Guy Haley - Raldoron Revenant

[Nagashsnee]

So, the Horus Heresy character series keeps on going, and we get to a character that truly has had little to no light shed on them as character other then Name, Rank and that he is good with a sword. To be fair most BA got this treatment from the HH untill the very very end. Tho i perfered nothing then another Fear to Tread.  Enter Raldoron Revenant. 

 

Following  Echoes of Eternity and the Sanguinius Primarch novel is tought, both hit the ball out of the park for the Blood Angels and set the bar high, indeed the Authors own 40k works on Dante are also very good. So i was disapointed to discover that Raldoron is very much a nothing book.  I entered the book knowing Raldoron is  calm, stoic swordsmen and i leave having learned nothing.  His character as show in this book is that of a calm, stoic, swordsmen.  It goes out of its way to show us how stoic he is, how calm he is....and what else....oh he is a good swordman. 

 

For a charatcer book on Raldaron the human element in the form of the Solar Auxillia steal the show, and get the only real character work done in the book.  Showing us people who grew up DURING the crusade, Imperials by birth mixed in with the culture of their homeworlds fighting for a dream that appears to be dying in a Imperium ripping itself apart. Great stuff, maybe this should have been a Solar Auxillia novel? Tho i know BL would rather print 100 more marine books then even pretend the Heresy was mostly fought by humans for even a nanosecond. 

 

That is not to say its a bad read, i ennjoyed the action (classic warhammer silky numbers aside), i enjoyed a book that remembers space and space combat exists and would be a pillar of the war, heck it even remembers that the mechanicum exists when apropriate.  If this had been a HH novella pre siege it would have been a solid little entry. But as a character study on Raldaron? Calm, stoic, swordsman.

 

The book tries to set up allot of things it just doesnt have the time to properly deal with, the Indictii angle could have been a great read if it had the page count to explore itself, the Solar Auxillia family angle would have been a great story if it had the page count, a Death Guard traitor whoa argued against joining horus and got fed up with a war he never belived it? Could be fun read if the pages were there. Instead we get Raldoron being calm, while telling us how calm he is, being stoic, while thinking how stoic he is, and being good with a sword, while anyone who sees him comments how famous for being good with a sword he is.

 

The book makes a weak half hearted attempt to show us why he is calm, but kinda loses focus and never does, it kinda maybe makes a try at saying why he is stoic, but never does. And never even ATTEMPS to explore why he is so very very good with a sword. Other then he is, that its, job done. 

 

6/10. Would have been 5/10 but i like spaceships.

 

edit: ps, i noticed something while reading that i wanted to mention, the book goes out of its way to NOT worldbuild. Void ships are never listed by type, its 'a cruiser' 'the destroyer', despite this being a army put together from scraps, and fighting a equaly rag tag force we never get named or descriptions of ANYTHING that doesnt have a model. Its always leman russes and thunderbolts,  we never get a name drop like 'a tank rolled by,  Instigator class, locally produced in their thousands' like we use too. And i notice it more and more in BL and army books, everything is being pulled back to produced minis, or left grey area 'the tank'.  Half the fun of the novels is having Ciaphas Cain or Gaunt fight or hop on some locally produced never seen before and will never see again one off vehicle. Or some silly version of a lasgun or something. Likewise having our guys 'battle cruiser' shoot the evil enemy 'cruiser' is just so lifeless. MAKE SOME STUFF UP ITS 30K. Throw out a one time type name and have some fun with a basic description. If you want to close any future issues have someone think or state that the world that made it got razed by one side or the other.   But i need FLAVOUR, i need SPICE. Leman russes and valdors, and thunderbolts i can see in 40k, have some FUN. And no having some xiphons show up does not cover it.   These are still the fleets and forces of the crusade, not the highly regulated and tightly produced 40k mass template armies.   Even the humans are just auxilla spam, which was fine in space, but where is my Imperiam Army at? Have the them in the backround at least so you can focus on your auxilla characters. 

Edited September 19 by Nagashsnee

[Griefbringer]

Thanks for the quick review - wasn't the book released just a week ago.

 

I am not particularly interested in a novel about a calm, stoic astartes swordsman, so I will not be looking for this book myself. Solar auxilia and space combat content sounds interesting, but apparently not worth getting the book for those parts alone. I guess I could actually be interested in a good book (or maybe even trilogy) that would be mainly about solar auxilia with some space combat action thrown on top.

