The Flight of The Eisenstein – James Swallow

Published: 27 March 2007
Publisher: Black Library
Page Total: 309
Series: Horus Heresy Book 4
Format Read: Physical Copy

Blurp:

Having witnessed the events on Istvaan III, Death Guard Captain Garro seizes a ship and heads to Terra to warn the Emperor of Horus’s treachery. But the fleeing Eisenstein is damaged by enemy fire, and becomes stranded in the warp. Can Garro and his men survive the depradations of Chaos and get his warning to Terra in time?

Thoughts:

I seriously do not even know where to begin with this one so I decided to put in some artwork. You can expect to see a lot of it during this review as the copy I have is from the Hatchette Partworks LTD: Warhammer 40K Legends Collection. It contains a lot of art that goes with each book, I am really grateful for that…

This is a coloured version that you will see on the paperbacks. The art that comes out of the themes of 40K is something that will always draw me in. Seeing in some of the pictures how things looked back in the day and to see how far things have come from then will always amaze me. Example:

I do not know how old these drawings of John Blanche are, but the man had vision, I will give him that. John Blanche, for reference are the drawings that all have the same colour scheme as the picture on the right…

F.O.T.E was a great read for me. After my initial troubles with the first “3 core H.H” books, that left me nowhere closer to understanding anything even after spending so much time in the 40K universe this book was exactly what I needed. It contained a lot to swallow, if you don’t mind me punning the author’s name, but it worked some amazing magic for me. It mostly followed the comings and goings of Garro, a first Captian in the Death Guard Space Marines Chapter. I have read quite a few novels where the Death Guard are already all avatars of the Chaos god Nurgle, but here fresh before the Horus saga started I could have a short glimpse of who they were before it all went to bad. I must admit Garro gets thrown with quite a lot to deal with and nearly reaches the end of his thresh hold on keeping it all together. One can almost not help but root for the guy. I sure did. I also now understand why he is seen as important within the HH series (I might be mistaken in that statement?).

I was a bit lost at the start as I had the idea that most of the H.H books all follow one another in some way. That was the case in here too, but it first gave me a glimpse at things from the first three books through a different perspective, it was done really well and I almost thought I was reading a whole new stand alone. Soon as you realize what it is the author set out to do, “setting up the scene of the actual FLIGHT”, this book read way more easier than its predecessors. I loved the way it all fit, or rather fell into place. i got to relive the bombing of Istvan and Horus’ treachery, as well as glimpse certain events from a way better angle. Job well done MR Swallow.

What is also cool about these books in my 40K Legends Collection is that they come with a time line of events and it also places when the book in question takes place, this is very handy to have around.

Some of the enemies we encounter are very early versions of Nurgle’s children, in some cases it was a bit weird to see them described so primitively, but I needed to remind myself that this was still the starting stages of what we have today. The battles in F.O.T.E was very well done, even if it was not as “bolter porny” as I like my Warhammer books, it had so much more in the way of battle. The inner battles of Garro struggling to come to terms that his fellow brother could turn against one another, the doubt in one’s self. The utter hopelessness and futility in not knowing or having a purpose. There was so much in this book that could have gone wrong for me but it all worked out very well in my opinion. Even though I kind of balked at the idea of a measly human that manages to convince an Astartes to turn his faith to the Emperor, I did appreciate that it happened as I now understand a lot more of the books I read that happen way, way later in this series.

I also got to read up a little extra about the Plague god Nurgle at no extra cost… Bonus…

In hindsight, I have no idea if this review is any good at telling the public what my views are, my thoughts are a bit scatterbrained when it comes to doing them, I also never seem to take notes. Even when I do I never end up using them in my reviews, what an idiot I am. This idiot did end up giving F.O.T.E a 5 out of 5 on GR. I do consider myself a lot more enlightened in how things fit together within the firs three books and I will recomend this only to those who are interested in ever picking up this series, do it at your own peril, but know when you do, even if the first three do not work out for you, give this one a chance…

Ever heard of this novel or read it?

Almost thought Snoke of Star Wars Fame started working for The Emperor…