The Remnant Blade - Mike Vincent

[Tolmeus]

Might as well start a new thread for this one, right?

 

So far I am 50 pages in (310 total).

I like it. It introduces rather early a mixture of action and intrigues one may know well from the Night Lord Omnibus of Aaron-Dembski Bowden, which really is a good sign.

Once I finish it, I will give a more conclusive review.

 

Feel free to share your thoughts on this one.

[sitnam]

Definitely gonna keep track, I'm interested but I didn't like the ABD trilogy and it kind of killed my interest in Night Lords. I did like one of Vincents short stories though, so we'll see

[Scribe]

4 hours ago, sitnam said:

I didn't like the ABD trilogy and it kind of killed my interest in Night Lords.

 

....

 

May I ask why?

[sitnam]

11 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

....

 

May I ask why?

 

I don't know man, it just didn't jive with me. It's been a few years, but from my memory:

 

1. I didn't connect with any of the main characters. I actively hated most of them actually.

2. I wasn't a big fan of the voice acting.

3.  Didn't care for the plot. The story is character focused, and I didn't think the plot was strong enough on its own. Since I didn't like the characters, it just didn't work for me.

 

Looking back, I think the trilogy is better then I gave it credit. I really think the biggest issue was all the hype it got. I just wasn't blown away like I thought I was gonna be. Black Legion was just way more interesting as a CSM series. 

[darkhorse0607]

1 hour ago, sitnam said:

2. I wasn't a big fan of the voice acting.

 

Agreed there, I had already read the series but if I had to do the audio version exclusively, I probably wouldn't have finished it

 

*also, Audible put Remnant Blade up this morning if anyone else was waiting for it

Edited October 3 by darkhorse0607

[Roomsky]

Yeah ADB's one of the authors I always recommend be read rather than listened to, his quality of prose in an important element in what makes his books good. I thought the audiobook narrator was quite talented but I disliked how his character voices often skewed how a character was perceived.

I also find positive comparisons to the Night Lords trilogy a great sign and am excited to get to this one eventually (boy I sure do love paperback delay.) If this continues the trend of Lord of the Night and ADB's trilogy, 40k Night Lords have one of the best legion hotstreaks in the stable (shame about their Heresy books, though.)

[sitnam]

1 hour ago, Roomsky said:

Lord of the Night

 

I remember loving LotN as a teenager, I wonder if it holds up? I also wonder how it compares to this one.

 

I think it's bizarre they didn't put this one under the Renegades series. Harrowmaster and Lord of Excess were great

[DukeLeto69]

On 10/3/2025 at 6:22 PM, Roomsky said:

Yeah ADB's one of the authors I always recommend be read rather than listened to, his quality of prose in an important element in what makes his books good. I thought the audiobook narrator was quite talented but I disliked how his character voices often skewed how a character was perceived.

I also find positive comparisons to the Night Lords trilogy a great sign and am excited to get to this one eventually (boy I sure do love paperback delay.) If this continues the trend of Lord of the Night and ADB's trilogy, 40k Night Lords have one of the best legion hotstreaks in the stable (shame about their Heresy books, though.)

Totally agree some books need to be read rather than listened to so your own brain/imagination brings it to life rather than another creative interpreting the authors words.

 

I love the ADB NL trilogy but think it had diminishing returns. The first book is by far the best. The second is the second best and the third is third!

[The Scorpion]

I liked the third book :(

 

It had some really poignant stuff.

[grailkeeper]

About 50% of the way through, and I have to say I am not a fan.

 

It's a Night Lords book about Night Lords things, so if you are a fan of torture porn it might be for you.

 

The characters seem a lot less fleshed out than ADBs characters. They seem like cartoon characters in comparison. Most of the Nightlords are just a name, although many are introduced with a specialisation at the start. At any point if one other than the main character or second in command appears (usually just to be killed off quickly)  I find myself asking "Who is this again"? 

 

The characters dont appear to have any personality beyond "Night Lord". I find it very hard to root for the protaganist. He does horrible things for little to no reason. I get he's a Night Lord and this is how they act. But I'm able to root for plenty of other baddy protaganists from Walter White to Talos Valcoran. This guy I have little sympathy for. Very early on in the book he starts torturing and killing some civilians, essentially to blow off steam. ADB would have handled that a lot better. 

 

I'm sad to say there's a decent chance I wont finish this book. 

Edited October 20 by grailkeeper

[theSpirea]

I'm quite enjoying it. Might not be as good as ADB but heck, even his writing has plenty of issues and at least Mike Vincent doesn't have the need to shove wifey or servant characters everywhere like ADB.

[cheywood]

Also reading it now. I think it’s decent enough. I’m not really seeing much in the way of comparison to ADB’s work. It features the Night Lords, but it’s not a deep character dive by any means. It’s a darker take on the same concept as Shroud of Night in my mind. More plot focused and interested in character interplay between a squad of marines more than introspective depth. The writing is good for a first novel, though I wouldn’t call it especially remarkable overall. 
 

I would agree that it seems a little nihilistic, but I don’t mind that especially given some recent works’ tendency to be rather hopeful by 40k standards. 

[Tolmeus]

I took my sweet time writing a review, so here it is.
First, my rating: I liked the book and would give it a 7.0. It would have fit well into the former "Space Marine Battles" series.

 

What did I like?

Especially the action and the focus on the Space Marines. These two factors are too often neglected in similiar stories for my taste.

The story offers a lot of action without descending into ‘bolter porn’. The boarding actions and the comprehensive space battles are particularly worth mentioning here.
The focus is clearly on the protagonist. His motivation quickly becomes apparent and determines the rest of the book. The atmosphere or discripitions of the surroundings worked also very well for me. And the author did justice to the overall scale of things (Warships, complements, weapons, etc.), something that is often overlooked.

 

What did I find bad/in need of improvement?

As has often been mentioned, all the characters are quite superficial. The comparison to Aaron Dembski-Bowden's "Night Lords" series is obvious, and here you can see that apart from the protagonist, hardly anyone else sticks in your memory. The story is dominated by many intrigues, which perhaps occur a little too often. I realise that Chaos Space Marines generally have a problem with loyalty, but here it almost gets out of hand. In terms of content, I particularly noticed that the time periods are often difficult for me to understand, or rather, they greatly benefit the protagonist. 
 

Spoiler

For example there is the scene when the allied warband of the World Eater Warlord catches up to the Night Lords rather quickly. Afterwards, it took weeks for another one to catch up to them or for the renegade Night Lord to reach the World Eater Warlord again. Notice, that everything happens within the same star system and without need for Warp travel. Doesn' make sense to me. 
Another example is, that nearly all of the inventions of the renegade Mechanicum adept seamlessly work out within in short time: Fix the Astrates weapons, armours, artificial limps, create a device to travel to a Black ship and so on.

So I do recognise the problems with this book. But in all honesty, I just had fun reading a (maybe simple) Chaos Space Marine book with its focus on action (not Bolter-Porn!).

[Felix Antipodes]

Agree with @Tolmeus about the strengths and weaknesses of this book.  I would only add that I was also confounded by the way various Astartes recovered from their (extremely serious) wounds.  Some were almost Wolverine-like, and not in a believable way imho.