Legion

Fantastic novel - whimsical narrator

Reading Dan Abnett is often like going abroad with a minimum understanding of the language. If you're willing to throw yourself in at the deeper ends, decipher a few words for yourself and wait for things to unfold, you savour the immersion that much more.

A shame then that one of the outstanding Heresy novels is read in a tone more suited to a whimsical fantasy: indeed at times I was convinced it was Simon Prebble reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. While Abnett's novel is more complex and more subtle than some of the Heresy novels (Battle for the Abyss, Mechanicum) it's still pure space opera and deserves someone more adept at the voices of war. While the Legion themselves are given good enough voices, some of the Imperials veer between Carry On and Only Fools, always threatening to drop the listener out of the experience. Indeed at times one of the early characters is only moments away from tugging at his forelock and declaring "Gawd bless the Queen Mum". David Timson is a very good narrator and for the right material he's unbeatable - after listening to Fulgrim you can't imagine anyone else doing it justice. For Legion, he's just wrong.

Luckily, as a good narrator can carry a lesser novel the reverse is true. Legion is for the most part a thriller, very much in the vein of early Frederick Forsyth. It's well structured, deftly written and filled with interesting and compelling characters. If Abnett has a weakness, its his fondness for deus ex machina (most of the early Gaunt's Ghosts novels) but here it truly plays to the novel's strength.

As a standalone in the 40k universe it works extremely well, and as part of the Heresy its up there with Fulgrim or Flight of the Eisenstein. Buy with a little caution

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Action packed

First heresy book to contain non-hostile xenos interaction and gives a much more human perspective on the heresy than we've had so far. Awesome book

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Pay attention at all costs.

You will go back to this book again and again. THe writing is tight, if you switch off for a moment you will miss a key character action or plot point. The prelude hooked me in and wanted to find out what happened throughout. It has great pacing, twists and turns and kept me engaged.
On the characters, these are great - John Grammaticus is one of my favourite in the Heresy. He has to make some key decisions about how he will achieve his goals - namely who he will use. The Alpha Legion are depicted really well and make for an interesting legion - "I am Alpharius" being a repeating theme which throws up hilarity and intrigue.
The dialogue is excellent and has an element of conflict that make the characters sound interesting.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Enjoyed

Having not enjoyed this narrators previous efforts in Fulgrim, I was really surprised to find I thoroughly enjoyed his prortrayal of the characters this time around, especially the men from the joker and clown regiments!
I did find the first hour or so a struggle though and took me a while to work out which character was which (but this could well have been my frame of mind at the time!), but in the end I thought it was a really good story, very well done, taking a side approach at the heresy and keeping you guessing all the way!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

For the Emperor

great plot. great story. great characters
leaves yet more intriguing marks to keep the story going too...

Clumsy

The Alpha Legion, synonomouse with secrecy and espionage, so you'd expect the story of the Alpha Legion to be one of betrayal and paranoia. But this clunky, directionless mess plays out more like a five year olds attempts at a James Bond fanfic. It tries too hard to be a story of subterfuge, but lacking a cohesive plot, it's just a cast of characters floundering about in a ham fisted attempt to be a spy thriller.

Awesome

Interesting story about the most secretive of legions. Amazing narrator with a wide range of voices, capturing the essence of each character.

Underwhelming espionage story, great performance

I was looking forward to this considering I enjoyed Abnett's previous entry in the series, but I have to admit I found this underwhelming.

I suppose you'd call it a bit of an espionage story, as the plot revolves around different groups trying to uncover the others plans while keeping their own secret.
There are a good range of characters, and you get more of the Imperial Army here than in any other Heresy book up until this point. So if you want a bit of army material, there is some here.

However I didn't find the story to be very interesting, with the exception being a brief moment at the end where you see why the Alpha Legion decide to join Horus. That was a great bit and I really felt for them in that moment. But that is the only stand out part for me.

However, David Timsons narration here is superb. I thought he did a wonderful job on Fulgrim, but he gets to show how much range he has in this. Doing a range of accents. You would almost forget its the same narrator as Fulgrim at points. So I enjoyed his performance throughout, even though the story disappointed a little

wow

strange to start but an amazing book overall! feel I need to read more on the alpha legion!

Genius

Another classic by DA. Masterful story telling, fantastic character development and some great twists! Highly recommended!