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The Horus Heresy #18
Deliverance Lost (18)
A Horus Heresy novel
After their near-destruction at the hands of Horus’ Traitor Legions, the Raven Guard seek to escape and rebuild, but the forces of Chaos are insidious, and the Legion may yet face its doom.
READ IT BECAUSE
It's an account of a Legion battered and broken after the events of Isstvan V and the disastrous results of Corax's attempt to rebuild and rejoin the fight.
THE STORY
As the Horus Heresy divides the Imperium, Corax and his few remaining Raven Guard escape the massacre at Isstvan V. Tending to their wounds, the bloodied Space Marines endeavour to replenish their numbers and return to the fray, taking the fight to the traitor Warmaster. Distraught at the crippling blow dealt to his Legion, Corax returns to Terra to seek the aid of his father - the Emperor of Mankind. Granted access to ancient secrets, Corax begins to rebuild the Raven Guard, planning his revenge against his treacherous brother primarchs. But not all his remaining warriors are who they appear to be... the mysterious Alpha Legion have infiltrated the survivors and plan to destroy the Raven Guard before they can rebuild and threaten Horus's plans.
After their near-destruction at the hands of Horus’ Traitor Legions, the Raven Guard seek to escape and rebuild, but the forces of Chaos are insidious, and the Legion may yet face its doom.
READ IT BECAUSE
It's an account of a Legion battered and broken after the events of Isstvan V and the disastrous results of Corax's attempt to rebuild and rejoin the fight.
THE STORY
As the Horus Heresy divides the Imperium, Corax and his few remaining Raven Guard escape the massacre at Isstvan V. Tending to their wounds, the bloodied Space Marines endeavour to replenish their numbers and return to the fray, taking the fight to the traitor Warmaster. Distraught at the crippling blow dealt to his Legion, Corax returns to Terra to seek the aid of his father - the Emperor of Mankind. Granted access to ancient secrets, Corax begins to rebuild the Raven Guard, planning his revenge against his treacherous brother primarchs. But not all his remaining warriors are who they appear to be... the mysterious Alpha Legion have infiltrated the survivors and plan to destroy the Raven Guard before they can rebuild and threaten Horus's plans.
480 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 1, 2011
253 people are currently reading
2198 people want to read
About the author
Gav Thorpe
377 books581 followersGav spent 14 years as a developer for Games Workshop, and started writing novels and short stories in the worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 when the Black Library imprint was launched in 1997.
He continues to write for Black Library, and his first 'homegrown' novel series The Crown of the Blood has been released via Angry Robot.
Currently living in Nottingham, Gav shares his home with his loving and very understanding partner - Kez, and their beautiful little boy - Sammy.
He continues to write for Black Library, and his first 'homegrown' novel series The Crown of the Blood has been released via Angry Robot.
Currently living in Nottingham, Gav shares his home with his loving and very understanding partner - Kez, and their beautiful little boy - Sammy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 237 reviews
October 23, 2016
Review also published here
Deliverance lost was, admittedly, one of my least-favorite Horus Heresy novels when I read it upon release, many years ago. With Corax finally released, collecting the novellas and finishing the story arc begun with this novel, I figured it would be best to re-read the old novel in preparation for the new anthology.
And what do you know, it is far better than I remembered, and much better than the internet's denizens would have you believe.
In essence, this is a book about the Raven Guard dealing with their trauma after the disastrous Dropsite Massacre of Isstvan V. The Legion is in tatters, with a mere few thousand remaining of their number. Corax is willing to throw even those remaining sons of his away to hurt Horus in simple vengeance missions, but after arriving on Terra for an audience with the Emperor of Mankind, he is offered a new opportunity:
Rebuilding the Legion using the Primarch Project's genetech, and striking back as a Legion again.
On the other hand, we have the Alpha Legion plotting against the Raven Guard and Horus. They have infiltrated the ravens by replacing Astartes at the Dropsite Massacre with their own, psychically implanting memories from the real legionaries into their own dudes, changing faces surgically and the likes. They know of the Raven Guard's gift from the Emperor, ahead of time, and wish to steal it for themselves.
Sprinkled throughout, we find flashbacks to the time up to the arrival of the Emperor on Deliverance, showing Corax and his group of rebels acting to free the prison moon of Lycaeus from the Tech Guilds. Corax is presented as super intelligent, but morally unstable until he gets taught philosophy, history and more by old wise men in the prison complex. Where he seems, at first, eager to just end the guards on his own without fuss, he is taught not to be too rash and consider carefully.
This, to me, seems like a cool counterpoint to Konrad Curze, the Night Haunter, who grew up in darkness as well, but had nobody to rely on or to trust, nobody to teach him right from wrong. Corax himself fears and hates the Night Haunter and recognizes that he could have ended up similar under slightly different circumstances: A terrorist rather than a revolutionary rebel leader.
The flashbacks, though I didn't like them occuring in the middle of regular chapters, relatively suddenly to lead in other scenes and give them expanded contrast (such as Captain Branne being willing to sacrifice innocents for the greater good, like Corax reluctantly did before the coming of the Emperor), were well-done and reinforce Corax' relationship with various key figures and his early philosophy of being a freedom fighter, not a conqueror.
This stands in heavy contrast to the obsessed, blind figure Corax becomes throughout the book, caring less and less about his fellow Raven Guard and more about his own need for vengeance and the fastest ways to achieve it.
Despite all the bits of pre-Legion history or the Alpha Legion shenanigans orchestrated by Alpharius and Omegon, the book really is about Corax. It is about the gene-experiments and the creation of the Raptors, too, of course, but primarily it seemed to me as a study of Corax' growing distance between himself and his remaining Legion, his obsession with a supposedly simple solution, his impatience and disregard for what he has left in favor of reaching for the stars and risking to lose everything he had left.
Throughout the book, Corax goes from contemplating self-sacrifice in a suicidal charge against Angron of the World Eaters to numb to angry and spiteful, before throwing himself at his father's feet to ask for his blessing in throwing his remaining sons away to hurt Horus anyway possible. While recovering the gene-tech, he risks throwing away his trusted sons to pave the way for the future. When the experiments start back home on Deliverance, he pushes aside obvious problems within the Raven Guard, especially between Isstvanites and the remainers under Branne, and the odd behavior of some Legionaries, to focus on the creation of new super-soldiers.
Corax becomes increasingly ruthless in his pursuits. He ends up disconnected from the actual proceedings and appears to put a lot of pressure on his captains over it. Instead of solving squabbles between two of his most favored and longest-serving sons, he figures he could just replace them if they carry on, but their strife isn't a priority. He keeps making demands of the apothecary and magos working on the gene-tech that are unreasonable and too much, too quickly, and when Branne confronts him about the rash, overzealous nature of the first batches of Raptors, Corax gets significantly angry and shrugs it all off - instead of listening to the sound advice of his senior staff, he wants to expand the recruitment instead of doing a thorough job, to hit some arbitrary goals he set for his Legion.
Deliverance Lost is a story about Corax's obsession and hubris, first and foremost. While the Alpha Legion scenes were great and well-done, throwing the reader off on multiple occassions and seeing their perspective of their host-Legion (and the effect the memory-implantations have on them), it is the Primarch of the Raven Guard that was best characterized. His shame is more than losing his Legion, disappointing the Emperor and screwing up his recruits in the later batches. His biggest shame is neglecting his Legion, forgetting his principles and turning on his friends. Re-reading the book has made that pretty obvious to me, and for that I love the book.
I also want to praise it for the way Gav Thorpe managed to plant the seeds of suspicion within the reader. Piling up erratic behavior through the Alpha Legionaries and certain characters and ramping up the tension of the infiltration, he provided a magnificent red herring for readers to follow. He plays on us to put the hints together in a suitable way, and the resulting reveals end up more surprising than they otherwise would have been. It was well executed throughout the whole book, which shows that Gav does pretty well with intrigue stories; no surprise considering he has been writing Dark Angels for so long.
What I didn't quite enjoy were things like the absence of Marcus Valerius and the Therion Cohort for most of the book. They play a part early on and have a pretty great scene midway, but due to logistical reasons they only take part again at the very end. The Custodes, too, felt a bit too nitpicky and their presence on Deliverance was hardly felt. More could have been done with them, I am sure.
Another gripe is the very end of the book. Corax finally gets his will when the Raven Guard assault the Perfect Fortress of the Emperor's Children in the final chapter, following on from scenes within the same chapter that would have made for a pretty good ending to the book already. But instead of closing it, the story carries on with Corax and his Legion going back to the action.
I can see why this was a necessary part of the book, and that it had to go there after the apparent realizations of Corax. Still, I cannot help but feel that this final part was an afterthought, thrown in to show Corax and co in action, as the majority of the novel didn't have much bolter activity to show. The climax at Ravendelve certainly did, and I thought that appropriate and good enough to not require another batch of combat scenes afterwards - but Corax didn't take an active part in it. As a result, there had to be more to present the restored Primarch.
That said, it felt like the book overstayed its welcome with the Perfect Fortress. It threw the pacing off, adding action to a book whose strengths lay in the subterfuge and internal strife of its characters.
Some people still go on and on about Corax being "emo" and like an edgy teenager, but that's not at all how he is. Rather, he is as driven and prone to obsession as any of his brothers. For him the direction just ended up different. Instead of looking for higher powers like Lorgar, longing for perfection and ever greater stimuli like Fulgrim, or even just for order and structure like Guilliman, Corax turned to vengeance, and it consumed him until the big wake-up call. That doesn't mean that his trauma of Isstvan V is over and he should forget it, or that his mistakes from this novel should not cast their shadow over the novellas that carry on from here.
Gav Thorpe managed to detail a Primarch that is in many ways familiar and like his brothers, but also notably different in tone. I appreciate that and think that Deliverance Lost, as a book, is far more worthy of respect than many fans seem to think. It sets the stage for many things to come, and even answered some questions as to the Emperor's whereabouts and what happened to the Remembrancers within the Loyalist Legions.
It gave some valuable insights into the Primarch Project and the Emperor's plans and showed his genius via the mechanical labyrinth guarding the gene-tech. While I found the chapters dealing with the recovery a little tedious, I cannot dispute their necessity to the story, as the intricately designed lock it presented made the defenses seem plausible and functional.
Deliverance Lost has a lot to offer to fans of the Horus Heresy, the Raven Guard and the Alpha Legion and enriches the setting as a whole. I wish we could all just dispense with the cries of "emo" and condemnation of Corax and Gav Thorpe's vision for him. It is fitting for the Lord of Ravens in my eyes, and never done to the extent that it would reach into the comical. Nothing here is as melodramatic as the simple farewell Corax left to his sons, as per the old background material.
As for myself, I am happy I gave it another shot instead of declaring "Nevermore" and turning my back on the Raven Guard plotline. It was well-worth the time investment.
Deliverance lost was, admittedly, one of my least-favorite Horus Heresy novels when I read it upon release, many years ago. With Corax finally released, collecting the novellas and finishing the story arc begun with this novel, I figured it would be best to re-read the old novel in preparation for the new anthology.
And what do you know, it is far better than I remembered, and much better than the internet's denizens would have you believe.
In essence, this is a book about the Raven Guard dealing with their trauma after the disastrous Dropsite Massacre of Isstvan V. The Legion is in tatters, with a mere few thousand remaining of their number. Corax is willing to throw even those remaining sons of his away to hurt Horus in simple vengeance missions, but after arriving on Terra for an audience with the Emperor of Mankind, he is offered a new opportunity:
Rebuilding the Legion using the Primarch Project's genetech, and striking back as a Legion again.
On the other hand, we have the Alpha Legion plotting against the Raven Guard and Horus. They have infiltrated the ravens by replacing Astartes at the Dropsite Massacre with their own, psychically implanting memories from the real legionaries into their own dudes, changing faces surgically and the likes. They know of the Raven Guard's gift from the Emperor, ahead of time, and wish to steal it for themselves.
Sprinkled throughout, we find flashbacks to the time up to the arrival of the Emperor on Deliverance, showing Corax and his group of rebels acting to free the prison moon of Lycaeus from the Tech Guilds. Corax is presented as super intelligent, but morally unstable until he gets taught philosophy, history and more by old wise men in the prison complex. Where he seems, at first, eager to just end the guards on his own without fuss, he is taught not to be too rash and consider carefully.
This, to me, seems like a cool counterpoint to Konrad Curze, the Night Haunter, who grew up in darkness as well, but had nobody to rely on or to trust, nobody to teach him right from wrong. Corax himself fears and hates the Night Haunter and recognizes that he could have ended up similar under slightly different circumstances: A terrorist rather than a revolutionary rebel leader.
The flashbacks, though I didn't like them occuring in the middle of regular chapters, relatively suddenly to lead in other scenes and give them expanded contrast (such as Captain Branne being willing to sacrifice innocents for the greater good, like Corax reluctantly did before the coming of the Emperor), were well-done and reinforce Corax' relationship with various key figures and his early philosophy of being a freedom fighter, not a conqueror.
This stands in heavy contrast to the obsessed, blind figure Corax becomes throughout the book, caring less and less about his fellow Raven Guard and more about his own need for vengeance and the fastest ways to achieve it.
Despite all the bits of pre-Legion history or the Alpha Legion shenanigans orchestrated by Alpharius and Omegon, the book really is about Corax. It is about the gene-experiments and the creation of the Raptors, too, of course, but primarily it seemed to me as a study of Corax' growing distance between himself and his remaining Legion, his obsession with a supposedly simple solution, his impatience and disregard for what he has left in favor of reaching for the stars and risking to lose everything he had left.
Throughout the book, Corax goes from contemplating self-sacrifice in a suicidal charge against Angron of the World Eaters to numb to angry and spiteful, before throwing himself at his father's feet to ask for his blessing in throwing his remaining sons away to hurt Horus anyway possible. While recovering the gene-tech, he risks throwing away his trusted sons to pave the way for the future. When the experiments start back home on Deliverance, he pushes aside obvious problems within the Raven Guard, especially between Isstvanites and the remainers under Branne, and the odd behavior of some Legionaries, to focus on the creation of new super-soldiers.
Corax becomes increasingly ruthless in his pursuits. He ends up disconnected from the actual proceedings and appears to put a lot of pressure on his captains over it. Instead of solving squabbles between two of his most favored and longest-serving sons, he figures he could just replace them if they carry on, but their strife isn't a priority. He keeps making demands of the apothecary and magos working on the gene-tech that are unreasonable and too much, too quickly, and when Branne confronts him about the rash, overzealous nature of the first batches of Raptors, Corax gets significantly angry and shrugs it all off - instead of listening to the sound advice of his senior staff, he wants to expand the recruitment instead of doing a thorough job, to hit some arbitrary goals he set for his Legion.
Deliverance Lost is a story about Corax's obsession and hubris, first and foremost. While the Alpha Legion scenes were great and well-done, throwing the reader off on multiple occassions and seeing their perspective of their host-Legion (and the effect the memory-implantations have on them), it is the Primarch of the Raven Guard that was best characterized. His shame is more than losing his Legion, disappointing the Emperor and screwing up his recruits in the later batches. His biggest shame is neglecting his Legion, forgetting his principles and turning on his friends. Re-reading the book has made that pretty obvious to me, and for that I love the book.
I also want to praise it for the way Gav Thorpe managed to plant the seeds of suspicion within the reader. Piling up erratic behavior through the Alpha Legionaries and certain characters and ramping up the tension of the infiltration, he provided a magnificent red herring for readers to follow. He plays on us to put the hints together in a suitable way, and the resulting reveals end up more surprising than they otherwise would have been. It was well executed throughout the whole book, which shows that Gav does pretty well with intrigue stories; no surprise considering he has been writing Dark Angels for so long.
What I didn't quite enjoy were things like the absence of Marcus Valerius and the Therion Cohort for most of the book. They play a part early on and have a pretty great scene midway, but due to logistical reasons they only take part again at the very end. The Custodes, too, felt a bit too nitpicky and their presence on Deliverance was hardly felt. More could have been done with them, I am sure.
Another gripe is the very end of the book. Corax finally gets his will when the Raven Guard assault the Perfect Fortress of the Emperor's Children in the final chapter, following on from scenes within the same chapter that would have made for a pretty good ending to the book already. But instead of closing it, the story carries on with Corax and his Legion going back to the action.
I can see why this was a necessary part of the book, and that it had to go there after the apparent realizations of Corax. Still, I cannot help but feel that this final part was an afterthought, thrown in to show Corax and co in action, as the majority of the novel didn't have much bolter activity to show. The climax at Ravendelve certainly did, and I thought that appropriate and good enough to not require another batch of combat scenes afterwards - but Corax didn't take an active part in it. As a result, there had to be more to present the restored Primarch.
That said, it felt like the book overstayed its welcome with the Perfect Fortress. It threw the pacing off, adding action to a book whose strengths lay in the subterfuge and internal strife of its characters.
Some people still go on and on about Corax being "emo" and like an edgy teenager, but that's not at all how he is. Rather, he is as driven and prone to obsession as any of his brothers. For him the direction just ended up different. Instead of looking for higher powers like Lorgar, longing for perfection and ever greater stimuli like Fulgrim, or even just for order and structure like Guilliman, Corax turned to vengeance, and it consumed him until the big wake-up call. That doesn't mean that his trauma of Isstvan V is over and he should forget it, or that his mistakes from this novel should not cast their shadow over the novellas that carry on from here.
Gav Thorpe managed to detail a Primarch that is in many ways familiar and like his brothers, but also notably different in tone. I appreciate that and think that Deliverance Lost, as a book, is far more worthy of respect than many fans seem to think. It sets the stage for many things to come, and even answered some questions as to the Emperor's whereabouts and what happened to the Remembrancers within the Loyalist Legions.
It gave some valuable insights into the Primarch Project and the Emperor's plans and showed his genius via the mechanical labyrinth guarding the gene-tech. While I found the chapters dealing with the recovery a little tedious, I cannot dispute their necessity to the story, as the intricately designed lock it presented made the defenses seem plausible and functional.
