Graham McNeil presents his 2nd novel in the Horus heresy series. Fulgrim, somewhat unsurprisingly, tells the story of the Primarch Fulgrim and his legion, the Emperor's children.
Before I immersing myself in the Horus Heresy novels the only Graham McNeil books I had read were the Sigmar Times of Legend trilogy. Overall their pretty good books, including lots of barbarian/celtic/norse-esque elements to the people in the stories (which compared to modern day Empire which are more Renaissance/Prussian-like). Often the books show the birth of certain changes in the Empire, such as warhorses breed to wear armour, the discovery of black powder, the origins of flagellants and more. If you can over look certain bits of the story as being a manipulation of canon then the book reads very enjoyably (ok SPOILER: ill admit, I got caught up with Sigmar already having got Ghal Maraz his hammer and him not being chieftain of his tribe or even the Empire when it clearly states otherwise in many of the general warhammer rulebooks etc)
So barring that all in mind I find Graham McNeil stuff always enjoyable and fun, he keeps to the spirit of most of the Warhammer universe. So with Fulgrim, it's important remember that the story tries to encompass lots of different sections in the Fulgrim story, and so it is actually broken down in a large number of increasingly smaller chapters as the story goes on. Fulgrim as a Primarch doesn't terribly interest me, but I did find that I wanted to see into his personality, his relationship with his brother Ferrus Manus, and their polarity and yet similarities at the same time. The Iron Hands chapter plays a regular role in the story telling, and it was nice to read some of their story. Like with many of the Horus Heresy books covering the traitor chapters, it is all about telling the interesting story of their fall, how they were manipulated by force greater then themselves.
I think I read somewhere that reading Horus Heresy novels was often akin to watching a train wreck in slow motion, which given the obvious end out come that's not entirely surprising. But sometimes you forget that along that journey you might feel like a carriage here or there might some how miraculously arrive unscathed at the end, if shaken. I think Graham McNeil, and many of the other Black Library authors do a pretty excellent job of willing you to believe that some how there is a bright light for these victims in the play out, no matter how much you might know about their final outcome. If you're a fan of Emperor's children, Iron hands, stories involving the Primarchs or just the Horus Heresy it is definitely worth a read. For someone knew to it you've hopefully read the first 3-4 novels in the series anyways, in which case you're probably already hooked. One of the many nice things about the Horus Heresy is that Forgeworld produce some pretty exquisite models (if terribly expensive), but it's often nice seeing first hand how the giants of the stories looked.
Overall I'm given Fulgrim a 7.5/10. It sometimes is a little long (though for Emperor's children fans this is probably a good thing), however I do feel like it covers a lot of the important points about their history and evolution as followers of chaos. For a fan of them i'd probably give it a 8.5-9/10.
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