Valdor: Birth of the Imperium (The Horus Heresy) by Chris Wraight
Genres: Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Goodreads
Explore the history of one of the most well known heroes of the Imperium in this awesome new novel from Chris Wraight.
Constantin Valdor. It is a name that brings forth images of heroism, honour and peerless duty. For it is he who commands the will of the Legio Custodes that most esteemed and dedicated cadre of elite warriors. He is the Emperor’s sword, His shield, His banner and he knows no equal. Clad in shining auramite, his fist clenched around the haft of his Guardian Spear, he is the bulwark against all enemies of the throne, within or without.
Nearing the end of the wars of Unity, Valdor’s courage and purpose is put to the test as never before. The petty warlords and tyrants of Old Earth have been all but vanquished, and the Emperor’s armies are triumphant. What now for the nascent Imperium and what fate its forgotten soldiers, its Thunder Warriors and armies of Unity? A new force is rising, one which shall eclipse all others and open the way to the stars. But change on Terra is seldom bloodless and for progress to be ensured darker deeds are necessary.
This story takes place in the Warhammer 40k universe. Unlike some other Warhammer novels I’ve read, this one does require some basic knowledge of that world – making reviewing this on my blog a little difficult since most of y’all don’t know what the heck Warhammer is.
Which makes me think, would any of you be interested in posts about what the heck Warhammer 40,000 / Age of Sigmar is? If so, let me know in the comments! I might do it regardless, but answer anyways lol
You don’t need to know everything about the world, but it does kind of require you to know who the Adeptus Custodes are and who the Emperor is. The Emperor of Mankind is a celestial being who united all of mankind & the Adeptus Custodes are essentially his bodyguards as well as protecting the Imperial Palace. That’s honestly all you really need to know. So, onto the review…
The Emperor
This book is under 200 pages, making it a novella, so it’s super simple to read (and my review will be super short). It’s a story from the early Warhammer universe, which makes it all the more interesting to read. It teases a lot of the upcoming lore and it’s also set way before a lot of my knowledge of the universe starts.
Adeptus Custodes
With that said, I didn’t fully enjoy it until almost the end of the book. Granted, it’s short, so it’s not like I had to wade through much to get there…but what I did have to read beforehand was just a bit of a struggle. Whenever Valdor spoke it felt like an info dump (it was because he was being interviewed about prior events, but that meant we were being told what happened) and there were just way too many points of view for such a short book. I’m pretty sure there were at least 4. While I enjoyed some, others were just so pointless.
I feel like this could have benefited from being a full-length novel with all of the POVs. With fewer, it was a perfect length for an introduction into the Custodes and the Emperor. Overall, though, I did enjoy it. At such a short length, those slow bits in the beginning, were worth it to get to the badassery at the end.
Warhammer 40k is something I’ve been slowly getting into over the last year so I will be reviewing and talking more about it on my blog. Let me know what you think!
Do you read any genres, or have other hobbies, that you feel don’t really fit into your blog?
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| Overall: | 3 / 5 |
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