40K Book Review – Nemesis by James Swallow
With Horus headed towards Terra, the Imperium deploys the first ever combined team of Assassins to terminate his command. The Warmaster however has set his own dark plans for assassination in action…
Nemesis is one of the “side stories” in the Horus Heresy series. By that I mean is exists as effectively a standalone novel that does not carry on the paths of the major characters found in other novels. In this way it could have gone the way of the inspired and gripping Mechanicum, or the stilted and uneven Battle for the Abyss. I am very happy to say that building on his solid experience with Flight of the Eisenstein, Swallow has produced a fabulous page-turner you will be hard-pressed to put down.
Nemesis follows the path of a set of six Imperial Assassins who have been given the daunting task of locating and eliminating the Warmaster before he can make way to Terra. Horus of course has come up with his own dark plans for assassination with an operative that could only be produced by the forces of the Ruinous Powers.
Part gumshoe detective novel, part Predator, and part Guns of Navarone, Nemesis takes us into the minds of the six clades of Assassins and gives insights never before seen into how these brave men and women operate to carry out the Emperor’s justice. On the other side of the story, we get a great detective novel taking us into the daily lives of the Imperium’s citizenry (a point of view so very rarely seen in the vast sea of noble Space Marines).
What could have been a hollow action-fest with a high bodycount in Swallow’s hands instead gives us a wide set of great characters who’s actions and motivations really get under your skin. In a sign of strong growth as a writer, Swallow pulls off such unlikely hat tricks as making an Eversor assassin a character you really understand, and even empathize with, along with all the others. We also presented with the gems of the Vanus and Venemum temples and their very different philosphies and tradecraft of assassination.
Finally Nemesis also does a great job of tying together many of the loose ends and questions brought up in other novels in the series such as Battle for the Abyss in a way that makes it fit like a puzzle-piece into the total story so far.
Go get this novel!
Nemesis: 5 Stars (out of 5)
