'Darkness is rising on Achyllus Prime. Severin Drask, sorcerer lord of the Crimson Slaughter Chaos Space Marines, works to harness the power of the Temple of Shades and unleash a tide of daemons upon the Imperium. All that stands against him is an Execution Force of the Officio Assassinorum, four Imperial Assassins – Vindicare, Callidus, Eversor and Culexus –who must set aside their distrust and fight as one if they are to kill Drask and thwart his evil plan.
'A fractious alliance of Imperial Assassins is only called upon in the rarest and most dire of circumstances. When the forces of Chaos threaten to tear a hole in the galaxy, only an elite Execution Force can prevent it. This is the first time you get a look into the heads of the four assassins and see all of their exotic technological spy gear in action.'
Set within the dark future of the Warhammer 40,000 universe Execution Force follows four of the deadly Imperial Assassins as they are sent to a world ravaged by the forces of Chaos, in order to prevent a powerful sorcerer from opening a tear in reality that will allow a Chaos fleet to invade Imperial space.
The set up for the book is great, and it sounds really entertaining, however, there are a few issues that do end up having a negative effect upon the story. The first is that the book is based upon the Execution Force board game. The game dictates the story somewhat, that one of each of the four assassin temples will be sent out as a team against a Chaos sorcerer, and whilst this might make a great game it doesn't really work all that well within the realms of the books story.
The Imperium is facing a huge threat here, with hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions of Chaos warriors and daemons ready to invade Imperial space if Drask succeeds in his mission. This is not really the kind of situation where just four assassins would be sent. There are no Imperial Guard, or Space Marines sent to stop this threat, and this feels incredibly strange. It wouldn't have taken much to combat this incongruity by having combat taking place elsewhere on the planet whilst the assassins go behind enemy lines, or simply saying that other Imperial forces are on the way, but wont make it in time, hence the need for the assassins.
The second issue I found with the book, which may go some way to explaining why more couldn't have been included to solve my first issue, is that the book is very small, topping at just 128 pages. This page length means that the action flows incredibly quickly, yet also means that there is little room for world building and character development.
As such, the four assassins feel like almost faceless caricatures rather than fully formed people, and we feel very little connection to them. Now I know this is a Warhammer 40,000 book, and that invariably some of the 'good guys' will die, as is the nature of a setting where there is only war, but the best books that deal with this universe always allow you to get to know your characters a little before they die, giving you a connection to them that makes their loss hit all the harder. As it is, there's no sense of sadness or disappointment whenever one of the assassins falls in battle.
Despite these issues the book itself is pretty entertaining, and can easily be read in a single sitting thanks to the short page count and the fast pace. It's not a book that will stick out in my memory for a long time after reading it, but it kept me entertained whilst reading it.
Buy Amy A Coffee
Go to Amy's Blog
No comments:
Post a Comment