Good book, great Narrator, stupid politics

First let me say the story was good and the narrator was great. I look forward to other book narrated by him. I will hesitate to get another book by the author though.

Spoilers ahead. There is a Female Stormtrooper commander codenamed Archangel. I thought she was well written and like her character. But there were these boaderline feminists moment. First the killteam is placed under her command and if the Space Marines only had an issue with being under the command of a human, yeah ok that fits the lore but they had as much if not more of an issue with her being a woman. Then there were these "ahh she is capable" inter-rants some of the marines had and agian not as a human but as a female human. then finally before the last mission Archangel had an inter monologue about being passed over for promotion becausr she was a woman. There was another human woman that was from a backwater world with almost warrior culture. She was pyker who use her power to control her son's body to lead the resistance, ok that fits it's a backwater male controlled world, no issue. But Archangel was from Elysium a advance core imperial world know for their skilled Drop Troop Regiments, not a backwater mud ball and she was imperial guard. Overall the guard doesn't care whether you gentiles are on the outside or the inside, it all just meat for the grinder. To make it worse these feminism rants didn't even fit in to the story well and almost seemed to be shoehorned into the story after it was finished.

Please leave your real world politics out of the fictional universe of 40K. The Imperium doesn't care about your gender only whether your death will service the God Emperor.

25 people found this helpful

Deathwatch, kinda.

The story wasn't too bad but I really wanted a little more selfless sacrifice and heroism and less politics and cringe worthy moments, especially when talking about the leader of the special forces. Final conclusion : some parts are brilliant and some parts are eyerollinglly cringy.

6 people found this helpful

Not As Deathwatch Heavy As It Should Be

I had high expectations for this title...definitely didn't feel like it met them.

Where to begin? First, the performance throughout is difficult to hear. The narrator speaks in low gravely tones that don't really register well through speakers. I mainly listen to audio books in my car, and had to have the volume up quite high to be able to hear him. By comparison, other titles in the Black Library with other narrators don't have this problem. Perhaps it was an issue with the file being ported to Audible, but regardless it made for a difficult listen even with high volume. Best listened to with headphones.

In addition, many of the character voices are similar, and the narrator had a few slips where he used the wrong character voice in dialogue so it became confusing to know who was speaking.

These physical performance issues, however, only hinder an already hamstringed narrative that suffers from a variety of problems.

Let's get this out of the way before I go any further: FOR A BOOK ABOUT THE DEATHWATCH, THEY TAKE QUITE A LONG TIME TO SHOW UP IN THE STORY. If you're buying this book to hopefully be inspired to start collecting a Deathwatch army (as I was), you'll be waiting quite a while before they see any action.

Granted, the story takes the solid path to setting up the rising action of the story, but in doing so, we spend so many chapters learning about the rebels on the planet, the Inquisition, and the T'au--almost 20+chapters before we get to even SEE a space marine doing anything more than talking.

When the action finally does kick off, it's the human soldiers that begin to endear themselves to readers, not the space marines. By the end of the book, there was a strong case to start a Kill Team of Elysians more than a Deathwatch one.

Because the story has so much intrigue on all sides (antagonists included) it takes so long to reach a conclusion. The conclusion (without spoilers) was good as to be expected and didn't leave any loose ends.

Despite all of the misgivings about the book, it's a solid narrative set in the Grim Dark universe. Definitely good to listen to while painting, but not really worth the credit if you're expecting nonstop action like I was.

TL;DR: it's a Deathwatch story without much Deathwatch. 60+ chapters but a good portion is intrigue and dialogue. Pass if you want nonstop action.

3 people found this helpful

Good story bad editing

Overall I found it to be an enjoyable listen and would still recomend it to fans of 40k, but there were a few times that lines were read twice because they weren't properly edited out.

7 people found this helpful

A good Deathwatch story

I enjoyed the story, it had a nice look into the workings of the Ordo Xenos, and the Deathwatch.

There are a few repeated lines due to mistakes but with a 16 hour runtime, it's barely noticable.

2 people found this helpful

great balance between each character's story lines

great balance between each character's story lines. starts intriguingly vague and illuminates motivations, high stakes and plot at a good pace

1 person found this helpful

Hard read at times, but is a good story (I guess?)

This is hard to write cause I don't know what to say. I don't want to bash the story, as it is a rather interesting one at times, but this is definitely meant for you as the reader to know the previous events with these characters. At times, the exposition is boring, or all together at times meaningless, to the events in question.

The characters are rather entertaining, yet a few feel very copy and paste. Some I wished were more flushed out while others I wish were never present as their place in the story does little to nothing with it.

Overall, if you have read the previous ones, and enjoy this group, you'll more than likely enjoy this read. If you have no experience with this setting, or even 40k in general, I'd suggest something else. Honestly, it is really up to you.

1 person found this helpful

good representation of the deathwatch

nice plot and well designed. hope there's going to be more than one book in the series.

1 person found this helpful

it's ok

the narrator did well. however the story Arch jumped around near the climax and important details would not be addressed clearly and resulted in listening a second time. 3/5 overall.

1 person found this helpful

Amazing read! We need more novels with talon squad

Absolutely one of my favorite WH40K books! I want to see more full length novels about Deathwatches talon squad! Great narration, great characters, great story development!