Description
The final installment of the Warhammer 40,000 megaseries, Dawn of Fire. The first phase of the Indomitus Crusade is drawing to a close. Vast swathes of Imperium Sanctus are back under tentative Imperial control. Still the primarch Roboute Guilliman faces wars on every front. His desire to cross the Great Rift to save Imperium Nihilus remains strong, even as news of renewed assaults on Ultramar draw his attention home. Yet it is to the galactic south that the Avenging Son must go, taking a large part of the crusade with him, for the menace of the necrons is gathering strength. Battlefleet Kallides, despatched into the dangerous null space of the Pariah Nexus some years before, is feared lost. A greater unity is being forged between the necron dynasties, and with it come whispers of a power from the ancient past returned to rule them all… Whispers of the Silent King.
My Review
Set in the "current" arc in Warhammer 40k this is the latest episode in Roubute's struggles to arrest and reverse the decline of the imperium of mankind. The narrative structure and pacing match the typical Black Library approach to novels with multiple POV characters, building tension for a little over half the book, and then a second half of action filled resolution. Black Library has not found a larger narrative to hang stories on as compelling as the Horus Heresy and the books do suffer because of that. The Horus Heresy books were much more varied in terms of quality but the good Horus Heresy books are far better than all but the standouts of the more modern setting (such as The Infinite and The Divine, Gaunt's Ghosts, and the Eisenhorn saga. (Dan Abnett, author of the latter two series, is both prolific and an excellent writer)) Little happens in this novel that pushes the larger plot in the imperium forward. The Lion is back but still not on the stage, the incursions of chaos and the tyranids are not addressed, and while the schisms of Terra are mentioned they are not moved forward in the novel. We learn about an increased necron threat and otherwise the situation remains fairly stable. This was an enjoyable book, but one that (through presumably no fault of its own) leaves little mark on the larger narrative.