The Bookkeeper’s Skull

[cheywood]

While waiting for my copy of TDK: Reign to ship I decided to get a start on this. Ended up finishing it, partially because it’s fast paced and partially because it is extremely short.

 

The story is a first person look at law enforcement and agricultural life on Potence, which Hill first visited in Cadian Honour. While the books share a POV character in Enforcer Rudgard Howe they can be read totally separately. In fact I’d argue The Bookkeeper’s Skull is the rare 40k novel that a newcomer could understand without much effort.

 

Overall I quite liked the story. There’s a lot of brutality, the feeling of being a small cog in an impossibly vast empire, and a good sense of mystery pervading the early chapters. It reminds me of Dark Harvest in terms of its premise, though I think Hill’s work stands on its own in terms of its exploration of how institutional brutality plays out on a micro scale. That said I think the ending was a little undercooked. I wouldn’t have minded more time spent developing characters beyond Howe and deepening mysteries.

 

8.5/10

 

Fair warning, I’d call it one of BL’s more hard to stomach works at times, not so much for the extent of the violence or excessively gory descriptions of it, but because a lot of the brutality feels very plausible compared to the daemon-ridden battlefields we so often see. The banality of evil is on display here I think. It didn’t bother me by any means, I’d call it a nice if disturbing change of pace, but it did stand out.

 

Between this and Traitor Rock I’d say I’ve come around to Hill’s works in the last year. I’ll be curious to see what he does next.

 

There is some discussion of Valgaast, but as far as I can tell it merely continues the theme of Valgaast being a place/name connected to suffering and horror. Maybe those paying more attention will glean some info I missed.

Edited January 17, 2022 by cheywood

[nagashnee]

Sounds like a solid read, will give it a shot.  The fact that the reader got thru it fast is always a good sign.

[theSpirea]

Happy to read a positive review. I hope I will have time to read it soon. Seeing it's only 44K words (shortest Horror novel so far), should be easy to read in one sitting.

[Taliesin]

Still intend to buy and read this, seems interesting. The 200 page length is surprising.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Taliesin

[Roomsky]

The Bookkeeper’s Skull – Justin D. Hill

 

A snappy, quality read – though I once again find myself focusing on the weaknesses of a book I enjoyed quite a bit.

 

Hill’s prose is extremely terse and to the point. He is one of the rare authors in the BL stable I actually think is better disposed to military writing, and that’s reflected here. On a hectic battlefield full of snap, life-or-death character decisions, Hill’s prose is perfect – and while he’s definitely making the effort to be more atmospheric here I was still left wishing the book had more room to breathe. There were exceptions to this – the finale was perfectly suited to Hill’s frenetic pace - the lack of artful build-up through the environment meant that, despite being a sort of 40k farm/hillbilly horror scenario (the horror sub-genre I personally find the scariest,) that aspect of the story felt a bit squandered.

 

Another issue I had was presenting the story in such a way that you knew the protagonist would survive the adventure. The whole ordeal is Howe’s recollection from later in life, and whether or not he exists in another book, having this book acknowledge he’s going to make it deflates much of the tension. Terrini, Agafa, et al. are all perfectly well drawn side characters but I was never worried for them, especially considering Terrini’s a character you want and expect to get his comeuppance rather early on.

 

To switch gears to a positive – this book is still very unnerving. What Hill lacks in atmosphere, he makes up for in shock value (and I mean that in the best possible way.) Hill’s Imperium is monstrous, and I love that. Every description of what Imperial institutions do to people, things that few if any bat an eye at, is terrifying. The book opens describing Gambol, a clown servitor and childhood playmate which frankly makes the skin crawl. The callous disregard Enforcers have for human life and suffering permeates most of the book, and has some truly excessive displays of violence throughout. The real horror here is not the supernatural goings-on in Thorsabour, it’s the reality of living in the Imperium of man.

 

Despite my complaints, the book is extremely solid and has a great core to it. Horror remains one of Black Library’s most consistent brands.

 

ANR: 7/10

To Taste, as all horror is.

[sitnam]

Super excited to start this from the reviews, I’m gonna book club it with my wife once she finishes the Reverie.

 

I’ve read Hills cadian series and he has gotten better every time. Be nice to see something branching from that series

Edited January 18, 2022 by sitnam

[aa.logan]

Opted to listen to this rather than dive into TTDK: Reign, and I’m glad that I did. The length works well and like the potential for brutally honest depictions of like in the Imperium that this imprint offers. It might be the best depiction of how the theocratic nature of the Imperium bleeds into all its institutions; the Enforcer citing the Emperor of the ultimate source of his authority was especially effective. Decent performance from, I think, a BL novel debutant reader too.

 

 

I enjoyed it, a lot, but it suffered in the same way that the early Warhammer Horror novels did- the first few all focused on

literally haunted planetary governors

, and this, like Dark Harvest, had plot focusing on

strange murders in a rural backwater accompanied by the eerie manifestation of scarecrows

I know they’re different settings, but where there is almost infinite potential for storytelling having so many stories relying on such similar plots feels like a slightly missed opportunity.

[Knockagh]

I’m no fan of horror, the genre isn't for me, for a host of reasons but I thought I would give this a go. I really like Justin’s guard books and his necromunda book was top tier too. It’s also based on an agri world so there was just too much the story had going for it to miss out.

Fast little read and for the most part a good story if not a little obvious and cliche. He definitely built upon the world nicely, Justin is making the gallows cluster his own and having one author do that really works.

40k is a brutal setting so I’m sure we are all used to a fair degree of mankind’s brutality in BL fiction, I’m not sure this takes it to a new level, it doesn’t really. There are other non horror books equally as brutal. Is the horror element the suspense? I’m not really qualified to say. Or is it the clown? I didnt like him, at all.

The books ok, good enough story. I always like first person perspective. I probably would have preferred it as a crime book which it could easily have been with a few changes.

One thing I found kinda funny is how writers often think of rural remoteness as scary. The blackness of the rural night and the lack of people. As a rural country bumpkin these are one of the many things I find comforting about country life. My kids think the cities where their grandparents and some friends live is utterly filthy and stinks of people. When you go out at night and can’t hear the night animals or bird song in early mornings for traffic and people noise I find that disconcerting. It’s all perspective.

[Red_Shift]

I started this yesterday evening and read it all in just under three hours. I really enjoyed it. It felt much more of a change of pace than the other horror titles and could have been a crime book. I liked that the main character survived, I find that with the horror books sometimes you’re just waiting for all of the characters to die.

 

Gambol was a very scary character. You have the whole clown thing but the idea that this condemned heretic/criminal whose past you don’t know is having unpredictable rages and changes in character, that could be his own pre-servitor conversion personality creeping through is just kind of horrifying. That they remain on some level aware and in perpetual misery but unable to have any control over their body. 
 

I thought the world building was excellent. The grox  pens for example were well described and I could visualise the whole settlement. Hill clearly has a lot to offer as an author and I look forward to more work from him.

[DukeLeto69]

Just finished this. Loved it. Justin D Hill gets better and better in my opinion. Great story. Loving how Horror and Crime are being used to show us the “domestic” side of 40k.

 

One thing I particularly enjoyed with this story was the horrific casual brutality of the Imperium itself. It was like a horror story set against a setting of bubbling underlying horror ready to erupt at any moment. Not sure if that makes sense but I am trying to say the “horror” is multi-layered and not just plot or character driven.

 

Great book highly recommend.

[grailkeeper]

I've only just started reading this on the basis of the thread. It seems very overwritten- the prose is pretty purple.

 

I'm very very early into it but It's not a great start.

[grailkeeper]

First use of the F word in a BL novel that I've come across.

[DarkChaplain]

I loved it for what it was, but wish it had been - once again - longer. There's a very abrupt shift in gears late in the book, and then it's breakneck-pace to the resolution, which also didn't feel quite earned.

It also was a bit of a bummer how late into the book the most important hint is dropped, and how quickly after it became redundant to ponder.

 

But man, the atmosphere, the casual cruelty, the oppressiveness of the setting.... Justin bloody nailed that. There were so many moments that I felt unsettled and expecting things to turn very sour, all throughout - there was a palpable feeling of danger that drew on both the remoteness of the settlement and the actions of the protagonist and his companion.

 

There were also a few elements that I wish hadn't been left dangling as much as they were. Even looking back at it now, almost a month after finishing it (in, what, two evenings, and only because I got held up by other things and felt too tired to binge it the first!) it really seems like it was intended to be longer, originally. But then, a good horror story will rarely not leave crumbs and fake-outs, anyhow. Still, I would not have been surprised if this had been intended as the first book in a short novel trilogy by Justin; something that Warhammer Horror is now doing with Gothghul Hollow on the AoS side!

 

Either way, though, it was gripping and had a very different modus operandi from the other Horror novels before it. Despite it's brevity, it has few rivals among the imprint when it comes to getting the reader into its world through narrative power.

[grailkeeper]

I agree with Dark Chaplain in some points. The ending just comes out of nowhere and should have been given more time.

 

Some of the casual cruelty of the Imperium is good but it strays well over the line into torture porn. I've always considered the Imperium to be brutally callous but this stuff goes into needlessly sadistic.

 

Hes not afraid to lean into horror stereotypes. Easily a quarter of the book is the main character having nightmares about a scary clown.

 

To me real horror is more grounded than scary clown stuff. If he'd concentrated on giving us a more down to earth setting, with a 40k spin, then built up to the horror, it would have been a lot scarier. I think if he'd gone for a more Dan Abnett style approach of having a believable rounded world then it would have made the horror a lot scarier. Having it start off with a kid playing with a clown servitor was... not that. That didn't scare me. It just made me think about how a servitor makes no sense as a toy for practical reasons like the amount of upkeep it would need.

Edited February 17, 2022 by grailkeeper

[DarkChaplain]

Well, he's not really a kid at the beginning (only in flashbacks); he's a young adult who still happens to own that servitor, but is cutting ties with his "childish" past with his departure from home.

 

Personally, I found this break with his immature past and stumble into a very rough, bloody and remorseless world of corrupt law enforcement rather striking. He's unhinged from the start, but it doesn't really become so evident until he reacts to his first execution. Hill first makes you think he's getting queasy about shooting the guy, but then he's the one least affected by splattering that guy's head over the onlookers - he was merely concerned about his new shiny weapon getting baptized by somebody worthless.

 

All throughout the novel, you can see Rudgard's psychopathic tendencies bubble to the surface. And yes, he's a sadistic jackass. He's only really uncertain in situations where he's confronted by either his controlling, spiteful mother, or by his even more sadistic, vicious, megalomaniacal father, who happens to be the de-facto ruler (despite another authority technically sitting above him), and still takes pleasure in conducting torture-interrogations himself.

 

You can see how this sort of protagonist can come to be and flourish in this environment, with these peers, with this education. The swiftness in which Rudgard earns Tarrini's respect - somebody specifically chosen to be his instructor and test his mettle - highlights just how cold and brutal Rudgard actually is, even compared to some of his siblings, who Terrini also knew and mentions.

 

And I honestly don't think that it's trying to glorify this sort of brutality either - the novel is perfectly aware of how over the top it is, but it's trying to get the reader in a weird spot between rooting for Howe to uncover the mystery, and despising him for his actions and callousness. The horror in part comes from seeing this sort of person thrive on this world - one already rotten to the core by the way it is being run. We're also constantly aware of the villagers not being important whatsoever - only the product they can deliver. It doesn't matter to anyone but themselves that they stay alive, so long as they hand over what they "owe" to the imperial machine. That the entire village had been resettled multiple times already - which is revealed towards the end - shows just how much disdain there is for people's lives.

 

I don't think any of this would have really worked on a typical Abnett-style world or earth-like setting. The totalitarian, heartless setting of Potence is needed to hammer home that there is no escape from this, for anyone; that the spiral of fear within the populace is all there is. They keep their heads down, try to be yes-men to the patrols and hope things pass them by. They're ready to volunteer "offenders" in their midst to soak up the casual brutality of "lawmen" and keep it from hitting them. They hide whatever they can, never playing with open cards in fear of attracting retribution, or rather, the interrogator's fists or knives or a straight bullet to the head.

 

Then there is the horror from realizing that the Imperium pretty much condones this style of government simply because it is efficient and hasn't resulted in any missed tithes. The Imperium is too occupied with waging its wars, with bureaucracy, to ever actually care about living standards on tithe worlds. The Imperium would rather shut its eyes to this sort of stuff than take even a minor hit in grain, algae or nutrient paste. They won't - or can't - risk a drop in produce, lest it result in a chain reaction leaving entire sectors to starve or - worse - rise in rebellion.

 

The murders - as gruesome as they are - aren't the source of dread in this one. The system is.

And the fact that Rudgard Howe survives and succeeds in inheriting his father's office, becoming Chief Enforcer - despite all we've seen of him, and how unjust, brutal and spiteful he is. With him in charge, things are not going to improve for Potence - only deteriorate further.

[DukeLeto69]

Well, he's not really a kid at the beginning (only in flashbacks); he's a young adult who still happens to own that servitor, but is cutting ties with his "childish" past with his departure from home.

