Fire Made Flesh

Necromunda

by Denny Flowers

A Necromunda novel

Dark secrets lurk in the Fallen Dome of Periculus, and Tempes Sol of the Guild of Light seeks them out to cement his place in the underhive – if he, and Hive Primus itself, can survive what he unleashes.

READ IT BECAUSE
Venture into the darkest reaches of the underhive with a soul who seeks to bring light and forge his destiny, and experience the horrors that follow.

THE STORY
The Fallen Dome of Periculus, once a hub of sanctioned commerce and illicit dealings, is lost no more… and the prizes it holds are sought by noble, Guilder, and hive scum alike.

For Tempes Sol of the Guild of Light, Periculus is an opportunity to not only prove his superiority over his superstitious peers but also to see the end of Lord Silas Pureburn, Keeper of the God-Emperor’s Eternal Flame, bringer of fire and faith to the rioting masses, and his most hated rival.

But Periculus did not fall by chance. Dark secrets lurk in its shadows – forbidden archeotech, twisted creatures that feast on flesh, and an insidious rage afflicts all who dwell inside its confines. As madness and violence erupt within the fallen dome, the legacy of Periculus threatens not only to consume the underhive, but ultimately Hive Primus itself.

Genres: Science Fiction, 40k, Audiobook, Fiction

463 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2021

About the author

Denny Flowers is a writer of Warhammer 40k, Age of Sigmar, and Necromunda fiction. He submitted his first Black Library story during open submissions in 2018.

Reviews

[Brenner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great book.
Although it is the first big novel from Denny Flowers, I must admit that he did a nice job. This may be not as epic and colossal as many of Warhammer stories, but for Necromunda setting it is surely among the best ones.
The story holds several POV-characters and each one of them is very different from the others. Impulsive idealist, cynical and corrupted businessman, stylish and eloquent gourmet, honest slaver (lol, yes) and of course the Underhive`s ninth dangerous man. Such manner of storytelling provides plenty of dialogues which are perhaps the signature mark of Mr. Flowers. They really help to expand the characters` personalities and of course add some nice dark humor to the action.
The novel seems to me to have a lot in common with classic Guy Ritchie movies where parallel lines slowly meet each other and intertwine. Here we also have some shadowy persons intriguing and fighting to get the big prize which eventually turns out to be definitely not the thing they had expected.
I would also recommend to read several short stories from this author (Question of Taste, Salvation`s Crucible, Hand of Harrow, Low Lives and The Last Voyage of Elissa Harrow). They are not necessary to understand this book, but still describe some previous events and allow you to grasp the bigger picture.
I hope that we will see some more stories from Mr. Flowers. He is definitely the good fresh blood for Black Library.

[Piri Reis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great novel giving the guilds of Necromunda their first real turn in the spotlight. really interesting and fleshed out characters, and a really good representation of the underhive. A highly recommended read for anyone interested in Necromunda.

[AA_Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the most ambitious Necromunda nov yet in terms of its scope and subject, Fire Made Flesh offers a look at life in hive Primus from several new perspectives.

Differing guilders, from the painfully naive and idealistic (Sol, a definite novelty in the jaded 40k universe) to the moustache-twirlingly evil via the comically self-serving and avaricious as well as the best-written Ratskin perspective outside of Guy Hayley’s take in the short story Emprah’s Eye, provide the bulk of the large cast, while mid-Spire, the Underhive and even beyond Primus are well fleshed-out locations. The plot is nicely developed, with a pleasing weaving together of seemingly disparate threads.

A great full BL debut by Denny Flowers and nice and satisfying novel and a ling-awaited addition to the recently neglected Necromunda line.

[Roza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liberal idealism being accidentally portrayed as a path way to the corruption of the warp is a nice treat to me personally and presumably very few else who will ever read the book.


It is of a type and it's pretty good at that type. Could have probably used one more draft to tie up some of the ends that kinda just end up getting dropped but its nothing egregious.

[Andrew Alvis · Rating 4 out of 5]

First! 😁

An impressive debut novel, very well describing the lawlessness, treachery and overall chaos of life on Necromunda.

I shall be keeping an eye on Mr Flowers future novels.

[Russell Tassicker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely stuff.

