Legacy

Shira Calpurnia #2

by Matthew Farrer

The legendary rogue trader charters: Imperial warrants of unimaginable antiquity, which can bring their bearers wealth and power barely imaginable. Now that Rogue Trader Hoyyon Phrax is dead, his charter is being brought to the great fortress-system of Hydraphur to be ceremonially bequeathed to his son, and already the vultures are circling.

Shira Calpurnia does not want the charter. She can't help wishing she had never heard of the charter. But she has been appointed to ensure that the will and testament of Hoyyon Phrax is carried out according to Imperial law. And that means that when the rival heirs decide that due process be damned and go all-out for their prize, it's Calpurnia and her Arbites who must don their armour, take up their weapons and get ready for action...

Genres: Science Fiction, 40k, Fiction, Fantasy, Novels

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Matthew Farrer writes mostly for Black Library. He lives in Australia.

Reviews

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read in Enforcer: The Shira Calpurnia Omnibus

Something had ended, something had moved on, and now they themselves were free to return to their own lives. For now it was enough to stand in the warm still air of the arboretum and sink into reflection, but soon everything would begin to change.
Their lord and master, Rogue Trader Hoyyon Phrax, was dead. It was time to set course for Hydraphur.

Rogue Traders in the Warhammer 40000 universe are something like a combination of freelance explorers, conquistadores and merchant princes, roaming the worlds beyond Imperial control, exploring and exploiting uncharted regions of the galaxy.

Curate Simova did not consider himself a coward. His duties had taken him to more cloisters than battlefields, but the Adeptus Ministorum was at its heart a militant church and its doctrines never shied from violence. Nevertheless, at that moment he felt glad to have the line of Arbites between him and what was about to happen.

Their authority comes from the legendary rogue trader charters, imperial warrants of trade elevating them to the authority equalling Space Marine Chapter Masters, Inquisitors and Planetary Governors.

“It is the role of the Ecclesiarchy to embody and spread the divine word of the Emperor - ” Simova began.
“And the role of the Arbites to enforce laws and decrees and to ensure that all of the Emperor’s Adeptus are in full command of and service to their duties,” finished Calpurnia calmly.

After rich and influent Rogue Trader Hoyyon Phrax dies, his charter is being brought to the great fortress-system of Hydraphur to be ceremonially bequeathed to his legitimate heir so he can claim his rights and the whole fleet part of his legacy.

“The charter stays in the Phrax family, Varro. That’s all. What do you think happens when more than one heir contests the succession? That was why the Arbites were written in. If there’s more than one viable heir the ruling between claimants is theirs.”

But the vultures are already circling, the senior leaders of the Rogue Trader fleet have an alternative heir in their mind, and an ancient Charter of Trade signed by none other than the Emperor himself is an extremely holy relic in the eyes of ambitious clerics interested in claiming it for the greater glory of Hydraphur ecclesiarchy too.

She knew exactly how they felt. She had only been able to concentrate on the details of the succession ceremonies because she had kept the nature of the charter out of her mind. When she allowed herself to think about it the weight of it was almost physical. It made her feel too small, too young.
But duty was duty, and only in death did duty end.

Shira Calpurnia, Arbitor Senioris of the Adeptus Arbites, does not want the charter and she can't help wishing she had never heard about it,  but she's serious about her duty.

“Good,” said Calpurnia, straightening up. “Tell him he is not to give any ground. Literally. Not a millimetre. If they try to force their way forward then he’s to react exactly as he told them he would. No arbitor ever makes an idle threat.” Her left hand rose uncertainly, moving to touch the scars over her eye, then her expression firmed and the hand dropped to rest on the hilt of her power-maul.

So, after being appointed to ensure that the will and testament of Hoyyon Phrax is carried out according to Imperial law, it's Calpurnia and her Arbites who are charged with the mission of solving this whole mess.

“Here you stand, in our courthouse, and you lecture me on the law of the Imperium and how I may or may not go about enforcing it,” said Calpurnia. “What an interesting thing to witness.” Her words were light but her eyes were locked on him like emerald lasers, and only now did Simova realise how furious he had succeeded in making her.

Matthew Farrer's Legacy, second book of the Shira Calpurnia trilogy, is another massive world-building novel about the domestic side of Warhammer 40000, far away from the battlefields of 41st Millennium, giving many interesting insights about organisations of the Imperium and their rivalries too.

“Knowledge is holy and information is holy. We live our lives in the quest for it. The purer the data, the purer the lifeblood of the Machine and the Machine God. Purity of data is the greatest sacrament a priest of the Machine God can hope for. And now you come here with this.” He raised a vial in one shaking hand.

Narration could be confusing because of the multiple points of views from the lots of characters involved, but author made a great work fleshing all of them and giving everyone their distinctive voices.

She would have blocked the way herself, but the hellish storm outside the hull meant that too much of her strength was spent keeping herself upright and her thoughts her own. There was thick, migranous pressure on her temples, and the flashes of power against the Geller field showed in her warp eye like a flash of red through closed eyelids. She sagged against the plain metal wall of the crew-deck.