 

Personally, I found this break with his immature past and stumble into a very rough, bloody and remorseless world of corrupt law enforcement rather striking. He's unhinged from the start, but it doesn't really become so evident until he reacts to his first execution. Hill first makes you think he's getting queasy about shooting the guy, but then he's the one least affected by splattering that guy's head over the onlookers - he was merely concerned about his new shiny weapon getting baptized by somebody worthless.

 

All throughout the novel, you can see Rudgard's psychopathic tendencies bubble to the surface. And yes, he's a sadistic jackass. He's only really uncertain in situations where he's confronted by either his controlling, spiteful mother, or by his even more sadistic, vicious, megalomaniacal father, who happens to be the de-facto ruler (despite another authority technically sitting above him), and still takes pleasure in conducting torture-interrogations himself.

 

You can see how this sort of protagonist can come to be and flourish in this environment, with these peers, with this education. The swiftness in which Rudgard earns Tarrini's respect - somebody specifically chosen to be his instructor and test his mettle - highlights just how cold and brutal Rudgard actually is, even compared to some of his siblings, who Terrini also knew and mentions.

 

And I honestly don't think that it's trying to glorify this sort of brutality either - the novel is perfectly aware of how over the top it is, but it's trying to get the reader in a weird spot between rooting for Howe to uncover the mystery, and despising him for his actions and callousness. The horror in part comes from seeing this sort of person thrive on this world - one already rotten to the core by the way it is being run. We're also constantly aware of the villagers not being important whatsoever - only the product they can deliver. It doesn't matter to anyone but themselves that they stay alive, so long as they hand over what they "owe" to the imperial machine. That the entire village had been resettled multiple times already - which is revealed towards the end - shows just how much disdain there is for people's lives.

 

I don't think any of this would have really worked on a typical Abnett-style world or earth-like setting. The totalitarian, heartless setting of Potence is needed to hammer home that there is no escape from this, for anyone; that the spiral of fear within the populace is all there is. They keep their heads down, try to be yes-men to the patrols and hope things pass them by. They're ready to volunteer "offenders" in their midst to soak up the casual brutality of "lawmen" and keep it from hitting them. They hide whatever they can, never playing with open cards in fear of attracting retribution, or rather, the interrogator's fists or knives or a straight bullet to the head.

 

Then there is the horror from realizing that the Imperium pretty much condones this style of government simply because it is efficient and hasn't resulted in any missed tithes. The Imperium is too occupied with waging its wars, with bureaucracy, to ever actually care about living standards on tithe worlds. The Imperium would rather shut its eyes to this sort of stuff than take even a minor hit in grain, algae or nutrient paste. They won't - or can't - risk a drop in produce, lest it result in a chain reaction leaving entire sectors to starve or - worse - rise in rebellion.

 

The murders - as gruesome as they are - aren't the source of dread in this one. The system is.

And the fact that Rudgard Howe survives and succeeds in inheriting his father's office, becoming Chief Enforcer - despite all we've seen of him, and how unjust, brutal and spiteful he is. With him in charge, things are not going to improve for Potence - only deteriorate further.

Spot on critique and said better than i could.

 

For me the setting/backdrop and characters WAS the horror. The plot could as easily been a WH Crime story.

 

There are also many forms of horror. I found this story to be “horrific” rather than “scary”.

[DarkChaplain]

A few lines from the second chapter really nailed just how unhinged Rudgard starts out as, and how f'd the system is, to me:

 

 

My father was Chief Enforcer of the planet of Potence and I knew that I could shoot with impunity, but an innocent old hag wasn’t worth the ammunition.

A manstopper would rip her apart, I thought, and she was probably harmless. And besides, I was in a hurry to meet my father.

 

It's not that she's innocent, or that he jumped at shadows pulling his gun, or that he has any sort of inhibition against shooting her - it's simply that she is so far beneath him, she might as well not be a real human.

 

This is the guy just having left his reasonably sheltered home, with a shiny, expensive weapon in his holster, having just said his non-goodbyes to his childhood toy servitor, and he is already contemplating casually murdering somebody in cold blood. But it's not moral reasons, but the waste of ammo and his first kill, and that he has an appointment to keep, that prevent him from just doing it.

 

...and even if he had done it, it'd have been just par for the course. He'd not have felt any real repercussions from the law enforcers, and he knows it. You're watching a psychopath with ambitions to become the law on his first trip to the countryside, pretty much.