Deliverance Lost has a lot to offer to fans of the Horus Heresy, the Raven Guard and the Alpha Legion and enriches the setting as a whole. I wish we could all just dispense with the cries of "emo" and condemnation of Corax and Gav Thorpe's vision for him. It is fitting for the Lord of Ravens in my eyes, and never done to the extent that it would reach into the comical. Nothing here is as melodramatic as the simple farewell Corax left to his sons, as per the old background material.
As for myself, I am happy I gave it another shot instead of declaring "Nevermore" and turning my back on the Raven Guard plotline. It was well-worth the time investment.
October 21, 2022
A "middle book" of the Horus Heresy series. Forgettable, perhaps even skippable, but not horrible by any means.
March 24, 2020
THIS is the Warhammer novel I have been waiting for!!!
Ever since book three I have been obsessed with Corax and now finally fifteen books later he has his own novel. I'm glad to say it was worth the wait. After his badass, but ultimately having to retreat, showing at the Dropsite Massacre there have only been scattered bits of Corax here and there about who he is and what is going on with his Legion, and most of that stuff was just rehashings of what we already knew. This book fills in his backstory and tells what he has been doing since said massacre. I can't really put my finger on what makes him the most intriguing Primarch to me but everything in here just solidifies why he, his philosophy, and his tactics are just the cat's pajamas in my eyes. This book had action, it had cloak-and-dagger spy shit, it had the asshole Alpha Legion, it had a lot of the science behind the gene-enhancing, and it had one of the more expansive single book stories so far in this series. This book was back to awesome after a sub-par book seventeen.
Ever since book three I have been obsessed with Corax and now finally fifteen books later he has his own novel. I'm glad to say it was worth the wait. After his badass, but ultimately having to retreat, showing at the Dropsite Massacre there have only been scattered bits of Corax here and there about who he is and what is going on with his Legion, and most of that stuff was just rehashings of what we already knew. This book fills in his backstory and tells what he has been doing since said massacre. I can't really put my finger on what makes him the most intriguing Primarch to me but everything in here just solidifies why he, his philosophy, and his tactics are just the cat's pajamas in my eyes. This book had action, it had cloak-and-dagger spy shit, it had the asshole Alpha Legion, it had a lot of the science behind the gene-enhancing, and it had one of the more expansive single book stories so far in this series. This book was back to awesome after a sub-par book seventeen.
August 21, 2012
Sometimes the only thing that sets these books apart is the level of descriptive talent that evokes the mood and brings the horror to an eye-peeling visceral level. When that ability is absent, the Horus Heresy series can seem dry and sterile.
That is what happened, for me, in Gav Thorpe's Deliverance Lost. The story was fine but it lacked an emotional depth that would have otherwise kept me more engaged with the characters. The book's matter of fact descriptions lacked any zest and failed to deliver the emotional doom of Isstvan V or the coming apocalypse of civil war.
The most interesting aspect of the tale was the Alpha Legion's stealth infiltration of the Raven Guard. And I think the novel would have been much better executed as a first person narrative through the eyes of Corax, and the spy 'Alpharius', with third person in between as needed. The flashbacks to the rebellion on Lycaeus were a nice touch though.
The corruption of the Raven Guard's new recruits seemed rushed and handled too lightly. Corax seemed so busy that it hardly phased him. And the attack on the Perfect Fortress seemed almost an afterthought and totally unnecessary it was so quickly started and finished.
I really like the Horus Heresy series, but efforts like this one leave me wondering if I shouldn't be reading something better.
That is what happened, for me, in Gav Thorpe's Deliverance Lost. The story was fine but it lacked an emotional depth that would have otherwise kept me more engaged with the characters. The book's matter of fact descriptions lacked any zest and failed to deliver the emotional doom of Isstvan V or the coming apocalypse of civil war.
The most interesting aspect of the tale was the Alpha Legion's stealth infiltration of the Raven Guard. And I think the novel would have been much better executed as a first person narrative through the eyes of Corax, and the spy 'Alpharius', with third person in between as needed. The flashbacks to the rebellion on Lycaeus were a nice touch though.
The corruption of the Raven Guard's new recruits seemed rushed and handled too lightly. Corax seemed so busy that it hardly phased him. And the attack on the Perfect Fortress seemed almost an afterthought and totally unnecessary it was so quickly started and finished.
I really like the Horus Heresy series, but efforts like this one leave me wondering if I shouldn't be reading something better.
May 15, 2025
This was the eighteenth Horus Heresy novel I’ve read, and I would place it among the better entries in the series, though it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the early ones, particularly the first three novels. Still, it offers a welcome return to the dramatic focus on the Space Marines
The previous installment (Book 17) centered on Terra and the Astropath Choirs, relegating the Space Marines to a subplot. In contrast, this novel restores the epic scope that defines the series at its best. We’re treated to appearances by major figures such as Horus and Abaddon, and there are extended conversations between the Primarchs Rogal Dorn and Corax that directly engage with the central questions of the Heresy. In that sense, this volume allows the reader to re-inhabit the “grand perspective” that is often lost in more narrowly focused entries.
That said, the plot itself holds few surprises. There’s a significant amount of Alpha Legion intrigue, but for seasoned readers of Warhammer 40k fiction, the repeated twist, “They were Alpha Legion all along!”, has grown stale and lost its impact. What stands out more than the plot mechanics is the psychological depth given to Corax. The novel gives a compelling sense of the Raven Guard’s identity, showing how their guerrilla warfare tactics are rooted in their founding mythology and shaped by the ethos of their Primarch.
My main critiques, however, are less about this particular book and more about the Horus Heresy series as a whole. I'm determined to read the entire series in order, but at this point--eighteen novels in--I'm beginning to wonder if that’s the wrong approach. Does the series truly reward strict chronological reading?
I’m stubborn, so I’ll continue, but I can’t help feeling that my patience is being tested. While this book would likely stand quite well on its own, within the context of seventeen preceding volumes, it begins to feel repetitive. There's a diminishing return in terms of novelty.
The previous installment (Book 17) centered on Terra and the Astropath Choirs, relegating the Space Marines to a subplot. In contrast, this novel restores the epic scope that defines the series at its best. We’re treated to appearances by major figures such as Horus and Abaddon, and there are extended conversations between the Primarchs Rogal Dorn and Corax that directly engage with the central questions of the Heresy. In that sense, this volume allows the reader to re-inhabit the “grand perspective” that is often lost in more narrowly focused entries.
That said, the plot itself holds few surprises. There’s a significant amount of Alpha Legion intrigue, but for seasoned readers of Warhammer 40k fiction, the repeated twist, “They were Alpha Legion all along!”, has grown stale and lost its impact. What stands out more than the plot mechanics is the psychological depth given to Corax. The novel gives a compelling sense of the Raven Guard’s identity, showing how their guerrilla warfare tactics are rooted in their founding mythology and shaped by the ethos of their Primarch.
My main critiques, however, are less about this particular book and more about the Horus Heresy series as a whole. I'm determined to read the entire series in order, but at this point--eighteen novels in--I'm beginning to wonder if that’s the wrong approach. Does the series truly reward strict chronological reading?
I’m stubborn, so I’ll continue, but I can’t help feeling that my patience is being tested. While this book would likely stand quite well on its own, within the context of seventeen preceding volumes, it begins to feel repetitive. There's a diminishing return in terms of novelty.
July 3, 2018
After reading Legion: Alpha Legion is the coolest ever!
After reading Deliverance Lost: #%?! You Alpha Legion!
After reading Deliverance Lost: #%?! You Alpha Legion!
September 11, 2022
In the lore, and this series, the Ravenguard Legion really eat it in the Dropsite Massacre. Then they are sidelined throughout the rest of the Horus Heresy as they lack the numbers to meaningfully influence events.
Deliverance Lost tries to add some layers of explanation as to why they don't really get back into the game and why Corax will go where he goes. Thorpe makes a solid effort, but you can only do so much with a very minor Legion.
I am Alpharius
Deliverance Lost is a great Alpha Legion book. Finally, finally we have a coherent plot from conception to execution, with each step reasonably explained. The characters are moved into position to complete each step rather than bursting from nowhere. It's a greater effort for the reader to find the flaws in the scheme than to have to cobble it together. Deliverance Lost tells you more about how the Alpha Legion works than the book devoted to the Alpha Legion.
The interactions between the dual Alpha Legion primarchs and their confederates/erstwhile bosses are fun. The infiltrator "Alpharius" is also an interesting character. Thorpe's style of conveying information via internal monologue and occasional setpiece works here. Fear of slipping up, doubts over the mission, how to manipulate events to his advantage (and even his fate), are all worthwhile reading.
Unfortunately, the "read every thought the character is having as they're having it" isn't so successful with most of the Ravenguard or Imperium characters. Part of the issue is that their conflicts with each other rely more on dialogue. That is not where Thorpe's abilities lie. He isn't bad at it, and I actually like the inner workings of the Ravenguard. However, the plot requires alot of interaction between those characters and any shortfalls show up more. The characters just don't quite drive the story enough, nor are they memorable on their own, though there is one in particular I should cover.
I will be Corax
Deliverance Lost kind of needs you to know what happens to Corax at the end of the Horus Heresy. The afterword admits as much. Otherwise, the book is quite frustrating - while there is the classic hubris meeting nemesis, Corax starts with barely a Legion left and ends with barely a Legion left, with no peak in between. He can't, in his current non-daemonic form, affect the arc of the Horus Heresy. Hence, Deliverance Lost is a step towards what Corax becomes.
