Kill Shot

Warhammer 40,000

by Ben Counter

Vindicare Assassin Deliva stalks her prey – noblewoman and dangerous heretic Seleuca Markovan – on the target's palatial estate. When her shot is spoiled, Deliva must move into the facility to finish Markovan before she escapes justice. Inside, a trail of bodies and taunting messages from Markovan prove that Deliva's coming has been anticipated… but nothing is at it seems, and as the truth of the mission emerges, Deliva's world will be turned upside down.

Genres: Audiobook, Science Fiction, Fiction

Audiobook

Published October 1, 2018

About the author

Ben Counter, as well as making several contributions to Inferno magazine, has written the Soul Drinkers and Grey Knights series and two Horus Heresy novels for the Black Library. He is an ancient history graduate and avid miniature painter with a bronze demon under his belt.

Reviews

[Michael Dodd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vindicare agent Deliva is engaged in a mission to assassinate a heretic noblewoman, Seleuca Markovan. As she keeps her distant handler up to date with the progress of her mission, it becomes clear that she won’t be able to deal with Markovan with a single, clean kill shot, but will instead have to find a way to complete her task up close.

The voice actors do their best with some slightly clunky dialogue, and the SFX work is typically good, barring some strange effects-laden voices towards the end which jar a little, but overall despite a late twist this just feels a little flat in both narrative and character.

Read the full review at https://www.trackofwords.com/2018/10/...

[Ken Pham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Still working out the rating system for these audio dramas; 20 minutes isn't enough time to flesh out a lot of things, so each word needs to carry significant weight behind it - which I think is done pretty well here.

You learn some cool bits of lore about procedures of the Inquisition but the characters themselves are just very meh. If it weren't for different voice actors I wouldn't be able to tell who is who because they all have the same personality.

Enjoyed it, though, the twist at the was too random and ruined the story for me. I know it's a common Black Library trope to do stuff like that but it doesn't mean it's a good one.

[Igor · Rating 3 out of 5]

The good: the cast gives very compelling performances and the sound engineers did a good job.

The mediocre: at points it delved into "describing everything I see like a maniac" that threw me out just a little, I kept thinking "for a stealthy assassin she sure does talk *all* the time"

The ugh: that last minute plot twist and the final minutes of the audio drama. It suddenly turned from what felt like a nice, self contained story into what for all the world felt to me like a bonus story tied into a larger narrative, like a minisode released during a season break.

[Hawke Embers · Rating 2 out of 5]

This drama seems to suffer from a lack of narration and tries to make up for it with far too much dialogue. This in turn ends up making the whole story come across like an amateur dramatics production with unbelievable characters, rather than a crafted narrative.

Despite being a seasoned killer, the assassin protagonist comes across as a rattled rookie and her target comes across as a monologue happy villain. The switch to the third party toward the end of the story explained some of this but it all ultimately felt rather jarring.

[nooker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Normally I really like these short ones, but this one wasn't as strong. It didn't tell a full story, but really felt like it was either a side story or setting up a longer one. Either way, this does not stand well by itself.

[Mikael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only 20 minutes long.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite liked the twist, but I really needed a bit more explanation in the continuation that the epilogue seemed to promise. Doesn't look like we'll ever get that, unfortunately.

[Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable short story. Good twist.