40K Pulp

“It’s like ‘in midnight clad.’ he said, repainting the bone face with both reverence and the ease of familiarity. “It doesn’t translate well into Low Gothic.”

“I’m getting tired of hearing that.”

“Well, it’s true. Nostramo was a world of high politics and a complicated underworld that infested all layers of society. The tongue has its roots in High Gothic, but much has changed through generations of unique phrasing by faithless, trustless, peaceless people.”

“Trustless and peaceless aren’t words.” Despite herself, she smiled, watching him work. She was growing used to his stumbling attempts to speak the universal tongue.

“My point stands,” Septimus said, painting bone white around the left eye lens. “Nostraman, is by Gothic standards, very grand and overly poetic.”

“Gangsters like to think of themselves as cultured,” she said with a curl to her lip. To her surprise, he nodded.

“From what I gather of Nostraman history, yes, that’s the conclusion I draw as well. The language became very…I don’t know the word.”

“Flowery.”

He shrugged. “Close enough.”

This dialogue exchange between the characters Septimus and Octavia, an enslaved pilot and Navigator discussing their captors, is a decent snapshot of Night Lords: The Omnibus. Grim, violent and darkly funny with all the makings of a classical tragedy.  

Written by arguably the most impressive of The Black Library authors, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, this trilogy about the Chaos Space Marine chapter that considers a good time to be flaying skin and decking their armour in severed heads, might just have you sympathising and rooting for the bad guys.

The magnetic tragedy of Talos Valcoran 

For me, character-driven books are the most compelling. And in a genre like 40k where bolter porn is the norm, it’s always a breath of fresh air to read about Space Marines that feel fleshed out beyond their desire for endless battle. Protagonist Talos Valcoran is easily one of the most complicated and enthralling characters in the 40k universe.

Called the prophet for his visions of the future by his brothers in arms and considered to be the spiritual heir of the Night Lord’s primarch Konrad Curze, Talos struggles to live up to the expectations placed on him by his warband and his identity as the Soul Hunter. On one hand, he’s as self-loathing and critical of his Chapter as the primarch was. On the other hand, he’s hopeful to lead the Night Lords into a new future in the best way he knows how: with a new reign of terror and bloodshed justified by using fear as necessary for achieving justice.

“It is not enough. We stand in the dust at the end of centuries of useless sin and endless failure. The Legion was poisoned and we sacrificed an entire world to cleanse it. We failed. We are the sons of the only Primarch to hate his own legion. There, again, we failed. 

We swore vengeance on the Imperium, yet we run from every battle where we don’t possess overwhelming force over a crippled enemy. We fail, again and again and again. Have you ever fought a battle you’d struggle to win, with no hope of running away? Have any of us? Have you ever, since the Siege of Terra itself, drawn a weapon with the knowledge you might die? I will not see my life whored away without meaning. Do you hear me? Do you understand me, prince of cowards? I want vengeance against a galaxy that hates us. I want Imperial worlds to cower when we draw near. I want the weeping of this Empire’s souls to reach all the way to Holy Terra, and the sound of suffering will choke the corpse-god on his throne of gold.

I will cast a shadow across this world. I will burn every man, woman and child so the smoke from the funeral pyres eclipses the sun. With the dust that remains, I will take the Echo of Damnation into the sacred skies above Terra, and rain the ashes of twenty million mortals down onto the Emperor’s palace. Then they will remember us. Then they will remember the Legion they once feared.” – Talos vowing to get shit done for his legion. 

Murderers first, last and always

As lonesome and vile as Talos can be, he’s the most reasonable of the Night Lords in how he shows restraint and uncharacteristic concern for his slaves Octavia and Septimus.

This is a lot more than can be said for his supporting cast.  Of course, his fellow Night Lords have to be true to their nature and it still makes them intriguing characters. Xarl, Talos’ closest friend and walking badass, makes his presence felt in every scene. Cyrion, the sarky rogue brings a weird mix of laugh out loud lines while he casually butchers innocent men, women and children. 

Uzaz, enslaved to the forces of Chaos, inadvertently adds to this gallows humour whenever he screams tributes to Khorne and his brothers tell him to shut the fuck up as much as they threaten to murder him. Then, in other scenes, Uzaz is as philosophical and tragic as Talos.

The same three dimensional qualities are seen in The Exalted, the leader of Talos’ warband and Mercutian, a legendary fighter who becomes a mentor to The Soul Hunter. 

All of this is to say that even though you are reading about the actions of despicable murderers, you feel like you understand their motivations and their justifications. This is down to the writing talent of Dembski-Bowden. Each character, no matter how minor their role, feels like a necessary part of the plot. And whether they are suddenly eviscerated or die in a glorious explosion of pride, or duel to the death, the death feels earned.

And if you just came for the bolter porn, there’s plenty of that too. Dembski-Bowden’s fight scenes have strong pacing and believability within the rules of the 40k universe. He also doesn’t make all the bloodshed and violence feel gratuitous, which isn’t an easy feat considering the genre.

In the end, Night Lords: The Omnibus succeeds not because it makes monsters sympathetic, but because it makes them comprehensible. Dembski-Bowden never asks you to forgive the Night Lords, only to understand the logic they use to justify themselves, and how that logic corrodes everything it touches. It’s a tragedy dressed in flayed skin and gallows humour, where insight goes hand in hand with revulsion.

Perhaps you’ll finish the series feeling entertained, unsettled, and faintly annoyed that you spent several hundred pages nodding along with people who absolutely deserve none of your agreement. Or perhaps you’ll be shouting Ave Dominus Nox.

From the desk of Michael Deguisa, writing from an undisclosed but well-lit location. It won’t make any difference if the Night Lords come knocking in midnight clad..,but it still feels like the sensible choice.