Xenos

I didn’t really keep going with First and Only, a novel from the Warhammer 40K universe I started, this one, however, from the same author, hooked me pretty hard, it is a bit of a long story. The hype and stakes are pretty cool, its not like what I usually think about when I think of Warhammer, this story is not about Space Marines or epic space battles. This is about an inquisitor, who gets rid of heretics, xenos and mutants, and it is a bit of a detective story unraveling a pretty big conspiracy against the Empire, heresy indeed.

At some point it got a bit more space warfare rather than mystery solving which turned me off just a little bit, but twists and turns keep me hooked still.

Overall, it was pretty good and entertaining, I have to say I got a little bit lost in the end but I got the job done. I hope to read some more of this series later on. It was pretty good.

Amidst the occasional cliches and cheese there was a lot of rich texture to be found. The plot itself didn't leave me with many questions, but the introduction to the complex world it's set in sure did. I want to know more about Astropaths! What's the history of the space marines and the Emperor's Children? I know these weren't necessarily inventions of the author (as the book is set in the richly developed Warhammer 40k universe), but he does a great job of introducing the reader to them in such a way that you just have to go out and learn more about them. Our protagonist, Eisenhorn, is the kind of good guy that it's fun to root for. And his close group of comrades flesh out our cast of common characters nicely. This book will probably remain a bit of a guilty-pleasure for me, unless the following installments manage to raise the intellectual bar a bit. This is pulpy genre fiction, where I usually prefer my genre fiction (the only fiction I read) to be a bit more mature. Still, I'm sold, and I'll definitely be reading the rest of the trilogy and more of the Warhammer 40k books.