 

As for the last point about not inventing new things, is this an actual current publication policy ("no model, no fiction") or just a case of an author not having an interest in inventing new throw-away concepts in a setting already bristling with a fair number of actual named thingies?

[darkhorse0607]

Ok thanks @Nagashsnee you have confirmed my feelings for me. I couldn't figure out if I was giving it a fair shake

 

I got through a most of the book Tuesday/Wednesday and honestly dont plan to finish it any time soon (I think I have 2-3 chapters left)

 

I will say this, I wanted this book. I have been complaining here and elsewhere for years that they forgot about Raldoron. That he deserved more given how important he is post-Heresy. While its nice that he got something, I expected more from Halely to be honest, as this is the most paint by numbers Blood Angels book he has written in my opinion 

 

Its not bad (I guess?), but there is nothing here that hasn't already been done better elsewhere, even by Halely himself. 

 

The entire book, I kept thinking "oh, so Raldoron is basically 30k Dante." He has had savage moments in his past, but now controls the thirst, except when he sometimes doesnt (even to the point where Ral and Dante both harm their serf that cares for him, albeit for different reasons). He doesnt like a lot of fancy embellishments, like Dante who came from poverty. He treats the humans better than most in the legion/chapter. He takes time to help young members of the Legion to understand the thirst. Etc.

 

The fact that Solar Aux are in it is nice, but I could have done without the Father/Son drama that you have seen on every sitcom since the 70s given how short the novel is.

 

The Death Guard could have been an interesting faction for them to fight against or dig into, but because the book is so short and he had one or two too many plot threads going for how short it is, it ends up being too rushed to go anywhere interesting.

 

Overall its a disappointing (given the author and subject) 5ish out of 10. Part of that is because it has Solar Aux, part because its a Blood Angel book in the Heresy 

 

That being said, I would recommend Dante if you want a better telling of the same themes, and Echoes of Eternity if you want a better Heresy Blood Angels novel 

 

Meh.

[DarkChaplain]

I'm just not even sure what could've been done to Raldoron to make him interesting in-between Beta-Garmon and the Siege. You always needed to return to the boring bloke, I mean, calm, stoic swordsman from what little attention he got during the Siege and in the Scouring, and this is too close to that.

 

Raldoron is, in my opinion, the most boring character the Blood Angels had at this point in the Heresy. He's always been just... there. We've always been told that he's a calm, stoic swordsman, but no showing has really given us more than that, more than the "legend". He's always been bland at best.

 

It really doesn't help that we have both Amit and Azkaellon (if BL remembers him, that is) who did the actually interesting things in the BA narrative. There's a reason why Azkaellon was involved in Imperium Secundus, why the Sanguinor was picked by his blokes and not Raldoron. Raldoron always seemed like Space McMarine in Red, as the core of his character, imo. I wouldn't even know what to do with him at this point to make him interesting or likeable and memorable to the reader.

[Fedor]

The Heresy characters series is starting to just seem like a paint by numbers excercise. Raldoron gets one because he has a model, not because any of the writers had a good idea for him. I think the Luther and Valdor books are the ones that at least seemed relevant beyond a "here's a nice but inconsequential little adventure to go with your 30k model" vibe.

 

 

[darkhorse0607]

1 hour ago, DarkChaplain said:

I'm just not even sure what could've been done to Raldoron to make him interesting in-between Beta-Garmon and the Siege. You always needed to return to the boring bloke, I mean, calm, stoic swordsman from what little attention he got during the Siege and in the Scouring, and this is too close to that.

 

Its a valid point. It's just such a weird choice given that he is going to have to be important during the Scouring. There's even a scene in here where Raldoron sits down with Sangiunius who refers to him as one of his favorite sons or something like that, which would be weird if you're coming from the main series considering you've probably forgotten Raldoron even existed. There's also foreshadowing to basically what he will do with the Death Company in here (Inductii can't handle the thirst, rampage, so he says to assign them to a veteran to guide them as they rampage) to set up the transformation post-Sangiunius.

 

It all just feels like a wasted opportunity.

