The Silent King Short Review

[caladancid]

Up front- it is a 5 of 10 at best.

 

I think it has been discussed enough how weird it is to end a series that focused on Chaos with a novel featuring the Necrons. It was a baffling choice, The Silent King should have been its own novel, though it still has issues. As a part of the greater series, it is even worse.

 

I have to say that I am usually a Guy Haley fan. I've liked most of his recent novels, and I am maybe in the minority for how much I enjoyed the Dark Imperium series. This novel feels like someone else wrote it. The Astartes characters are totally flat and dull (even the ones Haley has written well in the past). The Mechanicus parts are a bit better, or at least they have their moments. I did think the novel briefly captured some grimdark during the zealots' fights with the Necrons towards the end. But overall it lacked any sort of excitement, color, passion, whatever you want to call it.

 

If you are looking for Necron characters, read the other novels by Rath or Crowley.

 

The Silent King isn't necessarily bad (though it is bad as the end to the series) or badly written, just completely boring and mechanical (no pun intended). I don't recommend it at all, unless you finish everything else in the queue and decide not to re-read something else.

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

I was hoping someone would start a separate review thread as I didn't want to shoehorn another comment into the ongoing general Black Library thread and I'm not really ready to do a full review myself. There's just something I wanted to add on to the previous comment I did make in that other thread.

 

First though, I absolutely agree with the review above. It is absolutely a bizarre decision to suddenly pivot to the Necrons and the Silent King as the opponent in the final novel. While the buildup of the Hand of Abaddon storyline was terrible in the first few books, it was at least THERE. By contrast, the Nephilim situation was an asterisk that was contained to the first book. The Hand of Abaddon really should have been the antagonist in the final book in the series.

 

But beyond that... for those who think I might have been too rough on Black Library for putting out a novel where the White Consuls are stated as having been largely exteminated - down to a handful of survivors - between the events of Cadia and Sabatine, completely ignoring that at least half the chapter was still in existence by the time of the later War of Beasts at Vigilus (which still had to have taken place well before The Silent King)...

 

...and who may have also thought I was being too hard on them for having Areios parading around as a Captain of the Unnumbered Sons in book four only for them to demote him back to Lieutenant in book eight with no in-universe explanation or acknowledgement because they needed a way to crowbar him into the Ultramarines as a Captain and the only way they could figure out how to do that was to assign him as a Lieutenant and have him ascend to leadership of his company during a time of crisis...

 

...well, I'm afraid I have yet another example of BL's inability to plan things in advance and throw in "moments" that are completely at odds with their established lore.

 

I'm not going to name the name, as some people here are still reading the book.

 

But SOMEONE in this book manages to get killed - obliterated - donezo... a good decade BEFORE their appearance in a book printed less than two years ago.

 

In Ashes of Cadia, which is set "decades" after Cadia's fall and HAS to be going by Ursula Creed's age, this same character is shown to be alive and well.

 

Ironically, outside of Roboute Guilliman, I think this is the only character shown at an early gathering in Ashes who is actually named. Yes, they really just had ONE character's life to keep track of (given that Guilliman was obviously never in danger of being killed off in a story taking place in the intervening time period and no one else from that book appears in the Dawn of Fire series).

 

Just ONE character who appeared alive and well in a highly-promoted book printed less than two years ago. And they managed to screw it up and have her definitively killed off here, despite this story taking place a decade or so before Ashes.

 

One character who COULDN'T die in this book is sent to meet the Emperor. We're even told what her "last thoughts" are before she is vaporized.

 

Seriously, given how few BL novels are published these days and they STILL make mistakes like this, there are only two explanations:

 

1. BL pays its editors like garbage and their candidate pool is limited accordingly.

OR

2. They pay competitively, but they're hiring and retaining editors for reasons other than competence.

 

If anyone has a third option. I'm all ears.

 

Edited July 20 by Lord Nord in Gravis Armour

[caladancid]

I should add that long series do present challenges for the BL editors historically. War of the Beast is a perfect example. That was a very rough series but at least it had a conclusion. Dawn of Fire is a bad look for BL, hard to say otherwise. The narrative cohesion is nonexistent, and by the end it seems as though they just gave up.

 

I think we all like to blame the 'GW corpos' whenever BL puts out bad product. It is hard for me to lay the blame here anywhere except at the feet of the editors and writers. 

[darkhorse0607]

Just for my curiosity, because I saw it somewhere else

 

Spoiler

Does it really end with name-dropping Dark Imperium?

 

[caladancid]

7 hours ago, darkhorse0607 said:

Just for my curiosity, because I saw it somewhere else

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Does it really end with name-dropping Dark Imperium?

 

 

Yes.

