Descent of Angels: Mitchel Sandon

Descent of Angels: Mitchel Sandon

The Next Installment in the Ground-Breaking Horus Heresy series, telling the tale of the civil war that tore the Human Imperium apart nearly ten thousand years ago. This novel explores the dark and mysterious history of the Dark Angels legion and their Primarch, Lion El'Johnson. When the Imperial Fleet rediscovers the Planet Caliban, The Emperor is reunited with his missing son and Primarch, Lion El'Johnson. As Dark Angels old and new join the Great Crusade, a chain of events is set in motion that will change Caliban, Its people and the legion forever.

Okay, I know I am a fast reader, which Is why I have two books up for you guys which I have read over the weekend. The first was Fulgrim, and the second is this one. Descent of Angels, The First of the two Dark Angels books.

This is the first Horus Heresy book in the series that I have not had to refer to the Dramatis Personae at the beginning to see who the charachters are as it is the first book in this epic series that follows one main charachter, called Zahariel El'Zurias, a boy who joins the Order of Caliban, and when the Emperor arrives on his home planet, he becomes a member of the Dark Angels Legion. However, the main focus of this book is not on the arrival of the Imperium, as that happens towards the end, but it centres on Zahariel's rise to knighthood, all the time being watched by the First Primarch, Lion El'Johnson.

Aside from Zahariel, we also see a lot of new charachters introduced to the Horus Heresy, Luther, Nemiel, his rival, Israfael, the Librarian who takes an intrest in Zahariel and many others. After Zahraiel is promoted to the Order, The Lion declares a beast hunt to eradicate the beasts on Caliban. It is of course, succussful, and shortly afterwards we have the arrival of the Emperor, the Commander of Mankind himself. Zahariel stops an assasination attempt on the Emperor's life by Knights of the Order who prefer the old ways of Caliban and don't want things to change.

As is revealled, only the young can have the Dark Angels geneseed, and Zahraiel and Nemiel both recieve it, but the old can only have surgical improvments, including Luther.

This book doesn't actually feature any heresy, but sets the stage for the events that could come later, but relies on there being a sequel to follow it.

High Point: The bit where Nemiel takes Zahraiel down to a secret coven of people who are trying to kill the Emperor.

Low Point: The Whole book, kind of felt as though it wasn't good enough to be a Horus Heresy novel as the others had been. I'm dissapointed as in some parts, it was similar to the fluff section of a codex.

Rating: 4/10

That's all for now folks, join me next time as I review Fallen Angels, the sequel to this low-rated book.

~Bane of Kings