40K Pulp

There is no shortage of badass characters in the Adepta Sororitas. Indeed, the Sisters Of Battle can hold their own in terms of popularity and lore importance compared to various Space Marine factions, particularly when they are written in a way that plays to their strengths and hones in on what makes them so compelling as a faction: their faith.

Mark Of Faith, A Black Library novel written by Rachel Harrison does exactly that. Following a devoted Battle Sister called Evangeline who must reconcile surviving a brutal attack on her squad by the forces of Chaos and being marked by The Emperor for a sacred mission, Mark Of Faith shows the Adepta Sororitas at their best and most complex.

Strong women through and through

Evangeline is one of the two main protagonists of the novel. She is also joined by Inquisitor Ravara who has her own stake in Evangeline’s mission to find a sacred relic called the Shield of Saint Katherine. Both women complement each other in terms of their personalities and the way that Harrison presents them.

Evangeline comes across as the epitome of what she thinks a Sister of Battle should be: stoic, determined and ready to bring destruction to Chaos in the name of her faith. Yet her survivor’s guilt and the doubt she feels from being put on a pedestal because of the Aquila scar she was given in a battle at the start of the novel shines through. Evangeline struggles with how to be a leader, how to protect her fellow sisters and fulfil her mission as she and her friends combat various hellish threats.

Ravara has classic Inquisitor sensibilities of being cold, calculating and ruthless when needed to do her job. She is more pragmatic in her approach compared to Evangeline, though there are times when she lets her vulnerability out and is pushed on more by her failures than a belief that she lacks resolve. 

With both lead characters’ perspectives written in first person present, these internal details are emphasised to great effect. There’’s a sense that Evangeline and Ravara are both discovering new bits of information and experiences as the reader does.

The right balance of battle detail and characterisation

Warhammer 40k novels are well-known for bolter porn, i.e. long battle scenes where weapon schematics, blood and guts are all described in minute detail to the point that it can take away from the plot and turn into purpose prose. Sometimes, that works fine because it’s part and parcel of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. 

I don’t think it would be right for this kind of novel and I was glad that battle scenes didn’t veer into this territory. Harrison is sparse with the graphic detail of the fights. She’s more focused on Evangeline and Ravara’s internal responses and how they respond as characters. 

Overall, Mark Of Faith is sure to please fans of the Adepta Sororitas for hitting all the classic notes of what you’d expect to have from a story about them. But it also shows that they are more than just their faith as well. They are women capable of breaking, doubting, falling and picking themselves up again with each other’s help like any true sisterhood does.

– Michael Deguisa, writing by lumen light in some dusty and forgotten archive on a world dominated by the Ecclesiarchy. I recall not long before I started writing this that I saw a weary Dialogus repairing the cracked spine of a devotional text while three pilgrims argued over which Saint carried the most devotion to The Emperor.

The strange thing about faith this strong is that outsiders tend to imagine it arrives with heavenly certainty and choirs of cherubs. In reality, it tends to involve exhausted women carrying fifty kilos of armour up cathedral stairs while pretending they aren’t having a crisis of confidence half way through.