DAWN OF WAR: yet another book review

DAWN OF WAR by C.S. Goto is another in the Black Library series of book based on the Warhammer 40,000 (WH 4-K) role playing game. It’s also much more what I had initially expected when I began reading the WH-4K series, after reading several of the graphic novels. This book deals with the adventures of a company of Space Marines in conflict with orcs, heretics against the Emperor and aliens. The story has lots of bloodshed and double-crosses by one group against the other throughout.

Brother-Captain Gabriel Angelos leads his fellow Blood Ravens into battle, as he has done so for decades. You have to remember that the Space Marines have been physically augmented and live quite a long time in service to the Emperor. In the WH- 4-K universe the Emperor also has set on his throne for thousands of years, undying yet not truly alive. He is kept alive by a combination of technology and magic. As he has been around for so long, and in complete control of millions of planets and their inhabitants, the Emperor has more than his share of enemies human and otherwise. It is the task of the Space Marines, to act as the front line combatants in these conflicts.

Gabriel is one of the most famous, if not infamous, members of his order (as the Space marines are similar to the Knights Templar in being both military & religious in nature) having actually committed genocide on his home planet when he found them to be tainted by heretical blood. His current mission is to battle what seems at first to be an orc invasion of the planet Tartarus, which unknown to him was once the scene of an inter-dimensional battle thousands of years previously. It now seems that those same combatants have returned and are gearing up for a new fight.

This book also brings in the Eldar, a race which predates human kind and is now dying off. They remind me of the elves in Tolkien, at least as they are portrayed here. While they have their own agenda and have no great liking for mankind they are trying to do the ‘right thing’ at least as they perceive things. Sadly, the good Captain sees things differently, which appears to set up the possibility of a sequel to this book at a later date.

Goto, obviously a pen name, does a nice job with all the characters, human and otherwise. The scenes with the orcs are fun since the really do exist only to fight. “War for war’s sake,” is their motto, or rather WAAAUGH!!!!!! Ya gotta love it!