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Chaos Space Marine Week 2022
A Small Cog
A Chaos Space Marines Story
Renegade Space Marines engage in battle with a single resourceful tech-priest – featuring The Fallen!
READ IT BECAUSE
It's a story of desperate and ingenious battle against an overpowering foe – with a tech-priest at the heart of it.
THE STORY
A lone tech-priest labours on a remote planet. When his post is attacked by renegade Space Marines, this isolated disciple of the Omnissiah must use all his resources to defend the local populace.
Renegade Space Marines engage in battle with a single resourceful tech-priest – featuring The Fallen!
READ IT BECAUSE
It's a story of desperate and ingenious battle against an overpowering foe – with a tech-priest at the heart of it.
THE STORY
A lone tech-priest labours on a remote planet. When his post is attacked by renegade Space Marines, this isolated disciple of the Omnissiah must use all his resources to defend the local populace.
61 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 24, 2022
4 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Mitchel Scanlon
39 books45 followersMitchel Scanlon is a British writer of science fiction novels and comics. He wrote novels for the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, and novels featuring 2000 AD character Judge Anderson. He also writes a comic series called Tales of Hellbrandt Grimm.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 2, 2022
‘Always remember, you are a small cog in our order’s endeavours. We are all small cogs, though each with a place in the Machine-God’s greater design.’
July 12, 2022
Out of all the stories released as part of the Chaos Space Marines Week 2022, "A Small Cog" was the one I was looking forward to the most. The moment I saw that it was about the Fallen, I was hyped. I honestly can't think of a story containing the Fallen that isn't about the Dark Angels' vendetta against them, so it was a welcomed sight to not only see a story about them but also written by the author who started their's and the Dark Angels' arc for the Horus Heresy.
However, while labeled a Fallen story, it is better to classify it as an Ad Mech story. The main character is a tech priest who has been reassigned to a backwater for failure with his forge's quota (though the ending suggests there may be more to it). It is his POV and thoughts that the story follows, and a Fallen only gets involved with the story at the end.
While "A Small Cog" is not what I expected in terms of Fallen content, the content more than made up for it. The main character's relationship with the menials he drafted from the local populace added a new dynamic for an Ad Mech story and brought some emotional resonance to the story.
The fight the main character gets into also was quite well. For a while, my eyes tend to glaze over when a fight scene happens, but this one kept me interested and engaged. It also serves as a hint to the ending.
It was nice to see Mitchel Scanlon pen another story for the Black Library after all these years. I hope he writes a follow-up, either as another short story or a full-blown novel.
However, while labeled a Fallen story, it is better to classify it as an Ad Mech story. The main character is a tech priest who has been reassigned to a backwater for failure with his forge's quota (though the ending suggests there may be more to it). It is his POV and thoughts that the story follows, and a Fallen only gets involved with the story at the end.
While "A Small Cog" is not what I expected in terms of Fallen content, the content more than made up for it. The main character's relationship with the menials he drafted from the local populace added a new dynamic for an Ad Mech story and brought some emotional resonance to the story.
The fight the main character gets into also was quite well. For a while, my eyes tend to glaze over when a fight scene happens, but this one kept me interested and engaged. It also serves as a hint to the ending.
It was nice to see Mitchel Scanlon pen another story for the Black Library after all these years. I hope he writes a follow-up, either as another short story or a full-blown novel.
July 8, 2024
It's funny to think why Mitchel Scanlon hasn't written more for Black Library since he has a knack for compelling writing. Crafting a world with depth of lore, equal life and destruction coupled with believable characters; Vornis himself struggling to fight his buried emotions alone was worth the read.
I could dredge up my memories of my first 40K book, Scanlon's Fifteen Hours to solidify why I believe he is an underrated writer for BL but that is a tale for another day...
I could dredge up my memories of my first 40K book, Scanlon's Fifteen Hours to solidify why I believe he is an underrated writer for BL but that is a tale for another day...
June 26, 2022
A Fallen story that is actually very good and not just the usual paranoid schizophrenia displayed by the First legion fallen or not
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews