Awakenings

Warhammer 40,000

By: George Mann

Narrated by: Helen Keeley

An Astor Sabbathiel Novel.

After being thought dead for nearly a hundred years, Sabbathiel returns. Now, facing mistrust wherever she turns, she must prove her worth once more.

Listen to it because....

A powerful Inquisitor returns from the brink of death to a world that she barely recognises, full of people that do not trust her—and facing a terrifying future that only she can prevent.

The story:

Inquisitor Astor Sabbathiel has a problem: she’s been dead for nearly a hundred years...or so everyone believes.

The last thing she remembers is being shot at point-blank range just as a roiling warp storm engulfed the Calaphrax Cluster. Now, she finds herself awakening on a distant Ecclesiarchy stronghold and indebted to a magos called Metik, who has brought her back from the brink of death.

Shortly after her resurrection, Sabbathiel is called to an audience on the planet Hulth by a high-ranking inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus, Heldren, who informs her that after being lost for so long, the members of her former conclave no longer trust her. Forced to undertake a mission to prove herself worthy and true, Sabbathiel soon discovers a secret agenda beginning to unfold—one that contains a burgeoning threat to the Imperium that only she can avert. Trying to assemble the fragments of the past to make sense of the mysteries of the present, Sabbathiel will need to act fast and decide who to trust quickly, or else risk the fate of the future.

Written by George Mann. Narrated by Helen Keeley. Running time 10 hours 15 minutes (approx).

©2022 Games Workshop Limited (P)2022 Games Workshop Limited

So freakin good

Darn near as good as the Eisenhorn series. The voice acting is spectacular and the writing is everything I had hoped it would be.

Not quite eisenhorn but not bad

if you are like me and will give almost anything 40k a shot you will probably like it. Its got a slow start and it takes time to ramp up but it unravels the story in a satisfying way

the okay-est 40k novel

Decent story but things like acrobatic Terminator armor hold it back. The combat was so unengaging that I kept spacing out and having to relisten to those parts multiple times to absorb them. The motley crew of acolytes are a sore spot as they are all so heavily plot armored and showboaty that the main challenge they faced in the fights was whether there would be any enemies left for the rest to kill after each of them "killed lots in cool ways."

Some things were over described but others were under described, like how the xenoarchaeologist (who is the sort of inexplicable badass you see in cheesy made for TV action movies) has a Necron Gauss Flayer as her weapon, that is when she isn't killing people by throwing knives through carapace armor. That's just one of several bizarre choices that run against established lore which break immersion.

It's a shame too because the actual story is cool.

Not great

Not great. The story does not make much sense, the motivations of the carachters are thin and not clear. Their decisions don't make much sense. The rest is OK, but not great. Far off from the Eisenhorn series

Great Listen, ok story

Helen Keeley can read me the dictionary and I'd be on the edge of my seat.