"Blood Reaver"

Blood Reaver (Aaron Dembski-Bowden)

Part 2 of a trilogy kicked off by Soul Hunter. I'm going to pay this book an unusual compliment in that I enjoyed its aimlessness. Our heroes (I'm sure that's not the right word) are a hunted group of desperate murderers, and after being on the run for thousands of years, they're running low on beans and bullets (well, bolter rounds and kids to gene-hance into Space Marines, but you know what I mean). They put into port and spot a ship from their legion that's been stolen and re-painted, and the rest of the book is them scheming to get it back. There's no big evil villian - there are people who stand in opposition to the group of characters who get the most ink, but really, there's no good guys here. This feels nice and refreshing, and surprisingly realistic for a setting where nine foot tall supermen eunuchs in power armor hit giant bugs and space elves with chainsaw swords. As with the previous book, what started as a joke of a Space Marine Legion (the assassin who kills their Primarch is named after Martin Sheen, for chrissakes) is given a thorough rehabilitation and turned into a very nuanced set of characters (again, surprising for a setting where "He shoots guys" is a perfectly acceptable personality type). I'm trying not to just heap praise on this author and his books, but the sheer quality isn't making this task any easier.

Grade: A