A whole novel about Rogue Traders and their legacies, Adeptus Arbites charged to apply the Lex Imperia and rule the rightful owners of an ancient relic, fanatical Adeptus Ministorum priests willing to claim it by any means necessary, Adeptus Mechanicus tech-priests charged to examine heir tissue samples and solve hereditary contests, could just sound boring as hell.

A man ran back past them, one of the ratings they had seen earlier. The buzzblade he had carried was splayed out into streamers of metal, some of them threaded into and out of his flesh in a way that stitched his arm to his body. He was howling, scorched, almost naked, insane, and Cherrick felled him with a point-blank hellshot. Varro groaned, but nobody argued: broken minds were a threat in a warp storm.

Surprisingly this is not the case at all, with Arbites busy stopping heretical seditionists busting out of their confinement, donning their armour and take up their weapons too when the rival heirs decide that due process be damned and go all-out for their prize.

It had been unfamiliar with the limitations of the meat it had somehow become snagged in at first, and by the time it had learned that the pitiful little extremities the meat owned were supposed to move only in certain ways most of its joints had been broken or dislocated by the inhuman will moving its muscles.

Action among these pages includes many other great moments ranging from a battle between two tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Genetor-Magos Sanja is just one of most badass cog-boys sons of the Machine God ever included in a novel from Black Library, to a void ship crew fighting for their lives in a warp storm after a geller field flickering unleashed hell aboard... just imagine something like Alien meets The Thing and Event Horizon to make yourself an idea about it.

The shotgun was what it needed: lasfire was a weapon for living creatures, a way to inflict trauma on a live metabolism to the point when it could not continue to function. But to fight something like this you needed a weapon that could not only break up a body but demolish it, physically rip it apart until the knot of will that held the flesh together was exhausted.

No Space Marines purging xenos, mutants, and heretics among these pages but, if you are interested into taking a detailed look into the backstage of Warhammer 40000 and its setting, these series are just what are you looking for.

The Sister Pronatus’ head bowed, and she murmured something that Varro didn’t catch. Calpurnia did, though, and gestured for him to open the book. The Sisters Militant stepped up behind Krovedd and all stared at the marks: the letter, the spot of blood. A single small tear slipped out of Krovedd’s eye and down her cheek.
“It’s enough,” she said in a small voice, and they turned to go.

Highly recommended.

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

For my tastes, this is easily amongst the most wonderful, most vivid, most interesting of novels produced by BL. A definitive look at 'the grim darkness of the far future', almost unmatched before or since.

[Dawie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a better Rogue Trader novel than an Arbites one. The whole passing law as to who was the rightful heir was resolved very quickly but with very dramatic circumstances. A very solid 40K novel in mh eyes.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars

Think this is another Shira Calpurnia novel just because that's what it says on the cover? Wrong, peasant! Tricked ya! Shira is in this book, but that appears to just be to bamboozle the reader into believing that the pointless filler sequences that constitute 90% of her screentime could actually affect literally anything in a substantive way. They don't, though. Spoiler.

Honestly, this reads like the author just wanted to write a Quentin Tarantino movie about shenanigans going on around the transfer of a Rogue Trader's charter, but got told by the publisher they'd only allow it if it were a sequel to the novel that was already a success. And so he just kind of begrudgingly shoehorned his previous MC into the book he actually wanted to write, but without actually changing any of his previous plot points to make it matter that now she's part of the book.

So, why still rate it this high? Answer's simple. A Quentin Tarantino movie in 40K? Yeah, I'll read that. But I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been primed to expect it to be something it actually wasn't - namely, a book that was actually about Shira Calpurnia in any meaningful sense.

[Jiří Pavlovský · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lepší než první kniha trilogie... patrně hlavně díky tomu, že tam hlavní hrdinka vůbec nevystupuje. Je to v podstatě ryzí mafiánka. Zemřel šéf kupeckého rodu, rodu, který měl od samotného Císaře povoleno v rámci rozšiřování území zasahovat podle svých potřeb, a teď se řeší, kdo bude jeho následníkem. Je tu člověk, který na to má dědický nárok, ale s ním nejsou lidé z klanu příliš spokojení, takže se rozhodnou udělat si svého vlastního. Dvě skupiny vyráží skrz galaxii na planetu Hydraphur, aby svedly boj o nepředstavitelnou moc.
Čili, většinu knihy zabírají intriky, úklady a pikle. Což je dobře, protože Farrer si vysloveně libuje v rituálech a obřadech, které je nutné provést, aby všechno proběhlo podle práva. Navíc na každé straně barikády jsou postavy, kteří mají své vlastní plány... a pak ti, kteří se s nimi snaží manipulovat. To všechno by bylo fajn. Jenže tam, kde čekáte velkolepé vyústění toho všeho, nenajdete skoro nic. Jasně, na konci je nějaká přestřelka a spousta mrtvých, ale máte z toho pocit, že autor nejprve pečlivě rozestavoval figury na šachovnici, aby je nakonec smetl ze stolu a vyhlásil "šachmat"! A to u nemluvím o tom, že ty rafinované pikle kupeckých bossů jsou asi na úrovni řidičského průkazu ze Superbad na jméno McLovin. A že akce je tu spíš jen tak navíc, obvykle bez souvislosti s dějem. I tak tam akce zase tolik není, což je jen dobře, protože Farrerovi akce nejde.
Čili, ano, je to lepší než jednička, ale pořád je to spíš slabší kousek. I když s pár pěknými nápady, obrazy a obřady. Matthew Farrer je člověk, kterému by šel popis života na královském dvoře... jen by se nesmělo začít šermovat.