[Крипта Архівіста (neOh) · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Fire Made Flesh» by Denny Flowers: Flame Incarnate – review and thoughts.

Story: In the depths of the Hive Primus on the planet Necromunda, an unprecedented discovery has been made – the lost Periculus dome, fell deep into the hive many years ago, has been found. Now it's being sought after by various gangs and mercenaries – and above all by members of merchant guilds, who will be responsible for supplying the dome with energy, food and people. Well, around the supply of electricity to Periculus entire conflict revolves. Two eternal rivals claim this right: Silas Pureburn, a senior figure in the Promethium Guild whose family once served Periculus, and Tempes Sol, a young idealist from the Light Guild. Pureburn has many years of experience, reputation, the nobility patronage, historical law, and an army of devoted fanatics on his side, while Tempes has only faith in progress and a burning desire to open his superstitious colleagues' eyes to their mistakes.
But is everything really so obvious? Pureburn's business is rapidly deteriorating, so Periculus is a chance for him to gane salvation from imminent collapse. And for Sol, it's an opportunity to defeat Silas once and for all, bringing the underhivers the light of progress... With the help of House Delaque, he's determined to uncover the secrets of Silas's promethium empire and learn the secret of his power – the secret of what happened on the Plains of Salvation.

Main characters: For most of the novel, Tempes and Silas are presented as complete opposites, both in their beliefs and actions. The former is a fighter for progress and knowledge, whose gaze is directed to the future. The latter is the personification of ruthlessness, ready to make any sacrifice under the name of the Emperor to stay on his throne. He's impossible to understand or empathise with – and that's probably goes for good, because that's exactly how evil should be at the lowest levels of the Necromunda hives.
He is an absolute bastard, but what about the rest of the heroes? Or rather, "heroes", because all the characters here are... Kind of a bad guys with different amounts of positive traits. But how colourful they are! The insidious foodie and spender Credence Sorrow, a representative of Mercator Pallidus, who has pledged to provide the dome with supplies – the very same corpse food that has been forever captured in memes. Palanite-captain Canndis, his law doesn't apply for everyone. Virae, a warrior from Mercator Sanguis, who delivers slaves to the dome and organises gladiatorial fights. And finally, the ninth most dangerous man in the underhive, the cheerful mercenary Caleb, who has to free some of Virae's shackles.
Everyone, except for the genuinely kind-hearted Caleb, is bound to succumb to temptation, betray their conscience or morals, or, despite their cruelty and coldness, show care, loyalty, or true heroism. Flowers constantly reminds us that there are almost no entirely good people in the underhive. Even the actions of the noble Sol at some point acquire traits that are too similar to Silas'.

Overall Impressions: Fire Made Flesh is... Completely local story. It doesn't try to explain all the nuances of the Necromunda, doesn't throw you into the storm of crucial events, and doesn't introduce you to all the players in the hive city's gang world at once. So, if you suddenly want to put on a stylish Kal Jerico-like cloak and start exploring the underhive, Fire Made Flesh can be a great starting point. However, if you are already a hardened venator, Denny has something interesting for you as well – the guilds themselves. This is the first novel to describe in detail the work of the merchant guilds, primarily Lux and Pyros, unusual even by Necromunda standards.
Although, some moments in the book still left a mixed impressions: 1) Pacing. The first acts set the stage for Sol's long and complicated investigation of Pureburn's activities, but closer to the middle, all the cards are suddenly revealed, events instantly gain momentum, and the weapons of the Periculus residents leave their holsters. 2) Delaque agents. The elusive Delaque agents – thanks to them our characters easily overcame serious challenges or mysteries, including the main plot twist.

What to read next: The novella Low Lives; short stories The Hand of Harrow, The Last Voyage of Elissa Harrow, Salvation's Crucible and A Question of Taste.

[Unseen Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating of 4.25.

Prepare to return to the violent and deadly world beneath the hive cities of Necromunda, as Denny Flowers presents an outstanding and compelling entry in the Warhammer 40,000 universe with Fire Made Flesh.

