Kasrkin

[sitnam]

So I didn't see a discussion thread on Edoardo Alberts Kasrkin novel, and seeing as I just finished it I'd like to hit a few points.  Beware, spoilers ahead.

 

It wasn't a bad book overall, but it is split in between two distinctive and very different halves.  The eponymous squad is joined by a green (and politically connected) Commissar to find and recover a general shot down on a barren desert planet. The first half of the book takes a ton of inspiration from the Dune series, to a point where it is almost to on the nose. Despite Alberts previous novel being fairly action heavy, and the subject matter, this book overall is light on action. This is particularly true for the first half, which mostly involves the squad surviving the harsh desert planet. The Commissar is a particularly interesting character, and not quite your stereotypical commissar despite early impressions.

 

The second half of the novel takes a jarring, unexpected, yet delightful turn:

 

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The Tau have sent a kinband of Kroot to capture the same general. The Kroot squad aren't treated as expendable adversaries however, and are actually treated as characters in their own right. The Kroot shaper becomes a major POV throughout the rest of the book, and the characterization given to him and his kinband is pretty impressive. This might of been my favorite Kroot written in a BL novel so far. Often times we see Kroot in their interactions' with humans, such as the Ciaphas Cain or Blackstone Fortress b ooks.  Whilst we still get a sense of that in this novel, but we also see inter-Kroot interaction. Albert did a great job of making Kroot seem alien.

 

Thats not all though, as a Necron tomb with a growing Flayed One problem also shows up in the second half. The Necron Lord takes queues from Nemesor Zahndrekh, still seeing himself as a creature of flesh and blood. He even has his own loyal servant, though in this case it is the tomb AI  as opposed to a bodyguard. Depsite the similarities, the Lord is his own character and actually quite a sorrowful subplot.

 

Overall the book would of been merely okay if things had continued on as they were going from the first half. The novel did a bad job really showcasing the Kasrkin in my opinion, as it was fairly light on the action and we didn't really get to see their skills compared to how other authors have written generic Cadians. However, the characters that show up in the second half were excellent, and made the book worth the read for me.

 

4/5, if just for the niche things I enjoyed

[grailkeeper]

I read one of the authors short stories in The Successors. I didn't think it was great. Robert Rath had a short story where the protaganists back story sounds very similar to the first half. Probably coincidence.

[aa.logan]

Decent book, but I did not enjoy the ease of Human/Xenos dialogue, but that seems to be an editorial decision from BL- it features in a lot of books of late.

[sitnam]

  On 1/29/2023 at 10:15 PM, aa.logan said:

Decent book, but I did not enjoy the ease of Human/Xenos dialogue, but that seems to be an editorial decision from BL- it features in a lot of books of late.

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I get that, however for both the Xenos involved it’s not too jarring.

 

Crowleys Ghaghkull book did a great job with inter-species dialogue

[aa.logan]

  On 1/29/2023 at 10:56 PM, sitnam said:

I get that, however for both the Xenos involved it’s not too jarring.

 

Crowleys Ghaghkull book did a great job with inter-species dialogue

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Oh absolutely, Ghazghkull is the gold standard- it explains *how* the dialogue is able to take place. In Kasrkin, the

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three-way Cadian, Kroot and Necron exchange place with no justification or explanation; two I might have accepted, but three just pushed it too far for me.