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The Horus Heresy #Audio Drama
Garro: Shield of Lies
Nathaniel Garro features in this Horus Heresy audio
While the war rages on across the galaxy, for many on the Throneworld of Terra it exists only in rumour and hearsay. But in the course of her daily duties, humble adept Katanoh Tallery discovers evidence of a conspiracy within the Administratum - surely, this can only be the precursor to a traitor attack on the Solar System itself! Fleeing into the shadows, she soon finds herself at the mercy of the mysterious Knight Errant Nathaniel Garro. Will this stalwart defender of mankind be her saviour, or her executioner?
While the war rages on across the galaxy, for many on the Throneworld of Terra it exists only in rumour and hearsay. But in the course of her daily duties, humble adept Katanoh Tallery discovers evidence of a conspiracy within the Administratum - surely, this can only be the precursor to a traitor attack on the Solar System itself! Fleeing into the shadows, she soon finds herself at the mercy of the mysterious Knight Errant Nathaniel Garro. Will this stalwart defender of mankind be her saviour, or her executioner?
Audio CD
First published January 1, 2015
2 people are currently reading
142 people want to read
About the author
James Swallow
307 books1,074 followersJames Swallow is a New York Times, Sunday Times and Amazon #1 bestselling author and scriptwriter, a BAFTA nominee, a former journalist and the award-winning writer of over sixty-five books, along with scripts for video games, comics, radio and television.
DARK HORIZON, his latest stand-alone thriller, is out now from Mountain Leopard Press, and OUTLAW, the 6th action-packed Marc Dane novel, is published by Bonnier.
Along with the Marc Dane thrillers, his writing includes, the Sundowners steampunk Westerns and fiction from the worlds of Star Trek, Tom Clancy, 24, Warhammer 40000, Doctor Who, Deus Ex, Stargate, 2000AD and many more.
For information on new releases & more, sign up to the Readers’ Club here: www.bit.ly/JamesSwallow
Visit James's website at http://www.jswallow.com/ for more, including ROUGH AIR, a free eBook novella in the Marc Dane series.
You can also follow James on Bluesky at @jmswallow.bsky.social, Twitter at @jmswallow, Mastodon at @jmswallow@mstdn.social and jmswallow.tumblr.com at Tumblr.
DARK HORIZON, his latest stand-alone thriller, is out now from Mountain Leopard Press, and OUTLAW, the 6th action-packed Marc Dane novel, is published by Bonnier.
Along with the Marc Dane thrillers, his writing includes, the Sundowners steampunk Westerns and fiction from the worlds of Star Trek, Tom Clancy, 24, Warhammer 40000, Doctor Who, Deus Ex, Stargate, 2000AD and many more.
For information on new releases & more, sign up to the Readers’ Club here: www.bit.ly/JamesSwallow
Visit James's website at http://www.jswallow.com/ for more, including ROUGH AIR, a free eBook novella in the Marc Dane series.
You can also follow James on Bluesky at @jmswallow.bsky.social, Twitter at @jmswallow, Mastodon at @jmswallow@mstdn.social and jmswallow.tumblr.com at Tumblr.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 21, 2024
May 2024 Read using the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project Reading Order (https://www.heresyomnibus.com) as part of my Oath of Moment to complete the Horus Heresy series and extras - Now in Immaterium of everything outside the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project, before moving on to the last Omnibus XXI The Siege of Terra.
I am a broken record at this point, but I am even more happy I went back listened to this version of this and the Garro storyline!
An Admistratum Adelt makes a disturbing discovery after the death of her superior. Arms and material are going missing, just a little here and there, but it adds up to a whole and is indicative of a seriously disturbing conspiracy. This knowledge makes her life forfeit as she is branded a traitor. To make matters worse, it's not only Battle-Automata hunting her down, but a Legiones Astartes... Luckily for Adept Tallery that Space Marine is one Nathaniel Garro, a former Death Guard Battle-Captain who knows what it's like to uncover perfidy and be branded a traitor.
This is one of my sleeper and less serious favourites of the series and, personally, the full cast audio drama version of this story with fun music and cheesy sound effects will always be far superior to story being contained within the Garro 'novel'. Don't get me wrong, I think the anthology without a contents page is amazing and the definition of that book means nothing to me, but it is forever funny to me that I have a long running beef with L. J Goulding over her assertion of it being a novel that literally only exists in my mind and I adore everything what little else I know about her as an editor and author--anyone who can make me genuinely bawl my eyes out and feel positive emotions towards Malcador gets a pass for everything but that. Anyways, the point is, love that we have the collected narrative book and the audio drams because they're both great, but the performances and character of the audio dramas, especially this one are just that mite more magical to me.
