Reviews: Faith & Fire and Hammer & Anvil by James Swallow

[eldargal]

Yes, I know Faith & Fire came out five years ago, but they re-released it with its sequel Hammer & Anvil last month and I just finished rereading it a week ago. So I thought I would post a review before I write up my review of Hammer & Anvil which I just finished.

Faith & Fire tells the story of Celestian Miriya and her hunt for the witch Torris Vaun accross the planet Neva after he escaped from custody on her watch. Naturally there is more to the story than just a bunch of Sisters hunting down a rogue psyker and in the course of the story they uncover heresy, treason and corruption at the highest levels of Nevan society and reveal secrets from the time of the Emperor himself.

I felt the book was a little slow starting, after the first chapter or two I was beginning to wonder if I would enjoy it as much as I hoped (how often do you get a Black Library book with a predominately female cast?). Fortunately it picked up the pace and quickly hooked me in with a compelling, well written story that managed to avoid most of the pitfalls common to BL books (no excessive use of certain words, technbabble awkwardly inserted etc.) The climax of the story was quite gripping and should interest anyone with an interest in what the Emperor was up to prior to the Heresy and what secrets he may have had.

The Sisters of Battle were very well treated in my opinion, their zealous fervour was convincing but not overdone and Mr Swallow managed to illustrate their culture of piety and self sacrifice without having them sacrifice their lives stupidly and ineffectually, a trap other authors often fall into. Anyone worried about the book being overly feminine given the subject matter needn't worry, the Sororitas are depicted as soldiers first and foremost.

On the whole I found it to be an excellent book, as good as I hoped it would be and giving fascinating insights both into the Emperor and the Adepta Sororitas.

4 out of 5 Fleur de Lys.

P.S Through clever extrapolations from dates given in the second book, I worked out the story is set in 906.M41.

[eldargal]

Right, Hammer & Anvil review time.

H&A tells the story of the Adepta Sororitas mission to reclaim the lost outpost of Sanctuary 101, which was lost to an 'unknown' xenos attack in 897.M41, twelve years prior to the time the book is set. I expected to enjoy this book and pleasingly it exceeded my expectations. I felt the pacing was better, as I mentioned in the above review I thought F&F was a bit slow starting, no such issue with the sequel. Right from the start it got me interested with little titbits and teasers (why did it take so long to allow the SoB back to S101? Why are they allowed back now? etc.) Obviously anyone familiar with 40k lore isn't going to be surprised by the identity of the main antagonist of the book, in fact it mentioned Necrons by name in the blurb.:rolleyes:

Again he SoB are very well written, the balance between religious zealotry, femininity and professional soldiery is maintained. The contrast between the Sisters Militant (particularly Miriya and Imogen) and the Sisters Hospitaller (Verity) is also well done.

The Necrons were written extremely well also, I challenge anyone to argue that this book would have been half as interesting if the Necrons were still had the old, third edition soullless, characterless race rubbish. They are still soulless mind you, much is made of their aura of utter alien soullessness. Some of the battle scenes read a bit like catalogues of new Necron codex units but this is only to be expected and it isn't even a minor complaint, just something I noticed.

Speaking of the battle scenes, how a relatively small force of SoB were able to face a huge Necron force was handled very well by Mr Swallow. He managed to avoid the deus ex machina I was expecting and write a very credible series of events.

I did have a few very minor complaints, Mr Swallow seems to have a thing for depicting the AdMech as easily corrupted in the face of advanced tech. This isn't out of place in either book, mind you, but it happens in both books (moreso in H&A) so it was a little predictable. There were some other complaints too but I forget what they were, it was all fairly petty stuff.

4 out of 5 Fleur de Lys.

[Myu]

Sounds interesting, might give it a shot. I've read very, very few bits of story on sisters since almost no one seems to write about them

[eldargal]

Yep, aside from Daemonifuge (which I don't care for) the Sororitas only appear in minor roles where they usually get slaughtered by acting stupidly. Though from memory they were treated fairly well in Helsreach.

[Verilance]

I will be awaiting your review but I bought Hammer and Anvil a week ago and quite enjoyed it :)

[wittdooley]

Did u listen to the audiobook EG? Was actually pretty solid. Fantastic voice acting.

[eldargal]

Just added my review of Hammer & Anvil.:)

I bought Red & Black but I've not listened to it yet, I wanted to read the books first. I'll make a review of that too when I listen to it and if I remember.:rolleyes: I know the main voice actresses from some Doctor Who work (amongst other things too I think), they are always good to listen to.

[doom-kitten]

Both books were very good and I enjoyed reading them, I hope Red and Black gets a paperback verison cause I hate CD books and could never listen to it. I also hope Verity is not in it or that she dies because I felt she was a pointless character, Miriya was a good character overall despite being virtually unstoppable and that plasma pistol has got to be examined by the mechanicus, (if theres any bit of it left) that thing never seemed to overheat until she needed it too and the evil priest was silly enough to catch it. I loved the arrogance of the Necrons in the second book and how they where defeated by their own folly and underestimation of human determination. But then anyone dumb enough to leave their base undefended after it had been breached once deserve's what they get, I didn't like the lack of Sororitas wargear thou. Everything the Necrons have is in this book atleast once but the sisters apparently only bring women to the fight, wheres the Exorcists, the Immolators and Repenters, their in the first one and this was supposed to be a full scale army not a little force of sororitas.
But meh overall great books and I hope to see more cause we all know who the true might of the Imperium is, Adeptus Sororitas.

Ave Imperator

[eldargal]

You may not like her but Verity is not pointless, she is there to illustrate one of the other facets of the SoB, namely that while the Orders Militant are warriors the others also minister to the populace of the Imperium. She is hte caring, charitable face of the organisation where Miriya represents the militant. This was particularly important in the second book with Sister Decima and the sisters militant general distrust and desire to put her down.

I'm listening to Red & Black now.

[eldargal]

Review of Red & Black:

The story of Red & Black takes place before the events of the first novel, telling the story of Celestian Miriya and her Celestian squads mission to re-integrate the world of Hollos into the Imperium after two thousand years isolated by warp storms. The story itself is excellent, it is only let down by its length. Seventy odd minutes really didn't allow enough time to tell the story adequately in my view, I feel it would have benefited greatly by being twice as long. The voice acting is superb, particularly the AdMech chap (who isn't a duplicitoous barstud, nice change there). For five pounds or however much it cost I think it is well worth it if you are interested in the Adepta Sororitas or the Magos Biologis and their secrets.

3 out of 5 fleur de lys, with only the length keeping it from a better score.

[doom-kitten]

:D No offence was intended by my comments, I merely did not like the character. Honestly I don't see why she needed to be a sister to Lethe either other than it provided a quick and easy method of connecting Verity and Miriya. I apologize if my opinions offend but they are my opinions.

[eldargal]

Hehe, no offense taken, just stating why she is there.:) She isn't my favourite character either, but she makes an effective foil for Miriya and the Sisters Militant so it becomes more than 'shoot stuff till its dead' like most Marine stories.;) Sorry if I sounded cranky, really didn't mean to.