Sons of the Hydra

[Fire Golem]

A new (40k) Alpha Legion novel is available a bit early as ebook. Rob Sanders is the author, I’ve only read the Serpent Beneath by him which personally I really enjoyed. I think I’ll wait to see people’s thoughts on this.

 

https://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/sons-of-the-hydra-ebook.html

[Scribe]

I was just thinking of how I missed reading anything from Sanders. Legion of the Damned and Serpent Beneath are some of my favorites.

 

I may grab this.

[Fire Golem]

I was just thinking of how I missed reading anything from Sanders. Legion of the Damned and Serpent Beneath are some of my favorites.

 

I may grab this.

Please share your thoughts if you do!

[Calas Typhon]

Holy :cuss, gonna pick this up now and get through it

[Apothecary Vaddon]

hedging my bets on luther showing up at the end

[Bulwyf]

I'm also curious with reviews if people want to share them.

[Xin Ceithan]

Just finished this. This was ... unexpected. In a good way. Which is pretty Alpha Legion on it's own, I guess :)

 

I am not sure if my spoiler warning works right on my mobile, so I will be a bit vague here and not go into details to much.

If you want to go into this unprepared, do not go further.

 

So,

Story follows a small warband of AL ( just a squad of Astartes with mortal entourage) which have banded together with other cells to form the "Sons of the Hydra" operating around the Maelstrom. It is full of twists and lies and daring and double crossing and plays wonderfully with the hidden agendas and rumors regarding the Legion, it's loyalites (including the Cabal issue) and the fate of the primarch.

It is in many ways more "The A-Team" than some people might like but works for me, especially since it feels less bolter-pornish during the fight scenes. There is an unhealthy plasma affinity here, though.

The most brilliant idea to me is using a group of Alpha Legionaires who are not originally of the Legion. Which is brilliant as you get an " inside view " that is still removed from the Legion you expect and has the "unreliable narrator " built in from the get go. You have an example of how M41 Legion operations might run but if you do not like it, your Alpha Legion can operate the way you always thought they do.

The main characters are fun to follow and you get to see a few areas of the galaxy we haven't been to which I always like even if the naming is sometimes a bit heavy handed ( the loyalist stronghold is Bas-Ilica, for the Gods sake). The Alpha Legion gets to play at the fate of the Galaxy and you will walk away none the wiser after reading this than before.

 

Oh...as a challenge, have a head of the Hydra or a snake tail tattooed every time the word "demigod" is used over the course of this book - the Holy Oreos will have you rounded up as an AL sympathizer half way through the book, I am afraid.

 

But then, to quote from the book "We are Alpha Legion. We find a way."

[Kelborn]

Thanks.

 

Is it tied to the other AL book which was released a earlier this year as part of a series? Or are both of them stand-alone?

 

I've seen some rumors regarding Omegon concerning this book. Is he mentioned in it or something like this?

[Xin Ceithan]

I have not read the other book (yet) so I can not say if there are any clever references here.

It works well as a stand alone book anyway.

 

Regarding Omegon....let's say that the protagonist's views and hopes regarding Omegon and his fate is the major hook to get him involved in the book's main plot and that those questions about Omegon's fate are tied to the resolution of that plot. Let's say it's ... complicated ; )

 

Edited with additional spoiler: There is a former Dark Angel in it. But not Luthor.

[Calas Typhon]

Can we get spoilers on the book? I am waiting for the hardcover and don't particularly want to get the ebook

[Lucerne]

There are a lot of nods to the author's previous AL short story, and the background behind the events there is laid out.

[Kelborn]

Brother Chapter Master Valrak just uploaded a video covering the Sons of the Hydra. Beware of major spoilers and his own humble opinion.

[Xin Ceithan]

Minor spoiler alert:

I personally feel that the ultimate fate of Omegon in particularly and the ultimate loyalty of the Alpha Legion should remain among the things never to finally resolved in the Lore. Like the missing primarch/ Legions. Enough nuggets to get some ideas playing but enough grey areas not to strangle something.

Which is why I like the Omegon plot line here. It gives a motivation to the main character, a carrot for the reader and a nice twist along the way and enough unresolved or open space to speculate and still resolves the books plot without a proper wrapping up. It gives you an answer but not THE answer.

I feel with AL the less you see, the better. I was pretty sceptival about this book or any AL story in general as I think there is no " right" or " definitive" way to do them justice from the inside. It's hard enough from the outside. It why I like this book so much. You get Alpha Legion but enough distance from the Legion. There is plotting and doubled dealing and covert ops but it is not only moustache twirling and mcguyverism. There are some long term plots and deceptions and the Untrue is quite the Man with the Plan but it also not everything goes according to plan but the Warband has to adapt to some things on the spot and think on their feet. The Warband itself is made up by Astartes who are AL because of this and by choice rather than geengineered Super James Bonds because they are all Mini Alpharius Because of AL geneseed. Which is also fine. Especially the M41 AL should be about the Legion. Leave the Primarch focus to the HH. I also feel that it should be strength and focus when dealing with the AL and in a way continues the ideas of the old IA articles and what Abnett boiled down in his book's title. LEGION. Not Alpharius. Not Omegon. Not Bourne or whatever. LEGION.

