Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds by Mark Clapham

[DarkChaplain]

Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds is out today.

 

http://www.blacklibrary.com/Images/Product/DefaultBL/xlarge/BLPROCESSED-Tyrant-of-the-Hollow-Worlds.jpg

 

 

When Huron Blackheart leads his warband of Red Corsairs to attack the Hollow Worlds of Lastrati, the human defenders can do little to protect themselves against such powerful enemies. Will the arrival of the Space Wolves turn the tide?

 

The Imperium fights a constant battle to defend itself from its many enemies, but few are as deadly or as relentless as the Chaos Space Marines. Bearing a grudge that dates back 10,000 years to the Heresy, these fallen angels are driven by hatred and an overwhelming desire for revenge. When Huron Blackheart leads his warband of Red Corsairs to attack the Hollow Worlds of Lastrati, the human defenders can do little to protect themselves against such powerful enemies. By the time the Space Wolves arrive, the Red Corsairs are already well entrenched. With neither side prepared to withdraw nor concede defeat, the battle spirals out of control – will the Hollow Worlds be destroyed by the forces of destruction that have been unleashed?

 

What are the Hollow Worlds? Are they actually hollow? And what does the Tyrant of Badab want with them? Find out the answers to all these questions, and get a healthy dose of Space Wolves vs Chaos action in this epic novel.

http://www.blacklibrary.com/new-titles/new-novs/tyrant-of-the-hollow-worlds-ebook.html

Extracts: Epub - Mobi

 

I have only read a few short stories featuring Huron Blackheart so far, and obviously his part in the Night Lords series. Anybody already read this one via Black Library Live, or know how much this hinges on the other stories, or references them? There's a bunch, most by Sarah Cawkwell, like The Gildar Rift. I'm not sure I want to plunge into this one anytime soon if the benefits from having read the rest are as big as I expect them to be.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

Im pretty sure there is a blurb about this,  where Huron and company defeat like 5 wolf great companies and allies for these worlds.

 

So HeritorA will enjoy this at the very least

[Kelborn]

Shall we bet that he insists that there was too much plot armor on the Wolves for not dying in the first chapter? ;)

[deathspectersgt7]

Another Huron sticking it to the Wolves no thank you.

[DarkChaplain]

It actually seems to lead up to the part with the Wolf of Fenris and the battle at Parenxes. That's when surviving Wolves turn and join the Red Corsairs and Huron captures the ship.

This seems to be set not long after the Badab War.

 

Codex Chaos Space Marines 6th Edition

 

937.M41 The Wolf at Bay
Mustering five companies of Space Wolves, as well as the Cadian 30lst and the Tallarn 14th, the decorated Inquisitor Pranix attempts to reclaim the nine Hollow
Worlds of Lastrati from the traitorous Red Corsairs. The Drop Pods of the Space Wolves crash straight through the Hollow Worlds' algae-crusted surface, and war soon rages throughout the catacombs beneath. Huron Blackheart collapses preselected portions of his tunnel networks with cold precision and timing, isolating and destroying much of the Imperial army sent against him. The invading forces are forced to withdraw.

 

In the Codex, the Wolf of Fenris thing is dated at 995.M41, however, so it seems like this novel is set somewhere between the two.

[Old-Four-Arms]

Hm, looks like the former Astral Claws MoTF (Valthex) has a role ;

left-hand guy on the cover has got at least one of those power-whips...

 

 

Old-Four-Arms

[Biscuittzz]

It actually seems to lead up to the part with the Wolf of Fenris and the battle at Parenxes. That's when surviving Wolves turn and join the Red Corsairs and Huron captures the ship.

This seems to be set not long after the Badab War.

Codex Chaos Space Marines 6th Edition

937.M41 The Wolf at Bay

Mustering five companies of Space Wolves, as well as the Cadian 30lst and the Tallarn 14th, the decorated Inquisitor Pranix attempts to reclaim the nine Hollow

Worlds of Lastrati from the traitorous Red Corsairs. The Drop Pods of the Space Wolves crash straight through the Hollow Worlds' algae-crusted surface, and war soon rages throughout the catacombs beneath. Huron Blackheart collapses preselected portions of his tunnel networks with cold precision and timing, isolating and destroying much of the Imperial army sent against him. The invading forces are forced to withdraw.