[Felix Antipodes]

For me, the most disappointing thing is that they made such a big thing of Haley running the series to keep it on track when the series was first announced.  That worked well 

 

What BL needs more than anything else is a strong editor in the mould of Gascoigne or Goulding who, despite other sins, seemed to run a tight ship wrt the lore.

Edited July 21 by Felix Antipodes

[System Sound]

After 4 multiple author series (5 with the Scouring now announced) you would think that BL would learn a lesson or two how to manage a series... Or rather not bother with them at all anymore, since they clearly can't manage them... 

[DukeLeto69]

*sigh* but then as long as we buy them then they will make them!

 

GW/BL know a significant chunk of their customer base are “collectors” so releasing a series almost guarantees a certain level of sales.

[darkhorse0607]

9 hours ago, caladancid said:

 

Yes.

Just as the codex intended, thanks 

[Nagashsnee]

This is not book 8 of dawn of fire. This is book 2 of Haleys Gman/Pylon/Necron duology. 

 

Book 1 and 8 form their own thing.  Then you have the rest which are not a series, but a collection of novels that vaguely interconnent around a weak central premise (Chaos is up to something...evil, truly new and exciting horizons there BL). 

 

I joked about it a while back but i am being serious now. Book 1 and 8 are tied together as an actualy set. You have a central story (the nexus) and a A-B-C plot, imperium finds out by the Emperors intervention (book 1), and responds (book2).

 

When you try to do book 1-2-3-etc it falls apart fast. And it comes down to 1 and only 1  thing, Dawn of fire doesnt exist, it is purely a marketing ploy and gimmick to drive up excitiment. As a series it starts off with the Imperium getting ready to launch indomitus while DIVINE intervention tells the ready its going Necrons/Nexus way, pivots to vague adventures nebulously connected by a vague chaos "evil plan" plot that only really builds up half way, before finally remembering WAIT A SEC this was about necrons wasnt it? Forgetting the vague chaos plot it kinda sorta set up and pivoting HARD back to what book 1 set up. 

 

A friend of mine came up with a brilliant description, Dawn of Fire is  foster parent  making a family out of 7 non related kids, Sure they are all from the same country and generaly the same backround, some of them kinda know each other from the system, but their only real connecting tissue is the foster home. And one of them is 2 weeks shy of 18 and kinda just wants to do its own thing (Haley) but also doesnt want to ruin it for the rest of them. 

 

Will do a book review in time. 

[Kenzaburo]

So, as someone who really liked the first book and didn't much care for all the other books in the series, should I get The Silent Kind as it actually is the continuation (in plot and characters) of book 1? If so, then I might be up for it - the rest of the series bothered me only because it didn't continue the storypaths laid down by book 1. Aside from overall launching a crusade.

[darkhorse0607]

7 hours ago, Felix Antipodes said:

For me, the most disappointing thing is that they made such a big thing of Haley running the series to keep it on track when the series was first announced.  That worked well 

 

 

 

I went back and found that original interview with Haley (unless there's a second one I missed) and this stuck out

 

"WarCom: Did you do anything differently from other books you've written to leave plot hooks for future Dawn of Fire writers?Guy: There was a bit of a top-down direction coming from me and Nick Kyme to begin with, so the plot hooks and narrative strands are kind of built into that. But I’ve left plenty of little ones in Avenging Son as well. Now the series is developing, and we’re getting more and more input from the other writers, I expect these to proliferate, but that’s just the way we work in this shared setting, and is indeed a characteristic of its success – Warhammer 40,000 is far more integrated than many other large shared universes." (emphasis on Kyme is mine)

 

 

Take of that what you will given that we now know how everything went

 

[cheywood]

Reading this now and it feels very paint by numbers. I believe Haley once said he approaches his BL work with a ‘one for me, one for them’ mindset, alternating between what the studio wants and what he’s more interested in writing. I’d bet all the tea in china that this is the former. That said it’s still a perfectly fine book, lacking mostly for its total disconnect from the series it ostensibly ends. 

Edited July 21 by cheywood

[Orange Knight]

I'm just starting chapter 9.

 

So far I'm enjoying this book quite a bit. It would have to really drop in quality in the coming chapters for my opinion to be as negative as some I've seen, but I've also been avoiding spoilers so I don't know all the details.

 

So far we're getting some human and necron interactions, more insights into Guilliman and Natase, more hints at the influence of the Emperor, etc etc. 

[Orange Knight]

8 hours ago, Kenzaburo said:

So, as someone who really liked the first book and didn't much care for all the other books in the series, should I get The Silent Kind as it actually is the continuation (in plot and characters) of book 1? If so, then I might be up for it - the rest of the series bothered me only because it didn't continue the storypaths laid down by book 1. Aside from overall launching a crusade.

 

Yes I think so.

 

This feels more connected to Avenging Son and the Dark Imperium trilogy.

