Iron Hands

Rating:
Summary: I dare you to read this sentence!
Review: Here is a passage from Iron Hands sure to perplex:

"In this way, he had seen the mesa quite clearly during the approach, the plateau's sheer sides rising from the flat plain of the desert wilderness as if it had grown up out of the surrounding sands, like one of the crystalline formations that were found buried beneath the shifting surface of this world and that were then employed in the manufacture of the standard issue Imperial Guard lasgun across this subsector."

If awkwardness like this doesn't aggravate you, I strongly recommend this book. In it, the Iron Hands space marines are called upon by the adeptus mechanicus to investigate a mysterious warpstorm bordering the eye of terror. The story takes place during the harrowing time of Abaddon's thirteenth black crusade. Iron-father Gdolkin is the leader of the small band of marines dispatched for the mission, which turns into an epic quest whose outcome decides the fate of a million Imperial worlds. Johnathan Green makes excellent use of the warhammer lore and you get to see obliterators, dreadnoughts, defilers, raptors, plague marines, a battle aboard a mountain-sized ordinatus artillery cannon and a battle within a towering emperor titan. The chaos forces are well-represented; never before have they been described this relentlessly as corrupt, rotting pus-filled, diseased abominations. And that's a good thing.
The character's in Iron Hands are well-imagined, but suffer a marked lack of depth. The story is vividly imagined in some parts, and half-baked in others. The writing is a bit clunky in comparison the wonderful 40k writings of Dan Abnett. Overall this is a truly epic story that makes great use of warhammer lore and depicts an interesting side story to the thirteenth black crusade.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining if a bit conventional.
Review: I believe as though this is the first 40K offering from Jonathan Green and while it is not on a par with the works of other, more familiar Black Library authors such as Dan Abnett, Iron Hands is still a pretty entertaining read.

Iron Hands is set at the onset of Abaddon's 13th Crusade and tells the story of a small contingent of space marines from the Iron Hands chapter tasked with fulfilling an ancient obligation to a magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The story centers around the leader of this contingent, Iron Father Gdolkin. Gdolkin is a demanding, humorless figure displeased at having to leave behind the home world of the Iron Hands in the face of Abaddon's approaching crusade. Gdolkin's journey ultimately takes him to a long lost Mechanicus stronghold that holds a prize which could possibly decide the outcome of the 13th Crusade. Along the way, Gdolkin and his battle brothers must fight through hordes of mutants, traitor guardsmen and chaos space marines of the Death Guard and Word Bearer chapters.

While the book was a fun read overall, I found most of the main characters, including Gdolkin, to often be rather two-dimensional and predictable. With one possible exception, the rest of the marines accompanying Gdolkin are really nothing more than anonymous suits of armor that play little, if any, role in the development of the story. Likewise, the Death Guard and Word Bearers who stand in the way of Gdolkin and his forces are really nothing more than stock antagonists doomed to perish in large numbers at the hands of the loyalist marines. I found the treatment of the Word Bearers chapter in Daemon World by Ben Coulter to be far more nuanced and interesting that the depiction contained in Iron Hands. I will give Green credit, however, for crafting a unique and unexpected ending which made up for some of the more conventional earlier parts of the story.

Rating:
Summary: This one is a stinker....
Review: OK, I realize that Warhammer novels are not exactly tops on the list for deep characters, but this novel brings 2 dimensional characters to a new low. I'd call them 1 dimensional in this book. Iron-Father Gdolkin, the main character, apparently has only one emotion...anger. He is angery at this guy, angery at that guy, angery at this situation, angery at that situation...blah blah blah. I suspect he is even angery at his rice crispies in the morning - I say it like that because it was getting tedious that he was angery at every single encounter. Other then that Gdolkin was as flat as can be. He began to get on my nerves about a third of the way through the book.

Other characters were simple paper cut outs to be killed, shot up or used as extras as the situation warranted. The plot was spelled out very early in the book, but quickly became boring. The enemy presented no real challenges and Gdolkin always has the right answer for everything...boring!!! Interactions between side characters was laughable. The writting was also very clumsy.

Ya, I was hard on this book. Let me finish on a bright note. Mr Green's knowledge of the 40K universe was very good and he did a nice job of using the different aspects of the 40k universe. That plus the ending was a little different is why I gave it 2 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Bland and tasteless
Review: This may well be the worst space marines novel i've read to
date. The characters were as i stated, absolutely bland.
The way they were depicted, they might as well have
been the machines the ironhands aspire to become.
The novel felt more like a script going
from one story point to another before it hits a story
climax where you feel relieved since the novel is
finally over. Other characteristics of the novel
weren't all that bad but when you feel nothing for the
main character, you'll feel either numbness or dislike
towards the entire novel.
On another note, sometimes supporting characters are there
to take over and support the lead character. Sad to say,
the supporting characters have either the same or even
less character than Ironfather Godkin.

2 Stars. I would have rated it 1 star but i couldn't say
that i actually hated this novel