So is Corax an interesting character? Sort of. Maybe. It is a point of distinction amongst the Primarchs that Corax constantly has lesser beings tell him he's wrong or not very good, and that he mostly just takes it. However, I personally don't think he's overly reflective about why things go wrong for him, for the story ends with him committing to an attack that he originally planned to undertake with far more of his Legion. He almost excitedly substitutes in his Imperial Guard allies as cannon fodder. I guess if Corax was too thoughtful about things, he wouldn't end up where he's going to go.
Deliverance Lost isn't a critically flawed book. The plot works and we know why the characters do what they do. It just doesn't stand out as an amazing one. The rating is a little harsh, but at some stage I have to distinguish between the books that will stick in my head, and those that won't.
Deliverance Lost tries to add some layers of explanation as to why they don't really get back into the game and why Corax will go where he goes. Thorpe makes a solid effort, but you can only do so much with a very minor Legion.
I am Alpharius
Deliverance Lost is a great Alpha Legion book. Finally, finally we have a coherent plot from conception to execution, with each step reasonably explained. The characters are moved into position to complete each step rather than bursting from nowhere. It's a greater effort for the reader to find the flaws in the scheme than to have to cobble it together. Deliverance Lost tells you more about how the Alpha Legion works than the book devoted to the Alpha Legion.
The interactions between the dual Alpha Legion primarchs and their confederates/erstwhile bosses are fun. The infiltrator "Alpharius" is also an interesting character. Thorpe's style of conveying information via internal monologue and occasional setpiece works here. Fear of slipping up, doubts over the mission, how to manipulate events to his advantage (and even his fate), are all worthwhile reading.
Unfortunately, the "read every thought the character is having as they're having it" isn't so successful with most of the Ravenguard or Imperium characters. Part of the issue is that their conflicts with each other rely more on dialogue. That is not where Thorpe's abilities lie. He isn't bad at it, and I actually like the inner workings of the Ravenguard. However, the plot requires alot of interaction between those characters and any shortfalls show up more. The characters just don't quite drive the story enough, nor are they memorable on their own, though there is one in particular I should cover.
I will be Corax
Deliverance Lost kind of needs you to know what happens to Corax at the end of the Horus Heresy. The afterword admits as much. Otherwise, the book is quite frustrating - while there is the classic hubris meeting nemesis, Corax starts with barely a Legion left and ends with barely a Legion left, with no peak in between. He can't, in his current non-daemonic form, affect the arc of the Horus Heresy. Hence, Deliverance Lost is a step towards what Corax becomes.
So is Corax an interesting character? Sort of. Maybe. It is a point of distinction amongst the Primarchs that Corax constantly has lesser beings tell him he's wrong or not very good, and that he mostly just takes it. However, I personally don't think he's overly reflective about why things go wrong for him, for the story ends with him committing to an attack that he originally planned to undertake with far more of his Legion. He almost excitedly substitutes in his Imperial Guard allies as cannon fodder. I guess if Corax was too thoughtful about things, he wouldn't end up where he's going to go.
Deliverance Lost isn't a critically flawed book. The plot works and we know why the characters do what they do. It just doesn't stand out as an amazing one. The rating is a little harsh, but at some stage I have to distinguish between the books that will stick in my head, and those that won't.
October 26, 2025
This is a continuation of the short story The Face of Treachery that appeared a couple books back in Age of Darkness. Deliverance Lost is so closely tied to that story in fact that I suspect Face of Treachery started out as the first few chapters of this book, and some editor just decided to have Gav Thorpe rework it in to its own separate thing. I came down pretty hard on Face of Treachery for setting up some submarine movie/ending of Wrath of Khan style space combat, only to completely abandon that setup so it could do some series continuity cleanup instead.
It turns out Thorpe dumped all that cat-and-mouse-in-space stuff in to the opening chapters of this book. That’s bad for Face of Treachery but great for Deliverance Lost because this stuff is far and away the best part of the book. It’s tense and suspenseful and leads directly in to my favorite type of scene in a Warhammer novel: The part where someone goes “aw geez, we’re stuck in The Warp. I bet we’re all gonna die horrible crazy deaths any second now” and then that exact thing happens. Always great.
Aside from the initial space combat this is a pretty typical “here’s a new Legion for you to meet, now let’s go back in time to a battle you’ve already seen to show their perspective on it.” A lot of my early complaints about the Horus Heresy revolved around how little the overall series plot advances from book to book. Since those early books I’ve mostly learned to roll with that aspect of the series. Eventually I realized that HH is just not interested in telling a linear story that goes from point A to B to C. It’s better to just treat each book like an individual snapshot from different times and places around the setting.
I mostly enjoy this approach. Except for when we go back to Isstvan, as we do in Deliverance Lost. I’m just so tired of hearing about this place. This is the eighteenth book in the series, in universe we’re something like two years in to the Heresy, and this is a war that’s being fought on like a thousand different fronts. It really seems like everybody should have something else to talk about by now.
Outside of the Isstvan of it all I like how this book introduces its legion. In most of these “meet this new legion” books there will be a million scenes of expository dialogue where some guy will say to his buddy “as you know our Legion is the Horrible Murder Killers, we seek tactical perfection on the battlefield and aesthetic perfection off the battlefield. And that Legion over there are our comrades The Guys Who Piss On Corpses And Then Set Said Corpses On Fire, they’re like wizards or something.” There’s not much of that in Deliverance Lost. There’s some occasional talk of the Raven Guard preferring to use guerrilla tactics but it’s a little vague and that vagueness mostly leads to the Ravens just feeling like a bunch of guys. Which is fine. So many of the Astartes in these books come across as prickly assholes, having a Legion of guys who are just a bunch of dudes is kind of nice.
There’s a similar effect with Corax, the Raven Guard primarch. I kind of feel like to a man the primarchs (and the emperor, for that matter) come across as deeply unpleasant morons. Reading these books one often gets the impression that the Imperium is a clown car that encompasses the galaxy. Corax is no exception to the rule, he makes some very dumb decisions in this book. But he’s also a guy who jets around on metal angel wings and kills people with claws. He’s basically what if Wolverine from the X-men could fly. Is this stupid? Yes. Is this awesome? Also yes. The guy just has a goofy charm to him that so far the other primarchs have all lacked.
Deliverance Lost is a pretty middle of the road entry in the series, and due to the fact that its opening chapters take place in a completely different story it reads a little weirdly in places. But its portrayal of Corax and his legion gives the book a strange kind of charm. Mediocre but in a sort of entertaining way. Faint praise doesn’t get any more damning than that. Three stars!
It turns out Thorpe dumped all that cat-and-mouse-in-space stuff in to the opening chapters of this book. That’s bad for Face of Treachery but great for Deliverance Lost because this stuff is far and away the best part of the book. It’s tense and suspenseful and leads directly in to my favorite type of scene in a Warhammer novel: The part where someone goes “aw geez, we’re stuck in The Warp. I bet we’re all gonna die horrible crazy deaths any second now” and then that exact thing happens. Always great.
Aside from the initial space combat this is a pretty typical “here’s a new Legion for you to meet, now let’s go back in time to a battle you’ve already seen to show their perspective on it.” A lot of my early complaints about the Horus Heresy revolved around how little the overall series plot advances from book to book. Since those early books I’ve mostly learned to roll with that aspect of the series. Eventually I realized that HH is just not interested in telling a linear story that goes from point A to B to C. It’s better to just treat each book like an individual snapshot from different times and places around the setting.
I mostly enjoy this approach. Except for when we go back to Isstvan, as we do in Deliverance Lost. I’m just so tired of hearing about this place. This is the eighteenth book in the series, in universe we’re something like two years in to the Heresy, and this is a war that’s being fought on like a thousand different fronts. It really seems like everybody should have something else to talk about by now.
Outside of the Isstvan of it all I like how this book introduces its legion. In most of these “meet this new legion” books there will be a million scenes of expository dialogue where some guy will say to his buddy “as you know our Legion is the Horrible Murder Killers, we seek tactical perfection on the battlefield and aesthetic perfection off the battlefield. And that Legion over there are our comrades The Guys Who Piss On Corpses And Then Set Said Corpses On Fire, they’re like wizards or something.” There’s not much of that in Deliverance Lost. There’s some occasional talk of the Raven Guard preferring to use guerrilla tactics but it’s a little vague and that vagueness mostly leads to the Ravens just feeling like a bunch of guys. Which is fine. So many of the Astartes in these books come across as prickly assholes, having a Legion of guys who are just a bunch of dudes is kind of nice.
There’s a similar effect with Corax, the Raven Guard primarch. I kind of feel like to a man the primarchs (and the emperor, for that matter) come across as deeply unpleasant morons. Reading these books one often gets the impression that the Imperium is a clown car that encompasses the galaxy. Corax is no exception to the rule, he makes some very dumb decisions in this book. But he’s also a guy who jets around on metal angel wings and kills people with claws. He’s basically what if Wolverine from the X-men could fly. Is this stupid? Yes. Is this awesome? Also yes. The guy just has a goofy charm to him that so far the other primarchs have all lacked.