There's something about the Garro series and how ridiculously big and epic and ridiculous it is, while also being surprisingly grounded and emotional at times that really works for me, and this one is particularly charming and silly, before coming to a really brutal point. It also does a really good job of just showing the mundanity and banality of the horrors of living in the Imperium, even before the 41st Millennium cranked up the Grimdark-O-Meter, but in a very cyberpunk dystopian way through the natural interactions and, for want of a better term for this medium, environmental storytelling. I'm not saying this looks more like the world of Cyberpunk Red or Bladerunner, but the sensibility and tone of the Orwellian nightmare is in display.
There are so many fun parts to this story too, from the discovery of the mystery and the Neo escaping his office in the Matrix sequence, to Garro and Tallery having a dramatic conversation that I imagine in a very high contrast cybernoir alley and them fighting the robots. It is rare that you get to see someone roll a crit using their Lore (Admin) to take down a robot and the adorableness of these two as buddy detectives (PIs not cops. It's impossible for cops to be adorable, unless they are quitting their job in a cute way. ACAB) and the big Indiana Jones energy of them sneaking around the base and hopping into minecarts. We're allowed some goof in the grim, as a treat.
Honestly, I could imagine this story animated in John Blanche's style and it would be perfect.
The reveal is awesome and I remember being really surprised the first time, so I will avoid spoilers, but it's very cool how this fun sidequest is also a massive bit of worldbuilding and the explanation of something massive for Warhammer 40,000, which is neat.
I love that Malcador is an absolute villain and it shows just how fundamentally inhuman and big picture he is. It never gets old just how many innocent billions en masse and individuals personally the Emperor, Malcador, and all of the Imperium are happy to flatout murder, torture, and/ or lock up in uber nightmare prisons (all prisons are nightmares and torture, but you get what I mean) in service, at least ostensibly, to save human lives. It truly warms my heart when the satire 40K was founded upon is seen to be thriving.
Beyond the cool reveal and info, this is absolutely non-essential and it's not going to win the best short story or audio drama of the Heresy awards, but it truly had a special place in my heart and it brought me no end of joy to return to this version before this whole endeavour is over!
Through the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project and my own additions, I have currently read* all 54 Horus Heresy main series novels (+1 repeat), 25 novellas (+2 repeats), as well as the Macragge's Honour graphic novel, all 17 Primarchs novels, 3 Characters novels, and 147 short stories/ audio dramas across the Horus Heresy (inc. 10+ repeats). Plus, 2 Warhammer 40K further reading novels and 1 short story...this run, as well as writing 1 short story myself.
I couldn't be more appreciative of the phenomenal work of the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project, which has made this ridiculous endeavour all the better and has inspired me to create and collate a collection of Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 documents and checklists (http://tiny.cc/im00yz). There are now too many items to list here, but there is a contents and explainer document here (http://tiny.cc/nj00yz).
*My tracking consistently proves shoddy, but I'm doing my best
***
Initial Review 4/5
Donning the metaphorical fedora and trench coat Garro goes grimnoir detective, tracking down a Munitorum scribe with requisition orders for days embroiled in a whole heap of hoopla, in this odd couple adventure that confirms that thing everyone has known since Garro hooked up with Bad Gandalf.
This isn't my favourite Garro outing and towards the end it was losing me, before firmly having me again at the end, but it is a great romp and a good story that really highlight Swallows talent for Warhammer worldbuilding. There is something in his descriptions that evokes the old, grimy, sketchy John Blanche vision of the Dark Millennium, which has a level of unsettling horror in every aspect.
Is the answer to the mystery equally ridiculous and cool? You bet!
We get to see more of just how unnecessarily convoluted, conspiratorial, and callously disregarding of the life of its citizens it is and get that cool confirmation of the proper beginning of something very familiar.
I am a broken record at this point, but I am even more happy I went back listened to this version of this and the Garro storyline!
An Admistratum Adelt makes a disturbing discovery after the death of her superior. Arms and material are going missing, just a little here and there, but it adds up to a whole and is indicative of a seriously disturbing conspiracy. This knowledge makes her life forfeit as she is branded a traitor. To make matters worse, it's not only Battle-Automata hunting her down, but a Legiones Astartes... Luckily for Adept Tallery that Space Marine is one Nathaniel Garro, a former Death Guard Battle-Captain who knows what it's like to uncover perfidy and be branded a traitor.