In the Codex, the Wolf of Fenris thing is dated at 995.M41, however, so it seems like this novel is set somewhere between the two.

You've basically given the spoiler for those who wouldn't have seen that in the codex.

"Will the arrival of the Space Wolves turn the tide?"

.........no.

[DarkChaplain]

"Yes" and "No", actually ;) We already know that Huron survives and Wolves fans have been long outraged over the following Wolf of Fenris incident. But that doesn't mean that the Wolves and co can't be successful here.

The book doesn't start and end with the Codex blurb, not by a long shot. The result may also be very surprising, because it massively expands on the fluff and throws curveballs. That's what every good Space Marine Battles story is about: Taking a tiny abbreviated fluff bit and turning it into a full-fledged narrative that sets things right, clarifies and expands in unexpected ways. The blurb makes sure to hype up Huron, and leaves it at that. It is only natural that the Codex fluff leaves out the downsides and backlash for its protagonists, and downplays the actions of the foe.

 

Interview with Mark Clapham about the book from Black Library Live:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhfSLxPhKcU

[b1soul]

Frankly, I've never read any BL story with SW as the loyalist whipping boys...it's most often the IF

 

Even the BA got kinda wrecked in the NL series...so I'm interested in how the SW are treated in this book

[HeritorA]

Im pretty sure there is a blurb about this,  where Huron and company defeat like 5 wolf great companies and allies for these worlds.

 

So HeritorA will enjoy this at the very least

I did - immensly! Ty

 

Frankly, I've never read any BL story with SW as the loyalist whipping boys...it's most often the IF

 

Even the BA got kinda wrecked in the NL series...so I'm interested in how the SW are treated in this book

Amazingly :)

[Kelborn]

Now we know how to get you happy.

Good written stuff + dying wolves ^^

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

Like that discovery required any research...

[Kelborn]

*ahem* irony *ahem*

 

I've only read the NL stories which covered the Red Corsairs. How they are depicted in the other novels about them?

 

Really like the namesaking Corsairs or rather like Black Legion 2.0?

[HeritorA]

Now we know how to get you happy.

Good written stuff + dying wolves ^^

 

To be fair - they did good and not so many as I liked died ;)

*ahem* irony *ahem*

 

I've only read the NL stories which covered the Red Corsairs. How they are depicted in the other novels about them?

 

Really like the namesaking Corsairs or rather like Black Legion 2.0?

 

That started long ago - Huron was done that way by A D-B and McNeil in Blood Reaver and Ultramarines short for Honsou progression

[b1soul]

 To be fair - they did good and not so many as I liked died ;)

 

Could you elaborate? Any Wulfen shenanigans?

 

I don't think BL will ever let the Space Puppies die in droves or get utterly crushed

 

...that honour would be reserved for their cousins, the Imperial Bananas

[HeritorA]

To be fair - they did good and not so many as I liked died

Could you elaborate? Any Wulfen shenanigans?

I don't think BL will ever let the Space Puppies die in droves or get utterly crushed

...that honour would be reserved for their cousins, the Imperial Bananas

That's done by GW - which definitely can't count... Cause in the Legacy of Russ and Wrath of Magnus - thousands of SW died, ahem.... Thousandssss - in plural. And still more than several companies left! Does someone read what they wrote?????

To be fair - they did good and not so many as I liked died

Could you elaborate? Any Wulfen shenanigans?

I don't think BL will ever let the Space Puppies die in droves or get utterly crushed

...that honour would be reserved for their cousins, the Imperial Bananas

Plain and 'simple' warfare - SW being Space vikings

[Apothecary Vaddon]

Novel was pretty decent. To use a rather infamous set of terminology around these parts: the 'prose' was okay. Mainly the wording and choice of said words in a couple different areas was a bit wonky but nothing that got too much in the way. Rather surprisingly the story did a pretty great job of showing two sides getting decimated. Ended on an interesting note.

