"The Word Bearers Omnibus"

The Word Bearers Omnibus (Anthony Reynolds)

This is three novels collected into one omnibus. I'm going to give each novel its own mini-bite-size book review - if you have an issue with this, take it up with Black Library; There's three full size novels in this omnibus, so you get three reviews here. More like small meal sized book review.blogspot.com!

Dark Apostle: I liked this book well enough, but I have two nits to pick, one big and one small. The small one is that the Word Bearers are about as evil as you get, and that's saying something in Warhammer 40k; I feel that the author goes a little overboard in trying to drive home that these guys are scum, to the point where they don't just light a candle, they light the BLOOD WICK on a BLOOD CANDLE, because, btw, they are evil. The larger issue is that these guys are chaos Space Marines, some of the baddest MFers out there, and when they invade an Imperial world and start fucking shit up, the loyalists send in..... the Imperial Guard? This is like sending in your local middle school's football team to play Green Bay. Even the chaos space marines comment on this, with one of them wondering what the hell the Imperium is thinking here. There's a little less tension than there could be because the Word Bearers never face credible opposition. These issues aren't huge, but the second one especially keeps the book at a good-not-great level, and it's perfectly skippable except that it sets up the next novel.

Grade: B

Dark Disciple: This is where it really picks up. There's a little bit of a refresher for those just joining us, and then it's straight into the ultraviolence. Most of the book is our heroes (is that the right term?) racing to unlock the macguffin from the previous book, backdropped against the Tyranids battling an Imperial fleet trying to stop them. Oh, and there's also a spoiler race hanging out up to no good (who ever is in Warhammer, though?). I really enjoyed this book - there's not a wasted page here, and once it gets going,  I believe this may be the most violent novel I'e ever read. The amount of humans, space marines, tyranids, and race I can't name because it's a spoiler getting shot, stabbed, cut, blown up, burned, bludgeoned, and otherwise dispatched is truly impressive. I don't want to sound like a psycho and say I enjoyed it just because it's so violent, but it certainly is action-packed, and I'm not sure I can say more without sounding like a back of the book quote. (Although the back of the book quote is from somewhere called "Huntress Reviews" that yells right on its 1998 era front page that they ONLY GIVE OUT THREE TO FIVE STAR REVIEWS, so, Black Library, if you're one of the four people reading this blog, I'm sure I can come up with a better quote: Buy this omnibus or you're a dumb stupid moron!)

Grade: A

Dark Creed: Now with the activated mcguffin (spoiler alert), the Word Bearers plan is sprung. The first half of the book is setup and a big naval battle, which is nice and tense. In the second half, the Word Bearers finally (!) come up against loyalist Space Marines.  I'm kind of amazed it took three novels for this, and unfortunately when it does come it's kind of an anticlimax. In fact, the second half as a whole is a bit weak, culminating in a not so fulfilling ending (there's one thing the Word Bearers do to save the day that had me wondering why they didn't just do it sooner). This is still a pretty good book - lots of 40k novels unfortunately have less than great endings, and judged against some of the ones I've read, this one is just a mild letdown - but I can't really say more without giving the whole plot away. Having come this far, it's nice to see everything get wrapped up. Dark Creed's not quite as good as the second book in the omnibus, but thanks to the cracking first half is better than the first.

Grade: B+

The omnibus closes out with a extra short story called "Torment" that wraps up the fate of one of the series main characters. It's not really nessessary reading, but it's a nice little bonus. Overall, this omnibus is pretty easy to recommend - $10 for three pretty good full-sized novels is nothing to sneeze at.

Overall grade: A-