Lazarus: Enmity's Edge

[Kelborn]

Probably because we were all younger back then and were the first to read their stuff as their main target group. 

 

I'm feeling old now...

[StrangerOrders]

Well... keep an eye out for space marines doing a fortnite dance, that will be a good indicator that our time has passed

 

Incidentally:

Spoiler

How do folks feel about the Knight house having historically only had 24 knight suits? 

 

The Black Books and Kingmaker, my main previous experience with Knights, made the idea of a 'small' Knight House still having around a 100 suits. And that made alot of sense given their power and their ability to support multiple warfronts.

 

Especially since, unlike things like Astartes, Knights arent exactly known for heavy defenses to compensate.

 

The house is described as 'small' and all but that small would make deploying a mere lance offworld a crippling action lol.

 

Idk though, I am used to ignoring scale in 40k but this one bugged me for some reason, how do folks feel about it?

 

Edited March 22 by StrangerOrders

[Shadowshand]

Thank you everyone for the responses.

[LemartestheLost]

Two thirds of the way through with this one and so far I'm enjoying it! Will post my final thoughts sometime this week.

[grailkeeper]

This one's a DNF for me I'm afraid. 

[theSpirea]

I finished it recently and have mixed feelings about this one. The prose is solid, although it may be a bit too flowery occasionally, but I don't mind that. What bothered me the most were the boring, unnecessary, and overly long battle sequences—almost enough to make me give up right at the beginning. Not to mention the caricature villain and his clichéd dialogues.

However, I did enjoy the history and culture of the world Kloster came up with, and appreciated that the DA weren't portrayed as completely moronic or overly secretive. It's still miles better than Lion's book and probably one of the best DA novels, but I was hoping for more. The potential was there, but unfortunately, it was overshadowed by generic action scenes that served mostly no purpose other than to fill pages.

Kloster still stays on my list of BL authors to read. I'd give it 6/10

[Roomsky]

I'm surprised, I found the action generally purposeful and well-paced.

 

Though perhaps too much Black Library has warped my standards.

[Felix Antipodes]

I thought it was an interesting read but with a few caveats.  The best part was it was one of the few DA related books that showed them as smart, efficient, fighters (as they are always said to be in the fluff).  While there was some of the usual secrets within secrets stuff, it at least was consistent with the plot, and not the only plot.

I also enjoyed the background world building with its look at a Knight world without their machines.  Not sure why they hated/distrusted the Ad Mech so much though.

Found it amusing the way Kloster seemed to avoid giving names to the squad sergeants for the most part.  It almost seemed that he was instructed not to name too many characters for some reason.  There was also (imho) some repetition in the fight scenes.

Overall, I found it reasonably well written and look forward to Kloster’s next book.

[darkhorse0607]

Just finished this up

 

Overall I really enjoyed it. I'm newish to 40k Dark Angels, having read their Heresy stuff but not having gotten along with Thorpe in the past I have skipped most of the 40k ones other than Lion Son of the Forest. It was my first book by Kloster and I am excited to see what else he puts out in the future

 

One small nitpick I do have, and I could have missed it, but I wish there was a throwaway line in there somewhere about why they didn't send a Thunderhawk back to the Sword of Caliban when things started going all moldy, or what was going on with it. I feel like half of the battle could've been avoided if one of the last Thunderhawks when up, told them to level the Knights and that was it. It seemed like an oversight given how he wrote the combat in the other scenes where he put more effort into it than "space marines bonk mold" (i.e. using plasma to melt the roof and flush out the molded). But again, I could've missed it or he thought he covered it with the vox being out

 

Thankful for the fact that while the Fallen/Secrets were a large theme of the story it didn't go full hunt the fallen mode, and had the scene of Lazarus telling Azrael they were losing their way, given what we know happens with the Lion later on.

 

But overall enjoyed it and I think it would be one I recommend to folks looking to get into Dark Angels, as for the audio, it was narrated by John Banks who did a good job as always

 

*edit, one thing that I loved was that Kloster did a bit of 4D chess and explained why the Lazarus model has the scar on his face like he does. He didn't need to include that, but it's one of those small details that helps the world building for me

Edited June 4 by darkhorse0607

[Master Ciaphas]

Hail!

 

Do a bit of thread'omancy here. 

I finished the book - and yep, I really liked it! For once, the Dark Angels 1) got a solid novel, 2) it was not written by Gav Thorpe (or Phil Kelly) and 3) it is not about the Fallen!

 

The prose I found good, the interactions believeable, and the plot made sense (to me, at least!) And for once I found that no one made extremely stupid decisions because plot demanded it. 

 

Overall, this is a really solid Dark Angels story - and I would recommend it! The world building was - IMHO - top notch and interesting. With all the fungus, I was getting almost Peter Fehervari vibes form Fire Caste. 
 

If Kloster releases another Dark Angels story, I will be sure to get it!

 

Cheers!

 

/Master Ciaphas

[phandaal]

You know, I had no interest in this book because of how they did Balthasar dirty to bring in Lazarus.

  

On 10/23/2024 at 8:00 AM, Master Ciaphas said:

2) it was not written by Gav Thorpe (or Phil Kelly)

 

This, however, interests me.

 

  

On 10/23/2024 at 8:00 AM, Master Ciaphas said:

And for once I found that no one made extremely stupid decisions because plot demanded it.

 

And this as well. The Idiot Ball feels like standard-issue equipment with Gav and Phil's Dark Angels, so it would be refreshing to see characters making believable decisions.

 

Might have to actually check this one out. Thank you for the review!