Deliverance Lost is a pretty middle of the road entry in the series, and due to the fact that its opening chapters take place in a completely different story it reads a little weirdly in places. But its portrayal of Corax and his legion gives the book a strange kind of charm. Mediocre but in a sort of entertaining way. Faint praise doesn’t get any more damning than that. Three stars!
January 1, 2025
Deliverance Lost ir stāsts par Imperatoram lojālā leģiona Raven Guard (RG) pēc teju pilnīgas sakāves uz Isstvan V planētas, kad ne tikai Horuss atklāti uzsāk savu sacelšanos, bet tam pievienojas četri no septiņiem leģioniem, kuriem līdz tam Imperatora uzticamākā un varbūt pat mīļākā dēla dumpis būtu bijis jāiznīdē tā saknē.
https://poseidons99.com/2025/01/01/ga...
https://poseidons99.com/2025/01/01/ga...
October 1, 2025
Featuring the best legion, the Alphas (they're too far gone, but I love them), and a hot new bombshell primarch: Corvy C, we're back watching how daddy issues can ruin your life.
Came for the Alphas, stayed for the Alphas and the tragedy that is Corvus and the Raven Guard's story. I wasn't really invested in the primarch himself, but the plot was like watching a car crash. This also didn't feel like the WH quality I'm used to, but Gav Thrope's writing grew on me. Out of all the primarchs' debuts so far, this was my least favorite...it had an emotionally impactful last quarter, but would be forgettable if not for the antagonists.
r/fantasy bingp prompt: Biopunk. Hard Mode:
Came for the Alphas, stayed for the Alphas and the tragedy that is Corvus and the Raven Guard's story. I wasn't really invested in the primarch himself, but the plot was like watching a car crash. This also didn't feel like the WH quality I'm used to, but Gav Thrope's writing grew on me. Out of all the primarchs' debuts so far, this was my least favorite...it had an emotionally impactful last quarter, but would be forgettable if not for the antagonists.
r/fantasy bingp prompt: Biopunk. Hard Mode:
September 6, 2017
Three stars. This was not bad, it was not great either, it was okay. The story itself is quite interesting, sadly it lacks deeper descriptions, emotion, also character variety and development. I did enjoy it as a whole, but i can't give it a higher rating for it could've been so much better.
April 23, 2024
April 2024 Read using the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project Reading Order Omnibus XVII Shadow of the Warmaster III Jaws of Defeat (https://www.heresyomnibus.com/omnibus...) as part of my Oath of Moment to complete the Horus Heresy series and extras.
So I only re-read this a couple of weeks ago as part of Omnibus XV, but we're two omnibussies on and focusing on the Raven Guard with a uninterrupted line from Raven's Flight to this via what seems to be a momentary jump forward for The Devine Word, which from having read it is put before this so Valerius' dreams have any amount of mystery and the story has what little tension it has intact because this book makes renders that already not particularly interesting story painfully obvious.
I also came back to it as its one of the first bunch of this series that I had read back in the day, but far less times than earlier ones in previous attempts at crossing this ludicrous Rubicon, and it's one I had fond feelings for, which made choosing this and the fact that I completed Grand Master mode and decided to play through Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters again, now on Ruthless and around 400 hours total play time, rather than something new and finally starting Rogue Trader, what my neurodivergent brain needed during a real spike in depression during this ongoing depression. I think I just needed Gareth Armstrong's hug in a woolie jumper and mug of hot chocolate voice as a way of self-soothing.
All this in classic RatGrrrl rambling style to say, I was listening to this while especially depressed and coming off the back of feeling very positive towards this book, but being blindsided by how much I didn't care for The Divine Word.
I generally stand by my previous review, though I feel less favourably than last time and have bumped this down to a three and would rephrase my claim of this being benchmark quality for a Horus Heresy novel, but rather the absolute minimum accepted quality for this vaunted series that contains Prospero Burns, everything with the Word Bearers and World Eaters, especially After Desh'ea, etc. of far, far superior quality. Though, it should be noted that there are most definitely worse entries in this series, even more so if The Primarchs series is included too.
I said a lot last time, which is below, so this is more some things I've ruminate on since the two recent reads and things that really stood out this time through.
The first part is absolutely brilliant and would easily be a five star novella. Aspects I haven't previously given enough credit to Thorpe for are the characterisation and speeches of Corax, the day to day routine and details that are incredible, and, reading it again so soon, the tiny cheeky hints...which I also now realise was me genuinely forgetting the end and being caught up in the red herring lol.
I cannot articulate how much I love to hate and just how obsessively fascinated with Malcador and the glimpses of Earth's twisted history in his collection. Corax being confused by the Titan Rover not being anything like a Titan, itself a double reference to the Luna Rover and the eventual home of the Grey Knights, is a lot of fun. Thorpe really has a good handle on doing naturally occurring humour using the Warhammer galaxy and its strange refraction of out own history and that really does deserve some acknowledgement.
The second part things get a bit messy. The flashbacks are great and the undercover aspects are great, and are generally brilliant until the final act, but the Labyrinth section feels very filler and dull, beyond the fun and prescient Ozymandius reference.
The second part is also where the politics and perspective really fall apart. I'm not going to get too much in the weeds as I discussed it below and people hate it when you bring politics I to the completely apolitcal and absolutely not created as a satire Warhammer 40K. But if it was political, I would say that Thorpe and Warhammer in general, really expose the lack of political understanding, engagement, and interest that is frankly embarrassing and disturbing from a series and a book that is very not political at all. It's a sad fact that lots of big properties have colossal political, moral, and ethical elements, either as a major focus, part of the founding, history, or base of their stories, and/ or close ties and working relationships with political, particularly military forces, or do a very milquetoast and potentially damaging partial engagement with ideas in the body of the story. Various examples of things I have various feelings about being Warhammer, Halo, Red Rising, Firefly, Marvel, and Stargate SG-1.
I want to be clear, everything doesn't have to be incredibly in depth and moralistic or obvious in its politics. I'm not naive enough to expect all art to confirm to my own personal inclinations, but I do think it's important to acknowledge when media is doing massive explicit and implicit politics, especially of they are bad politics and/ or badly done politics because a bunch of the above, especially Warhammer and Halo, have a fundamental means justifying the ends because the story says they have to as the opposition is so extreme and the means are so cool*. And that is disturbing, all the more when it is being passively ingested.
Listening to the Lycaeus Uprising flashbacks again and I think I have finally put my finger on what would actually square the circle of Corax's upbringing and later joining the Imperium and becoming mot of an extremist after Isstvan. If it was made clear his dissident teachers were actually more red fash than anarcho-socialist a little too much Mao x Primarch Project would make sense.
I also just hate everything about Valerius and Peylon. The dissonance of an aristocrat being the saviour of the saviour of Deliverance and being such a big player in this narrative without questioning it at all just sucks and Peylon would only have to be revealed to be vehemently transphobic for me to believe he was written by that vile woman. I don't like associating Thorpe, who by all accounts is a lovely chap, with that truly disgusting hatemonger, but the house elf pillowcase unfortunately fits in this situation.
The third part just kinda happens some decent enough writing, but the events unfold as they have to and the book just ends with a strangely quick and detail lacking depiction of battles built up to be hugely important and dangerous for a large part of the book.
The epilogue is undeniably fun though.
I had a lot less fun this time and the best is all front loaded so my experience was so much worse with the diminishing returns, so check my more positive review below for some balance.
This isn't a bad book and some if it is actually really good. Unfortunately, it's also a bit of a tonal mess that slowly unravels.
Through using the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project (www.heresyomnibus.com) and my own choices, I have currently read 32 Horus Heresy novels (including a repeat), 16 novellas (including 2 repeats), 106 short stories/ audio dramas (including 6 repeats), as well as the Macragge's Honour graphic novel, 15 Primarchs novels, 4 Primarchs short stories/ audio dramas, and 2 Warhammer 40K further reading novels and a short story...this run. I can't say enough good about the way the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project suggestions. I'm loving it! Especially after originally reading to the releases and being so frustrated at having to wait so long for a narrative to continue.
***
Initial Review 4/5
April 2024 Re-Read using the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project Reading Order Omnibus XV Scale and Stone (https://www.heresyomnibus.com/omnibus...) as part of my Oath of Moment to complete the Horus Heresy saga and extras.
Thoroughly enjoyed this solid bit of Horus and Heresy!
Honestly, if it wasn't for the assault of the Perfect Fortress at the end feeling incredibly anticlimactic and like a plot point that Thorpe was forced to include, and the tonal confusion around the socio-political background and views of Corax being embarrassing, I would give this a kindly full marks. As it is, it's a solid four and feels like this could be par for the Heresy--as in the books should all be at least this good or better.
OK. Coming back to this and I did end up completing Chaos Gate: Daemonhunters and start a Grand Master run. It's just the perfect game to play while listening to audiobooks and being medically redundant.
Raven's Flight is one of my favourite Horus Heresy stories, almost certainly my favourite audio drama, and undoubtedly the tale from this series I enjoy the most that doesn't actually make me cry, so with having decidedly mixed feelings about some of the Thorpe short stories that have come up along the way, not to mention my total 180 on Honour to the Dead, which is very good and I really misread it the time before last, I was hopeful but hesitant returning to this novel I've only read once or twice in the past many years ago.
