One of my only issues is with some of the dialogue, some of the things some of the characters say just doesn't seem to fit who they were or how the talked in earlier books. Noble captain Garviel Loken harbours misgivings about the clandestine ways adopted by many of his brethren, but when the Legion is sent to reconquer the moon of Davin, it is clear that Horus has a personal stake in the matter which may have clouded his judgement. So few surprises here in the overall shape of events but again it's in the character work where this tale truly shines. Remove every single cliché from this book and you'll be ruthlessly exposed to the cold winds of poor inspiration. He is supposed to be an unbelievable killing machine, a juggernaut of devastation, and yet some of the Luna Wolves manage to drive him off - I would have liked to read about the way they achieved this against the most warlike of the Primarchs.

Additionally he shows Horus how the Emperor allowed the Chaos Gods to disperse the primarchs throughout the galaxy when they were infants. Many of the big players of the rebellion are present, and you can see how they start to form the characters in the histories of the heresy. It was there as they entered Sol system again for the first time in decades that they were not greeted with the majesty of the Throneworld but by a juggernaut of war and fortification. What did bother me is the sort of 'long running series slow-down' which seems ever present in epic length book series.Ben Counter’s Galaxy in Flames is the third act in the opening Horus Heresy Trilogy, and the end of the only three books so far to feature the Sons of Horus as the main cast. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Gathering the only two remaining terran brothers Artuas knew, Khol and Abbas, the trio bluffed thier way onto a mechanicum service frieghter to work their way towards the outer vessels of the fleet. The VIIth legion was making its mark upon Sol and upon announcing thier arrival to the system monitors, Artuas and his brothers were quickly boarded and detained.

Kyril Sindermann and Mersadie Oliton escape alongside Euphrati Keeler when she leads them to Iacton Qruze, the Sons of Horus' elderly and often dismissed third captain, who leads them away from the massacre. Ben Counter is the author of the Soul Drinkers and Grey Knights series, along with two Horus Heresy novels. At some points - where the events took on a momentum that managed to disguise the poor writing - it actually became readable, but I would say a good two-thirds of this book were fairly dull.

Whereas in the first two books, the thrill came from the revelations outside of battle as much as they came from the gunfights, in Galaxy in Flames it is all about the conflict. Deaths of major characters, which will provides motivation to avenge them, getting me interested in reading those future novels. Yet, when I read Galaxy in Flames I didn’t see that as much as I would have liked when chronicling the tragic events that occurred. I found his writing to be just about as good as Abnett's or McNeill's and some of his battle scenes were exceedingly well-crafted.

Primarchs Angron, Mortarion and Fulgrim of the World Eaters, Death Guard and Emperor's Children respectively have all sided with Horus and their four Legions gather in the Isstvan system on the pretence of crushing a rebellion by the Isstvanians. But all that is almost forgotten and somewhat forgiven when the talking finally stops and the action gets rolling.However over the course of the three books things start to change, and I was quite impressed that other points of view on the topic appeared. However, Counter manages to deliver a satisfying conclusion to the last installment of the initial trilogy. it’s a bit of a stretch as I don’t feel Counter reinforced the relationship between the two from the first book to make me feel the same. Having witnessed the terrible massacre of Imperial forces on Isstvan III, Death Guard Captain Garro seizes a ship and sets a course for Terra to warn the Emperor of Horus's treachery.

This is also the first time we meet Nathaniel Garro of the Death Guard who players a bigger role in other books. Instead, Dorn mandated that they should be confined to barracks upon the Phalanx until further notice. The Half-Heard steps up to the plate, and I look forward to reading more about him in future books, and Tarvitz ended up being my favourite and most memorable, because of his honour and ability to stand up to those who seek to betray him. On my first listen I thought they were good but didn’t get a lot of the references, foreshadowing or understanding all the technology.

The Sons of Horus' drop pods scatter throughout the target area and they struggle to link up and capture their objective, the Sirenhold. Also, in the last pages of this book my earlier questions about the nature of the primarchs are pretty well answered. It was later included in "The Novels: Volume 1" eBook collection, and it was included as part of the Crusade's End omnibus, released in paperback on March 8, 2016. For the first time in the series, you couldn’t have really have picked another author to do a novel where a large percentage of it would be about the Battle for Isstvann III.