Welcome our newest reviewer of 40k novels from Black Library, djinn24. He’s been kind enough to do a review of the Horus Heresy novel, Nemesis.  I’m happy to say this fills a void in our list, as this book hasn’t been reviewed on this site yet. Warm welcomes are in order.

“Nemesis brings to light a dark, dirty, dangerous side of 30k lore and the Horus Heresy.” ~The Founding Fields

It’s the year 30,000 and the Emperor’s most loved son, the villainous Warmaster Horus Lupercal is fighting a path back to Terra and nothing seems to be slowing him down, any planet in his path either casting down the Emperor of Mankind or dying.  In a desperate bid, all of the clades of the Officio Assassinorum have sent individuals after the wicked Warmaster, some getting close, but none getting the job done.  Now it has been decided by the  Grand Master of Assassins and the Sire Vindicare, Sire Eversor, Sire Culexus, Sire Vanus, Siresess Venenum and Siresess Callidus that a crack team from all the different houses will be pulled together to take him out, this is how the first Officio Assassinorum Execution Force was formed.

The main characters of this book are the six assassins of the various houses and their struggles to try and take out the most dangerous man in the universe, they are behind the main plot of the story that seems to flow well as the book went from the decision to form the Officio Assassinorum Execution Force to finding each of the individual assassins.  There is also a subplot of a psychopath killer on the loose on a planet, killing at random.  At first there does not seem to be a tie between the two but James does a great job of story weaving, effortlessly switching between the two bringing the ends together.  The pace of the book was medium fast.  A good amount of details but not to the point where they clogged the book down and made it sputter as you are trying to read it.

James Swallow does a wonderful job painting each of the various assassins in a light that truly makes you understand them better, from the calculating Vindicare assassin to the drug fueled psycho Eversor.  As a fan of the Warhammer 40k assassins in game I have been wanting to read this book for a while, and I was not disappointed one bit.  While this book can be skipped in the Horus Heresy series I would advise against it as it sheds light into some mysteries of Horus’ flight to fight his father on Terra.  While I will not say this is the best book of the series it does rate up there and keeps you on your toes page to page, keeping this reader up late many a night.

Overall this book rates a solid 9 out of 10 as everything seems to flow really well and the characters are brought to your minds eye in vivid clarity.