Vengeful Spirit

The Horus Heresy, Book 29

By: Graham McNeill

Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong

Once the brightest star in the Imperium and always first among his primarch brothers, Horus has dragged the Space Marine Legions into the bloodiest conflict that the galaxy has ever seen. While their allies wage war on a thousand different fronts, the XVIth Legion descend upon the Knight world of Molech - home to the ruling House Devine, and a principle stronghold of the Imperial Army.

The forces loyal to the Emperor stand ready to defy the Warmaster, but just what could have drawn Horus to attack such a well defended planet, and what might he be willing to sacrifice to fulfill his own dark destiny?

©2014 Games Workshop Limited (P)2014 Games Workshop Limited

My favorite of the HH series

Really good insight into the Sons of Horus. I’m a fan of Chaos legion and a traitor at heart (death to the false emperor btw) it also had a badass war scene in it. If you like Horus and abandon this is your book

Steady pace to an unpredictable ending

As expected, a riveting adventure to the vengeful spirit by some classic characters. The purpose and character development was a bit underwhelming but the journey covered well.

great story

really felt like a great follow up in the story to bring you back to where it all started with Loken and the Horus

Good book, a few disagreements on performance.

First, the story. The story itself does not push forward the plot exactly, but the book is about character development for the overall universe. This book is meant to advance Horus, Loken, Aximand, and Abbadon as characters. It is meant to do some lore and world-building and set up the confrontation between Horus and Russ.

To that end it does fine. It leaves us with a lot of questions unless you have some pretty deep knowledge of the lore beforehand. This book requires external reading that is outside the main Horus Heresy Novels. That's ok...but it makes for a difficult read if you don't have it.

Performance...perhaps it is unfair of me but Loken was introduced by voice actor Toby Longworth in the original three novels. Garreth chose to make a very aggressive departure from the sound, cadence, and inflection of the original representation. That's fine, if it's a reboot or something, but it's not. You don't have to do an impersonation of Toby's portrayal, but honestly Loken sounded like Nemiel from Fallen Angels and I couldn't get over it. Tarik likewise, the entire character was different.

It's not just preference. Loken is "straight up and down" and Tarik is all quips and jokes. That's why the book references the humors of the mournival. Garreth changed the personality of those characters. I found myself impersonating their original voices over the top of him because it was too distracting. I mean...Loken sounded like a woman crying at one point...

Garreth, You did the voice and personality for the Lion and Luther...they were amazing. Not one character had those deep notes. No one had that barely contained violence. I know you can do better. Bror Tyrfingr was pretty good, you nailed that pretty well.

It doesn't matter how good the book is or not. If you're reading through the series you are required to read this book and there are no other performance options. If you are not reading through hebseries do not buy this as it is no where close to a stand alone novel.

Gareth Armstrong makes this one

The story feels a little bloated in places, but despite that I really enjoyed hearing Gareth Armstrong's voices. It was very easy to tell who was speaking even before the speaker is identified by the narrative. Worth the listen!