I am pleased to say I am pleased...as well as a little perplexed and cringing.
Following directly on from Raven's Flight, Corax and his Sorrow head to Terra struggling to process their mental and emotional trauma from the Dropsite Massacre and the new divide that lay between even those united by being a part of the original Lycaen Uprising. Granted a new tool to bolster their decimated Legion, the Raven Guard do their best to rebuild and look to the future, as their Primarch loses himself in memories of the past to escape the future. To make matters worse not everyone can be trusted and corruption awaits the unlucky few...
In some ways this is akin to The Buried Dagger, serving as a proto The Primarchs book for Corax with the story of his life and revolution told in remembered vignettes throughout the story, while the split focus is between the Primarch and his commanders, and one of those you know what's who thinks he's you know who...
*I'm realising this is going to take longer than I thought and I have to clean the kitchen, so I'll pause here and will be back*
And we're back!
The Corax backstory stuff is great and I hope to get more detail in his Primarchs book because what it covers is great, but we only get a single scene for each significant step on his journey to being saviour of the moon that will come to be called Deliverance. It is the unremarked dissonance between the backstory, Corax and the Imperium, and his actions in the present that are one of my only issues with this book, but that's it's whole other thing.
Corax in the present is an interesting and respectful study of what PTSD might look like in a Primarch, as we also get a glimpse of Guilliman's in The Unremembered Empire. His personal and interpersonal issues causing friction between himself and the figures on Terra, as well as the magical maguffin and the quest for it are all interesting enough. Having them broken up by the flashbacks covers up for the somewhat weaker labyrinth quest to obtain the item.
The rebuilding of the Legion and the complications involved are fascinating and some of the best writing with some heart wrenching moments and wild descriptions. I know I am always saying this, but I could have done with a little more twisting of the talon, but I'm a glutton for emotional punishment and I know there's a lot more tragedy in this dark well.
Strangely, the end of the book is just a mission that gets discussed and built up over the course of the book and it's shockingly abrupt and underwhelming. It seriously reads like a plot point Thorpe was mandated to include as it lacks so much of the detail and energy of the rest of the novel.
The other perspective was the part I enjoyed the most as it really explores concepts of identity, belonging, honour, duty, and the like in ways that I haven't seen in this series so far. There's a very human and oddly likeable aspect to something that is, by the nature of its mission and the resulting atrocity, malicious, but Thorpe handles the dichotomy of individuality and personal moral, and being a cog in a machine that you have to believe is doing the right thing really well.
The confusing and cringe part, which is probably enough for me to not give this full marks on its own even if everything else was perfect, is the fact that the cognitive dissonance of Corax' upbringing and experience, effectively raised by anarcho-socialist dissidents in a generational slave prison, which he leads a revolution to free themselves and gain autonomy, the intergalactic colonial fascism of the Imperium, and how his PTSD causes him to become more of an authoritarian extremist are never acknowledged. I get that being specifically created to be an ubermench, indoctrination, PTSD, and it's a story sis, chill, are to some extent an answer and I would accept that. But not acknowledging it all just sucks and gives me horrific tonal whiplash.
I don't want to harp on too much, but this is the most glaring of a number of times things like this come up, like the prison stuff in Vengeful Spirit, and to a lesser extent as there's a bit more of an acknowledgement in The Buried Dagger, where the source material and the story being told involve big, serious political issues and perspectives and practices that are horrific. The characters don't necessarily think so, but the authors also don't seem to care that much or, as other elements that have crept in in some other books, actually have backwards and problematic views themselves. I don't really have a big point here or a solution, it's just one of those things about the series that kinda sucks and always bums me out when it comes up, but I enjoy theseries as a whole so I just have to acknowledge it when it comes up and move on.
Overall, I had a really good time with this and it's a benchmark of how good or better I want the series to be.
Through using the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project (www.heresyomnibus.com) and my own choices, I have currently read 28 Horus Heresy novels, 14 novellas (including 1 repeat), 93 short stories/ audio dramas (including 6 repeats), as well as the Macragge's Honour graphic novel, 13 Primarchs novels, 4 Primarchs short stories/ audio dramas, and 2 Warhammer 40K further reading novels and a short story...this run. I can't say enough good about the way the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project suggestions. I'm loving it! Especially after originally reading to the releases and being so frustrated at having to wait so long for a narrative to continue.
So I only re-read this a couple of weeks ago as part of Omnibus XV, but we're two omnibussies on and focusing on the Raven Guard with a uninterrupted line from Raven's Flight to this via what seems to be a momentary jump forward for The Devine Word, which from having read it is put before this so Valerius' dreams have any amount of mystery and the story has what little tension it has intact because this book makes renders that already not particularly interesting story painfully obvious.
I also came back to it as its one of the first bunch of this series that I had read back in the day, but far less times than earlier ones in previous attempts at crossing this ludicrous Rubicon, and it's one I had fond feelings for, which made choosing this and the fact that I completed Grand Master mode and decided to play through Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters again, now on Ruthless and around 400 hours total play time, rather than something new and finally starting Rogue Trader, what my neurodivergent brain needed during a real spike in depression during this ongoing depression. I think I just needed Gareth Armstrong's hug in a woolie jumper and mug of hot chocolate voice as a way of self-soothing.
All this in classic RatGrrrl rambling style to say, I was listening to this while especially depressed and coming off the back of feeling very positive towards this book, but being blindsided by how much I didn't care for The Divine Word.
I generally stand by my previous review, though I feel less favourably than last time and have bumped this down to a three and would rephrase my claim of this being benchmark quality for a Horus Heresy novel, but rather the absolute minimum accepted quality for this vaunted series that contains Prospero Burns, everything with the Word Bearers and World Eaters, especially After Desh'ea, etc. of far, far superior quality. Though, it should be noted that there are most definitely worse entries in this series, even more so if The Primarchs series is included too.
I said a lot last time, which is below, so this is more some things I've ruminate on since the two recent reads and things that really stood out this time through.
The first part is absolutely brilliant and would easily be a five star novella. Aspects I haven't previously given enough credit to Thorpe for are the characterisation and speeches of Corax, the day to day routine and details that are incredible, and, reading it again so soon, the tiny cheeky hints...which I also now realise was me genuinely forgetting the end and being caught up in the red herring lol.
I cannot articulate how much I love to hate and just how obsessively fascinated with Malcador and the glimpses of Earth's twisted history in his collection. Corax being confused by the Titan Rover not being anything like a Titan, itself a double reference to the Luna Rover and the eventual home of the Grey Knights, is a lot of fun. Thorpe really has a good handle on doing naturally occurring humour using the Warhammer galaxy and its strange refraction of out own history and that really does deserve some acknowledgement.
The second part things get a bit messy. The flashbacks are great and the undercover aspects are great, and are generally brilliant until the final act, but the Labyrinth section feels very filler and dull, beyond the fun and prescient Ozymandius reference.
The second part is also where the politics and perspective really fall apart. I'm not going to get too much in the weeds as I discussed it below and people hate it when you bring politics I to the completely apolitcal and absolutely not created as a satire Warhammer 40K. But if it was political, I would say that Thorpe and Warhammer in general, really expose the lack of political understanding, engagement, and interest that is frankly embarrassing and disturbing from a series and a book that is very not political at all. It's a sad fact that lots of big properties have colossal political, moral, and ethical elements, either as a major focus, part of the founding, history, or base of their stories, and/ or close ties and working relationships with political, particularly military forces, or do a very milquetoast and potentially damaging partial engagement with ideas in the body of the story. Various examples of things I have various feelings about being Warhammer, Halo, Red Rising, Firefly, Marvel, and Stargate SG-1.
I want to be clear, everything doesn't have to be incredibly in depth and moralistic or obvious in its politics. I'm not naive enough to expect all art to confirm to my own personal inclinations, but I do think it's important to acknowledge when media is doing massive explicit and implicit politics, especially of they are bad politics and/ or badly done politics because a bunch of the above, especially Warhammer and Halo, have a fundamental means justifying the ends because the story says they have to as the opposition is so extreme and the means are so cool*. And that is disturbing, all the more when it is being passively ingested.
Listening to the Lycaeus Uprising flashbacks again and I think I have finally put my finger on what would actually square the circle of Corax's upbringing and later joining the Imperium and becoming mot of an extremist after Isstvan. If it was made clear his dissident teachers were actually more red fash than anarcho-socialist a little too much Mao x Primarch Project would make sense.
I also just hate everything about Valerius and Peylon. The dissonance of an aristocrat being the saviour of the saviour of Deliverance and being such a big player in this narrative without questioning it at all just sucks and Peylon would only have to be revealed to be vehemently transphobic for me to believe he was written by that vile woman. I don't like associating Thorpe, who by all accounts is a lovely chap, with that truly disgusting hatemonger, but the house elf pillowcase unfortunately fits in this situation.
The third part just kinda happens some decent enough writing, but the events unfold as they have to and the book just ends with a strangely quick and detail lacking depiction of battles built up to be hugely important and dangerous for a large part of the book.
The epilogue is undeniably fun though.
I had a lot less fun this time and the best is all front loaded so my experience was so much worse with the diminishing returns, so check my more positive review below for some balance.
