Such are the circumstances of their fall to Chaos that was do not lose sympathy for them even as Argel Tal and his men come to share their bodies with daemons that possess them.Īfter decades of keeping the truth hidden the Word Bearers finally reveal their true allegiance in the great betrayal at Isstvan V.
Guided by the lies of the daemon Ingethel the Word Bearers turn against the Emperor, and in that moment it seems perfectly right that they do so. His journey into the Eye of Terror is the passage that defines the book, the events he and his sergeants witness and the secrets they allude to sheer gold for any Heresy fan. Argel Tal is a soldier with a conscience who damns himself in the name of a greater cause. Lorgar's actions damn the entire Imperium, but are driven by feelings of betrayal and a simple desire for the truth.
This is a story of the Word Bearers, the generic bad guys in so much of Black Library's fiction, but where Dembski-Bowden excels in telling this story is in creating characters that are likeable and whose choices we sympathise with. This humiliation is the catalyst for the legion's primarch Lorgar to set out on a quest for new gods to worship, and despite all the atrocities the legion will later commit the sense that the Imperium brought its own doom upon itself echoes throughout this origin tale of the civil war. The journey of Argel Tal, Captain of the Seventh Assault Company, Serrated Sun Chapter, begins in the ashes of Monarchia, a perfect city taught by the Word Bearers to worship the Emperor and destroyed by the Ultramarines for the selfsame blasphemy. The First Heretic does all of this, as well as illuminating very beginnings of the Heresy. These novels don't just chronicle certain events in the war, they take their characters on transformative journeys through crucibles of change and betrayal and leave us sympathising with their protagonists no matter their choices or allegiance. What makes it a wildly successful franchise worth dedicating a blog to is novels like The First Heretic.
Dembski-Bowden's debut Heresy novel, it became the third novel in the series to make the New York Times bestsellers list.Īs highlighted in previous posts, the Horus Heresy series has its share of bad novels. Spanning almost half a century, it chronicles the galaxy-shaking events that lead to the Word Bearers Legion embracing Chaos.
Eventually both Primarch and his Legion abandon the Imperium following the Pilgrimage of Lorgar into the Eye of Terror, and in full accord with Horus take part in the Istvaan V Drop Site Massacre.The First Heretic by Aaron Dembski-Bowden is the fourteenth installment in the Horus Heresy series. Following the humiliating censure of Lorgar and the XVII Legion by the Emperor himself for introducing religious worship of the Emperor as the God of Mankind on the world of Khur, Lorgar is swayed by two of his most trusted lieutenants Kor Phaeron and the the Chaplain Erebus, who were already in secret allegiance with Chaos. The story is told largely from the point of view of Argel Tal, a Captain of the Word Bearers, and spans about 50 Terran years, starting 47 years before the events on Istvaan V and leading up to the time when the Word Bearers are on their way to assault Calth as related in Book 8. The First Heretic details the fall to Chaos of the Primarch Lorgar and his Word Bearers, the XVII Astartes Legion.
The First Heretic is the fourteenth volume in the Horus Heresy series of novels.