World Famous Comics: Scourge the Heretic (Dark Heresy)
Scourge the Heretic (Dark Heresy)
By: Sandy Mitchell Publisher: Games Workshop Average Rating: Binding: Mass Market Paperback Label: Games Workshop Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 416 Publication Date: February 26, 2008
Product Description: Science fiction action-adventure in the style of Eisenhorn and Ravenor, to tie in with the new Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy rolepaying game. By the author of Ciaphas Cain omnibus and Duty Calls.
Much better than average Warhammer 40,000 Novel This is a good novel that is far superior to many of the Warhammer 40,000 novels which often feature two-dimensional space marines talking like refugees from a really bad old Knights of the Round Table movie. Its not as good as Abnett's Ravenor or Eisenhorn inquisition novels, but enjoyable unless you insist on ultra-marines slaughtering each other with wild and often boring abandon.
Disappointing even for a huge fan of Dark Heresy If I ever pick up another of Mitchell's books, I certainly hope it's better than this one. Forgive the nit picking, but being an editor for a publishing company, my first irritation with the book was the large number of seemingly unending sentences. Didn't we learn about run on sentences in grade school? If memory serves, I think grade school something like, run on sentence = bad.
Second, the author enjoyed the over use of needless, overly large words. Example, "verisimilitudinous" or a similar variation was used at least three times within the span of three chapters. Descriptions in other Dark Heresy/40k books are always vivid and gritty, but this book bordered on (and more than bordered on) overkill in the description department.
As for the story itself, it had a lot of potential. A group of Inquisition operatives attempt to flush out and eliminate a smuggling ring thought to be transporting rouge psykers. Totally cool idea, if you ask me. Then you get a pretty cool action scene relatively near the beginning of the book and you think you're in for quite the treat. But you're wrong. The Inquisitor who oversee the group of operatives leaves to following a lead less than half way through the book and is never heard from again. The operatives have everything pretty much handed to them and their investigation goes WAY too well while the entirety of the book is build up for one final battle, in which only one operative is mildly injured and the rest walk away unscathed. They were fighting a daemon for fraks sake!! Oh wait, I think one chick got scratched. Whatever...
Another point of annoyance is the over the never ending descriptions about the hotness of one of the female operatives. Ok, we get she's got the galaxy's greatest butt and looks good in a skin tight suit. Can we move on now? She's also supposedly a rockin' assassin, but we only really see her fight in the final battle.
Then there's the side story of the two operatives sent undercover to try and get smuggled off the planet in an attempt to understand the hierarchy of psyker smuggling ring. This plot line goes nowhere and is almost completely pointless unless Mitchell writes another book. The operatives reach the point of getting smuggled off world in the last two chapters. Then we're done. No more on them.
And what about the inquisitor who took the first available ship to Scintilla to go ask his friend of the Ordo Calixis for some help on his mission? We find out in the epilogue that he's disappeared, apparently having gone to special condition. WTF??
Though I've read worse books, my advice would be not to even bother picking the book up unless you see there's been an addition to the series... and Emperor knows if it's actually going to become a series...
Not His Best I am a fan of Sandy Mitchell and love the Ciaphas Cain series, his humor makes that such a fun foray into 40k, but this is just very long winded. This is an inquisition story and as usual, there is a whole warband that you will get to know. Unfortunately, he tries to tell every single event from every single person's perspective that the story bogs down. There is a reason the book is over 400 pages and its not because the story is moving along at a brisk pace. Anyway, its not a bad read, but you will be rolling your eyes and urging the book to get on with it.
Thoroughly disappointing People might think I'm being mean only giving this book two stars...but the fact of the matter is that I gave Mitchell the benefit of the doubt, as I quite enjoyed his Ciaphas Cain books. However there's no denying that this book, the first of a series, is below average work. I WANTED to like it, I forced myself to sit down and read through the slow start, but this book fails on multiple levels.
For starters, this is being marketed as an Inquisition book, and, since the Black Library has posted there will a sequel, series. I read EISENHORN by Dan Abnett and all three of the underrated RAVENOR books by Abnett as well, all books focusing on Inquisitors and their adventures in the 40k univeres. As far as I'm concerned, books on the Inquisition provide a more dynamic, exciting setting than any plodding Space Marine Chapter (with the exception of the Horus Heresy books, which are awesome). Therefore, Mitchell was set up, in my opinion, with a chance to show what he could do with an Inquisitor and his agents and allies. He immediately takes a wrong turn by spending the first 40 or so pages of the book writing about a prologue that shows an interrogator making a discovery and then reporting back to his master, Inquisitor Grynner. What's the problem, you ask? Well, the book doesn't focus on Grynner and his agents, it focuses on Inquisitor Carolus Finurbi and HIS agents. Thus, we get fifty pages into the book without having met the main character, and Grynner and his interrogator aren't characters in the story. They're just referred to a couple times.
Wow, that was a long rant, let's go to bullet points:
-Finurbi (for some unexplained reason called by his first name by Mitchell) is, as I said, the head honcho of a group of agents known as the Angelae. At first, it seems like a cool idea that his network of agents is so widespread--the potential for us to jump between planets to meet different agents of his, for example--but it soon becomes apparent that we're only focusing on the group of Angelae that the Inquistor is currently with.