This isn't a bad book and some if it is actually really good. Unfortunately, it's also a bit of a tonal mess that slowly unravels.
Through using the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project (www.heresyomnibus.com) and my own choices, I have currently read 32 Horus Heresy novels (including a repeat), 16 novellas (including 2 repeats), 106 short stories/ audio dramas (including 6 repeats), as well as the Macragge's Honour graphic novel, 15 Primarchs novels, 4 Primarchs short stories/ audio dramas, and 2 Warhammer 40K further reading novels and a short story...this run. I can't say enough good about the way the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project suggestions. I'm loving it! Especially after originally reading to the releases and being so frustrated at having to wait so long for a narrative to continue.
***
Initial Review 4/5
April 2024 Re-Read using the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project Reading Order Omnibus XV Scale and Stone (https://www.heresyomnibus.com/omnibus...) as part of my Oath of Moment to complete the Horus Heresy saga and extras.
Thoroughly enjoyed this solid bit of Horus and Heresy!
Honestly, if it wasn't for the assault of the Perfect Fortress at the end feeling incredibly anticlimactic and like a plot point that Thorpe was forced to include, and the tonal confusion around the socio-political background and views of Corax being embarrassing, I would give this a kindly full marks. As it is, it's a solid four and feels like this could be par for the Heresy--as in the books should all be at least this good or better.
OK. Coming back to this and I did end up completing Chaos Gate: Daemonhunters and start a Grand Master run. It's just the perfect game to play while listening to audiobooks and being medically redundant.
Raven's Flight is one of my favourite Horus Heresy stories, almost certainly my favourite audio drama, and undoubtedly the tale from this series I enjoy the most that doesn't actually make me cry, so with having decidedly mixed feelings about some of the Thorpe short stories that have come up along the way, not to mention my total 180 on Honour to the Dead, which is very good and I really misread it the time before last, I was hopeful but hesitant returning to this novel I've only read once or twice in the past many years ago.
I am pleased to say I am pleased...as well as a little perplexed and cringing.
Following directly on from Raven's Flight, Corax and his Sorrow head to Terra struggling to process their mental and emotional trauma from the Dropsite Massacre and the new divide that lay between even those united by being a part of the original Lycaen Uprising. Granted a new tool to bolster their decimated Legion, the Raven Guard do their best to rebuild and look to the future, as their Primarch loses himself in memories of the past to escape the future. To make matters worse not everyone can be trusted and corruption awaits the unlucky few...
In some ways this is akin to The Buried Dagger, serving as a proto The Primarchs book for Corax with the story of his life and revolution told in remembered vignettes throughout the story, while the split focus is between the Primarch and his commanders, and one of those you know what's who thinks he's you know who...
*I'm realising this is going to take longer than I thought and I have to clean the kitchen, so I'll pause here and will be back*
And we're back!
The Corax backstory stuff is great and I hope to get more detail in his Primarchs book because what it covers is great, but we only get a single scene for each significant step on his journey to being saviour of the moon that will come to be called Deliverance. It is the unremarked dissonance between the backstory, Corax and the Imperium, and his actions in the present that are one of my only issues with this book, but that's it's whole other thing.
Corax in the present is an interesting and respectful study of what PTSD might look like in a Primarch, as we also get a glimpse of Guilliman's in The Unremembered Empire. His personal and interpersonal issues causing friction between himself and the figures on Terra, as well as the magical maguffin and the quest for it are all interesting enough. Having them broken up by the flashbacks covers up for the somewhat weaker labyrinth quest to obtain the item.
The rebuilding of the Legion and the complications involved are fascinating and some of the best writing with some heart wrenching moments and wild descriptions. I know I am always saying this, but I could have done with a little more twisting of the talon, but I'm a glutton for emotional punishment and I know there's a lot more tragedy in this dark well.
Strangely, the end of the book is just a mission that gets discussed and built up over the course of the book and it's shockingly abrupt and underwhelming. It seriously reads like a plot point Thorpe was mandated to include as it lacks so much of the detail and energy of the rest of the novel.
The other perspective was the part I enjoyed the most as it really explores concepts of identity, belonging, honour, duty, and the like in ways that I haven't seen in this series so far. There's a very human and oddly likeable aspect to something that is, by the nature of its mission and the resulting atrocity, malicious, but Thorpe handles the dichotomy of individuality and personal moral, and being a cog in a machine that you have to believe is doing the right thing really well.
The confusing and cringe part, which is probably enough for me to not give this full marks on its own even if everything else was perfect, is the fact that the cognitive dissonance of Corax' upbringing and experience, effectively raised by anarcho-socialist dissidents in a generational slave prison, which he leads a revolution to free themselves and gain autonomy, the intergalactic colonial fascism of the Imperium, and how his PTSD causes him to become more of an authoritarian extremist are never acknowledged. I get that being specifically created to be an ubermench, indoctrination, PTSD, and it's a story sis, chill, are to some extent an answer and I would accept that. But not acknowledging it all just sucks and gives me horrific tonal whiplash.
I don't want to harp on too much, but this is the most glaring of a number of times things like this come up, like the prison stuff in Vengeful Spirit, and to a lesser extent as there's a bit more of an acknowledgement in The Buried Dagger, where the source material and the story being told involve big, serious political issues and perspectives and practices that are horrific. The characters don't necessarily think so, but the authors also don't seem to care that much or, as other elements that have crept in in some other books, actually have backwards and problematic views themselves. I don't really have a big point here or a solution, it's just one of those things about the series that kinda sucks and always bums me out when it comes up, but I enjoy theseries as a whole so I just have to acknowledge it when it comes up and move on.
Overall, I had a really good time with this and it's a benchmark of how good or better I want the series to be.
Through using the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project (www.heresyomnibus.com) and my own choices, I have currently read 28 Horus Heresy novels, 14 novellas (including 1 repeat), 93 short stories/ audio dramas (including 6 repeats), as well as the Macragge's Honour graphic novel, 13 Primarchs novels, 4 Primarchs short stories/ audio dramas, and 2 Warhammer 40K further reading novels and a short story...this run. I can't say enough good about the way the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project suggestions. I'm loving it! Especially after originally reading to the releases and being so frustrated at having to wait so long for a narrative to continue.
March 26, 2012
Deliverance Lost is the story of what happened to the Raven Guard and their Primarch Corax after the massacre at Isstvan V, written by one of Black Library's B-team cadre of writers: Gav Thorpe (with the A-team being comprised of Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Graham McNeill and of course Dan Abnett). It's a solid and worthy effort but in my opinion suffers badly from two major flaws.
Firstly as a neccessary sequel to a massive world shattering event like The Dropsite Massacre there is a dearth of action and impetus from the start. Initially, conflict is replaced by intrigue and a quest to uncover the genetic secrets of the Emperor's primarch project. While this is nothing new in the Horus Heresy books it doesn't seem to work as well in this case with the build-up generally being somewhat disengaging.
Secondly this story seems to labour under the inevitability of the failure of Corax's goal to rebuild his legion, A 40k nut like me who knows the background fluff inside out knows very well the outcome and therefore there's very little surprise. One might argue that surely most of the Heresy books should suffer from this but somehow for me this is the only one where it has been a problem. The exception to this is the involvement of the Alpha Legion and their sabotage of the project, which is interesting but as with the main story just piqued my desire for information on what happens to the Raven Guard and the Alpha Legion after the events of this book. Ah well, good things come... as they say.
Firstly as a neccessary sequel to a massive world shattering event like The Dropsite Massacre there is a dearth of action and impetus from the start. Initially, conflict is replaced by intrigue and a quest to uncover the genetic secrets of the Emperor's primarch project. While this is nothing new in the Horus Heresy books it doesn't seem to work as well in this case with the build-up generally being somewhat disengaging.
Secondly this story seems to labour under the inevitability of the failure of Corax's goal to rebuild his legion, A 40k nut like me who knows the background fluff inside out knows very well the outcome and therefore there's very little surprise. One might argue that surely most of the Heresy books should suffer from this but somehow for me this is the only one where it has been a problem. The exception to this is the involvement of the Alpha Legion and their sabotage of the project, which is interesting but as with the main story just piqued my desire for information on what happens to the Raven Guard and the Alpha Legion after the events of this book. Ah well, good things come... as they say.
January 12, 2012
The Raven Legion was one of the three legions that were in the Isstvan Dropsite Massacre during the Horus Heresy... and afterwards not much has told about them. This book tells why exactly.
In the Horus Heresy series there was first an audio drama about how the remainder of the legion was saved from Isstvan V, and later a short story about an invisible enemy hand behind that rescue, the Alpha Legion. This set the tone for what had to be a very interesting full novel in the famous Horus Heresy.
There are three parts in the book, Earth, Deliverance, and the aftermath. The first part is a wee bit boring, but does offer some very interesting pre-heresy lore.
The second part is a big game of Unmask The Spy, and also the Doom in which the Raven Guard is thrown. A very nice read.
And finally there's a lot of conjecture, hints and some small revelations about how the Raven Guard (and their enemy legion) survived until the 41st millenium.
All in all it is a worthy part in the Horus Heresy. Corax is beautifully fleshed out as a Primarch. And while this story is obviously a sequel on Raven's Flight, it is at the same time a sequel on Legion. Which is very great.
