Books in Brief : Descent of Angels by Mitchel Scanlon

Having been disappointed with my choices during the short break from the Heresy, I sought a return to form with the resumption of the series; but was again to be left wanting. I lost track of the amount of times I tried to start this book only to be bored senseless by the prologue and cast it aside. But I finally steeled my resolve and finished it; now I ask myself was it worth the effort? This book is almost a complete waste of time.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the Heresy, being for the most part set way back before the arrival of the Emperor on Caliban. You will lose nothing from the series if you bypass this book. But I thought being the completest that I am, I would press on.

Once I accepted that this tale would have little to do with space marines I settled into it; it appeared as if Scanlon was going to take his time to iron out the fractured background of the DA's and give us a detailed look at their past and for a while he did just that.

But after some illumination it very soon becomes apparent that he has little to add and so begins the repetition that was very noticeable in the prologue. Ok so Zahariel and Nemiel are cousins who are like brothers and have like that love/hate thing going on (lot of that in the 40k universe) and then there’s The Lion and Luther who aren't related but are like brothers and have that love/hate thing going on (see what I mean) . So far so fething annoying.

Then the Emperor arrives and things look up; if the author has taken this long to bring the characters to the verge of being space marines (fully 3 quarters of the book) maybe we'll get an in depth look at the whole process of becoming one of the Emperors finest. No such luck, Scanlon for some unfathomable reason skips this completely and heads straight into some insignificant compliance mission with the required bloodthirsty engagements with, yes a cult of chaos loving deviants.

And this leads... well nowhere actually the book just ends. Pah!