[HeritorA]

Novel was pretty decent. To use a rather infamous set of terminology around these parts: the 'prose' was okay. Mainly the wording and choice of said words in a couple different areas was a bit wonky but nothing that got too much in the way. Rather surprisingly the story did a pretty great job of showing two sides getting decimated. Ended on an interesting note.

Exactly Apothecary Vaddon. You pinpointed what I wasn't able to do myself - to decide what I didn't like. And it's a prose - a bit wonky indeed.

[Mellow]

That's done by GW - which definitely can't count... Cause in the Legacy of Russ and Wrath of Magnus - thousands of SW died, ahem.... Thousandssss - in plural. And still more than several companies left! Does someone read what they wrote?????

They never did follow the codex

[HeritorA]

 

That's done by GW - which definitely can't count... Cause in the Legacy of Russ and Wrath of Magnus - thousands of SW died, ahem.... Thousandssss - in plural. And still more than several companies left! Does someone read what they wrote?????

They never did follow the codex

 

They do understand that they killed more SW that exist in the universe at 1 point of time? And armor, fliers destroyed are in numbers of a Legion, not a Chapter

[RobMac]

 

That's done by GW - which definitely can't count... Cause in the Legacy of Russ and Wrath of Magnus - thousands of SW died, ahem.... Thousandssss - in plural. And still more than several companies left! Does someone read what they wrote?????

Several hundred Wolves died in Legacy of Russ - I went over this in detail in the Space Wolves subforum on here. I was very careful with the casualty ratios. Only two Great Companies suffered over 50% losses, and even then only slightly over. 

[HeritorA]

 

 

That's done by GW - which definitely can't count... Cause in the Legacy of Russ and Wrath of Magnus - thousands of SW died, ahem.... Thousandssss - in plural. And still more than several companies left! Does someone read what they wrote?????

Several hundred Wolves died in Legacy of Russ - I went over this in detail in the Space Wolves subforum on here. I was very careful with the casualty ratios. Only two Great Companies suffered over 50% losses, and even then only slightly over. 

 

Add Wrath of Magnus and forces that's left - SW chapter now counts more then 3k of space mahrines?

[bluntblade]

 

To be fair - they did good and not so many as I liked died ;)

Could you elaborate? Any Wulfen shenanigans?

I don't think BL will ever let the Space Puppies die in droves or get utterly crushed

...that honour would be reserved for their cousins, the Imperial Bananas

I'm really quite cross that my tablet won't let me link the Minions "banana!" GIF

[HeritorA]

To be fair - they did good and not so many as I liked died

Could you elaborate? Any Wulfen shenanigans?

I don't think BL will ever let the Space Puppies die in droves or get utterly crushed

...that honour would be reserved for their cousins, the Imperial Bananas

I'm really quite cross that my tablet won't let me link the Minions "banana!" GIF

That was brilliant! Simply brilliant! Ty sir!

[Xisor]

Hey folks,

 

I finished this at the weekend, it's an excellent book. One of the more comprehensive Space Marine books I've read in a long while.

 

When I say comprehensive, I mean it gives a sense of scope and scale that few other books. The Red Corsairs have a lovely sense of size to their actions - the fight scenes tend to be illustrative of seizing ground, pushing objectives and so forth.

 

The flip-of that is done very well too - we get an excellent cast of characters, with very many on 'the other side' - not merely the Space Wolves off the cover, but also various humans of the Lastrati ('The Hollow Worlds of Lastrati'). There's dozens of pieces in here that are typically left out of other works, such as neutralisation of communications, the problems associated with 'running off to get reinforcements' (e.g. they don't come quickly).

 

There's a huge amount of very lovely character vignettes throughout (the most memorable for me being Trantor - a Red Corsair who'd had brain damage that meant his memories, after more than a few minutes, immediately transformed to 'the distant past'), with a stellar amount of insightful observations, interesting prose (that skirts the boundary of becoming pure poetry in quite a few places) and a lot of interesting choices in what to show, and when.

 

In terms of 'complaints' they're few and didn't adversely impact my enjoyment, so easily listed:

- Heavier on the 'tell' than the 'show', mostly thanks to the grand sprawl of characters, but fortunately the scale and time-span of the conflict really benefit from this.

