Book Review, Warhammer 40,000: Hammer of Daemons by Ben Counter

[elfs]

I've already reviewed Ben Counter's first two books in his Grey Knights series, Grey Knights and Dark Adeptus, and I've now read the third book in the series, Hammer of Daemons (Grief, that's a great cover, ain't it?).

I wrote in my original review that the Black Library "is over-the-top space opera fantasy cranked far beyond 11." Hammer takes it further and, sometimes, jumps the shark with it.

In Hammer, Brother Alaric, the hero of the previous two books, leads a doomed mission of Space Marines into battle, is overwhelmed by the enemy, and is sent to Drakaasi, the world of The Blood God, one of the Lords of Chaos, where he is run through a successively brutal collection of gladiatorial games for the amusements of the various Blood God warlords who live there.

This book is half-disappointing in that, in order to exceed himself from his previous two works, Counter must go so far over the top that the writing becomes campy. You know how the average human body has six liters or so of blood? The people of Drakaasi seems to have six thousand liters hiding away in there, and they must breed like rabbits on a world with no discernable ecosystem, because there are oceans of blood (and not a little gore) being tossed around in this story.

On the other hand, Alaric's dealing with defeat, with the destruction of his psychic defense shield and the removal of his eldritch tattoos that protect him from corruption and evil, and the way that he battles through this post-hellish landscape, is surprisingly persuasive. Counter has a strong grip on Alaric's character, what makes him "work." Taking Drakaasi at face value, the interaction Alaric, his allies, and the horrors they face tells a compelling story.

There's one scene Kouryou-chan (my eight-year-old daughter) got a glimpse of over my shoulder and she thought was funny. Two villains, a warlord and his chief warrior, are talking. The warlord, it must be said, has had his body surgically modified to look like a dragon. You can probably guess which is which:

"I will be forced to eat you at the first sign of betrayal, Venalitor."

"Eat me? I had heard you consumed your enemies in the past, but I did not know if the stories were true."

"Oh, yes, I have eaten many enemies. It hardly does to possess a form like this and not indulge its appetites. Spies and enemies, and a few sycophants, go straight down the gullet. The inconsequential, I chew before I swallow. Those who truly anger me I force down in one go. I can feel them wriggle as they dissolve, most pleasing."

"As threats go, Lord Ebondrake, that was one of the more civilly delivered."

There's a scene at the end where Counter tries too hard to show how Alaric is both corrupted himself and yet still capable of making "difficult" choices in the service of his Faith in his Emperor and Humanity, but the scene does make sense in the long run although it's a bit much for the reader to swallow after Alaric has come so far.

Still, this is a fitting end to the Alaric trilogy. It tells us everything we needed to know, and ends with the same kind of long, brutal fight scenes we've come to expect. It lifts the series out of the sag I mentioned in the second book, for here the evil is everywhere, the grotesqueries non-stop, the cinematic tour de force of descriptive writing, about a character who, surprisingly, still seems human enough for us to relate to.

Of course, if you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you will like.

Comments

[mundens.livejournal.com]

Just a minor point, there's no requirement for the Chaos Worlds to have functional eco-systems or indeed any form of creature for the blood and gore to come from, because they exist in the "Immatterium", in warp space, where things only exist thru the will of individuals, in this case Khorne and his lieutenants. In other words, magic. So seas of blood, and completely crystal worlds, anything anyone can imagine, can exist there.

I fully agree those things are over the top though!

Based on your reviews...

[graydancer.livejournal.com]

...as travel reading I've been digging into the first Gaunt's Ghosts omnibus, The Founding. as you say, it's good if you dig this kind of thing. I'm waiting for it to jump the shark, but we'll have to see.