Cadian Honour -Justin D. Hill

Published: 17 September 2019
Publisher: Black Library
Pages: 377
Series: Cadia #2
Format Read: Kindle

Blurp: Taken from Net Galley

Sent to the capital world of Potence, Sergeant Minka Lesk and the Cadian 101st discover that though Cadia may have fallen, their duty continues.

For ten thousand years, Cadia stood as a bastion against the daemonic tide spewing forth from the Eye of Terror. But now the Fortress World lies in ruins, its armies decimated in the wake of Abaddon the Despoiler and his Thirteenth Black Crusade. Those who survived, though haunted by the loss of their beloved homeworld, remain bloodied and unbarred, fighting ruthlessly in the Emperor’s name.

Amongst them is the indomitable Sergeant Minka Lesk. Sent to the capital world of Potence, Lesk and the Cadian 101st company soon discover that a rot runs through the very heart of the seemingly peaceful world. Lesk knows she must excise this taint of Chaos, for it is not only her life and those of her company at stake, but also the honour of Cadia itself.

Thoughts:

Salty could not come over to type this review as he is stuck in legal dispute regarding some self isolation regulations that were not adhered too. He has had time to read through my notes though and has told me that my views are a lot more passionate than what he thought of the book. I think he is lying though as I have been tricked before with books he secretly requested on my behalf and did not even bother suffering through this with me…

I will start today’s with a quote from the book itself to try give some context to my thoughts and my very disgruntled feelings towards this novel:

“Hope is the first step to disappointment “

It is no secret that I hoped that this book which was the follow up of Cadia Stands, for those that remember I was not impressed by the first in the series and that I actually bought the physical in preparation for this second book that I got through Net Galley. I also ended my review of the first book that I “hope that book two will be a better one”… Sadly I set my hopes too high for book two. I can say that it is most definitely a better book than number one, but that is as far as my compliments will go…

At 40% in I was already telling Milou that I felt like DNF’ing the effing thing. At 60% I still had no idea as to the point that Hill wanted to drive at. I was so lost during this book that I actually bought alcohol yesterday to try wipe it’s existence in my brain out, but it failed, all I ended up was this hangover I now suffer with while writing this review. I can say that the chapters read easily enough, but half of what I read had no meaning to me at all. While out on my supply run yesterday I had the vision of what a possible Regimental Standard would read out. My talent at words is a bit rusty, but I still tried putting it into words that might explain my view of this book as a whole. For those who do not know what the Regimental Standard is, it is a weekly flyer that goes out to educate and inspire those within the ranks of the Imperial Guard. I have a sample of it here:
Are you a Mutant?

With that in mind this is what I came up with yesterday while still sober:
“Guardsman, as you all may be have come to learn, Cadia Fell, but do not despair as we will keep on fighting till the very last Cadian. As a result of what has transpired you will be dumpt on a planet called Potence and serve there as best you can. Do not worry about the hundreds of thousands of Scourged that has destroyed your home planet and kicked your frekking asses, we will be invaded most assuredly, but first, prepare yourselves for a church ceremony as we all know they take top priority over obvious inter planetary genocide. Harken Guardsmen, as you all know the Emprrrrrrrah protects! As extra motivation Commisarial Executions have been sanctioned and a zero tolerance* tolerance has been put in place. We know how eager the Commissars are to serve the Emperor and all that is Holy. Strive to be like them Guardsman, or die by their hand trying. Rejoice Guardsman for there is eternal glory in serving in His name!

*Not like there is never not a zero tolerance tolerance in place, but you catch our drift right? If not you will catch a sanctioned bullet…

Warning, if you have come this far and do plan on reading this novel some time the next segment might contain heavy spoilers, although I do not like spoiling things for others, I feel strongly enough with this review that things need to be said as I feel cheated. If you do not want spoilers, stop here…..

Cadian Honour pissed me off. First of do not read the part that it is a Minka Lesk novel, Minka does not feature in it too often and when she does it is better that she wasn’t. Her character is written so stupidly boring. If you sell a book with a character’s name on the cover, give that character some form of personality. Also give her page time to try grow on the reader. The reveal at the end made no sense to me. Man I really liked the cover of this book and how gritty it seemed, but the contents inside, nope…

This book that weighs in under 400 pages had so many names and events to keep track of, it was a mess to me. I wanted the story to continue where Cadia Stands finished, a story where people I wanted to like but did not give to many shits about to reach some form of consolidation after their planet got blown to crap, but Hill went in completely the different direction. We get introduced to a plethora of other people and have to read 40% of some religious event that takes priority over an invasion by a force that destroyed Cadia! Cadia man, do you not know how bad that force is that could pull of a stunt like that? This novel really pissed me of as person who normally likes reading about the servants of the Emperor. This novel wanted me to wish that everyone should’ve just been wiped out…

After defending the honour of Cadia a certain general gets challenged into a duel with another general. Even after defending his stance in a fight to the death he still gets sent to a planet as punishment, for WHAT!!!!??? He won for fuck sake, even lost a hand in the process… Benedict is charged with kinda baby sitting a cardinal and getting a planet that is seemingly in compliance into shape and tries to make a good job of it, but the fact that said cardinal was an idiot and that I saw his death coming at the hand of his aid from 10 chapters before was useless on me.

The whole Brotherhood cultist action was a farce. It was painful to read. It hurt me in more ways I can lay down in this post. This book also pissed me off in the way a chapter would end and then shift to a different perspective that you kinda forgot about because you read it 5 chapters ago and can’t remember who you were reading about, nor what plot you were in.

Chapters would read something like:

I woke up

Milou had shower

I shaved

Breakfast was muesli and yoghurt

Ben went to the neighbors to ask for a roll of Toilet paper.

I do not know who Ben is or what he is doing having a shit in our flat, neither do I want anything to do with our neighbors… That’s how this novel felt to me. As a result my review or rating for this book got a 2 out of 5 on GR. 2 out of 5 for a 40K book Dave? Are you oke? No I am not oke, what difficult times we live in these days where a 40K gets a frekking TWO???!!! 2 Being very forgiving… Pick this up if you never want to read 40K again, but please do not read it if it is your first time reading any kind of Warhammer. I believe what I typed in this nearly 1500 word review says enough about my thoughts….

Hope you have a good day.