As the seemingly never ending quest to catch up with the Horus Heresy series trundles ever onwards we come to Age of Darkness, which marks a pretty significant turning point in the series.
After the opening trilogy the Horus Heresy series series very quickly moved away from having any kind of traditional linear narrative. Books would explore previously described events from a new perspective, or flash back to show how characters arrived at their roles in the opening story; some going back years, decades, even centuries. Very rare was the story that progressed the plot much beyond the massacre on Isstvan V that closed the 3rd book. Until now.
Age of Darkness is a collection of novellas from various writers; some established contributors to the series, some new names. The stories continue the series tradition of jumping around in time, but with a much narrower window, and one that's looking in the other direction. At last, we get to see the after effects of the Isstvan V event.
Some of the stories are better than others, as is to be expected in any anthology format, and which are the good and which the bad will depend, in this case, on what you want from this series. For many people; those who came to the books from the games; I would imagine a large part of the appeal lies in the weaponry and the technology. For me though, it's all about the world building, the politics, the people and the subtler side of the war.
With that said it's perhaps unsurprising that I was drawn to Liar's Due, by James Swallow; a tale of how propaganda can be used to conquer a people without firing a shot; and The Iron Within, which while on the surface is a fairly basic battle story, also tackles the issue of individuals having to decide whether to follow immoral orders. This latter story deals with something I'd been thinking about more and more as I read the Horus Heresy series; we are told that this Legion or that is on one side or the other of the rebellion, but what are the chances that everyone within those Legions is going to follow suit? It can come across as overly simplistic, if examined too closely, but this story at least addresses the issue. Whether it will be looked at again as the series progresses is something we'll have to wait and see about.
My other favourite story, which will come as no surprise to anyone who has the vaguest inkling of my tastes, was Little Horus by Dan Abnett; partly because it delved into the psyche of an important character that we seldom see, though often hear about; and partly because it employs a favourite trick of Abnett's which to me at least never gets old; that of repetition. As in his last HH novel, Prospero Burns; in which a major character experiences a recurring dream, which is always almost exactly the same until the point of waking, whereupon the dreamer comes a little closer to learning the point of the dream each time; Abnett uses repetition here in his description of his title character, right up to the line "Then again, once they (redacted for spoiler), all he ever looked was..."
It's a clever ploy which ensures that the final iteration of the line; the final line of the story; hits home hard. We come away thinking exactly what he wants us to be thinking about this character, and what I'm sure we need to be thinking about him, going forward, since he's almost guaranteed to be back down the line.
I'm hoping, given that all of these stories take place post-Isstvan and the cover tells us "A new chapter begins", that we are going to see the story move forward into the post massacre period permanently. I've enjoyed the flashbacks, and as someone who comes to the books fresh; not having been a gamer; they've been a boon in terms of getting to grips with the world, but we're nearing 20 books, now, in the series and the time has come I think.
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