Deep underneath Hive Primus many secrets and treasures lay hidden in the darkness, waiting to be found by bold adventurers, but none are spoken of with more reverence than the lost habitation dome, Periculus. Periculus was once a flourishing base of commerce where both sanctioned trade and illicit dealings were held, and vast wealth was accumulated. However, Periculus was mysteriously abandoned years ago when its inhabitants were killed, and all knowledge of its location has been lost. Now, after years of searching, someone has rediscovered the dome, and all hell is about to break loose.

Believing that the ruins of Periculus hold innumerable treasures and opportunities, various gangsters, Guilders, hive scum and opportunists have descended into the Underhive, hoping to stake their claim. However, none of the people moving towards Periculus are more dangerous than the revered Lord Silas Pureburn of the Guild of Fire. Holding a monopoly on energy production in the Underhive and gifted with a holy flame from the God Emperor himself, Pureburn inspires loyalty and religious fervour wherever he goes. However, behind his holy facade of purity and flame lies a dark soul determined to dominate everything and everyone he encounters. One of the few people to see the truth about Pureburn is young Guilder Tempes Sol. Sol, a scion of the Mercator Lux, the Guild of Light, has found himself bested by Pureburn many times, and he is determined to discover the truth behind his improbable works. After an unholy accident scars Sol and leaves him with an unusual power, he is forced to flee his guild and travel to Periculus, where his only hope of redemption lies in exposing Pureburn as a fraud.

However, upon arriving at Periculus, Sol discovers a settlement on the edge. Pureburn has gathered around him an army of religious fanatics who control Periculus through fear, fire and bloodshed. Determined to stop his insidious influence before it is too late, Sol attempts to forge alliances with other newly arrived inhabitants of Periculus who have been disadvantaged by Pureburn. However, the deeper Sol dives into Pureburn’s actions, the more danger he finds himself in, as this seemingly holy man hides a dark and disturbing secret. Worse, even more terrible dangers are affecting people within the dome, as twisted creatures roam the shadows, and the humans are struck with a dark rage that drives them to great acts of violence. As the forces within gather for a final deadly confrontation, the fate of both Periculus and the entirety of Hive Primus hangs in the balance.

Fire Made Flesh was an interesting and impressive read that did an amazing job of bringing the twisted maze of the Necromunda Underhive to life. This was actually the debut novel of author Denny Flowers, who has previously written some fun Necromunda short fiction and novellas but had yet to produce a full-length book. This turned out to be a pretty awesome first novel from Flowers, and I had an outstanding time getting through the intense story, especially with its unique locales and outrageous characters, and it was a fantastic piece of Necromunda fiction.

To see the full review, click on the link below:
https://unseenlibrary.com/2021/10/19/...

For other exciting reviews and content, check out my blog at:
https://unseenlibrary.com/

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fire made flesh felt a bit lukewarm for me. Nothing's in there that I genuinely did not like but it overstays its welcome and there a bit to many characters and plot lines happening all at once. A bigger problem though was that I was not that invested in the main antagonism between Sol and Pureburn, its not bad per se but Sol did not convince me and pureburn does not come across as that particularly bad, bright or anything else really while it is from the start clear that he supposed to be all that.

Characters I did like were chainlord Vitae, she is a good character with lots of depth to her, lord sorrow the corpsestarch guilder is good and I would preferred it if he had been the main character. On the side part; there is the lawman Canndis, standard lawman in the judge dredd inspired tradition of Necromunda, always fun when done right. Lastly I liked Titus, the Cawdor fanatic, well written religius zealot. Then there the characters I did not like so much. Anguish, the delague agent... my issue with her is that brings up a bigger question I have held about house delague for a long time; how can they have all that tech? Does house delague have regular workers and soldiers and gangers? Fire made flesh makes you wonder why they are even still there where they are at that level, should they not have moved up by now? Then we have Caleb and Ikotomi the ratskin; these two are good example of overdeveloppedness I experienced, they feel as main characters but they aren't and their sideshow could not engage met that much. Finally we have the brother and sister duo; these are okish but again, introduced as quite a lot but not amounting to much.

Although the ending made up for a lot of shortcomings and misgivings I had reading up to it; to me fire made flesh feels a bit too ambitious for what it intended to do, several good characters can't make up for that in the end.

