Deathworlder

[Roomsky]

Another day, another thread for a new novel.

 

Deathworlder - Victoria Hayward

 

Every time I pick up one of these new Astra Militarum books, I fear the worst kind of generic military page-filler. While not every book has been great, they've all proved me wrong - you'd think I'd have learned by now. I should probably get around to completing the set with Catachan Devil, huh?

 

I think this is the first novel where I really buy the horror of Tyranids. They're usually an afterthought or are reduced to flavourless "chittering masses" for the protagonists to fight. Here, probably in part because I didn't recognize most of the variants and could imagine something scarier than the tabletop models, they're genuinely threatening, dangerous, and downright gross. I hope you're ready for a few passages describing things getting digested. This isn't a world getting stripped of life, it's a world curdling into a slurry for things beyond the stars to slurp up in stage by grotesque stage. Hell yeah Frater.

 

With such descriptions in mind, the book is more of a trek through a putrefying hell than some protracted battle against endless foes. The 'Nids clearly aren't paying any special attention to the protagonists and the journey is more of an effort to go around them where possible than some non-stop battle; the bioforms are a deadly part of the environment more than a horde of individuals. Which isn't to say it's all shock value, the characters get lots of time to introspect throughout, and their tactical decisions often require much deliberation as well.

 

Speaking of the characters, the Catachans are already well drawn by the end of their introductory chapter. It takes some books upwards of a hundred pages to pull that off, meanwhile Deathworlder makes you understand each Catachan within a few passage. Our Cadian tag-along, Anditz, takes longer to solidify and his introductory chapter is probably the book's weakest moment. Worry not though, he becomes more and more compelling as things go. By the end you want to see him pull through just as much as the Catachans. Our two other side characters are also great, Wrathe is believably cordial despite her machine-cult fanaticism, and the cultist Lamya is a fun look at how someone who drank the Tyranid Kool-Aid reacts to their actual presence. None of them are anything super novel, but Hayward's strength comes in giving each believable layers to their surface-level tropes. The Catachans having plenty of respect for patience, tactics, and teamwork despite what other regiments see them as is probably the book's central example.

 

Not much to critique, IMO. Once they reach their goal things start to get a little shaky, with a few attempts at pathos that seem random when every character has emotional investments to be pushed on already by that point. As an example, Major Kahn notices a dead married couple towards the end of the book which stokes further hatred in her (despite not knowing what wedding rings are.) Considering she was already pretty fired up by both the loss of her regiment and many dead civilians throughout, it seemed almost out of place. This happens a few times in the last quarter - I think the scenes are written well but they read like a late addition to an already complete novel.

 

I also think it could have ended with something more bleak, but that's an issue I level at 99% of Black Library books, and I know it wouldn't be to everyone's taste.

 

8.5/10, honestly great stuff. My mind was never blown, but I was constantly thinking "excellent, well handled" throughout. Another new author I want to read more novels from.

[aa.logan]

I also very much enjoyed this, and can’t put any of it any better- the depiction of the world being consumed is fantastic as is the development of the Catachan psyche. Like several of the more recent BL novels it depicts how life in the grim dark future where there is only war might grind down and break those exposed to it- civilian and military alike. That the Tyranid hordes devouring the world are very rarely given their ‘proper’ names adds to the otherworldly horror of them.

 

My only complaint about the book is perhaps a meta one- a ragtag group of Astra Militarium engaging on a perilous mission on an enemy-occupied (and altered) world to retrieve a mysterious artifact that could change the shape of the conflict in the Imperium’s favour, racing against time before the world is consumed. Synopsis of this book or Ashes of Cadia? They’re both good in their own right, and only superficially similar, but still…

[aa.logan]

I can’t recall exactly but her description of the movement of a Genestealer as being like the way that a shark moves underwater but on land just bubbled up in my memory; it’s perfectly uncanny