 

Thinking about the whole series, it REALLY lost all focus from the Wolftime onwards. Too many characters, too many individual stories that have only a vague connection to the rest. Some of the individual books were still solid however. Sea of Stars, Gate of Bones and now - The Silent King.

[1ncarnadine]

4 hours ago, cheywood said:

I believe Haley once said he approaches his BL work with a ‘one for me, one for them’ mindset, alternating between what the studio wants and what he’s more interested in writing. 

 

That's Chris Wraight. Though I wouldn't be surprised if other authors had started adopting his writing policy.

[Ubiquitous1984]

Spoiler

One thing I found incredibly disappointing is that the Silent King barely features, and barely interacts with RG.  It felt like the whole book was leading up to an amazing interaction and then … it was done in a few lines.  I was hoping for some kind of sign that the two may work together in the future but nope, RG just wants to figure out a way to kill the SK.

 

I’m a big GH fan but this book was a big letdown for me.  I hope now he’s free of the disaster that is DoF he can return to form.

 

edit - one thing GH did really well is to make the Necrons appear a massive threat to the Imperium.  They were put over in a big way.  Honestly this book should have been the launch novel for 9th edition.

 

Edited Tuesday at 03:13 PM by Ubiquitous1984

[caladancid]

On 7/21/2025 at 7:11 AM, Kenzaburo said:

So, as someone who really liked the first book and didn't much care for all the other books in the series, should I get The Silent Kind as it actually is the continuation (in plot and characters) of book 1? If so, then I might be up for it - the rest of the series bothered me only because it didn't continue the storypaths laid down by book 1. Aside from overall launching a crusade.

 

I liked the first novel also, but I would still have to warn you to keep your expectations low for this one. It is not nearly as good as book 1, or the Dark Imperium series.

[Orange Knight]

Ok, so I'm on chapter 24.

 

This is easily the 2nd best book in the Dawn of Fire series. I don't get the negative sentiments unless people simply hate the "main actors" of the setting, or only read novels expecting revelations that have an impact on the setting - which by the way, this book does have some of.

 

We get scenes of the Imperium Elite, the Mechanicus, lots of staples of the setting interacting, and the book isn't just a series of fight scenes to advertise models. And this novel also addresses some extremely important lore from Chris Wraight's excellent Vaults of Terra series.

 

And no, this doesn't come close to the Dark Imperium trilogy or the two novels dedicated to the adventures of Cawl, but I do recommend it.

If asked which 40k novels about the setting post great rift should be read, this book probably makes it into the list. 

 

 

Vaults of Terra trilogy

Watchers of the Throne

Dawn of Fire - the Avenging Son

The Silent King

Dark Imperium Trilogy

The Great Work

Genefather

Devastation of Baal

Darkness in the Blood

 

I guess the Lion's novel is important but it seems to have had no impact on the setting and he's still AWOL since his "big return"

 

 

[Roomsky]

This fails as a finale to a series, but I haven't really reviewed this series as a series. So, in order to be fair to it, I'll do a review of this as a semi-standalone as I have the others before I tear into it's Finale of Dawn of Fire shortcomings.

 

The Silent King - Guy Haley

I enjoyed this, as I have all of Haley's Dawn of Fire work. It does some admirable legwork in converting GW's haphazard fluff additions into actual stories that don't clash with the setting's tone. I enjoy the wide cast of characters from every level of the Imperium, and I like that, if nothing else, the Necrons are shown as a very serious threat; their naval superiority is quite unambiguous.

 

Roboute Guilliman and his Tropey Friends

Guilliman's fine, nothing out of the ordinary. Colquan's frustration was also pretty stock, though he did have a couple disses I appreciated. Cawl is his usual self; though I did find him a bit grating this time round. Maybe I'm getting tired of his schtick. His conversation with Hiax was quite entertaining, though.

 

These big players exist for crystalizing the plot for the most part. They have some good lines here and there, but are really just here to make the reader understand what Guilliman's campaign looks like at this juncture.

 

There's also some Battle Sisters here alongside Shanni from Gate of Bones. I have no idea why they're present; they add nothing to the plot. They do some fighting with what appears to be set-up and then their storyline abruptly ends without any kind of payoff.

 

In the Navy

The highlight of the book for me. I love Athagey for being a hot mess. I love VanLeskus for not letting a little thing like self-awareness stop her from being a grandstanding peacock. That both are competent commanders despite their shortcomings keeps them from being total stereotypes, and their conversation in the Dead End is probably my favourite part of the entire book. The aging guy who commands the fleet in the last couple chapters (his name escapes me) also has a wonderful few chapters.

 

I adored the 2 greaser gang chapters. Nice human moments, and it fleshed out another arm of the Imperium's grimdark drudgery. It's a much better (and shorter) version of the Iax corruption from Dark Imperium, IMO.