 

It could have been about Raldoron (if they had said he was in the legion during the Revenant Legion days, which this book explicitly says he wasn't, which makes me question why the title leads you to believe it's something about the Revenant legion when it's actually

Spoiler

a reference to a dream about Signus that he has where a demon calls him "Revenant" 

) during the chompy pre-Sangiunius period and his journey through that to becoming the namaste swordsman. 

 

It could've been set immediately after the Siege as a gap-filler, where you have him trying to come to terms with what has happened and how to wrangle the legion back together, especially bouncing off of Amit

 

I would've even taken a short story of him climbing down the wall after he kicks Skraivok off to insult him a few more times

 

Instead we just got generic filler

 

It makes me worry about my long-standing wish for a Marius Gage followup story (who, ironically, also got passed up as the interesting senior legion officer in favor of Titus Prayto). It also makes me grateful for stories like Savage Weapons (for Corswain specifically) and Prince of Crows that give you decent insight into these more famous characters, without being generic filler

Edited September 19 by darkhorse0607

[SvenIronhand]

From the sounds of it, the Asurmen book handles that archetype better. Y’know, by contrasting his prior self and the metaphorical demons he carries around with the martial arts master he is today.

Edited September 19 by SvenIronhand

[Felix Antipodes]

I haven’t read this yet, so can’t give an honest review ATT, but right from when it was announced I felt it was the wrong book, at the wrong time, about the wrong story.  Let’s face it, the Character series has pretty much run its course (IMHO).  I envisaged a Scouring era novel that showed Raldoron’s journey from being that faceless warrior he was portrayed as in the HH series to becoming a leader who has to stand up to Primarchs while shepherding his Legion.  YVMV.

[Nagashsnee]

On 9/19/2026 at 1:14 PM, Griefbringer said:

Thanks for the quick review - wasn't the book released just a week ago.

As for the last point about not inventing new things, is this an actual current publication policy ("no model, no fiction") or just a case of an author not having an interest in inventing new throw-away concepts in a setting already bristling with a fair number of actual named thingies?

 

Its not a very big book, like under 200 pages iirc. 

 

As for inventing, worldbuilding is kind of part of the job, having two 'cruisers' face off while their 'destroyers' do stuff and a support 'battle cruiser'  turns up is fine, but it hardly paints a vivid picture, it doesnt drawn one (or at least me in), warhammer especially use to be great at this short of thing, its how we ended up with lasguns patterns, and leman russ variants, its why a Rhino Built on Mars and a rhino made on some lesser forge world while the same vehicle are NOT THE SAME. 

 

Space ships especially are one of the areas where trying to stick to the named types makes no sense, especially in the Heresy, as the fleets are still mostly a hodge podge of ships picked up along the crusade, ships made by the various forge worlds BEFORE any type of organasation is laid down, and ships made by non mechanicum worlds before the Mechanicus cracks down on non cult building.  Writing a 30k book bears a certain responsibilty to make it FEEL 30k, if its just going to be a bunch of 40k things why even bother? Why should i even buy it? Star Wars fell into this trap, and warhammer has been heading the same way, taking a BIIIIIIIG galaxy and making it feel tiny so you can constantly show off the same  5 things (oh look x wings!).  

 

Secondly it makes characters look bad at their jobs, having the first captain of a legion look at the info and think 'oh they have a cruiser we can deal with a cruiser'.....Ral Buddy WHAT KING OF CRUISER, what are your ships capabilities, what are theirs? If a close range brawler cruiser sneaks up on a carrier battle cruiser the battle cruiser is likely to LOSE. Type alone doesnt mean it will always prevail. Your shields are marked as near failing if they got a nova shot off it could CRIPPLE OR DESTROY THE SHIP.  Etc etc.

 

 

On 9/19/2026 at 4:15 PM, darkhorse0607 said:

Ok thanks @Nagashsnee you have confirmed my feelings for me. I couldn't figure out if I was giving it a fair shake

 

Its certainly one of the BA books of all time. 

On 9/19/2026 at 5:28 PM, DarkChaplain said:

I'm just not even sure what could've been done to Raldoron to make him interesting in-between Beta-Garmon and the Siege. You always needed to return to the boring bloke, I mean, calm, stoic swordsman from what little attention he got during the Siege and in the Scouring, and this is too close to that.

