Know No Fear - A Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (2011) Review

 

Games Workshop/Sega

Though the property grows increasingly prominent outside of wargaming miniature circles, Warhammer 40,000 doesn't have much to show for it video game wise. There are two big exceptions; Real Time Strategy classic Dawn of War and the third person, melee heavy shooter Space Marine.

The player controls Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, a chapter of the superhuman warriors known as Space Marines. His company is dispatched to the Forge World Graia, one of the foundries that supply the galaxy spanning Imperium's endless wars and now the site of a full scale Ork invasion. It's up to Titus to save Graia, now a ruined planet on the brink of defeat, though more dangerous foes may yet lie in wait.

Published by the now defunct THQ, Space Marine is one of the AA games that have largely gone extinct, overshadowed by gargantuan, big name undertakings and surprise Indie hits. And Space Marine is certainly middle of the road. 

Games Workshop/Sega

There's nothing particularly revolutionary about the game, which plays very similarly to Gears of War, trading out cover mechanics for a regenerating shield and an emphasis on messily dispatching enemies with chainswords and similarly anachronistic melee weaponry.

Gameplay wise, Space Marine finds a nice balance between melee and raged options. Titus' main gun is the iconic bolter, which in this game is a compromise between the rocket powered explosive launcher of the lore and the lower caliber assault rifle seen in most adaptations. 

The game cleverly translates other tabletop weaponry into shooter staples. The anti-tank melta gun is akin to most shooters' shotguns and the lascannon serves as a sniper rifle best used for tankier ranged enemies. It's a good mix of weapons that are satisfying to use and benefit from some excellent sound design, adding to their existing weight. 

Melee weapons are less varied. Though the four options receive different animations, most feel like cosmetic changes outside of damage output, barring the appropriately unwieldy but capable Thunder Hammer.

Enemy wise there's even less of a mix, though that's partially because the source material leaves them in a tight spot, though the lack of character model variation draws attention to it. Combat mainly boils down to dispatching large waves of axe wielding enemies,

Decades of Golden Demon - A COMPENDIUM Volume One Review

 

The Miniatures Compendium

Golden Demon has long been a major institution of the Warhammer hobby, a miniature painting competition first held at the 1987 Games Day, Games Workshop's premier convention in ages past. It was eventually untethered from the trademark event, which disappeared in the warp around 2014. Golden Demon lived on, though COVID has given us a 2 year hiatus.

The Miniatures Compendium/David de Blas

It's hard to described the importance of Games Day, both personally and otherwise. It's especially hard perhaps because I've never been a particularly good painter. Golden Demon winning miniatures have been intimidating just as often as they've been inspiring. But I suppose that's part of the mystique.

Games Workshop injected plenty of pomp and ceremony into Golden Demon without making it too daunting for hobbyists: the titular leering demonic trophies became a symbol of a truly accomplished painter, with the best in show awarded the Slayer Sword, a steel replica weapon.

I certainly never imagined myself winning a Golden Demon, much less triumphantly holding the Slayer Sword aloft. Even so, trawling through the Golden Demon galleries as a neophyte hobbyist a decade ago is a memory I treasure dearly.

Horus Rising - A Horus Heresy Novel Review

 

Black Library

The Horus Heresy Book 1: Horus Rising

By Dan Abnett

Published by Black Library

Published in 2006, Horus Rising would kick off The Horus Heresy, a fifty book series with dozens of accompanying novellas and audio productions, as well as its own dedicated gameline by Forge World. Set 10,000 years before the grimdark future of Warhammer 40,000, The Horus Heresy depicted the cataclysmic civil war that saw the mighty Space Marine legions clash, the Emperor reduced to a permanent near death state, and the Imperium set on a course towards certain destruction.

The conflict itself is one of the fundamental components of the setting, dating back to the earliest Warhammer 40K publications. Even with a slew of magazine articles, rulebook blurbs, and prose references, much of the Horus Heresy was still left shrouded in mystery.

With Horus Rising's release in 2006, the definitive tale of the Horus Heresy had arrived. There was no initial set number of books for the series. As releases came out and many ended up on The New York Times bestseller list, it ballooned in length, to the point that only just now are we getting the conclusion with the Siege of Terra novels, 15 years later.