This is one of my sleeper and less serious favourites of the series and, personally, the full cast audio drama version of this story with fun music and cheesy sound effects will always be far superior to story being contained within the Garro 'novel'. Don't get me wrong, I think the anthology without a contents page is amazing and the definition of that book means nothing to me, but it is forever funny to me that I have a long running beef with L. J Goulding over her assertion of it being a novel that literally only exists in my mind and I adore everything what little else I know about her as an editor and author--anyone who can make me genuinely bawl my eyes out and feel positive emotions towards Malcador gets a pass for everything but that. Anyways, the point is, love that we have the collected narrative book and the audio drams because they're both great, but the performances and character of the audio dramas, especially this one are just that mite more magical to me.
There's something about the Garro series and how ridiculously big and epic and ridiculous it is, while also being surprisingly grounded and emotional at times that really works for me, and this one is particularly charming and silly, before coming to a really brutal point. It also does a really good job of just showing the mundanity and banality of the horrors of living in the Imperium, even before the 41st Millennium cranked up the Grimdark-O-Meter, but in a very cyberpunk dystopian way through the natural interactions and, for want of a better term for this medium, environmental storytelling. I'm not saying this looks more like the world of Cyberpunk Red or Bladerunner, but the sensibility and tone of the Orwellian nightmare is in display.
There are so many fun parts to this story too, from the discovery of the mystery and the Neo escaping his office in the Matrix sequence, to Garro and Tallery having a dramatic conversation that I imagine in a very high contrast cybernoir alley and them fighting the robots. It is rare that you get to see someone roll a crit using their Lore (Admin) to take down a robot and the adorableness of these two as buddy detectives (PIs not cops. It's impossible for cops to be adorable, unless they are quitting their job in a cute way. ACAB) and the big Indiana Jones energy of them sneaking around the base and hopping into minecarts. We're allowed some goof in the grim, as a treat.
Honestly, I could imagine this story animated in John Blanche's style and it would be perfect.
The reveal is awesome and I remember being really surprised the first time, so I will avoid spoilers, but it's very cool how this fun sidequest is also a massive bit of worldbuilding and the explanation of something massive for Warhammer 40,000, which is neat.
I love that Malcador is an absolute villain and it shows just how fundamentally inhuman and big picture he is. It never gets old just how many innocent billions en masse and individuals personally the Emperor, Malcador, and all of the Imperium are happy to flatout murder, torture, and/ or lock up in uber nightmare prisons (all prisons are nightmares and torture, but you get what I mean) in service, at least ostensibly, to save human lives. It truly warms my heart when the satire 40K was founded upon is seen to be thriving.
Beyond the cool reveal and info, this is absolutely non-essential and it's not going to win the best short story or audio drama of the Heresy awards, but it truly had a special place in my heart and it brought me no end of joy to return to this version before this whole endeavour is over!
Through the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project and my own additions, I have currently read* all 54 Horus Heresy main series novels (+1 repeat), 25 novellas (+2 repeats), as well as the Macragge's Honour graphic novel, all 17 Primarchs novels, 3 Characters novels, and 147 short stories/ audio dramas across the Horus Heresy (inc. 10+ repeats). Plus, 2 Warhammer 40K further reading novels and 1 short story...this run, as well as writing 1 short story myself.
I couldn't be more appreciative of the phenomenal work of the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project, which has made this ridiculous endeavour all the better and has inspired me to create and collate a collection of Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 documents and checklists (http://tiny.cc/im00yz). There are now too many items to list here, but there is a contents and explainer document here (http://tiny.cc/nj00yz).
*My tracking consistently proves shoddy, but I'm doing my best
***
Initial Review 4/5
Donning the metaphorical fedora and trench coat Garro goes grimnoir detective, tracking down a Munitorum scribe with requisition orders for days embroiled in a whole heap of hoopla, in this odd couple adventure that confirms that thing everyone has known since Garro hooked up with Bad Gandalf.
This isn't my favourite Garro outing and towards the end it was losing me, before firmly having me again at the end, but it is a great romp and a good story that really highlight Swallows talent for Warhammer worldbuilding. There is something in his descriptions that evokes the old, grimy, sketchy John Blanche vision of the Dark Millennium, which has a level of unsettling horror in every aspect.
