The Gods are Hungry!

I discovered an interesting hobby site the other day called 'The Dice Gods Are Hungry' by a great guy called Neil Drakes. On there - as well as lots of brilliant material on Warhammer and Warhmmer 40k fluff, miniature conversions and gaming tournaments - I discovered the site's first fiction review. I was jazzed to find that Neil had chosen Legion of the Damned for such an honour. I have shamelessly stolen the review and reproduced it here - because I'm an internet kleptomaniac and that's what we do. I encourage you to check out 'The Dice Gods Are Hungry' here. Of course, Neil earns his place on my growing list of interesting blogs and sites that are deserving of attention - 'The Scene' - which can be found below on the side-bar of fame. Cheers, Neil!

"Firstly, the bit that might annoy you. This is not a novel that follows the exploits of Legion squad, nor does it reveal the secrets of their foundation. But dont worry! Instead you get a cracking read and you'll probably be very tempted to start yourself an Excoriators army when 6th Edition gets released!

Rob delivers character-driven prose sprinkled liberally with mouth-watering action at a relentless, unforgiving pace that pulls you into the story and doesn't let go. You feel the emotions, you see the bullets fly and there is nowhere for you to hide, no convenient line breaks or changes of scene. You will devour whole chapters at a time and come the final page, you'll be disappointed there isn't more book to read.

To begin with you get to live and breath the 'feast of blades', the centennial gladiatorial contest briefly mentioned in codex Space Marines and competed in by many chapters whose geneseed is the progeny of Rogal Dorn. You get thrown in at the deep end with our reluctant hero. A nice honour duel this isn't!

Then theres tragedy, resentment and repentance instead of honour and glory, the main character is haunted by a silent apparition that nobody else can see. There's infighting, bad blood and a desperate defense to prepare in the face of the encroaching cholercaust-a spacebound horde of frenzied Khorne worshippers baying for blood.

Infuriating beurocracy, politics and near endless bloodshed marches you on towards the final chapters, and then.........

I'm not going to spoil the ending for you (you need to buy the book!) but the titular legion is a constant feature throughout the book...I'll say no more!

Honestly though, I enjoyed this book immensely. It retains the engaging style of 'Redemption Corps' but seems more rounded, more complete in a myriad of ways that's difficult to put your finger on.

If you're familiar with Rob's previous work you'll be excited to know that this is probably his 'breakout' book, a brilliant piece of work that should see him thoroughly ensconced in the bestseller lists for the foreseeable future (he's hit the New York Times bestsellers list recently). And there will be more books from Mr Sanders, so watch this space....."