Penned by Warhammer fiction heavy hitter Dan Abnett, Horus Rising gave a new, intimate look at the Heresy. The demigod-like Primarchs and their legions of superhuman Astartes, the Space Marines, were no longer indistinct mythological figures but concrete characters. This initial book takes place years before the Heresy's actual start. Horus, of the conflict's namesake, is not the thrice damned traitor and herald of Chaos but instead the Emperor's most trusted servant and closest friend.

Horus Rising follows his earliest actions as Warmaster, the leader of humanity's galaxy conquering Great Crusade, showing events that would lead him down a dark path. The story unfolds across three different planetary conquests. Each one poses a unique set of challenges, physical and otherwise. That's broken up with a few well crafted horror segments featuring Chaos, the daemonic forces the Imperium has forgotten to fear thanks to the Emperor's enforced faithlessness. 

It's a decent mix of worldbuilding, character drama, and the combat heavy "Bolter Porn" most Black Library novels devolve into. At the very least, Horus Rising lends real narrative weight to its battle scenes. It likely has my favorite opening of any Black Library book, in which Horus' vicious Astartes descend on Terra, shatter the Imperium, and even mortally wound the Emperor.

Just not the Emperor, Terra, or even Horus you're thinking of, even if it does distill the Horus Heresy in a broad, ironic sense.

Abnett wisely doesn't tell Horus Rising from Horus' perspective, with most of the story told through the eyes of rapidly ascending Space Marine captain Garviel Loken. An uncomplicated, adventurous spirit, he finds himself thrust into the Warmaster's inner circle, the Mournival. A position that requires far more than just swinging a chainsword and one that exposes him to some difficult truths. The rest of the book takes on the point of view of the merely human entourage of the expedition fleets

I haven't loved every addition The Horus Heresy novels have made. In fact, a few of them soured me on the series as a whole. But the idea of Remembrancers, a collection of artists, writers, and other visionaries sent to record the Legiones Astartes "Great Deeds," as they carve a bloody path across creation, is just brilliant.

They're a strong assortment of characters, lending a more human vantage point to a narrative notably lacking one. The Horus Heresy was fine as the domain of great heroes when it was a distant, mythological event but a full length novel benefits from the likes of blundering poet Ignace Karkasy and adventurous photographer Euphrati Keeler. Abnett's writing certainly feels a lot more at home with these dreamers, who find their values tested and reshaped by their inhuman subjects. Just compare the surprisingly entertaining musings on Karkasy's notebooks with any of the fight scenes.

At Horus Rising's best points, the Remembrancers are used to question the heroic narrative that's sprung up around Space Marines, both in and out of universe.

Admittedly, Horus Rising doesn't neglect its Space Marine characters. While they're by far the most popular faction, supersoldiers that live only for war is a concept with very limited storytelling potential, something Abnett has admitted to struggling with in the past. Admittedly, the Heresy era gives him more to work with: though still single minded, the Astartes of the 31st millennium are more carefree and contemplative than their fanatical far future counterparts.

Horus Rising never adopts the titular Warmaster's point of view, leaving the reader to work mostly with other people's perspectives of him. This helps Horus retain a sense of mythos around him, while playing into his characterization. Though a more jubilant figure than one would expect, Horus is sorely alone in a galaxy that grows smaller by the day.

For all his grandiosity, he's a cypher to the reader as well as the other characters, not helped by how misdirection is his favorite tool. The starstruck Loken comes to realize this, most memorably noting that even Horus' accent is fake.

In addition to his duplicitous behavior, he's as violent and exacting as you'd expect from his reputation. That's balanced by Horus' surprising open mindedness and wisdom, things that his "sons" and other peers notably lack.

In Horus Rising, Abnett builds off of the established details of Horus feeling abandoned by the Emperor, extending it to a growing contempt for the increasingly pointless bloodshed he's been left to watch over.

That mirrors the overall theme of the book. Every principal character comes to realize they don't actually understand much less fully believe in their duty. Even if they're not quite yet ready to admit that. It's a much more compelling root for the Heresy than purely chalking it up to the interference of dark gods.

Even if it is the gateway to an entire subsection of the setting, Horus Rising isn't an ideal introduction to Warhammer 40K. It's a memorable book, surely some of Black Library's best, one that even rediscovers some of the series' long lost sense of humor. But many scenes rely on the reader's knowledge of what these characters and factions will go on to do. Usually it's very obvious, verging on being clumsy at points. A couple of clever scenes lose their staying power if you don't have that background.

