"Lord of the Night"

Lord of the Night (Simon Spurrier)

This is the non-ADB Night Lords novel. For some reason, I didn't think I was going to enjoy this book; maybe it was the hyperbolic caption that "The master of terror now has something to fear" (after finishing the book I still have no idea what this means), or maybe it's the fact that the cover has a evil Space Marine hefting a chainsword seemingly peering at the viewer from a big glowing vagina (although I'm not sure how that could be anything but awesome now that I'm thinking about it).
In any case, I of course shouldn't have judged the book by the cover, as it's quite good. It's about a Chaos Space Marine who's just woken up after being trapped in the Warp for 10,000 years and his search for the Corona Nox - all you really need to know is that it's the mcguffin - with his actives falling under the investigation of an Inquisitor who is the other POV character. And it's very good; for once I can't even really think of any little details to complain about. The author makes POV switches easy to follow by just printing the character's name at the start of a chapter - why more authors don't do this I have no idea - and both of our main characters are wonderfully fleshed out, to the point where I felt conflicted not knowing which one of them to root for when they came into conflict. On top of that, Spurrier has an excellent grasp of the Night Lords and the W40k setting in general, and I really enjoyed how he showed a single Chaos Space Marine being able to stir up an incredible amount of conflict and strife in the hive city that he comes to call home as he pursues his goal. It's too bad Spurrier only wrote one more 40k novel that I can find; he knocked this one out of the park.

Grade: A