[Evan Flack · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars but I'll round up because debut novel and I loooove Necromunda. Likely a hot take but I didn't enjoy this novel nearly as much as I thought I would. I want to give it a higher review simply because it's the only full-length novel I have found related to the Underhive. However, it took me twice as long to finish compared to almost any other 40k book I have read. It is NOT a bad novel, and if you are going in as a fan of Necromunda im pretty damn sure that you will have an overall enjoyable time.

My main criticisms were that, although rich with various characters, I never felt like we truly knew any of them nor cared what happened to them. You could counter this point with "life is cheap and fast in the underhive" but that simply does not make for a captivating novel. That being said, the characters we did meet were varied and colorful.

The biggest issue imo of this novel is that it did not do much to expand upon the lore that already exists. Perhaps that is difficult to do when the multitude of existing rule books/ gang books provide such rich world building and lore within their pages. Despite being a fun story, it sadly didn't feel unique to me. We spent time with multiple gangs and guild members and it was rewarding to have a nice, intertextual dopamine release when various Necromundan elements are mentioned (i.e., the process of harvesting and distributing corpse starch and those that work in such a trade.) I will be happy with that and wish Mr. Flowers luck on his next endeavor.

[Esoteric Anthropologist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a nice book. It had distinct characters with consistent personalities and solid dialogue (I really liked Caleb and Sorrow), although the main character of Sol seems to slowly fall more and more by the wayside.

Also adds to the Necromunda with increased worldbuilding about how the Guilds function, which are usually just mentioned in passing or as nefarious side-characters in other books.

However, the book does have some issues. I found the ending a little bit confusing and the epilogue sort of just makes the ending worse. Also despite most of the story taking place in a single hab-dome, there's quite little description about how it actually looks like, or any solutions to its mysterious past, and by the end of the book you know barely anything more about it than at the beginning.

[Jared Wasserman · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I only read galaxy-scale 40k"

These folks are missing out on the wonderful characters and world development Denny Flowers shows in Fire Made Flesh. Set on Necromunda, and primarily focused on the Guilds rather than the Clan Houses, the best praise I can give it is that every character felt memorable and for each one I was reading about, I was missing all of the others. From the painfully practical Mercator Lux, to the delightful Mercator Pallidus, to the terrifying and manipulative Mercator Pyros. Throw in some House Delaque and House Cawdor and you've got a good time on your hands!

[Nils Ax · Rating 3 out of 5]

My initial reaction to Fire Made Flesh was that the dialogue felt predictable and overdone, making parts of the book seem excessive. However, as the story progressed into Act 3, I found myself more engaged and invested. Although we follow a large cast of characters, by the time I reached Act 2 I was able to keep track of each one without difficulty. Despite the bumpy start, the book ultimately won me over for a three star rating.

[Martin Herrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

WH40K rarely disappoints. Dark, post-apocalyptic, religious zealots, buried cities with lost technology, gladiators, spies, slavery, fascism, cosmic horror and magic...it's all here.

This book is a little like Mad Max meets Bladerunner in vibes. Really enjoyed the characters of Sol, Sorrow, and Anguis. Pretty straightforward antagonist figure, but not all simple.

[Nicholas Fulwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best Warhammer books. All the characters were interesting and memorable, the plot wasn't absurd, and plenty of the core mysteries were left up to speculation. Also, in my head there was a Delaque love interest, so that's weird and great.

[Peter Dillon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall exciting and well thought out. The pacing seemed a bit off with the climax of the book occurring 2/3rds of the way through and then partly overstating its welcome. Characters well written, descriptions of space and atmosphere gritty and enveloping.

[nooker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not one of the strongest titles, but still good. It did contain most of the gangs in some way or another, which is a huge bonus. No Van Saar, as usual.

[Станислав · Rating 3 out of 5]

Планете не хватает Кёрза. Все эти ульевые разборки выглядят как игра с нулевой суммой, особенно когда не знаешь кто-есть-кто. Написано бодро.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read about the hive cities. It did well to capture the setting's feeling and climate.

[Cameron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Love the setting, great plot, some of my favorite factions, terrible delivery, pacing, and flat characters. Made worse as an audiobook by a narrator who kept whispering.

[doowopapocalypse · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dizzying web of intrigue with perhaps an iron or two too many in the witch-fire.

[Sam Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grimdark brutality and a tight storyline, just what I like from my Warhammer novels!