War of Secrets cover art

War of Secrets

Space Marine Conquests: Warhammer 40,000, Book 3

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War of Secrets

By: Phill Kelly
Narrated by: John Banks
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About this listen

A Space Marine Conquests novel

Supporting the Dark Angels as they battle trauma-scarred T'au, Lieutenant Farren and his Primaris Marines discover their allies have many secrets they'll do anything to conceal....

Listen to it because we've all been dying to know what happens when the Primaris Space Marines and Dark Angels finally meet - and now that story is finally here.

The story: Lieutenant Xedro Farren is a Primaris Marine, stronger and more adept than even the Space Marines his brotherhood is sent to fight alongside. As the Dark Angels and the Primaris Marines fight a trauma-scarred force of T’au hellbent on destroying their former allies, the true quarry becomes clear - the shadowy instigator of a psychic curse that could plunge a string of Imperial planets into madness. As worlds burn in the fires of battle, an unthinkable pact is struck, with the Primaris Marines peeling back layer after layer of deceit to find the appalling truth. Can Farren hope to emerge from this web of lies without losing his honour - or come to that, his life?

©2020 Games Workshop Limited (P)2020 Games Workshop Limited Adventure Fiction Military Science Fiction Space Opera
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first off let me say i do love the lore of this book. great tau stuff, great concept. the problem lies in the execution, but it has to be done how it is for the story to function. the plot follows a troop of newly enlisted primaris who are struggling to work out their place in the ancient traditions of the Dark Angels. this inevitably puts the beloved characters we know already as the bad guys/antagonists of the plot. as such its hard to truly grow close to these new characters. the ending kind of resolves itself in a bit of an unsatisfying way but establishes why primaris are actually useful to the dark angels ranks. meanwhile tau stuff is cool, talking about tau and chaos and some fairly interesting tau lore that hints at things that might come up in the future. i enjoyed it in the end but it did feel a struggle to complete. worth it to get some insider knowledge for what will happen in future.

cool addition to lore, understandably not great

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The plot kept me guessing, characters were interesting and believable, settings were suitably 40k
Well worth the credit and time.

Unique, Intriguing, Grimdark

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I found thus story hard to follow but had some distractions so will listen again, narrator is my favourite.

Twisting story.

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The story was good, but it felt it ended very abruptly, before the actual climax of the book. It feels like it is an obvious set up for a sequel. I means the secrets and intrigue throughout the book ends up just as a confusing mess rather than leaving you wanting more. The mystery isn't enticing and does not leave you wanting more, it just makes you trying to make sense of a seemingly rushed ending. The story had a lot of potential, but the ending is forced and makes zero sense given what came before.

Confusing rather than mysterious

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The story was great. Really loved the characters, though the kroot were oddly written. Unfortunately just as all the peices of the puzzle are coming together, and it looks like the main character is about to have a show down with the Inner Circle of the Dark Angels the book just randomly ends with half a chapter's worth of content that basically said "oh yeah and now they're buddies and forgave each other for killing their best friends".

the only other complaint I had, was that for one chapter the Angels of Absolution change name to the Angels of Retribution. made me feel like I'd missed another Space Marine chapter show up.

Great Story, let down by a rushed ending

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It's a mostly negative review from me but I'll list some positives first.
Farren is a decent protagonist, The performance was pretty good and the Tau get some mildly interesting lore developments.
Now for the negatives.
By far the biggest problem with the novel is despite being a Dark Angels novel it's pretty clear that author knows pretty much nothing about them and every character feels like a caricature or parody of what Dark Angels are actually supposed to act like and it's honestly a little insulting as a Dark Angels fan. For example
*spoilers*
The Firstborn Dark Angels are quite open of their distrust of the primaris marines due to their ties to Mars and Guilliman which as a concept COULDVE been awesome, Instead we basically an entire book of the Firstborn Dark Angels using the Primaris marines are glorified meat shields and just being unhinged moronic assholes.
It just feels like a eye rolling slog.
On top of that the story quickly devolves into a Fallen angel hunt plot with all the baggage that entails and with none of the mystery and intrigue that those stories CAN have.

Thanks for reading honestly was just so pissed with the book I had to rant.


Don't bother imo

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