One of the most common complaints I hear about the Horus Heresy series is that it’s too Legio Astartes-centric. I can’t deny that, for the majority of the Horus Heresy novels, this is true. The Horus Heresy is about the Astartes civil war and fratricide that shatters the budding Imperium. However, people that look at that aspect of the series and decide not to read are missing out on some great stories in which marines are not the focus. We saw this previously in Graham McNeill’s Mechanicum, James Swallow’s Nemesis, and to a great deal in Dan Abnett’s Prospero Burns (while about the Space Wolves, our main protagonist is a human). McNeill again approaches the ‘other folks’ involved in the Horus Heresy with The Outcast Dead, the latest entry in the best selling Horus Heresy saga.
The Outcast Dead is primarily the story of Kai Zulane, the astropath depicted on the cover, who has experienced severe psychic trauma as a result of the Gellar fields of his starship, the Argo, failing and loosing the terrors of the warp on its occupants. It is also the first HH novel to take place entirely on Terra. Through Kai, Roxanne Castana—another of our protagonists—and the other supporting characters, including Atharva, a Thousand Sons legionnaire and Yasu Nagasana, a ‘hunter’, we get to see a fuller picture of Terra and the enormity of the Imperial Palace than ever before.
The novel, as with all of the Horus Hersey novels, is broken into parts. The Outcast Dead is partitioned very distinctly, the first half of the novel taking place establishing our characters and laying the grounds for the hysteria that Horus’ newly discovered treachery has had on the people of the Imperial City. The second half of the novel is squarely focused on the aftermath of Magnus’ interplanetary ride to Terra, and the devastation it brings to, in particular, the City of Sight.
As with a lot of McNeill’s novels, the pacing of the story is methodical to the point that it could be misconstrued as slow. Like A Thousand Sons before it, McNeill does a lot of set up for our characters before jumping into the crux of the conflict. I’ve always maintained that the Horus Heresy novels aren’t intended to be your typical ‘bolter porn’—in fact, I’d argue that the Space Marine Battles series of novels is built specifically for that purpose—so the slow burn that is the first 150 or so pages of The Outcast Dead doesn’t bother me; however, I expect once this novel is officially released there will be a significant number of gripes because the build up of this novel is so gradual. In fact, I’d almost guarantee it as the primary conflict of the novel doesn’t actually happen until Magnus’ psychic arrival, a good 200 pages into the novel. I have to hope that McNeill’s masterful crafting of his characters will assuage those that may see the lack of “action” as a detriment.
The characterization of Kai and the introduction to both the City of Sight and the Petitioner’s City is fantastic. McNeill does a really wonderful job of painting a clear picture of these parts of the Imperial City. However, McNeill’s detailing of the novel’s Astartes—the “Outcast Dead” alluded to by the book’s title—is even stronger. They are the remnants of the “Crusader Hoston Terra, presumably an Astartes council that is always present in theImperialCitywith representatives from each Legion”—though I’m unclear on what exactly this Crusader Host is or of whom it is comprised; McNeill leaves this ambiguous. Atharva is the Astartes most focused upon, and his insights into what Magnus has done are really interesting. Equally intriguing is seeing the differences between Tagore, a World Eater with the Butcher’s Nails implant, and Asubha and Subha, twins that do not yet have the implant. It is clear that the World Eaters, before Angron gets his hands on them, are a nobler breed, which was a nice surprise to see.
McNeill’s real crowning achievement in characterization, however, is seen in Yasu Nagasana, a samurai-inspired psyker-hunter. The presentation of the noble-samurai ideals in the 40k setting came to me as a complete, yet entirely appropriate, surprise. The ImperialCityis in Asia—Mongolia/Tibet by all accounts—so it makes sense that these ideals would persevere throughout time. We often see allusions to “old terran myth” in the novels, and McNeill crafts this one deftly. While Nagasana is only in the story briefly, his impact is felt in every scene (think Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, a film in which he only appeared for 16 minutes).
While The Outcast Dead is very much a character driven novel, there are some well crafted battle scenes in the novel, all of which involve the Adeptus Custodes. The scenes involving the Custodes always put me at odds with what I want to believe about the Emperor’s Bodyguard, and they’re no different here. We’re supposed to believe that they are superior to Astartes in martial prowess, but the Horus Heresy books have thus far painted a different picture, with The Outcast Dead continuing in this grand tradition. It’s really a small complaint, but I couldn’t help be troubled by this fact when reading.
The Outcast Dead is a fantastic addition to the Horus Heresy series. Graham McNeill has crafted a wonderful character-driven narrative that paints our first real picture of life in the Imperial City, and really enhances what we know about the Navis Nobilite, the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, and Terra as a whole. Further, as with any good Horus Heresy novel, it provides some really unexpected surprised that serve to broaden the Horus Heresy canvas as a whole. While I know there will be detractors from the novel for any number of reasons (it is a slow-burn novel, it doesn’t involve Astartes ‘enough’) I wholeheartedly recommend The Outcast Dead. The story is a winner that serves to broaden what we know about the Horus Heresy universe.
