Bjorn the Fell-Handed - Justin D. Hill

[Roomsky]

Behold the review thread. Post thy thoughts.

 

Bjorn The Fell-Handed - Justin D. Hill

 

Hill's typical writing is very clipped and to-the-point. It works great for his Minka Lesk series, capturing the panic of being infantry on the ground while titanic events erupt around you. It also works well to emphasize the busywork to be done between battles, and the frustration of waiting for the killing to begin. His stuff usually reads like on-the-ground in-universe military history, and I love that.

 

However, that style would not suit the Space Wolves and their warrior brotherhood of wannabe skalds. To his credit, Hill recognizes this and varies up his style of prose significantly - this book is written like a fireside tale, full of bombast and repetition of superlatives. I give Hill a lot of credit for taking this swing while acknowledging that his lack of experience with this sort of writing really shows.

A lot of the repetition feels unnecessary, like someone struggling to hit a wordcount on their essay (especially odd, since this book is about 100 pages longer than the usual Character Series work). For every poetic aside there's a description that Bjorn's claw struck savagely with the force of a savage strike. It's my main issue with the book and dampened what is otherwise a pretty good effort; what's meant to be epic is often just laboured. Less important, but the climactic battle is also a bit hard to keep track of - mostly because I don't understand how a castaferrum dreadnaught is physically doing what Bjorn is allegedly doing. As is my habit, I blame the editors for not identifying these issues and having Hill do another pass.

 

The story itself is a rarity: it's a plot appropriate to the Character Series banner. Not only is the plot specific to the experience of being a dreadnaught, but we really get into Bjorn's head here. He wears the bombastic façade of a chapter elder while harbouring complicated views about his continued existence. He craves death as much as life - Bjorn the man is set on being present at The Wolftime; he's set on greeting Russ when he walks through the door again, be it in triumph or failure. But is that really his desire? Or has he just internalized his duty to the point where it's inseperable from his identity? He wants to fight alongside Russ as much as he wants to slap him around for his absenteeism. It ends up being more nuanced, IMO, than Haley's Dante. My only complaint is that the Death Guard antagonists only really try to tempt him with the peace of death for a few pages. This is something that I think could have made his inner struggles, already strong, that much more compelling if given the page space.

 

Bjorn, unfortunately, doesn't get to chat with Guilliman, or Grimnar, or Ragnar, or any other big name characters I'd read a whole book about Bjorn conversing with. Excepting that, I think the plot is a pretty good idea. The Death Guard cause a bit of defilement on Fenris, it takes the Space Wolves years to track them down, but Bjorn is only woken up for the fighting. We get to see the supporting characters leap forward years at a time through Bjorn's POV. What's that if not a perfect vehicle for a story about a dreadnaught? It even convincingly shows Bjorn's experience as not really having time (or cause) to bring up how :cuss:ed the Imperium's become. He sees Fenris, he sees feast halls, and he sees the enemy. The decline of the All Father's domain is just not in his POV. I wouldn't have minded this taking place over a greater span of time though. Bjorn knows Guilliman's returned, but hasn't met him yet. That constrains a plot that could have spanned decades into just a handful of years. Imagine seeing the Bloodclaw begin as a suicidally brave initiate and end as a cautious greybeard? Could have hit mighty hard, that.

 

This book's heart is in the right place, and while I won't hold what I view as a bit of lost opportunity against it, the middling prose really drags it down for me. Some passages are brilliant, but many more are tedious. I love the concepts on display, but some of the most interesting ones are barely given time. This isn't Bjorn's life story, but if you want to understand who he is, and why you should care, in the 42nd millennium: this book delivers. That's more than I can say about most Character Series books.

[grailkeeper]

Justin D Hill is active here. I once said something uncomplimentary about one of his books and later saw that he had visited my profile afterwards. I felt a bit guilty about that.