More broadly, the dystopia glaring beneath the glamour of the Imperium's golden age works best when you know the absolute nightmare it leads to in 10,000 years. The same goes for the mood of the book as a whole.

At the time of Horus Rising’s release, there was a lot of grumbling about the very idea of a book Horus Heresy series. Even with all the prior material, much of the Horus Heresy was still left up to the players to define, the details lost to history. Many fans were concerned a novel series following the conflict could undermine its legendary status, pulling back the curtain too much.

The older I get, and the longer the series and its spinoffs drag out, the more I’m inclined to agree with that stance. The Horus Heresy no longer felt like a sort of militarized creation myth but just another story, with some bizarre changes and questionable additions to boot. 

On the other hand, it did lead to some of my favorite Warhammer fiction and the fully developed ruleset for the era.

When I read Horus Rising this time around, I saw a parallel of the series "de-mything" with the book’s underlying sense of loss, that these half remembered better days will soon be replaced by tragedy. Less dramatically, I think Horus Rising proved that the sense of mystery didn't need to be sacrificed for a more nuanced, developed perspective. 

A few of the later installments managed to achieve that too, even if many more Horus Heresy books presented the conflict like any other Black Library story.

Are We the Baddies? - A Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy 1st Edition Review

 

 

Dark Heresy

Designed by Owen Barnes, Kate Flack, and Mike Mason

Cubicle 7

In the dark future of the 41st millennium, humanity has few defenders left. In fact, we've become our own worst enemy, as trillions live under the oppressive Imperium of Mankind. Zealotry and intolerance are abundant as humanity constantly fends off the countless enemies it has accumulated over the last ten millennia. Its founder, the God-Emperor of Mankind, clings to life through arcane technologies. Little more than a corpse, his psychic might barely holds his crumbling domain together and his priests claim he single-handedly prevents human extinction. But even this won't be enough in the face of dark gods and all consuming aliens more villainous than even the Imperium.

In Dark Heresy, players take on the roles of Acolytes, the foot soldiers and investigators of the infamous Inquisition. The Imperium's feared secret police, they root out threats to the "human soul" wherever they might lie, even within their own ranks. 

Inquisitors wield the authority to put entire planets to death but Acolytes end up doing most of the dirty work. They'll be thrown into the labyrinthine politics and dark secrets of the Calixis Sector, a particularly volatile patch of an empire in peril. 

With nothing to call on but their own wits and whatever firearms they can carry, Acolytes will have to root out and destroy various threats. Malicious cults, reality warping daemons, and ruthless aliens lurk around every corner. Acolytes stand to lose life, limb, sanity, and even their souls in the quest to buy humanity even another day.

Dark Heresy was the swan song of Black Industries, Games Workshop's short lived return to RPG publishing. Built off of the second edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and the hybrid RPG-wargame Inquisitor, Dark Heresy was released in 2008, one month before Black Industries closed its doors. The Calixis Sector would live on at Fantasy Flight Games, who would publish the rest of the line and its future companions like Deathwatch and Rogue Trader. Even so, none of the future endeavors would ever quite match Dark Heresy. Though not without its flaws, it was a worthy inheritor of the WFRP mantle, a great way to live out the Dark Millennium, and a solid RPG in its own right. 

Regardless of how good of an adaptation it is, Dark Heresy has a powerful hook: hard bitten investigators struggling against horrors from beyond the stars and those within their own hearts.

A Less-Than-Heavenly-Host

Character creation is fairly in line with the prior WFRP books, with the consolidated stats of WFRP 2nd edition. Notably, a Perception stat has been added and the admittedly wargame-y Attacks has been removed. This game offers no species or races besides human: the humanity of the Dark Millennium is a superstitious, xenophobic lot and doubly so in the Inquisition. To compensate are the somewhat more flavorful "Homeworlds." Players get to pick from the dominant worlds in the galaxy spanning Imperium: lawless Feral Worlds, mega city wracked Hive Worlds, the starship bound Void Born, with the rest coming from the average Imperial World.