 

- It's a perennial thing in GW stories, so no unique issue here, but given the great handling of the scale otherwise, but the 'command structure' of the Red Corsairs felt a touch... horizontal. (Huron->{Valthex,Anto,Garreon}->'Captains'->Squad Marines. In short, if felt like perhaps Valthex, Anto, Garron & especially Rotaka perhaps would have benefited from having their own underlings between them and the line-trooper corsairs. It meant the Red Corsairs seem like an incredibly small force, even though the strike detail of what is actually happening make it plainly not the case.

 

- Huron was a touch too angry, for my tastes. Again, this isn't a feature unique to this book (hell - plenty of characters in the esteemed Horus Heresy fall into this category) - but it's one that if he'd had a touch more to him (that wasn't simply flashbacks to Lufgt, or reminisces by others), the whole thing would have run even better than it did.

 

- Air cover. The interior of the Hollow Worlds seem a really fascinating place to have air-borne sequences. Again, this is often the case in 40k that air power is routinely overlooked/ignored/omitted for various reasons - but it felt like it'd have been a great thing to display in here (with excellent twists), or if deliberately excluded - it would have accompanied many of the interesting observations and exclusions otherwise death with in the book.

 

But, by the by, those are pervasive problems that occur throughout the Black Library demonstrated herein, not that should be seen as damning for this book.

 

----

 

But back on topic - the creative excellence. There's a lot of utterly mind-boggling (but well-presented) stuff in here. The Hollow Worlds themselves sit front and centre in this - they're a pervasive oddness that underpins/overhangs the entire story and really makes what is ostensibly a simple, long, thorough tale sprout very strange legs of its own.

 

There's a great degree of other choices in the novel that, in their depiction, offered really new and exciting things in BL fiction.

 

Foremost, the Space Wolves' armoured column that stages an ambush around halfway through. Individually, the pieces are pretty simple and innocuous enough - but the sweep of it - a simple demonstration of some Chaos Space Marines and some Space Wolves fighting a 'typical' 40k-ish scale battle was mega-cool. It's a tiny touch, but with its placement in the story, it really leapt out and spoke to me.

 

It's amplified, I think, by the characterisation of Folkvar and his compatriots - and that it's one of the first 'clashes' between antagonist and protagonist too, but without seeming inevitable, or inescapable, or consequence-less or even too foretold/portentous too. It's a very well measured, 'simple' scene and it worked excellently.

 

Logistics: quite a lot of the story's conflict and plot-arcs are actually dependent on the 'mechanics' of fighting war - the problems of conquest, competing objectives, the nature of victory and so forth. It goes from a personal scale right up to interplanetary violence - it works very well.

 

There was also the use of naval warfare (and imagery) which I thought was a little treat in the book. It's nothing too deep (for any maritime experts/enthusiasts), but it was very evocative and inventive in its use. (Compare to Gav's Kadillus and Aaron's Helsreach that have a little bit of at-sea/harbourside - and this shows how it's an element that 40k massively underuses.)

 

Some people might be aware of my general dislike of the novel Brothers of the Snake - but less well ranted about is the few things I grudgingly concede as excellent from that novel. Foremost, it's a nice, relatively personal meandering story about some guys doing some stuff over some space for some time. Secondly, the sheer imagery that Dan evoked in the novel is a delight (I'm especially fond of the beach-scenes with the Marines on Ithaka).

 

In many respects, Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds is a similar novel - but, for my tastes, features absolutely nothing that I found egregious in Brothers of the Snake. Instead, it pushes a low-key 'personal' story, bolstered by innumerable incidental/antagonist character pieces throughout the story. It provides a vast sweep of insights and an absolute ton (in sheer quantity!) of story - the book is gargantuan!

 

It's also very... sci-fi. There's a great swathe of oddness and 'mad' stuff going on in the book, and the characters actually come off really well - really 'human' (or once-human) as a consequence of it. The eventual sweep of Rotaka's story, slow burn as it is, is a raw, somewhat horrific delight - meaning that by the end of the story, and all the craziness that accompanies it, is completely founded on a lot of competing, well-invested high-stakes.

 

---

 

In short: it's really rather good.