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Space Marine Battles #Novella
Forge Master
As the war against the orks of the Octavius system grinds on, the Fifth Company of the Salamanders are assigned a dangerous – and critical – to kill the Overfiend himself. But as they prepare to annihilate the beast's ship, they discover a startling that a valuable alien prisoner aboard the ork warship may be the key to ending the conflict.
Read it because
It's the dramatic conclusion to the Overfiend trilogy and sees the Salamanders burn into action aboard an ork warship.
128 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 14, 2014
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98 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 6, 2019
Interesting novella. Technicly the main character is not a Forge Master, but well on his way to becoming one. I guess you could say that he attained the knowledge and self-control to be one by the end of the book.
October 27, 2020
4.5. Last part a true 5. Very well written and so exciting couldn't turn the pages fast enough!
August 27, 2022
Quite fun.
May 22, 2014
You can read the full review over at my blog:
http://sonsofcorax.wordpress.com/2014...
In the last two years, Black Library has gone all-out with its range of novellas, whether we talk about the Horus Heresy series or the more “contemporary” Warhammer 40,000 setting. In fact, I’d say that there are too many novellas being released, at the expense of new novels, and I stand by that statement, looking at their released schedule for the last few months. But then, there are novellas like Promethean Sun, Iron Warrior and Knights of the Imperium Master which make it all really worth it. And when the publisher goes for a combo of novellas/novels, that’s when I really sit up and pay attention.
Forge Master is part of a trilogy of novellas about the Imperium’s campaign against the Overfiend of Octavius, the Warlord of one of the greatest and most powerful Ork empires in the galaxy. Told from the perspective of different Space Marine chapters, each novella covers a different part of the campaign, in this case, the Salamanders. The novella covers a small strike team of the Salamanders as they board an Ork flagship looking for a prisoner and David Annandale’s writing here is some of the best I’ve seen from him. In fact, it may be his best work that I’ve read to date.
The primary character in this novella is the Salamanders Techmarine Ha’garen of the Fifth Company. After several years away on Mars to train under the Adeptus Mechanicus and learn the secrets of the Machine, he recently returned to chapter’s homeworld Nocturne to re-take his place amongst his brothers and took part in the recent defense of the world against invading forces. Now, he is off with the Fifth to fight the Orks, to truly find his place amongst his brothers, though he is far removed from them in his attitudes and his behaviour and personality. He is still a Salamander at his core, but he has also become more under the tutelage of the Mechanicus.
And therein lies the conflict at the heart of this novella. As much as the story is about the Fifth’s strike team taking the fight to the Overfiend aboard the beast’s own flagship, it is also about Ha’garen struggling to reconcile the two halves of his nature. He is a Salamander and thus a Space Marine, one of a very select few elite warriors in the galaxy. But at the same time, his time with the Mechanicus has given him a whole new outlook that wars with his nature as a Salamander, as a student and son of his long-dead Primarch.
Space Marine stories usually tend to cover the more “usual” sorts of such characters. Chapter Masters and Captains, Librarians and Chaplains, Sergeants and so on. They very rarely tend to cover Techmarines, and that is a niche that Forge Master covers very well. In the Salamanders lore, Forge Master is a position granted to only three among their number, those three Techmarines who have served for countless years and are at the pinnacle of their craft. There is a certain ironic play involved here since Ha’garen is a recent Techmarine, but that I think was the point, to show how the character changes and adapts to circumstances. This is all part of a larger tale of course and Ha’garen’s contribution is rather small in that grand telling, but here, he is the star.
http://sonsofcorax.wordpress.com/2014...
In the last two years, Black Library has gone all-out with its range of novellas, whether we talk about the Horus Heresy series or the more “contemporary” Warhammer 40,000 setting. In fact, I’d say that there are too many novellas being released, at the expense of new novels, and I stand by that statement, looking at their released schedule for the last few months. But then, there are novellas like Promethean Sun, Iron Warrior and Knights of the Imperium Master which make it all really worth it. And when the publisher goes for a combo of novellas/novels, that’s when I really sit up and pay attention.
Forge Master is part of a trilogy of novellas about the Imperium’s campaign against the Overfiend of Octavius, the Warlord of one of the greatest and most powerful Ork empires in the galaxy. Told from the perspective of different Space Marine chapters, each novella covers a different part of the campaign, in this case, the Salamanders. The novella covers a small strike team of the Salamanders as they board an Ork flagship looking for a prisoner and David Annandale’s writing here is some of the best I’ve seen from him. In fact, it may be his best work that I’ve read to date.
The primary character in this novella is the Salamanders Techmarine Ha’garen of the Fifth Company. After several years away on Mars to train under the Adeptus Mechanicus and learn the secrets of the Machine, he recently returned to chapter’s homeworld Nocturne to re-take his place amongst his brothers and took part in the recent defense of the world against invading forces. Now, he is off with the Fifth to fight the Orks, to truly find his place amongst his brothers, though he is far removed from them in his attitudes and his behaviour and personality. He is still a Salamander at his core, but he has also become more under the tutelage of the Mechanicus.
And therein lies the conflict at the heart of this novella. As much as the story is about the Fifth’s strike team taking the fight to the Overfiend aboard the beast’s own flagship, it is also about Ha’garen struggling to reconcile the two halves of his nature. He is a Salamander and thus a Space Marine, one of a very select few elite warriors in the galaxy. But at the same time, his time with the Mechanicus has given him a whole new outlook that wars with his nature as a Salamander, as a student and son of his long-dead Primarch.
Space Marine stories usually tend to cover the more “usual” sorts of such characters. Chapter Masters and Captains, Librarians and Chaplains, Sergeants and so on. They very rarely tend to cover Techmarines, and that is a niche that Forge Master covers very well. In the Salamanders lore, Forge Master is a position granted to only three among their number, those three Techmarines who have served for countless years and are at the pinnacle of their craft. There is a certain ironic play involved here since Ha’garen is a recent Techmarine, but that I think was the point, to show how the character changes and adapts to circumstances. This is all part of a larger tale of course and Ha’garen’s contribution is rather small in that grand telling, but here, he is the star.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews