows exactly what it’s there for. If you have a favourite character (or if you’re like me, more than one), the odds are that you will come across them here against a backdrop of either bolt shells or the dark miasma of the Warp. I’ve always had a lot of time for the macinations within the Palace, as well as the Imperial Fists own special brand of stoicism, so I was in my element here with full on warfare and dark deeds playing out almost hand in hand. Thorpe gives us a view from both sides of the battlelines and in doing so, really invites us to consider (at this late stage) which side (if either) is justified in their actions. And at the risk of repeating myself a little, Thorpe absolutely nails the epic scope of events playing out across a continent. When I spent time around the Palace (and on the killing grounds just outside the walls), I got really caught up in it and to be honest, couldn’t get enough.
It’s a bit of a shame then that the whole book wasn’t like this, especially when it really could have been.
Try as I might, I couldn’t get my head around the point of the minor plot running alongside the main one. I mean, I know what happened at the end and it was a surprise but, it didn’t seem to gel with the main thread, especially when you take the ‘build-up’ into account. Zenobi was an interesting character to follow (especially given how it ends) and I liked the introduction of what I think will eventually become Commissars in the millennia to come. That wasn’t quite enough to justify the time spent on this sub-plot though. By way of mitigation though, I will say that my head hasn’t been in the best place these last few days (far too much on) so I’ll happily concede that I may have missed the point entirely. Let me know?
‘The First Wall’ is a mixed bag then but on the whole, it did what I needed it to – clear the cobwebs, out of my head, with plenty of eye-catching spectacle and some interesting stuff to consider. I’ll take that, just the one book left to read now… :o)
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