 

I expected and the book kinda started but never did a exploration for WHY he is so calm and stoic. I thought we would get Raldaron doing the classic BL "let me tell you a story about myself" to the indictii about how he became this very calm very stoic person in a legion of Blood thristy space vampires.  Boring, expected plot to give Raldoron some generic character, but we dont even get that. 

 

 

On 9/19/2026 at 5:38 PM, Fedor said:

The Heresy characters series is starting to just seem like a paint by numbers excercise. Raldoron gets one because he has a model, not because any of the writers had a good idea for him. I think the Luther and Valdor books are the ones that at least seemed relevant beyond a "here's a nice but inconsequential little adventure to go with your 30k model" vibe.

 

 

I have been suprised by the choices. I keep hoping for some of the named characters from the game that dont really appear in the HH series. And a focus on the legions/factions that dint get much in writing.  Your Autek Mors, Nerat Kirine, Kelbor Hal types. Raldoron for me should have been a major character in the BA scouring book/books like @Felix Antipodessaid. 

 

 

[Griefbringer]

Less than 200 pages - now that is a thin book! That also explain why there is not possibility to explore all of the described angle to proper depth. Would it have benefitied from another hundred pages, sensibly used?

[Nagashsnee]

1 hour ago, Griefbringer said:

Less than 200 pages - now that is a thin book! That also explain why there is not possibility to explore all of the described angle to proper depth. Would it have benefitied from another hundred pages, sensibly used?

Its just shy at 190 something. That includes ALL the pages not just story. So story is in the high 180 page range. The audio book is 5 something hours i saw on reddit. So again not a big book.

 

Would more pages be better? For me no, the work lacked focus and direction. It could have done plenty in 200 pages if it wanted to, but it instead for me tries to do too much and ends up doing nothing. A extra 50 pages would not solve the central issue being its a book about Raldoron that doesnt have anything to say about Raldoron. 

 

Even in this book

Spoiler

Actualy give the metal mask a purpose in the story, have it be something like the last time he lost himself to the thrist and decided to walk another path. Cut the Sanguinius scenes they add nothing.

 

Have the indictii srg killing the Solar be HIS mask moment, have Raldoron help HIM choose a different path at this threshold moment just like he once did.   Show us Raldoron as a person, show us how he deals with the thirst, be it poetry, extreme training, or even something darker like blood drinking in secret. 

 

Give the story a overlall arc (Red thrist) and use it and the Indictii to explore one of Raldorons most famous traits, his level headed calmness. But actually explore it, by showing his before and after, and how he applies himself to keeping it. And tie into the indictii by having him pass on what he has learned. Just as he went from Revenant to Angel have him work to make sure the new Angels do not become revenants.  Have him see himself in the younger marine and offer the help Sanguinius once gave him (or he never got). 

 

But this isnt a extra page issue, its a lack of direction issue ( please not my proposed story is not meant to be better or good, just something that has a general overall theme to it). 

 

But i am also curioys to hear others thoughts when they get to it.

[grailkeeper]

Its a guy hayley book. Its as well written as any of his others. Nothing too remarkable has happened so far, and I'll probably forget this when it is done. 

[Griefbringer]

3 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

IWould more pages be better? For me no, the work lacked focus and direction. It could have done plenty in 200 pages if it wanted to, but it instead for me tries to do too much and ends up doing nothing. A extra 50 pages would not solve the central issue being its a book about Raldoron that doesnt have anything to say about Raldoron. 

 

Thanks for the clarification! Overall, it sounds like neither the author nor series editor (is there one?) had a clear vision about what should be the goal of the book, but somebody still thought it worth writing and publishing.

[darkhorse0607]

5 hours ago, grailkeeper said:

Its a guy hayley book. Its as well written as any of his others. Nothing too remarkable has happened so far, and I'll probably forget this when it is done. 

