Space Marine Heroes

[Roomsky]

This series of novellas seems to be intermittently trickling out, discuss them here. At the time of writing, we have:

 

Death Knell, by Phil Kelly

Blood Rite, by Rachel Harrison

 

I just picked up Blood Rite by Harrison, and I'm excited to see if she tackles marines as well as Guardsmen. Anyone read either of these yet?

[Marshal Rohr]

Oh I love this.

[pandion40]

I just finished Blood Rite and really enjoyed it. A pretty good look at the duality of the Blood Angels, with their Angelic side nicely contrasted against the flaws. The Author did her homework and has a good understanding of the Angels. The focus is very much on the Blood Angel Terminators but their is one female kind of PDF character who makes a decent impression.

 

Story told in 2 time periods with half the story being set at the time of the incident and half being set in a later investigation into the incident. I felt the story was just the correct length and didn’t feel rushed or stretched, not as much room for character development as a full novel but enough for the story.

 

Overall I enjoyed it and will definitely read more from Rachel Harrison especially if she writes more BA, but I’ll be giving her severina raine stories a go to.

Edited September 9, 2019 by pandion40

[Klod]

I'm waiting for my Blood Rite copy to arrive. Glad to hear it's decent. I heard good things about Rachel Harrison.

[Roomsky]

Finished up Blood Rite, it was decent enough. Obviously as a novella it doesn't get to stretch its legs like Honourbound does, but Harrison's ability as a writer is still apparent, and it's probably my favourite look at the Blood Angels we've gotten so far. The balance of humanity and restrained savagery is done very well, and you even get to see the reverence they hold for art here and there.

 

The pace is quite brisk, and the format of switching from past to present and back again keeps what might have been an annoyingly straightforward tale interesting. It's got a pretty strong ending, and I really love the restraint used to describe Chaos here. While most authors go for a purple word salad, Harrison is very sparse with her descriptions of daemons and warp magic, and it comes across as much more otherworldly than we normally get.

 

The big issue here is that the squad of Blood Angels are basically interchangeable besides Sanyctus. The first and second POVs were similar enough that they didn't necessarily need to be different characters, and the rest were essentially clones. Overall though, this was quite solid.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Roomsky

[BluejayJunior]

Finished up Blood Rite, it was decent enough. Obviously as a novella it doesn't get to stretch its legs like Honourbound does, but Harrison's ability as a writer is still apparent, and it's probably my favourite look at the Blood Angels we've gotten so far. The balance of humanity and restrained savagery is done very well, and you even get to see the reverence they hold for art here and there.

 

The pace is quite brisk, and the format of switching from past to present and back again keeps what might have been an annoyingly straightforward tale interesting. It's got a pretty strong ending, and I really love the restraint used to describe Chaos here. While most authors go for a purple word salad, Harrison is very sparse with her descriptions of daemons and warp magic, and it comes across as much more otherworldly than we normally get.

 

The big issue here is that the squad of Blood Angels are basically interchangeable besides Sanyctus. The first and second POVs were similar enough that they didn't necessarily need to be different characters, and the rest were essentially clones. Overall though, this was quite solid.

Just finished it up the other day. I enjoyed it. This is a pretty spot on review of it. 

I have read this and the first Severina Raine short story from Harrison. I enjoyed both and definitely want to read more from her. I like what Guy Haley has done with Blood Angels as well. Hopefully both will continue writing stories for the BA. 

[Klod]

Finished reading Blood Rite. Good stuff, I really liked the ending. Harrison seems to have potential.

[aa.logan]

I’m not sure if reading the earlier comments about interchangeable characters influenced me, but I really did struggle to tell the Blood Angels apart- I understand that with a unit of 5 they should all get names, but given the low page count, maybe they shouldn’t have had (or attempted to have) more personality.

 

Despite this, I did really enjoy the novella. I’ve read most (all?) of Harrison’s work for BL, and couldn’t say for certain that they were all written in the present continuous tense as this one is, but it does carry her hallmarks of fast-pace sequences and distinct non-Astartes characters. For all that they were indistinct as individuals, the Blood Angels as a chapter were very well portrayed, their balancing act between the Thirst/Black Rage and their conscious efforts to be more than just weapons came across clearly.

 

A really solid novella.