"The Age of Darkness"

The Age of Darkness (Edited by Christian Dunn)

Yes, more Horus Heresy novels. More like the Age of Dorkness am I right!!!!!!!!!
Ahem. Normally I'm not one for short story collections, but when all the short stories are pretty good even I don't have anything to complain about. In fact, my only issue is with the first short story, which is by the usually dependable Graham McNeill, ends with a horrible, cliched, unexcuseable ending (spoiler) where IT'S ALL A DREAM. Well, a simulation, but still, a meaningless nothing that frankly makes everything preceeding it a waste of time. Oh, and it's also about how awesome the Ultramarines are, because that's breaking news.
Luckily, that's only one short story, and the rest are excellent. Even better, they provide a nice wide spectrum of legions that usually are wasted off-screen; The Salamanders show up in two stories (although they're getting beaten up by the Ultramarines in McNeill's), and the last loyal Iron Warriors get a great sendoff in one of my favorite shorts. Another excellent one has Horus Aximand, demi-villian of the opening trilogy of the Horus Heresy, literally gettings his face chopped off by one of the White Scars. It doesn't get much more 40k than that. Great stuff.

Grade: B+