Its weird, I havent really ever seen him in folks top three, but most (judging by lists/feedback) consider him to at least put out decent books on average, with some like Dante/Devastation and the Dark Imperium/Cawl series to be pretty good

 

Lately though it does feel like he's dropped a bit, I cant imagine saying five or six years ago that the author pretty well known for doing most of the Blood Angels stuff (barring something like Echoes or the odd short story) would drop the ball this hard on the Blood Angels First Captain. Or The Silent King being received with a shrug of the shoulders by most, or Archmagos basically fading from memory and never being mentioned again 

 

I'm not trying to be overly harsh to the man, just curious if he's burned out or has something going on

 

 

*Edit because I saw the last question about the series editor not having a clear vision

 

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaahhahahahahah

Edited September 21 by darkhorse0607

[grailkeeper]

4 hours ago, darkhorse0607 said:

Its weird, I havent really ever seen him in folks top three, but most (judging by lists/feedback) consider him to at least put out decent books on average, with some like Dante/Devastation and the Dark Imperium/Cawl series to be pretty good

 

Lately though it does feel like he's dropped a bit, I cant imagine saying five or six years ago that the author pretty well known for doing most of the Blood Angels stuff (barring something like Echoes or the odd short story) would drop the ball this hard on the Blood Angels First Captain. Or The Silent King being received with a shrug of the shoulders by most, or Archmagos basically fading from memory and never being mentioned again 

 

I'm not trying to be overly harsh to the man, just curious if he's burned out or has something going on

 

 

*Edit because I saw the last question about the series editor not having a clear vision

 

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaahhahahahahah

 

He's consistently good. He mightnt reach the peaks of abnett or adb, but I've never been disappointed by him either. You know if you're picking up one of his books you are getting your moneys worth.

[Nagashsnee]

On 9/21/2026 at 8:38 PM, darkhorse0607 said:

*Edit because I saw the last question about the series editor not having a clear vision

 

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaahhahahahahah

 

Just for that Kyme is doing the next 3 character books on salamander characters.

One is a anvil upon which brotherhood is tested in the fires of war.

One is the fire that feeds the anvil on which brotherhood is made.

And one embodies the brotherhood that gives fire to the salamanders upon the anvil of war. 

 

They all have names, but you will remember them as those salamanders from the Nick Kyme character series books. 

Edited Wednesday at 12:54 PM by Nagashsnee

[Roomsky]

Raldoron: Revenant – Guy Haley

 

I’ve always thought that the title character of a book doesn’t need a ton of page time for the book to be an effective insight into their character. I learned a lot about Ferrus and Sanguinius in their Primarchs entries, despite their minimal pagetime. Thing is, you actually need to possess some insight into the character you want to impart.

Raldoron is frequently out of focus in this book AND we learn very little about him. Makes me wonder what the point even was. He’s criticized by a portion of the fandom, myself included, for having no real defined personality. His defining moment was (and still is) kicking Skraivok off a wall. What this book does reveal is that his being dull was apparently intentional.
 

You see, Raldoron is stoic. A stoic space marine! End me now What a concept.

 

Sigh. I don’t know man. What am I supposed to say about this? Haley’s slowed his pace of writing down, which improves his prose. That’s good. Raldoron does get a pittance of decent scenes scattered throughout, but they’re all half-baked and disconnected. He has trouble emoting, but it only means anything in the last 10 pages. He imparts the legion’s methods of controlling the Red Thirst onto a junior officer but never gives much thought to it after it doesn’t work. There’s no interesting cognitive dissonance either, because his relationship with Sanguinius is ill-defined at best. His one conversation with the primarch, often a highlight for an officer character, is remarkably bland. 

The last quarter of the book turns into the Simeon and Assan show, presumably in an attempt to get the reader more invested in them before the big tragic moment happens, but being that this is allegedly the Raldoron book, that just made me annoyed with them. There was an earlier moment in the story where a similar tragedy could have occurred, where neither of those characters had overstayed their welcome. Might have been a better spot for it. The final conversation of the book is interesting but its themes could have used much more time to breathe than a handful of pages.

So Raldoron gets called out at the end for being disconnected from the human cost of everything, which was presented well in the moment but doesn't really have anything to do with the ~200 pages leading up to it. If anything, Raldoron’s character shows that he’s deceptively empathetic to individuals. There’s a major father-son dynamic going on with Faisal and Assan, but that has literally zero parallels with Raldoron because Sanguinius is a non-entity here. There’s also a brief moment where he builds a sort of unwanted rapport with a Death Guard captive, but that too goes nowhere. This book has no actual themes, it’s just a pile of things that happen.

 

The trend of Character Series books only being good when the title character doesn’t actually need one continues.

 

MEDIOCRE.