Helsreach (Reviews)

[Brother Tyler]

Helsreach
Aaron Dembski-Bowden
April 2010
Recommended Tag: Helsreach novel

When the world of Armageddon is attacked by orks, the Black Templars Space Marine Chapter are amongst those sent to liberate it. Chaplain Grimaldus and a band of Black Templars are charged with the defence of Hive Helsreach from the xenos invaders in one of the many battlezones. But as the orks numbers grow and the Space Marines dwindle, Grimaldus faces a desperate last stand in an Imperial temple. Determined to sell their lives dearly, will the Black Templars hold on long enough to be reinforced, or will their sacrifice ultimately be in vain?

Black Library
Goodreads

B&C Reviews:
Roomsky (Oct 2018)

B&C Discussions:
(None yet)

Search Index:
Black Templars Chapter
Grimaldus
Third War for Armageddon

[Roomsky]

Helsreach – Aaron Dembski-Bowden

 

Ho ho, :cuss yeah. I’ve spoken before about how I always prefer my marines to have human qualities, rather than just being big humans, and more than anything this book fits the bill. And, as always, the battle itself takes a backseat in favour of exploring the people who fight it, forming a nice thematic arc for Grimaldus coming into his own, while never ignoring the virtues that got him elected to his new position in the first place. Great characters, great themes, and frankly, great action that never overstays its welcome, Helsreach ties with Know no Fear for my absolute favourite out-and-out battle book. I’d gush more, but I like to keep these brief.

 

ANR: 9/10

Must-Read

[Brother Tyler]

This is the first of the review topics that were brought up here.

 

The purpose (for now) is to tweak the format to get something that provides the most use to the community.

 

Once we get a basic templated finalized, I'll move forward with creating similar topics for other publications (and all of the tweaking discussion in this topic will be removed, or possibly moved over to the other discussion I linked).

 

One thing we're not going to do is create some template for reviews. For example, Roomsky uses an X/10 scale. Other members may want to use other ratings. What I might do is provide some graphics that members can use. Beyond that, members will have the freedom to provide reviews in whatever format they want.

 

The link to the Black Library site will take members to the ebook version, since that one will remain available longer than print versions. When books are first published and might not have ebook versions, we'll simply link to whatever is available.

 

The link to Goodreads takes members directly to the page for the book at that site. For those that don't know of Goodreads, it is a site with reviews of just about any book you can think of. I've favored Goodreads over Amazon for this because Amazon is fractured between different formats of the same book, whereas Goodreads has all versions covered on the same page.

[Brother Tyler]

I made some minor tweaks to the format. Instead of using multiple posts (as conceived here), I consolidated the various elements into a single post. I considered using headers, but those took up too much space and dominated the post. I switched to the colored background and bold black text instead.

 

The "Search Index" listings are significant elements of the book/novel/novella/story that would be useful when using the search engine here at the B&C (or even outside the B&C). I've populated a basic starting list, but we can easily expand it with input from members that have read the book. Topics should be relevant to the fiction and with some level of specificity. For example, I haven't included "Orks" or "Imperium" or "Space Marines" because those are too broad.