Cubicle 7

The Homeworlds are admittedly a little more robust than the standard, currently under fire approach to species in most RPGs. While there are stat modifiers for each option, they're a result of culture and environment rather than somehow inherent. The actual statistical differences are limited to 5%, with most of the differences coming from atmospheric talents. Hive Worlders are frightened by the open skies, Feral Worlders care little for advanced technologies, and even regular Imperial Worlders are emboldened by the assertion that "Of all the planets in the Imperium, theirs is, in fact, the most beloved of the Emperor."

The all important Fate points make their return as a limited pool of bonuses and rerolls that replenish each session. They also have their classic purpose, to be permanently spent to stave off death.

Book Review- Gaunt's Ghosts: Necropolis

                                                         Black Library

Dan Abnett's Necropolis is the third book in the Gaunt’s Ghosts series, which follows the heroic commissar Abram Gaunt and his dwindling Imperial Guard regiment as they fight across countless warzones in the 41st millennium. Even a military fiction writer as competent as Dan Abnett can’t make an uninterrupted stream of battles interesting. Thankfully Abnett’s strong point is that his Warhammer fiction is never just about the fighting.

A considerable amount of Necropolis lacks Gaunt and his Ghosts. Most of the opening act is spent establishing Vervunhive and its rival Ferrazoica. Both are “hive cities,” termite mound like superstructures that house a considerable portion of the Imperium’s population.

Warhammer Adventures- Not as Bad as You Think

                                                                                                                                                                       Games Workshop

 

When Games Workshop announced a line of young readers’ books titled Warhammer Adventures, there was something of a mixed response. Which is to say the primarily adult fans of Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar reacted with a mixture of anger, disdain, and mockery. I’ll admit I was in the last category. The various Warhammer products have been “toned down” throughout their history to accommodate a younger audience. But Warhammer Adventures is the first time Games Workshop has tried to explicitly market the settings that coined the word “grimdark” towards young children. The idea of converting the violent, oppressive worlds of Warhammer into kid’s books seemed downright laughable. But having read the free extracts, I’m surprised to say that Warhammer Adventures is surprisingly decent, all things considered.

The major concern about Warhammer Adventures was that they’d water down the settings. Some saw it as a personal attack on the hobby they loved. I was more confused how they intended to do that with Warhammer 40K, which is by design the worst future imaginable. My concerns about the setting being misrepresented were met by Warhammer Adventures: Attack of the Necron’s significantly abridged version of 40K’s iconic opening text. It begin with “Life in the 41^st millennium is hard” and skips over the “eternity of carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods” and “whatever happens, you will not be missed” portions. Aside from that, it’s a surprisingly faithful if more concise rendition the original. It reflects the rest of Attack of the Necron, which is accurate to the setting while still very much for kids.

The book isn't the most stimulating of reads for an adult, or even someone in their teens. But Attack of the Necron is perfect for what it is. It captures the mechanics and tone of the setting as accurately as it can. The story follows a group of kids at an archeological site for various reasons, brought together by circumstance and an invasion of Necrons. The book actually explained they aren’t robots, a common if understandable misconception. It didn’t get into the Faustian bargain that cost the ancient species their minds and souls but I didn’t expect the book to. I also have to compliment author Cavan Scott for avoiding the obnoxious “Space Marines as heroes” narrative that gains more traction with each passing year. The power armored super soldiers save the heroes by accident and even the children know it’s not safe to be around them. My main concern is that Warhammer Adventures would make the nightmarish Imperium of Man out to be the good guys. Thankfully it seems to have remembered they're far from the good guys. This is especially notable when you consider how the Warhammer media aimed at adults has trouble remembering that.

As for how Attack of the Necron reads, it has pretty decent characterization and dialogue for a children’s book. There’s a real peril to it and Scott wisely has the adults fully aware of grim realities that the kids are oblivious to. Though the older characters reactions are enough to tell them that something’s wrong. By the end of the excerpt I had a good grasp of who everyone was and what they value. I’d go as far to say that Attack of the Necron is in many ways superior to a lot the content Black Library puts out. Their books have long been referred to as “bolter porn” by the fanbase for their emphasis on fight scenes and little else. Even the excerpt of Attack of the Necron proves to be more inventive than that.

