Mortarion: The Pale King (Volume 15) (The Horus Heresy: Primarchs) [Hardcover] Annandale, David

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Overall, I felt this was simplistic and lacked the swagger and punch other titles being to the series. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written Warlord: Fury of the God-Machine, the Yarrick series, and several stories involving the Grey Knights, as well as titles for The Beast Arises and the Space Marine Battles series. Annandale devotes time to the enemies of his protagonist in an effort to show the overwhelming power of the space marines, but it also leads the reader to an understanding of just how evil the antagonists of the Death Guard really are.

Mortarion's inferiority complex over being unable to overthrow the tyrant of his homeworld is developed here. However a big part of the novel is action which I think might make some people enjoy it less and I think the fans of the Death Guard will enjoy it because it all pretty awesome. questionable treatment recently in the novels so I was half-expecting that slightly woeful track record to continue. Mortarion and the Death Guard do not take kindly to Galaspar’s nonsense, and they reap the scythe across the planet in a brutal, horrendous manner. The fifteenth instalment in The Horus Heresy Primarchs series, The Pale King tells of the atrocities committed by the Reaper in the name of justice—and the consequences of challenging his methods.The book is very well written and fun, it was cool seeing Typhon and Garro when they were just legionnaries, and we get brief glimpses of their personalities, but in the end, it is not part of the core of novels of 40K that are fundamental for your understanding of the story or characters.

But was so interesting to also learn of some of the original battle captains of the legion, and how Typhon and Garro ascended. We don't actually get to learn much about the leader of the Death Guard that we didn't already know, but we do get to glimpse fan-favourites Garro and Typhon in their earlier days and, through the framing device, get some insight into Mortarion's relationship with Sanguinius and Horus.By the end, Horus is also disappointed in Mortarion’s brutality, and they caution him to show more restraint. While I’ve read The Buried Dagger, I’ll be honest that I don’t love the “he had no choice” answer offered. Then I saw that David Annandale had been announced to pen the book and my hopes sank a little further.

However, these things alone were not enough to completely make up for the incredibly edgy at times narrative that I find hard to believe anyone above the age of 15 would be able to take seriously. Keeble delivers a great performance, While his choice in Mortarion's voice surprised me, it never irked me. Exploring those developments, and the upbringing of each Primarch seems to be the overall purpose of the novels in this series. The prologue starts with the aftermath of the before mentioned short story in which Mortarion accepts surrender and tries a more peaceful approach to The Great Crusade at his second action in charge which is the planet Abysrtus.This society was discovered by the ship Manifest Unity (pretty awesome 30k ship name) which was destroyed. Maybe other approaches are better suited for planets those primarchs encounter, but he will deal with his obstacles his way.