-We meet our good guys, we see the inciting event, and the guy you think is the main character leaves. Wha? I know plot spoilers are a no-no, but so is writing an Inquisition novel where the Inquisitor leaves before page 200 and doesn't come back. Turns out the focus isn't on Inquisitor "Carolus" either. It's on Mordechai Horst, former police dude, and the cell of Angelae he leaves behind on a mining world to root out a heretical cell that was apparently smuggling pyskers (psychics, for you laypeople).
-Okaaaaay...so it's not Grynner, it's not Finurbi, it's the Angelae. Fine. I'm disappointed, but fine. Maybe it will be good. Oh man, it turns out that the Angelae are rather painfully one dimensional. We have a psyker, a tech priest--an offshoot human order that Mitchell puts a curious focus on--two former guardsmen, Horst, and a young female Red Redemptionist (fundamentalist) who must have the best body ever.
-Horst plays leader with Finurbi AWOL, and he's...a boring policeman in space. Nothing really interesting there. Try and count the number of sentences about Horst that start "his former arbitrator's instincts kicked in..."
-The psyker is Finurbi's significant other, and fitting she is hardly relevant for most of the book despite her powers.
-One guardsmen is a former serf--yes, like feudal serf--from the same planet on which the investigation takes place. He's a big guy, and he got in trouble for sleeping with other people's wives. He's supposed to be the tough guy...eh...I suppose he proves himself worthy of such a role in one scene. Fine, we'll count him as a successful minor character.
-The other guardsmen, Drake, is my favorite, because he reminded me of how a reader might act if he or she got thrown into this ridiculous book. He quickly seems to realize he knows as much if not more about secret agenting than the veteran inquisition agents. And that's not exactly high praise. It comes off as Drake being a quick learner...and the others being dullards. Why would a guy who was basically recruited because he saw too much--not because he was trained to be an Angelae--already be on par with the leader of team? Doesn't make sense.
-As alluded to, Finurbi leaves midway through the book. Thank god. He was the least interesting of them all. He hardly asserted himself as leader at all, and mostly seemed to be quietly nodding at whatever anyone said. He was also a psyker, which tired him out. Poor baby.
-Keira Syrathee. Red Redemptionist. Former Offico Assasinorum operative. Teenage girl. INCREDIBLE HOTTIE! Really, all you really need to know about how much filler is in this book is that Mitchell seems absolutely obsessed with getting across the point that Keira is incredibly good looking. Seriously, not one male character seems to be able to make it through a scene without staring at her, sometimes her chest or her rear specifically. Apparently she has some kind of active camo that sets off her figure well. If you're thinking, "why was that so annoying?" Trust me. Mitchell says something about Keira's figure or male characters admiring her WAY. TOO. MUCH. It's repetitive, bad writing. And downright immature. I'm a fan of the female form and all, but it was ridiculous.
-Sorry to harp on this, but Horst--being a former policy police policeguy--must be around 30ish or he would not have acquired his oft-referred to "instincts". Keira is in her teens, let's say 18 because younger than that would be weird and 19 is a number no one likes. When the Angelae psyker--her name escapes me--suggests that Keira interrupts Horst so much because she likes him, instead of Horst thinking "ah, cute, but she's way too young" his reaction is more like "wow, could that actually work with our different personalities?" No, moron. It couldn't because you're twenty years older or something like that.
-The plot thickens...well no, it doesn't really. The first group of people they connect to the psyker facility attack are...well, I won't spoil it. It's rather simplistic, and not really interesting.
-The very beginning and the last sixty pages or so, contain the only action scenes out of a 400+ page book. Now, I'm not someone who needs naked people and car chases non-stop to make a story, but the fact of the matter is that where a better writer might fill the non-action parts of the book with good dialogue, a better plot twist, etc. Mitchell fills the non-action parts of the book with... filler, mainly writing about how Keira's backside looks good. It makes the lack of any action scenes stick out, and even then the climax feels rushed. How can you rush the climax of a story where you have nothing particular going on for pages on end? It's just bad.
Uh, yes...I really don't have much more to say other than Mitchell can craft a decent action scene, does possess some wit, and his other 40k work is quite enjoyable. SCOURE THE HERETIC, however, fails in that it is NOT really about an Inquisitor, the characters (other than Drake) are really rather boring, the plot is pedestrian, and Keira is soooo good looking. Even diehard science fiction fans and 40k completists will be hard pressed to find a reason to like this one. Maybe Mitchell will get on track with the sequel, but that's neither here nor there for now.
Not bad at all for WH40K. First off. I don't play Warhammer games nor do I ever intend to but I do like dark, military style SF. I don't read Warhammer 40,000 because I want Hemingway or even Lord of the Rings but the book's not as bad as the first 2 reveiwers said. The story is part of the company's attempt to introduce their new Dark Heresy RPG based mostly on the success of Dan Abnett's Inquisitor series, Eisenhorn and Ravenor. Ok, so Sandy Mitchell is no Dan Abnett. and yes, the dialogue doesn't have the snappy comebacks and better paced humor of his Ciaphas Cain series but it's not a bad story line. It suffers from the usual flaws when intoducing a series. Lots of description and plot building, not the most creative dialogue. It still has enough action to be entertaining. I enjoyed it and it's a WHOLE lot better than most of the WH40k series out there. The story follows an Inquisitor's warband as they hunt down the Shadowy organized crime network sumggling rogue psykers for unknown and dark purposes. IF you have no idea what an Inquisitor and his warband are, think Professor X leading the X-men in a dark SF realm where to disagree with the Empire means painful death as a heretic but the definition of heretic is often defined by the person with their finger on the trigger..... Enjoy.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