City of Lifestone drew a lot less derision than Attack of the Necron, mainly because Age of Sigmar has very little influence outside of the hobby, especially compared to 40K. However, I’ve always thought that Warhammer Fantasy Battle’s successor was closer to a Saturday Morning Cartoon than its far future brother. The much less developed setting also makes it a bit more suited for what Warhammer Adventures is trying to be than the comparatively rigid background of 40K. Age of Sigmar also sports a “good vs evil” cosmology that’s largely absent in most other versions of Warhammer, though this clear morality works better for a young readers’ book. 

However, City of Lifestone is much darker than its Attack of the Necron, despite the opposite usually being true when Age of Sigmar and 40K are usually compared. Most of the excerpt takes place in a slave camp, and the protagonist’s adventure starts with the death of her mother. Her subsequent arrival at the titular city, in which she discovers its little more than ruins and not the promised paradise, was handled in a very tragic way. Author Tom Huddlestron also doesn’t beat around the bush about the sort of moral code (or lack thereof) worshippers of Chaos follow. It’s not as graphic as I make it sound but it’s a lot more than I expected from a young readers’ book.

City of Lifestone reads very similar to Attack of the Necron, even in terms of setup, circumstances, and story beats. While I’m not compelled to read the full versions of either book, I will say that 40K got the better end of the deal than Age of Sigmar. Attack of the Necron has a little more going on with its setup and the way it handles certain elements and takes a lot less time to get interesting. That being said, City of Lifestone managed to make me laugh with the line “The Realm of Life was rightly named, every corner of it overrun with living things. The trouble was, most of them wanted to eat her.

Both Warhammer Adventures stories are accompanied by illustrations done by Magnus Norén. They’re better than most of what I’ve seen in children’s literature (a genre I admittedly haven’t been exposed to in a while.) However, it does run into a problem with Attack of the Necron. So much of 40K’s aesthetic relies on skulls, cyborgs, and other horrors. It’s difficult to translate all that into something kid appropriate and the at times simplistic art shows that. It doesn’t help that 40K art traditionally has a very intimidating, oppressive atmosphere that’s just hard to emulate in this playful style. Norén does a decent job for Attack of the Necron but his work is much better with City of Lifestone. The much tamer art direction of Age of Sigmar is better suited to the sort of atmosphere Warhammer Adventures is trying to capture and for its target demographic.

It goes without saying that Warhammer Adventures is for children. While the books don't contradict anything in the main material, it clearly isn’t meant to be a substitute or even a "real" addition. Barring extreme circumstances, I don’t expect a 35$ finecast Mekki miniature to come out. That makes the more vitriolic reactions even more confusing. I fail to see how Warhammer Adventures threatens the hobby and settings in anyway, despite the insistence of asmall but vocal group of fans. Warhammer Adventures is only meant to introduce younger people to the settings of Warhammer 40K and Age of Sigmar and I think it will do a decent job of that, at least from what's in the free sample.

Book Review: Ghostmaker

                                                                                                                                                      Black Library

Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts series defined the direction of Black Library’s Warhammer 40,000 novels. However, it began as a series of short stories in Inferno! magazine, a monthly anthology of Warhammer fiction. Like all anthologies, the magazine's content was something of a mixed bag. The same goes for the Gaunt’s Ghosts stories published there. Ghostmaker, the second novel in the series, collected all these stories, along with a few new ones. It's all brought together with a new, overarching plotline. This framing device had Gaunt preparing to charge Chaos forces gathering in alien ruins and its climax tries to offer some sense of closure for all the disparate plotlines. Ghostmaker diverges a lot from the rest of the series in its content and its resolution is absurd compared to the comparatively more grounded conclusions of its goes before and after it.

While somewhat justified by its climax, the overarching plot has its issues. It mostly consists of Colonel-Commissar Gaunt approaching whatever character the next story focuses on. At times, this will last a little under two pages. While simple and noninvasive, this approach feels almost like an afterthought until the last quarter of the book.

