Echoes of the Long War: Warhammer 40,000: The Beast Arises, Book 6

Arrived very fast and in excellent condition

This writter is really slow and too much descriptive. Hard to follow space battle with his writings. I really preferred earlier writters in the serie of "Beast Arise". Well, what is not funny about this is that you must read it if you want to udnerstand the 12 books serie. It will be a pain, trust me.

Spehss Mahreens being political? And not just in the "Blow up the planetary capital and claim the world for the Emperor!" way?The fun thing about Space Marines is that it's easy to turn them into Spehss Mahreens - big dumb armour-clad head-chopping grunts who happen to have some really cool weapons. But at the same time, they can be turned into forward-thinking political battering rams who also happen to be good at chopping heads.In a long series like this, no one author does all the work; they build on what previous authors have written in the preceding books. David Guymer has done this exceptionally well, however. Descriptive without being florid, political without assumptions towards sci-fi Machiavelli, and even-handed in his treatment of humans in combat compared to the Space Marines. He's written probably the best ship-to-ship combat scene in any of the Black Library books I've read, keeping things confusing enough to remove the "omniscience of the Emperor" so many naval battles use, but at the same time keeping the action flowing and tossing in some very interesting tidbits on the origins of the Beast. The inclusion of an elite human combat group that can (at a distance, at least) hold their own against the orks and impress even the unimaginative and stolid Fists Exemplar is a nice shift from the general incompetence of humans to this point in the Great Ork War. And the Iron Warriors keep their pragmatic, evil/neutral mien, being connected to Chaos because of that pragmatism rather than any Word Bearer-style idolizing, which is a marked contrast to how so many of the Chaos Legions are portrayed.All of this is done while keeping the impetus of the Last Wall on Terra rolling, although with some unexpected actions happening. The Inquisitorial power struggle and council dynamics take a back seat (while staying relevant) to internal moral dilemmas of the Space Marines. There's much more focus on the Fists Exemplar than any of the other chapters in this book, although the Black Templars do get some page time (and set up some interesting contradictions in the Black Templars of M31 and the Black Templars of M41).Very well done, and my favorite book in the series to date.

Better than the previous books. Getting more into the Space Marines contribution to the new Ork war, even though its ship to ship space battles rather than ground combat. Still a strong thread of politics, power plays and palace intrigue, but getting better.

This is the sixth volume of the “Beast arises” series, with the Human galactic Empire invaded by hordes of particularly smart Orks equipped with technology no one thought they could master. Several worlds have fallen and several defeats have taken place, with the Imperial Fists almost totally wiped out in one of them. Terra is under attack and the Successor Chapters of the Imperial Fists have gathered, managed to stave of the first assault and damaged the Orks’ attack moon.However, the corruption, incompetence and pettiness of the High Lords of Terra continue while a Black Templar fleet stumbles into and comes under attack of a huge Ork fleet, with the Fists Exemplar fleet also arriving on the scenes. In both cases, the Sons of Dorn take control, start to reorganise the defence and strike back.This title includes a rather desperate void battle with a headstrong Fists Exemplar Captain forced to ally himself with a war band of “traitor” Iron Warriors commanded by a Warsmith who used to be the friend of Magneric the Dreadnought-Marshall. The two once bitter enemies will have to make a bitter and very hard choice.Also part of the book is the continuing secret war between Vangorich’s assassins and secret agents and Mars’ traitorous Fabricator General as they seek to access the knowledge that he is withholding about the Orks and their origins. This knowledge could, of course, prove to be crucial for the war’s success.I will not mention anything more, except that the title, with its usual 250 page format, is relatively short but fast-paced, exciting and an easy read. This is just as well since, even if not exactly full of surprises, it is rather difficult to put down when you get started. Four stars.