Dark Creed by Anthony Reynolds

Well it's been a while folks, my apologies but I'm now back up to speed with my reading pile and there will be a flood of reviews to come over the next few days. I thought I'd kick things off with a book I was looking forward to. Dark Creed, the final book in the Word Bearers series.

Our Hero or in this case Anti-hero Dark Apostle Marduk faces challenges from within and without his own legion as he attempts to use the Nexus arrangement ( a hardy bit of necron technology he 'borrowed' in the first novel to turn the tide of battle for the Word Bearers and capture a vital sector.

Now Dark Creed is a good book, it's a great improvement on the last novel in the series and is by no means the worst book ever published by the Black Library. And therein lies the problem. Dark Creed has become a victim of Black Librarys increase in quality. It simply does not measure up to what it could and should have been as the finale to a much loved series.

It does have it's good points. The backstabbing between the Word Bearers does lead you to wonder if the Imperiums continued existance is down to Loyalist skill or the fact Chaos Marines can not work together. The interesting insight into what happened to Lorgar Primarch of the Word Bearers, and the Necrons ability to just rip through anything that stands between them and their arefact is down right chilling.

However the book also has it bad points, Chaos Space Marines die far too easily, the importance of the sector and the fact it has a stable route to Earth means you know automatically at the start of the novel that the Word Bearers aren't going to win and the White Counsuls, the loyalist Marines guarding the sector must be the most naive Space marines in need of a physic lessons in the galaxy. In a time of warp travel, space marines and the Demonic trusting that someone is who they say they are based on the sound of their voice is mind numblingly stupid. Plus it doesn't matter if a Space battle barge has any nuclear weapons on or not it's still going to hurt if it rams you!

In itself Dark Creed is a good novel, the fight scenes are fantastic but overall it's a disapointing end to a great series that started off so well.

A disappointing 2.5 out of five.