"The Purging of Kadillus": A Review
Faced with an ork invasion of Piscina IV, the 3rd Company of the Dark Angels believes the threat to be minimal. As enemy numbers continue to increase, their commander, Captain Belial, insists that his Company are strong enough to resist. But Scout-Sergeant Naaman knows just how dangerous this foe can be, and when a renewed greenskin offensive takes the Dark Angels by surprise, the orks swarm towards Kadillus Harbour. Little do the Dark Angels know of the technological power available to the xenos, and the true scale of the threat they face. Belial, Naaman and their fellow Astartes fight a desperate siege at Kadillus, knowing that they must hold out until Imperial reinforcements arrive or the planet will be lost.
A year or so ago, I purchased "Rynn's World", intrigued by this new "Space Marine Battles Novel" format, and hoping to read dramatic stories based on defining martial moments of the various Astartes Chapters. While "Rynn's World" didn't knock my socks off, I saw the potential in the series and didn't hesitate to move on to "Helsreach". That novel, by and large, showed me how good a story about Space Marines could be (and it's no coincidence that another book by the same author, released a couple months before that, did the same for Chaos Space Marines). Now came "Kadillus", and being an unabashed fan of the Dark Angels (despite my aversion to robes layered over power armour), I was excited.
To a degree.
See, I had read the "Kadillus Harbour" blurb in the Codex: Dark Angels, and for one thing... it didn't particularly strike me as a shining moment in the annals of the Dark Angels--in the sense of it being a defining battle, I mean. You know Ghazgkull isn't going to die*, you know Belial isn't going to die, and, if you've read "Angels of Darkness"... you know Piscine IV is going to make it.
* This, on its own, was a herald of disappointment. "Rynn's World" details perhaps the most dramatic moment in the history of the Crimson Fists. "Hunt for Voldorius" features the chase of a Chaos Lord who has been at large for ten millennia, caused the deaths of countless humans across entire sectors, and threatens to do worse. "Helsreach" details an epic last stand during the Third War for Armageddon. By contrast, "Kadillus" is a mere pre-amble to Helsreach, as Ghazgkull himself admits that his antics on Piscina IV are just a warm-up to his campaign for Armageddon...
And this goes hand-in-hand with my primary complaint against this novel. There's very rarely a sense of dramatic tension, and that's a shame. For the better part of (my eBook's) 250-odd pages, the action is consistently dry. It's not until the very last chapter that Gav Thorpe does what he should have been doing all along... namely, putting some emotion into his work.
Character depth is similarly minimal. We occasionally gain some insight into Boreas', Nestor's, and Naaman's mindset and thoughts, but such moments are too few and far between. There is virtually no character conflict--other than ...
(A) ... an agreement to disagree between Sergeants Naaman and Aquila, an understanding that the latter will report the former to their superior, and Naaman thanking his counterpart for his candor; and ...
(B) ... a short spat between Boreas and Sergeant Peliel as to the whether an assault happens to be the proper course of action.
Belial. Where to begin? The contributing efforts of Belial throughout the majority of the novel largely come down to receiving reports and giving orders over the vox. As a character, Belial is simply disappointing. Absent throughout most of the novel, his portrayal in the closing chapters is that of a man who doubts himself, his tactics, and his decisions. Scenes in which Belial turns to a Lexicanum (who is technically not even part of his Company) for advice on tactical and strategic matters were disconcerting, if for nothing else than the fact that it's kind of like a Colonel turning to a Sergeant for help... or a Chaplain turning to a Space Marine for inspiration. I shared Belial's belief that Azrael was going to censure him, and found myself wondering how this man would inherit the Deathwing in but a year or two after this stalemate (called a "spectacular victory" in the Codex, though anything but in this novel).
Mind you, I appreciate the concept of a fallible character. I like it when a protagonist isn't the total super-man, devoid of any weakness. Belial, however, was flawed to the point that I wondered why he was even a Captain. The apologetic rhetoric delivered by the author through Lexicanum Charon's mouth at the end of the story did little to molify my view.
The structure of the story is very mechanical. I got an introduction as to what was going on in Piscina IV, and soon enough, through Naaman's eyes, the threat the orks posed--and the means by which they posed said threat--was also explained. There is no real climax to the story, though, and the ending itself is incredibly anti-climactic.
The various actions undertaken by the Dark Angels are described in meticulous, almost clinical, detail--to a point. Mr. Thorpe definitely ensures that you know what the Dark Angels are up to, where they're going, what their plan is, why they came up with that plan, and what they feel the consequences are going to be. That's all well for someone who wants to read a (no offense, Mr. Thorpe!) rather amateurish take at a military campaign record seen through "Third Person Omniscient" point of view. But if you wanted to read a novel, again... get ready for disappointment.
The action of the novel, ostensibly the meat of the book, is rather telegraphed. Numerous times, action was preceded by dialogue wherein Dark Angels stated their belief that they didn't expect much resistance, Piscina troopers lamented being posted way from their families, etc. You know at that point that an ork horde is right around the corner. The other extreme of this phenomenon was Sergeant Naaman's preamble before his final mission--basically announcing that they were all going to die, but, again, with negligible tension over what should be a rather moving scene. You might as well be reading Herodotus' description of the Spartans' preparations for the last battle of Thermopylae. As such, there's no real surprise, there are no plot twists worth mentioning, and thus, again, there's little tension or drama. You literally have to wait for the "damn the torpedoes" charge of a young Piscinan trooper who just can't take it any more (near the end of the story, at that) to get something approximating "the chills" you get from a satisfying moment in a book.
Aside for the first battle on the Koth Ridge and the final engagement fought by the Dark Angels and the Piscina IV PDF, most of the action seemed like filler. Often, the meat of the action itself was ignored, and I was treated instead to descriptions of Belial or Boreas firing their weapons, the impacts of their bolts kicking up dust against walls, the ground, etc. Later, the author dispassionately would inform me that two, three, or perhaps even ten Astartes died... with no real indication as to how this happened. Given that "Kadillus" sacrifices so much else in favor of the battles themselves, this is highly disappointing.
So that's where I was left at. A story with no real drama or tension, little character development, and an unsatisfying, anticlimactic ending.
I found myself wanting to rush to get through it, and I kept wondering if this book was really written by the same man who gave us "Path of the Warrior". Similarly, I kept taking pauses and wondering whether the "Space Marine Battles Novel" format was meant to be a completely different kind of book--more like a battle report of sorts than an actual novel. But then I thought back to "Rynn's World"--which at least read like a novel, even if not a great one--and "Helsreach"--whose strength was actually its characters and the dramatic tension of the story--and I couldn't reconcile with that idea.
I give "The Purging of Kadillus" five (tentative) stars, out of a possible ten. It's simply not a strong story, with more-or-less weak characters and little drama. It's not even very good "bolter porn", given that a good portion of the battles are rather skimmed over and/or given an unsatisfying amount of detail. It's average without being bad, informative without being engrossing. It was a disappointment, coming from an author who has demonstrated in the past his ability to write enjoyable, memorable stories.
I would recommend this book only to those who wish to collect the "Space Marine Battle Novels" in their entirety, or to the most die-hard Dark Angels fans... and then only if the latter are (masochistically) in the mood to be disappointed by a central figure of their favored Chapter.