[Lucas Durand · Rating 2 out of 5]

Right up until the end, I was thoroughly enjoying it. The motivations of all parties involved were solid and interesting, the writing was better than the first book, the characterizations were decent, and the plot was a race to the finish that had me gripped.

It's two stars for me because it's essentially pointless. Shira Calpurnia is, honestly, barely in the book, and there is barely any Arbites action at all. Had she not been here, nothing would've been different. Every single major party involves loses in a landslide (Shira's role is essentially just to watch). It's a classic tragedy in that regard, but I also feel like it was purposeless because of that. Nothing happened, in the grand scheme of things. Nothing changed. No wrongs were righted, no disputes really resolved. Just death.

And I get it, it's 40k. The grim darkness of the 41st millennium is one of its selling points. Depressing things happen. But I still like them to *mean* something at the end. This meant absolutely nothing by comparison.

A final note, and this is a spoiler, but the death of children in fictional media will always bother me deeply on a moral level. My soul is revolted by it. Bluntly, the novel to end with the murder of a character's family (his young son and his wife. Even though I fully anticipated it--admittedly, I was rather hoping against it--it left me feeling hollow and depressed. I stayed up way too late on a church night to get hit with this nothing sandwich of a conclusion.

[Станислав · Rating 4 out of 5]

Хорошая книга, называется "Причём здесь Кальпурния?". В смысле она особо не играет роли в сюжете. Который очень забавен. В мире бесконечного превозмогания, две партии решают вопрос с наследством, в суде. Все жульничают. Это уже какой-то плутовской роман. Один кандидат оказывается нормальным, по меркам Вархаммера, человеком: в меру богат, любит своё хобби, развлекается, даже без смертей низших, любит жену, любит ребёнка, хочет жить мирной жизнью. Я всё ждал, что там откроется какой-то страшный секрет. Но нет, проклятая Галактика, разумеется обошлась с ним очень мерзко. Жаль! Второй кандидат, который Нильс Петрона, это просто что-то. Когда эти придурки , свита вольного Торговца, решили его генномодифицировать и подсунуть на суд арбайтес. Меня пробило на смех когда они его привезли. Что-то пошло не так. Я бы сделал чтобы он в конце превратился в Демон-Принца Нургла. Тоже бедняга. Кстати, причём здесь Кальпурния?

[David Matteri · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story of murder and betrayal behind the transition of power within a rogue trader fleet. It was entertaining, but I was disappointed that Calpurnia has such a minor role. She only appears a few times in the beginning and at the end to clean up everyone's mess. It was also difficult to keep track of all the players in this complex web of intrigue. Not the best 40k book I've read, but it still has good world-building and appropriate grim-darkness if that's what you're looking for.

[grosbeak · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very weak: insufficient Calpurnia, and utterly uninteresting/contrived main characters and plot otherwise.

[John Somers · Rating 3 out of 5]

12/20.

[Arthur B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps the best in the trilogy, despite Shira being less central. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...

[Mphecker]

I can’t give this a rating, as I couldn’t even get past the third chapter. I want to like these books, but I feel like the use of phrases like “bitch” break my immersion.

[Ulzeta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite boring.

[Robert McCarroll · Rating 2 out of 5]

What I remember most about this book was the nonsensical ending. The Author had the crew of a transport vessel go "This guy saved our lives in the warp, so we're going to throw our lives away because of his berevement!"

I don't buy it.

I know what the author meant to do. He was trying for a grand tragedy. The problem is, he botched it. The people operating that vessel would not decide to commit suicide because the guy who saved them once lost it over the death of his family. That ending and it's irrational nonsensicality killed all the previous goodwill the rest of the book had built up.

No I am not going to let go my reaction to the crew going "Lets go suffer the most horrific demises possible in the warp because the guy who saved us from a hideous demise in the warp is distraught."

[Rosťa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pokračování dobrodružství Shiry Calpurnie nelze neporovnat s první knihou. Oproti předchozímu dílu je zápletka mnohem přehlednější, aniž by to ubíralo napětí. Příběh ovšem docela postrádá spád a na obrátkách nabírá až na téměř posledních pár stránkách, kde se dostane na pár drobných odhalení a taky na samotnou Calpurnii. Bohužel, většina knihy je jen přípravou na finále kde Calpurnie objeví. Celkově je ale zápletka dobrá a kniha má slušnou úroveň. Byť je znát, že autor není zrovna mistr popisu, v tomtu dílu to tolik nevadí.