I love the HH books. Enough to pay 16.00 for the last 2. Vengeful Spirit was a pretty good book but I still thought twice about buying this one. I wish I had thought a little longer. One of my least favorite HH books. It had its moments, particularly the battle with the EC, but mostly it was just dull. I like character development but I really didn't need to be beat over the head with how much like a machine Atticus was through the entire book. Showing him as the unstoppable machine marching through the subterranean mountain of maggots was just lame. As was most of the other stuff in the book. If you buy it do yourself a favor and read until you get through the battle with the EC and then skip to the last 20 or so pages. You honestly won't miss much. As a final thought: You would think that a group of marines that had just been betrayed by their brothers might be a little suspicious of religious pilgrims who keep themselves hooded at all times.

David Annandale is a refreshing new voice to the Horus Heresy era. Both Annandale & Wraight are excellent additions to this series. I liked the glimpse this story provides of a surviving group of Iron Hands after Istvaan V. A nice treat was the appearance of a vengeful Emperor's Children fleet that was provoked into appearing in full force. The story can be seen as grim and bleak; a doomed situation without hope . However, this story provides a deep window into the very tragic souls of the Iron Hands. The beginnings of the full metamorphic transformation from human to machine. This story is smooth, flows well and has a distinct beginning, middle and end; It may not be an epic battle saga but it sure delivers a powerful ending.

A standard 40k novel that happened to be set in the horus heresy era. However, it didn't seem to matter what era it was in because the actions in the novel had no real impact on the larger storyline aside from answering the question where the warning came from.