Book Review: First and Only

                                                                                                                                                      Black Library

Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts series changed the setting of Warhammer 40,000, both in and out of universe. The first installment, First and Only shares its setting with the Games Workshop wargame, in which an increasingly regressive galaxy is trapped in an endless war. The book was also the first one to be published under by Black Library, Games Workshop's publishing arm. First and Only established the current concept of 40K novels and arguably the direction of the entire property. Loosely modeled off of the Sharpe series, Gaunt's Ghosts follows Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the Tanith First and Only, the sole regiment of a destroyed planet. They belong to the Imperial Guard, the billions strong army of the oppressive, galaxy spanning Imperium of Man. Along with dozens of other regiments, they fight against the worshipers of the Chaos gods in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. Abnett is the only author to capture the scale of the 40K universe while still focusing on well-developed individual characters, an approach he introduced to the setting with First and Only.

This premier chapter in the series established a few paradigms that ensured the success of Gaunt's Ghosts. Pitting the protagonists against fanatical demon worshippers helps offset the reprehensibility of the Imperium. This makes a more conventional narrative possible, while still giving the book a chance to explore the nightmare of living in the 41^st millennium. The backdrop of the Sabbat World Crusades also gave the series a chance to organically introduce a variety of allies, enemies, and planets. While 40K’s Imperium was meant to encompass every human culture imaginable, Gaunt’s Ghosts was one of the only instances where this was presented in a tangible way. It even taps into some of the most obscure parts of the lore, presenting its own additions alongside more long standing elements.

First and Only also introduced a cast of compelling, likable characters, rare for licensed fiction and especially a Warhammer 40K novel. Gaunt is convincing as a proud leader, who's a little quick to anger. Abnett constructs a convincing character through the flashbacks and warzones we see him in. The same goes for the Tanith “ghosts” under his command, like Corbec, Bragg, and Larkin. Major Rawne, formerly a wealthy man involved in criminal activities on his homeworld, serves as an antagonistic force that isn’t outright villainous. The most complex one is Dorden, the regiment’s sole medic. An elderly noncombatant, he’s lost the most from the destruction of his homeworld. His constant attempts to save the dwindling survivors of Tanith sells the tragedy of the regiment’s loss. The other Ghosts with names and backstories only exist to be torn to pieces and create further misery for the main cast. Those outside the regiment often face a similar fate, assuming they're even defined.

Unfortunately the book’s antagonists are much less developed, with a few exceptions. The Ghosts’ snobby rivals and commanding officers look down on them out of pride or petty rivalry. The regiment gets put in harm’s way constantly as a result. This is considerably less interesting then when the Ghosts suffer for failing to reconcile their tactics with the Imperium's military dogma. It’s more unique than arrogant, clueless commanders and more true to the setting. Also involved is Inquisitor Heldane, a renegade member of the Imperium’s secret police. He seeks compromise when battling nightmares, as opposed to the Imperium’s costly absolutist approach. Ironically you can write an inquisitor without a discernible motivation, as that’s consistent with their characterization as callous puppet masters willing to sacrifice others for their unknown agendas. Heldane is far removed from the events of First and Only, particularly during the otherwise strong climax. He could be written out of the book with little consequence. While it's leagues ahead of most licensed fiction, nearly every character in First and Only fits a specific archetype a little too well, though some more than others.

First and Only is not great literature by any metric but it stands above most of its genre. Outside of the occasional cliché or tired phrase, Abnett paints vivid images of hellish battlefields and largely pleasant worlds. He also gives them distinguishing features and practices outside of their physical differences. He manages to juggle constant changes in location and perspective and uses them to convey the vastness of the setting without losing sight of the story. 40K’s more iconic elements are mixed with some of the most esoteric ones, giving the story an identity while staying in line with the rest of the universe. The book even manages to have real themes about loyalty, as Gaunt manages to trust others, even after being betrayed so many times. First and Only is still licensed fiction but it manages to stand at the top of that genre, not only due to its strong writing but by marrying its own narrative with that of the larger setting.

Back in the second millennium, First and Only set the standard for Black Library. Today, most of its output is repetitive, featuring nearly indistinguishable power armored space marines fighting in equally monotonous conflicts. But Abnett’s work with Gaunt’s Ghosts proved there was a market for the more unique, meaningful stories that defined early Warhammer fiction. It also laid out a blueprint for presenting sympathetic characters while still staying true to the scale and horror of Warhammer 40K. It showed that with the right work, Warhammer 40K’s restrictive setting could handle a traditional action narrative without rejecting its identity. Future Black Library books would rarely meet the standards set by First and Only. But it at least provided them something to strive towards.