 

Fun Fact: I think no one uses the "I am Alpharius" thing in this one.

 

Also, I am rambling and really need to go to bed now.

 

Dissemble!

[Petitioner's City]

I found myself disappointed in this one; there were some good things in it ...

 

 

- none of the main characters were originally Alpha Legion; they are all renegades who have taken on the legion mantle and fight for the emperor still, indeed seemingly believing in the God-Emperor. 

- it is set about the time of the emergence of the Red Corsairs; at the same time as or soon after the war in Badab a AL harrowmaster nicknamed Angelbane sought out to snuff out as many UM-derived chapters on the far side of the Maelstrom.

- the Word Bearers planet is quite evocative, with its technodaemons and shipyards and so on.

 

 

But ... overall, very disappointed. 

 

 

- everyone dies, often in desultory and casual ways that attempt to be spectacular but are just ... pathetic. There could be real pathos here, or a comment on this eternal war, but it often feels like Reynolds just is rolling randomly about who needs to die when, or how he needs to get rid of excess enemies. 

- there is no real examination of the Legion, no attempt to understand Occam - who he was, why he became AL, what he hopes to achieve, really - nor the other true legionnaires he encounters. 

- the scene with the Grey Knights - despite being super secret, our 'heroes' know exactly who they are and ... happen to have a deux/daemon ex machina to take care of them. It's rediculous, like a silly animation or comic book or a Final Fantasy gone wrong... And it's not the only time it happens. 

- none of the skill of Reynolds' short stories or Serpent Beneath comes through here, the prose is often really bland, the machinations of the Legionaires or other forces silly, the characterisation absent. 

- Overall, really sad about this. 

 

[rendingon1+]

Book was written by Sanders not Reynolds...

 

[Taliesin]

Poor Josh. PC tore his ear off and he has no idea.

[Petitioner's City]

Book was written by Sanders not Reynolds...

My bad! Still ... Not happy with it.

[b1soul]

Sanders gets a lot of praise...I'm not too impressed. Probably in the minority here, but I found Atlas Infernal and Legion of the Damned to be thoroughly mediocre.

 

I thought Long Games of Carcharias' rather far-fetched entered the realm of AL parody.

 

I much prefer Abnett's AL. They're uniwue specialists who are far from a silly meme.

[DarkChaplain]

I haven't read the book yet, but that's at least partially due to a bit of a lack of enthusiasm when it comes to Sanders' work as well.

 

Looking back, I didn't enjoy The Honoured much, especially next to Annandale's The Unburdened. His Shadow of Ullanor for The Beast Arises was the weakest book in the series and full of inconsistencies. My most recent Sanders review was for Cybernetica, and that I really had a hard time getting through - it got weaker as it moved along, skipping interesting bits and devolving into a rather gamey scenario with boss battle. His two parts of the Space Wolves serialization for Legends of the Dark Millennium also switched up the style of what was pieced together into a novel and had some consistency problems with the rest. Skitarius also didn't wow me, so I haven't read Tech-Priest yet.

 

I haven't managed to read my paperback of Atlas Infernal yet either. I tried when it was fresh out the gates but felt the prose to be kinda heavy, and the lack of chapter breaks made it wholly unappealing for reading in short bursts. I believe the prologue alone was 50 pages out of those 400, iirc.

Though to be fair, I did enjoy his Archaon: Everchosen A LOT, and his Realmgate Wars stories for Call of Archaon were cool too, properly Tzeentchian.

 

John French's Alpha Legion is pretty over the top with schemes at times too, but his style is, generally, preferable to me. Even though I think he likes them a little too much and forgets about the other plotlines as a result.

[Scribe]

I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally liked Atlas Infernal, felt properly weird, same with Legion of the Damned.

 

I dont know, maybe he just hits the right vibe for me.

[Xin Ceithan]

I think the above summons up quite well why I liked the book in the end.

I went in expecting a moustache whirling train wreck or some heavy handed "revelation" and literally got the A-Team with AL. It was fun and more interesting than your average Space Marine Battles book. This surely isn't THE book on the Legion in M 41. But it gets the job done, which is very AL on it's own.

[Sandlemad]

I also loved the Czevak stories, Legion of the Damned and particularly Sanders' rickety, feverish, rattling-along-at-pulp-speed work in the two WHFB Archaon books but this was a bit of a disappointment.