In the Horus Heresy series there was first an audio drama about how the remainder of the legion was saved from Isstvan V, and later a short story about an invisible enemy hand behind that rescue, the Alpha Legion. This set the tone for what had to be a very interesting full novel in the famous Horus Heresy.
There are three parts in the book, Earth, Deliverance, and the aftermath. The first part is a wee bit boring, but does offer some very interesting pre-heresy lore.
The second part is a big game of Unmask The Spy, and also the Doom in which the Raven Guard is thrown. A very nice read.
And finally there's a lot of conjecture, hints and some small revelations about how the Raven Guard (and their enemy legion) survived until the 41st millenium.
All in all it is a worthy part in the Horus Heresy. Corax is beautifully fleshed out as a Primarch. And while this story is obviously a sequel on Raven's Flight, it is at the same time a sequel on Legion. Which is very great.
August 17, 2021
Probably the first HH book that I’ve read with an actual levelheaded Primarch. Most of the characters are fairly interesting, except for maybe the alpha legionaries who are just completely and utterly unlikeable. Maybe that was the authors intention, but even their Primarchs make Erebus look like a nice guy by comparison, and I really wasn’t expecting that.
In all honesty I’m a little torn on the setting after reading this book. On one hand I’ve often found myself rolling my eyes at just how “stupid” the Pimarch and a lot of the space marine commanders seem to be, and that’s not an issue in this book as I mentioned earlier. The fact that the characters are capable of having conversations with each other without throwing a toddler style anger tantrum is sort of boring though. I really thought I wanted these army leading figures to be less silly, but maybe I don’t?
Either way, I don’t understand why people recommend that you skip this book. It’s both excellent and has some nice background story.
In all honesty I’m a little torn on the setting after reading this book. On one hand I’ve often found myself rolling my eyes at just how “stupid” the Pimarch and a lot of the space marine commanders seem to be, and that’s not an issue in this book as I mentioned earlier. The fact that the characters are capable of having conversations with each other without throwing a toddler style anger tantrum is sort of boring though. I really thought I wanted these army leading figures to be less silly, but maybe I don’t?
Either way, I don’t understand why people recommend that you skip this book. It’s both excellent and has some nice background story.
November 18, 2020
No real strong feelings about this one. It was fine? It's hard to put my finger on. I like the Raven Guard, I like the entries that focus on the Legions themselves, and I like the entries that have less fighting and more macro-level developments. This entry had all of those things - it even had a brief encounter with the Emperor, which is always exciting (so long as they keep them brief)! Yet, somehow at the end, I couldn't help but feel a bit... unmoved. Perhaps I simply need a short break from the Horus Heresy.
June 28, 2024
Apparently you can duck tape someone’s face to your own and role play them so hard you become them.
Duly noted
Duly noted
August 1, 2019
Although there were some slower parts, deliverance lost still managed to keep its story going until the end. The 18th installment of the Horus Heresy, dedicated to the 19th legion (really dropped the ball on that one) is a pleasant enough read with a minimum of tension built up. My biggest criticism is how easily the Alpha legion infiltrated the Raven guard, I was expecting a bit more close calls and their lack does leave a lot of potential to go to waste.
character wise I found Corax an interesting primarch, this book does give an adequate insight in his psyche and the basis for his legend among his legion and people. On the other hand I found Omegon to be a bit underwhelming and could not help but think he could have been replaced with a high level legionnaire (but I guess that is kinda the point of the Alpha legion so maybe that was intentional). Minor characters were all sufficiently interesting, they stood out from oneanother , not always a given when discussing space marines. Two characters thought whose little side stories felt unnecessary or built up to nothing were imperial commander Marcus Valerius and former librarian Balsar Kurthuri. I wished their stories had been worked out more then was the case.
I similarly wished a bit more storybuilding on the relation between the "fallen or flawed" raptors and their other battle brethren who at first are kept secret but overnight become an accepted part of the legion. Once again a lot of potential for story building and tension wasted.
So for being a decent book in overstretched series, a well deserved 3 stars.
character wise I found Corax an interesting primarch, this book does give an adequate insight in his psyche and the basis for his legend among his legion and people. On the other hand I found Omegon to be a bit underwhelming and could not help but think he could have been replaced with a high level legionnaire (but I guess that is kinda the point of the Alpha legion so maybe that was intentional). Minor characters were all sufficiently interesting, they stood out from oneanother , not always a given when discussing space marines. Two characters thought whose little side stories felt unnecessary or built up to nothing were imperial commander Marcus Valerius and former librarian Balsar Kurthuri. I wished their stories had been worked out more then was the case.
I similarly wished a bit more storybuilding on the relation between the "fallen or flawed" raptors and their other battle brethren who at first are kept secret but overnight become an accepted part of the legion. Once again a lot of potential for story building and tension wasted.
So for being a decent book in overstretched series, a well deserved 3 stars.
March 16, 2024
Victorus Aut Mortis! Raven Guard and Corvus Corax are at their most vulnerable after Istvaan. Not only are they besieged by enemies within their ranks, but confidence is wavering in the true legionaries. Despite this and seemingly continuous setbacks, it is the purview of the Raven Guard to show they are not finished yet. Horus, Fulgrim, and Alpharius have another thing coming if they count the 19th Legion out now....
This book characterizes Corax well and features his crisis of conscience. His identity and ideals cannot be swayed by the Traitors, else the Imperium has already lost.
This book characterizes Corax well and features his crisis of conscience. His identity and ideals cannot be swayed by the Traitors, else the Imperium has already lost.
February 18, 2023
Was a nice change of pace from the last few books. This book follows corax and the raven guard around as he attempts to rebuild his army. It may not be as enjoyable to others if your not a fan of the raven guard or corax. Nothing huge happens that effects the main story of the horus heresy so probably can skip but as a fan of raven guard I was excited to get some info on the faction. Goes into a pretty decent backstory for corax with the emperor.
October 6, 2022
3.5 stars. I found this entry in the series to be a mixed bag. There are some very strong points ranging from the infiltration work of the Alpha Legion through to the internal conflict of Corax and his captains, coupled with the stress of some of his sons surviving the Isstvan Massacre contrasted against those who were never there. Yet somehow the characters lacked depth. Even Corax in his darker moods and single-minded vision to re-build was not quite what I expected, and I ended up wondering if there should have been another narrator to the story here (probably Omegon?!) to complement and enhance the proceedings.
May 31, 2023
Great read. The Raven Guard, along with the Iron Hands and Salamanders, is just one of those legions that you can't help but feel a bit bad for after what they went through at the Dropsite Massacre. I ended the book with more respect for them and Corvus Corax.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 11, 2021
A momentus task tying up so many books and short stories and it was done exceptionally well. So much going on. So many questions answered and so many follows in it’s wake.
June 25, 2023
As a loyalist fan it’s always great for lesser known loyalist legions to get some love! Corax was great in this and I wonder about the implications of decisions made in this novel
February 22, 2024
Solid start.
Boring to tears middle.
A fun action movie ending the makes you wake up from the coma the middle put you in.
3 (2.5) /5
Also, Corvus, fire yo barber my god.
Boring to tears middle.
A fun action movie ending the makes you wake up from the coma the middle put you in.
3 (2.5) /5
Also, Corvus, fire yo barber my god.
March 19, 2023
Finally, Warhammmer with capital W
February 21, 2025
Amazing book on both Raven Guards and Alpha Legion. I enjoyed reading Corvus’ thoughts and his calculating ruthless actions as he feared himself becoming similar to Curze.
The bits of scenes about Alpharius was really entertaining to read. The paradoxical and confusing nature of Alpha Legion was played brilliantly, I couldn’t even understand what was happening.
The battle scenes were quite average but I like how confusion and chaos sowed by Alpha Legion was shown during the battles.
The bits of scenes about Alpharius was really entertaining to read. The paradoxical and confusing nature of Alpha Legion was played brilliantly, I couldn’t even understand what was happening.
The battle scenes were quite average but I like how confusion and chaos sowed by Alpha Legion was shown during the battles.
January 7, 2025
If i could give it 3.5 i would! Corax is such an interesting primarch, technically boring but very human, one who feels he truly fails and then spending most of the Heresy as a guerilla force is a fantastic idea. The issue is this feels like an alpha legion story with guest raven guard, which is a shame for raven guards real debut. Despite that, corax and the raven guard are so lovable as an underdog it makes the odds against them feel that much crueler and often just unnecessary, but it makes sense in the grand scale of the heresy.
June 14, 2025
Cual es la diferencia entre Corax y Curze, ambos creen en el propósito glorioso de un sacrificio, pero los medios son distintos, uno recibe gloria por sus guerras, el otro recibe acusaciones y reproches.
Ambos son los monstruos del emperador.
Ambos cumplen su propósito. Ninguno de los dos ve algo mal en su deber.
Mis legiones favoritas de lejos.
Ambos son los monstruos del emperador.
Ambos cumplen su propósito. Ninguno de los dos ve algo mal en su deber.
Mis legiones favoritas de lejos.
September 19, 2025
Overall, great book but the story felt a little lacking in places. Raven Guard are sick, but Alpha legion is just so much more fun
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