I was initially a bit doubtful when buying this title, and perhaps a bit concerned that the author might be tempted to caricature his main character and overwhelm his readers with gore scenes at the expense of a decent plot. None of this is the case.
Fabius Bile, once Chief Apothecary of the Emperor’s Children, is of course not exactly a sympathetic character. He is a monster, pure and simple, but also the most talented among the Apothecaries of all the Traitor Legions. He has survived since the Horus Heresy by helping the remnants of these Legions survive by procuring them with gene seeds. He has broken away from his own Legion, or what is left of it. He has refused to ally himself with any faction or war band and, by the time the story begins, he is pursuing his experiments with a number of like-minded Apothecaries from other Legions. Their warped research (in more sense than one) takes place on a Chaos planet in a ruined palace that he has fortified and transformed into an Apothecarion. The descriptions of the environment, the Apothecaries and their creations are vivid and rather griping.
This relates to one of the main strengths of this book. The author has been able to conjure and assemble within one narrative a number of scenes of which Fabius’ Apothecarion of Urum, the Dead-Alive planet devastated by previous wars, is just the first one. A second set of scenes take place at Sublime, a dying planet that is also on the other side of the Eye of Terror and which is a giant contraband market where just about any piece of technology is for sale. A third set features a fractured war band of the much decayed Emperor’s Children and their Noise Marines, while a fourth is built around a ruthless and brutal assault of an Eldar craftworld with the help of Daemons.
A second interesting feature is the characterisation of Fabius Bile who still believes he can improve the genes of the Space Marines and found a future dominant race but who no longer believes that his old Legion can be part of the future or that he can lead it towards such a future. A related feature is that he is himself diseased, ageing and dying. It is only by transferring himself into fresh bodies that he can still hope to survive and struggle to achieve what he has been attempting to do for the last ten centuries.
The book also includes a number of other interesting characters, the main one being Oleander Koh, once also an Apothecary of the Emperor’s Children and a wayward disciple of the infamous Fabius Bile. He has a hidden agenda which involves both his former master and his current one, the Radiant, an ex-Captain of the Emperor’s Children who is craving to ascend and become a Daemon Prince. Also interesting are the devious and scheming Eldars, whether the Harlequins or those from the craft world.
Another nice touch is that the author has linked this story with others where Fabian Bile appears. There are therefore a few allusions to these. One particular example is the assault of Abbadon’s Black Legion and their destruction of the Emperor’s Children fortress and city which caused Fabian to flee and find refuge on Urum.
Needless to say, you can expect a fair amount of action throughout the book, with the assault of the huge Eldar craftworld as a suitable and apocalyptic climax. Four strong stars.
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