The Eye of Ezekiel

Space Marine Battles #21

by Christian Z. Dunn

Ezekiel, Grand Master of the Librarians, must lead the Dark Angels to victory against a massive ork army.
In the grim future of the 41st millennium, the Imperium is beset by alien races that wish nothing more than to defeat, enslave or devour humankind. Most numerous among these foes are the orks, inhuman brutes that cannot be underestimated. When the Adeptus Mechanicus invokes an ancient pact with the Dark Angels, Ezekiel, Grand Master of the Librarians, must lead the 5th Company to liberate the planet of Honoria from a vast ork army. Even reinforced by the regiments of the Astra Militarum, the Dark Angels face a tremendous challenge, and the Adeptus Mechanicusappear to have their own reasons for becoming involved in this conflict "

Genres: 40k, Science Fiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published March 18, 2017

About the author

Christian Dunn, sometimes credited as C.Z. Dunn, is a senior editor for Black Library.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Milo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really fun, pulpy read - sometimes you want to just read the Dark Angels go head to head with the Orks in non-stop combat for the whole book. The Eye of Ezekiel might be one of the rarest of them to end on a somewhat optimistic and humorous note; too - as bleakly optimistic as 40k can get. Part of the book's problem is that it tries to tell a planet-spanning conflict and can't quite capture the full scale of it all needed to match it - as is a problem with a lot of the SMB books - but it's not a bad way to spend a couple of sittings. Hello 2023, everybody!

[Alex Kostyuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a huge fan boy of any Dark Angel fiction i ran into this book wide eyes and mouth agape. After is being recommended to me by a friend i expected to read the stuff of legends. This however was not to be the case.

The book over all is adequate, it has a decent story which gives some extrapolation about our main hero Ezekiel and what happened to him recently, spoilers withheld hes having a tough time after a loss at a previous confrontation. After being sent to a new assignments he broodingly takes command and carries it out. The action scenes in this book are quite good actually which is why it gets 3 stars as is the setting, but as Dark Angels are a chapter with so much history and importance behind it you are left wanting to know more about their motivations and for a new reader it may not be clear about why the actions of the supporting characters are made.

The entire book is basically a siege and a rather quick fight between the forces of the Imperium and an Ork army and it feels extremely rushed and without substance, alot of the additional scenes from the point of view of a guardsman were input to attempt and "shock us" with the ending, but anyone could tell what was going to happen , hell you can read it in the title of the book.

The ending was nice and revealed a few things that any veteran of 40k could deduce on their own regarding the Horus heresy (or at least we think so as it was all a dream from a demon). Overall its a book that does add some story and flavor to an already large setting but not as much as you are used to with other books pertaining to the dark angels.

I would definitely recommend it to any Dark Angel fanboy but also warn them not to get too excited about it. A decent book with nothing too exceptional happening in it.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

It has some really nice touches. The prologue is really nice. And the subplot with the Imperial Guard was great fun. But it somehow just doesn't quite hold together as a satisfying whole.

I think a lot of the problem with this series of battles novels is they try and portray huge planet spanning conflicts, and that... just doesn't work well.

Also it's Orks, and unpopular fannish opinion, Orks in WH40k suck. Their 'hit it wif da pointy stik' spiel gets very old very fast. I mean okay fair enough there's obviously an audience who enjoys them, but that audience is not me.

[Maxwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I quite liked it. The insights to the Dark Angels were neat, and the guardsmen sections were also cool. Some parts (the mechanicus) felt swept over. It was especially weird to have Azrael predating Ezekiel, since I always thought of Ezekiel as the senior advisor of the named Dark Angel characters, but 40k canon isn't such a serious thing.

[Jetpack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I definitely enjoyed this book. There are two point of view characters, a Dark Angel Librarian and an Imperial guard officer. There are great battle scenes with the Orcs (some of my favorite xenos) and clearly this part of a bigger story that I don't know about. There is a critical character who I'll need to look up in the wiki to find out who she is.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

definitely one of the better books in this omnibus, had alot of fun with Ezekiel and and a deeper dive into the Librarians of the Dark Angels. Been a very Ork heavy set of books, I wish it was some other threat but besides that a very fun, very action packed bit of bloodshed

[Jeff Sinclair · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent story, but the soldiers' motives, behavior, and banter were implausible.

[Mark Durkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome

I know Ezekiel was badass. This book shows it. Extremely well written l, kept me reading and the pace was spot on

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was fun. I wasn't as interested in the long, drawn out battle scenes that, in my opinion, took up too many pages, but I liked the characters and I liked the story.

[Ulzeta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite boring.