The Gildar Rift by Sarah Cawkwell

When the ancient warship Wolf of Fenris emerges from the warp, Imperial forces find that it has been overrun by the dreaded Red Corsairs. However, this is no mere raiding party – Huron Blackheart and his entire renegade fleet soon follow, intent on conquering the Gildar Rift and tightening their grip on the sector. Lance batteries and torpedo salvos burn fiery contrails through the void, and only Captain Arrun of the Silver Skulls Space Marine Chapter can halt the renegades’ advance. The fate of the Rift will not be decided in the heavens but on the surface of Gildar Secundus below.

Space Marines are cool. So are pirates.

So imagine the possibilities offered by the idea of Space Marine Pirates, particularly when they're a band of chaos worshipping superhumans led by an even larger, wholly psychopathic specimen who's crazier than a bag of possessed possums. And these are exactly what young Ms Cawkwell gets to play with in this, her debut novel.

TGR opens with the calm before the storm, introducing us to the 'Rift, which is a treacherous stretch of space surrounding a planetary system rather than a valley. It's a system thriving (as much as anything in that bleak future thrives) under the protection of the Silver Skulls chapter of the Space Marines. Their fleet is at the forefront of that defence, a fleet led by Captain Daerys Arrun, a veteran who already has enough on his plate without the puzzle posed by the arrival of the battle- damaged ship The Wolf of Fenris. Impossible to ignore, the Silver Skulls mount an expedition into its cold and apparently lifeless interior, but it's soon revealed as the opening gambit for an invasion by Huron Blackheart and his Red Corsairs. Battle is joined, and the cold vacuum of space is lit by lasers, torpedoes and exploding ships in a very nicely described bit of deadly stellar ballet. Blackheart might be batshit crazy, but that hasn't yet suffocated his strategic genius, and Captain Arrun and the 4th company are soon reminded that it's not over until the fat Marine sings.

Space Marines aren't that easy to write. I've tried it. They don't have days off. They don't do emotions all that well, unless it's rage. If they're not at war, they're training for war. Making them accessible and interesting while staying true to what they are is no mean feat, so it was a relief to find that Sarah has managed to do just that, while also managing to bring the little known Silver Skulls to life and make them her own. Captain Arrun and his supporting cast are each given their chance to shine, and the sub-plot with the tragic heroism of Volker was unexpected twist and a very cool concept. Blackheart and his ghoulish apothecary come across equally convincingly, and the interaction between them sparks nicely and I welcomed the fact that they're there for a reason other than generic carnage.

The action's pretty good throughout, although a minor whinge is that I would have liked a bit more Marine vs Marine action in the ground battles- this is a Battles novel and while exploding cultists are always welcome, it would have been nice to have some squad on squad tactical action to get stuck into. Still, there's a cool bike scene, and these are Corsairs- they're not there for a drag out fight. Not yet. There's enough left unanswered to act as a hook for a follow on, but not so much that you're left scratching your head as to what just happened.

The fact that it was a debut novel never crossed my mind when I was reading TGR. It's a good, solid addition to the 40K shelves, suitably grim and dark without being depressing, and I for one am looking forward to seeing what crawls out of Sarah's head next.

You can visit Sarah's blog here, and read an extract from The Gildar Rift here.

Guest Review: The Outcast Dead

I'm very leased to be able to introduce Sarah Cawkwell's guest review of the latest instalment of the best-selling Horus Heresy series. We've been chatting to Sarah (a.k.a @pyroriffic) for some time now and have vicariously shared the giddy excitement of her induction into the ranks of the Black Library's team of authors (more on that below).

With that thought in mind, I thought it would be interesting to have her perspective on The Outcast Dead. So, without further ado...

The Outcast Dead

A spoiler-free review by Sarah Cawkwell

It may come as no surprise to those of you who know me to realise that one of my favourite traits in any character is a tendency to a delicious brand of grumpy, self-inverted sulkiness. Oh, angst. How I love you. (Not the brooding, sparkly Twilight kind of angst, but the proper ‘I’ve really suffered’ kind). Don’t ask me why; it’s a trait I find incredibly irritating in real life. But I like my heroes to be less than likeable and to be packed to the gunwhales with personality flaws and nuances. It’s some kind of inverse physics thing, perhaps. The less inherently likeable a character, the more I seem to like them. It's similar to my theory on the fact that the smaller the handbag, the more rubbish you can fit in it.

Whatever the reason, I am filled to the brim with undying love for Kai Zulane, one of the central protagonists as featured in Graham McNeill’s latest addition to the million-selling Horus Heresy series. The Outcast Dead is set almost entirely on Terra and is a 'Meanwhile...' piece. It opens the eyes of the reader quite widely to life elsewhere in the Imperium whilst the Adeptus Astartes are going through the wringer millions of miles away. It primarily follows the (mis)adventures of an unlikely hero in the shape of an astropath who is the unwilling carrier of a vital message. This message must be delivered at all costs and he falls into the care of an even more unlikely and largely reluctant band of protectors.

There are other plots woven neatly into the story as well, with some excellent cross-over and more than one or two surprises.

Because this is a spoiler-free review, I’m going to come straight to the point here. I liked this book. It reads well, has a great story that reaches a satisfactory resolution and a brilliant cast of great characters (including the aforementioned astropath). But I may be biaised. I have a particular love for character-driven stories and also for astropaths and psykers of any kind, so for them to form the core of a story is my idea of a good time. It’s like a party that just won’t quit. There is a delicious mix of psykers you like and psykers you don’t. And then the eponymous Outcast Dead of the title are thrown into the mix and it all goes a bit wild and crazy.

Which is no bad thing in my opinion.

I’ve always found the illustrious Mr. McNeill presents characters with whom it is easy to engage, although not always necessarily easy to identify with. I’m unlikely to ever be an astropath, for example. This both pleases me and in my nerdier moments, invokes a certain air of resentment. Because apart from the down side of, you know, losing your eyes, your identity and all the other stuff… you’d be an astropath. Which would be kind of cool. Sucky, but cool.

I digress. I do that.

Anyway.

When you find out what it was that happened to Kai to make him into the Grumpiest Man Alive, you do feel a certain pity for him. I wanted to know what happened to him and then later, I wanted to know what happened to the Outcast Dead. That wanting to know turned into needing to know. And it was this Need To Know that kept me eagerly turning pages until I tragically ran out of book.

With The Outcast Dead, readers are treated to an entirely different side of the Heresy. Away from the militarian, organised lives of the Legiones Astartes, ordinary citizens are going about their business… but this is a world in which things are constantly changing, where the bad guys are evolving all the time (sometimes quite literally)… and the ordinary soon morph into the extraordinary with disastrous consequences for our protagonists.

This isn’t your average Horus Heresy book. Whilst there are Space Marines present and at least one primarch puts in an appearance, there is a distinct absence of full-on battle scenes. For many, this may cause them to dismiss the book out of hand. But for all those people – and there are many of them – who often bemoan the fact that the Black Library don’t publish books that are more character driven… well, they should grab this one.

It’s quite heartfelt in places and as a reader, I appreciate it when I genuinely care enough about a character to care what happens to them. By the end of the book, my initial fondness for Mr. Grumpy had gone all the way through deep pity and out the other side into enormous respect.

It’s a tale about courage and determination, about understanding one’s duty, about loyalty and even about friendships in the face of the worst kind of adversity. It adds gently to the Horus Heresy mythos without scrambling anything and also clears up one or two other grey areas with well-placed exposition.

I have enjoyed all of Graham McNeill’s contributions to the Horus Heresy series so far and The Outcast Dead is no exception. Will it please everyone? No. I don’t believe it will. After all, everyone has different expectations and for some, the absence of full scale warfare may lead to a less-than-satisfactory read. For me, though, it was a good, solid story with interesting characters who I cared about. And as far as I’m concerned, if I come out of a book thinking ‘I enjoyed that’, then it’s done its job admirably.

And The Outcast Dead definitely did that. With bells on. I award it nine screaming psykers out of ten.

Thanks, Graham – look forward to the next one.

**



**

A great review, thank you!

Sarah's first novel, The Gildar Rift, is out in December, and you can follow her on Twitter, or visit her website.