 

Brother Genericus Rides Again

I enjoyed the Messinius sections for reasons largely unrelated to his… limited character. His pacification of the democratic planet was great. I enjoyed his discussion with a daemon. I liked him taking the wind out of VanLeskus' sails. Like all self-serious marines, he's a decent foil to Cawl. There's no more to him than Felix, Areios, or whatever that other guy in Dark Imperium was named (I think he was a Novamarine?) but he's effective because he's straight man to other, actually interesting, characters. It certainly helps that the astartes POV isn't the main focus, either.

 

The Necrons

Don't come to this book for any Necron character work. The Silent King's conversation with Guilliman is brief, and their presence really only serves to be an insurmountable opponent for the Imperial characters. 

 

The Plotting

I thought this moved at a good clip except for the first few chapters, which should really have only been 1. Haley maintains his structural skill and things move from A to B to C in a fairly satisfying way. As mentioned above, I think the biggest weakness of this book, and his writing in general, is that genuinely interesting character moments are merely flashes in the pan set against an overwhelming amount of tropes played completely straight. "Oh it's the cold open where explorators get killed by the novel's antagonists" "Oh it's the Gellar Field failure scene" "oh it's the Cawl being a smarmy know-it-all scene" - I can't help but feel I've read this book before, many times over, across Haley's body of work. It's solid, it gives me what it's advertising, but it's less than nothing special. It's basically a 40k Marvel movie.

 

The Dark Imperium namedrop was inoffensive - the alluding to the Cawl Inferior was much worse, because it spent an inordinate amount of time hinting at a thing that is meaningless without having read Dark Imperium.

 

Let's call it a 6.5/10. I enjoyed myself, but there's very little substance.

[Roomsky]

Dawn of Fire Book 9 - Guy Haley

 

It appears I was too kind to Hand of Abaddon. I forgave an underwhelming climax and Tenebrus doing the narrative equivalent of walking into a spike pit he already knew about because I assumed the more interesting Chaos Characters in Yheng and Harek would feature in the final entry. Unfortunately, they're nowhere to be found, nor is Rostov. Fabian would also have been appreciated.

 

This series has largely been a parade of loosely-connected standalone novels, but they did have a unifying theme in fighting Chaos:

Book 1: Vs Chaos

Book 2: Vs Chaos

Book 3: Ostensibly about Space Wolves and the Ork threat, but the longest battle scene is against Night Lords

Book 4: Vs Chaos

Book 5: Vs Other Imperials (and Chaos)

Book 6: Vs Chaos

Book 7: Vs Chaos

Book 8: Vs Chaos

Book 9: Vs Necrons (???)

 

Beyond an unrelated Gellar Field failure (that only served as set-up for Dark Imperium,) Chaos is a non-entity in this book. No Rostov, no Yheng, no Harek, no Iron Magus, no Anathame reforged. I'm not entirely opposed to leaving these points open for future stories, but if that was the plan, Tenebrus needed a better resolution than shoving a stick into his own spokes.

 

You can't even view the Haley books as the "core" of the series because of this; Throne of Light has a non-ending if you're only reading his books. If I had to guess, it would be that the last 2 books being what they are is due to the series being cut down from the original plan, but as-is this "finale" seems like the start of a new series more than anything - weirdly haphazard for Haley. I guess the Dawn of Fire was destroyed in this, the series really was about the ship this whole time.

 

This could have worked as a finale, it certainly has no shortage of recurring characters, but it simply doesn't follow from the novels it's "concluding." If, for example, book 3 was really about the Orkish threat, book 5 had no Chaos agents, and book 6 was a defense against Tyranids or something, The Silent King wouldn't be so weirdly out of place. This is just a bizarro episode, and considering how loosely connected the series is already, that's saying something. Even as a reader who enjoyed how disconnected each book was, this was a letdown.

 

Still better than Dark Imperium.

[Scribe]

8 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

If asked which 40k novels about the setting post great rift should be read, this book probably makes it into the list. 

 

Spear of the Emperor is all you really need.

[KJB]

The Silent King is a work of literary genius when compared to Era of Ruin 

[DarkChaplain]

I'm actually interested in seeing where things in this Dawn of Fire era are going to go from here on, because DoF has finished its spinal work of the first decade, plus Dark Imperium right after, and we've got plenty of branches to go off on, even in addition to those it already connected back to the tree as it went.

 

Like, can we finally have the gap in the Space Wolves' Ragnar Blackmane arc told? And connect with the 13th Great Company? Kor Phaeron is also up to no good, and the Anathame has been reforged. They finally remembered the Pariah Nexus being a thing and can actually turn it into an interesting section of the galaxy.

 

I want to see what comes off it's rejigging of the timeline, and slotting in works that were published before, and what plotlines it'll revitalize in the long run.

[Orange Knight]

9 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Spear of the Emperor is all you really need.

 

That's a good novel, a bit overrated I feel.