 

It felt thin and skeletal, like a padded out plot summary rather than a full novel. The whole book was structured as a set of action-y vignettes rather than a story with any particular momentum or connective tissue. I normally like that sort of structure but there was no sense of urgency or escalation. If you told me it was a fix-up novel from earlier short stories, I'd believe you. The staccato prose worked well in getting across the AL's businesslike approach but quickly got tiresome, particularly in action scenes.

 

The characters were pretty thin. The Callidus assassin was seemingly there largely as a reason for a shifting POV. Her relationship with Occam had potential but kind of went nowhere. 

Maybe the idea was to keep the AL characters, Occam particularly, guarded even in their motives but it just felt unfinished and underdeveloped. The other AL operatives were pretty one-note, defined more by their pre-AL background (former Night Lord, former Mentor) than anything solid. Quirks are there (an interest in xenos tech, a weakness for relics) but they're just mentioned as character traits and then don't come up again in dialogue or development.

Contrast that with Ashur-Qai in ADB's Black Legion books. His obsession with prophecy doesn't completely define him but it's a quirk that informs how he interacts with others and how other view him, positively or negatively. It's not something that's mentioned as a flaw and then dropped like a note on an RPG character sheet.

 

Heaps of great ideas though. Getting to see AL operatives fail though simple bad luck interfering with elaborate schemes was nice. So was seeing them be manipulated with almost exactly the same double crosses as they manipulated others with. They're competent in the extreme but not James Bond level.

What PC said about the Red Corsairs is something other 40k novels could benefit from, a good sense of different parts of the galaxy having different big concerns, even if individual worlds are not on the front lines. There's a sense of time and place and everyone in the eastern imperial hierarchy is dreading the ramifications of Huron's return. Sanders' usual twisted talent for naming also stands here, even if there's nothing quite as good as 'Cholercaust'.

 

There was a good realistic sense of what lets a CSM warband survive; the Redacted do well partially because they're competent but more because they have a good ship, a good shipmaster and a uniquely talented techmarine. Reznor's value is made clear, in a similar way to Xarl's combat ability in First Claw. Unlike Talos and crew though, they're able to thrive in this mercenary lifestyle.

 

Overall not great and not what I was hoping for. More like a draft of a better book or a decently fleshed out writeup of an RPG campaign. Not at all terrible, just so-so.

[foto69man]

Much promise, cool premise, and could have been everything I wanted out of an Alpha Legion book......carrying on some of the CIA/Secret Squirrel methods of the HH book..................................and then it fell kinda on it's face.

Still a decent read for he fluff and thoughts though.  Just not up there in the echelons of BL novels.  Le sigh....2.5 out of 5 I would say

[Perrin]

So what are everyone's thoughts about the AL Primarchs in HH and 40k?

 

I haven't read the book but have just finished watching CMV's theory video above and the conversation between Occam and his "Lord Primarch" are interested, but I don't think it means that much. It could be that one of the Primarchs are still alive, and that has been a theory for a while, but the Alpha Legion are well known for having other marines pose as or stand-in for the Primarch many times. Considering that the AL seem to have fractured into warbands, it would make sense for any AL marine that wanted to attract followers to pose as Alpharius.

 

I didn't really like the ending of Praetorian of Dorn so much, 

Alpharius being killed by Dorn was way too heavy-handed for the Alpha Legion. I'm still not sure what was meant to have happened, surely Alpharius knew he couldn't defeat Dorn? Did he mean to have an escape plan? And why would Dorn not take him into custody? Alpharius would be sure to know a lot about the Traitor's plans and Vulkan Lives showed that Primarchs can be broken using torture (I know that Vulkan died multiple times, but still).

 

The final scene with Omegon feeling alone and the author confirming that Alpharius was dead kinda ruined it for me. The book ending with Alpharius being killed, without any comment from the author and without the Omegon scene would have left room for reasonable doubt about whether it was Alpharius or not, which is the whole Alpha Legion theme!

 

I'm a big fan of Guilliman's return to 40k and I'm looking forward to more Primarchs coming back. Hopefully one or both of the Alpha twins are still around to make a triumphant return. Not only that, but with Guillman back we have a 1st hand source of what happened at Eskrador. 

 

 

Slight off-topic, but has it been mentioned anywhere what was up with Omegon's secret grey power armour?

[foto69man]

Omegon ran the effrit squad, but I think that was black stealth armour.  There's always been the fan theory of Alpharius/Omegon being the original leader of the grey knight.  Janus I believe?

All the primarchs have some level of psychic ability.  I don't think that Alpharius died at Dorns hand, I think he did to Girlyman down the road though.  So my bet is one is still alive.  They've done that 'imbue their consciousness' thing on a rando marine before......why not again?