Is the answer to the mystery equally ridiculous and cool? You bet!
We get to see more of just how unnecessarily convoluted, conspiratorial, and callously disregarding of the life of its citizens it is and get that cool confirmation of the proper beginning of something very familiar.
February 1, 2015
Since first appearing in Galaxy In Flames Nathaniel Garro has become something of a fan favourite, as well as the poster boy for the ever-growing range of Horus Heresy audio dramas. James Swallow’s latest contribution to the Heresy series, Shield of Lies is the fifth audio to feature Garro and finds the first of Malcador’s Knights Errant on the orbital plate of Riga, in pursuit of an Administratum scribe who has stumbled across a deadly secret. A small cog within the vast Departmento Munitorum, Katanoh Tallory has paid a heavy price for her hard work and now finds herself caught between the menacing inhumanity of Riga’s mechanical guardians and the uncertain mercy of Garro.
Read the rest of the review at https://trackofwords.wordpress.com/20...
Read the rest of the review at https://trackofwords.wordpress.com/20...
August 9, 2025
Adept Katanoh Tallery is just a humble accountant for the Imperium but she uncovers a conspiracy that will threaten her life. Supplies are going missing and being diverted, all in small enough numbers to go almost unnoticed. When Tallery tries to blow the whistle, she finds herself on the run for her life. Conspiracy abounds, who is diverting the materials? Who can Tallery trust?
I really enjoyed this story in the Garro series. With the galaxy engulfed in Civil War, it makes sense that equipment could be misappropriated or material diverted. War is not just people killing each other, it is supply lines and movement of assets. This story helps to build up the scale of the Heresy, while also keeping the story grounded as we root for Tallery as she flees for her life. Luckily for her she runs into Garro, Knight Errant. I really enjoyed the dialogue between the two, especially as Garro was trying to figure out whether she was a traitor or a loyalist, and the pair have a discussion about faith.
I really enjoyed this story in the Garro series. With the galaxy engulfed in Civil War, it makes sense that equipment could be misappropriated or material diverted. War is not just people killing each other, it is supply lines and movement of assets. This story helps to build up the scale of the Heresy, while also keeping the story grounded as we root for Tallery as she flees for her life. Luckily for her she runs into Garro, Knight Errant. I really enjoyed the dialogue between the two, especially as Garro was trying to figure out whether she was a traitor or a loyalist, and the pair have a discussion about faith.
October 18, 2022
Easily the best Garro audio released, full of tension and intrigue, focussing on a central mystery. Whether this leads further into the Heresy or is more focussed on 40k I’m not too sure. If you only want to listen to one of the many Garro audios out there, make it this one.
August 12, 2022
Garro siempre cumple, de mis personajes favoritos de la Herejía.
November 2, 2023
Another really dope entry in the Garro series, with all the strengths of the last one and a bit less predictability.
October 23, 2025
One more example of "Malcador carries." Such a great character, such a great anti-hero I would even say, the antithesis between him and Garro serves this one extremely well.
February 15, 2017
Fun, getting a little tired of the red herrings though.
March 20, 2016
This audio drama was excellent. The sound effects were awesome, the voice acting was great, the story itself was immensely entertaining. The action was fast and furious, and again we got to live with our good friend Nathaniel Garro. Garro is a bit different than we have seen him in recent outings, the doubt is much more akin to his time in book 4, so many years ago. But then he is also the same as he grows with each novel/audio drama/short story. The only reason I gave this less than 5 stars is because the ending was SO TERRIBLY PREDICTABLE it hurt. Though there were some revelations that have definitely changed the future of the Knights Errant.
I look forward to seeing where this story goes though, both Garro and the scribe, as well as the Gre-err- Knight's Errant!
Another solid addition to the series by James Swallow!
I look forward to seeing where this story goes though, both Garro and the scribe, as well as the Gre-err- Knight's Errant!
Another solid addition to the series by James Swallow!
November 11, 2014
Another good story featuring Garro, though towards the end of disc 1 it was easy to workout what was happening with the plot. In terms of movement this story moves the Heresy forwards towards the end point
July 5, 2016
I'd say this was my favourite audiobook with Garro, finally including a human, regular human, character helped, and in all it was a full story not just bread crumbs! Also this gives great shadow to character i find most interesting.
February 23, 2015
Another fantastic audio drama but if you've seen Blood and Chrome then the twist at the end will not come as a surprise.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews