Flesh and Iron [Mass Market Paperback]

In the Warhammer 40k pantheon, I find Space Marines tremendously dull. Hyper humans in lobster shells with enough firepower to raze a large city block on a whim isn't anything (or anyone) that I can relate to. But flesh and blood ground pounding grunts- that I get.

Henry Zou focus' on the Imperial Guard. This regiment are a light naval unit used for what ends up being an insertion and assault on an asset far from the reach of air or standard naval forces. The leader, Colonel Baeder, is new to the troops. He is far from welcome and though his intentions are well placed, he has yet to earn their respect.

Then the assignment comes in. Typical of the rot of the Imperial rule, Baeder and his riverine troops become pawns in a larger game where blind fealty to the Emperor and the absolute contempt of Chaos becomes blurred.

All in all, I think Mr. Zou is getting there. The ideas are solid, the moral dilemma's presented are worthy story telling and as in any mission of this nature, death is a coin spent as a drunken sailor on shore leave. The shortcomings, in my opinion, are relatively easy to address. One is a personal observation. I expected the riverine troops to be more of a stealth, insertion and sabotage (sapping) variety. Instead they seemed to be more comfortable in light maritime assault instead of stealth.

But the larger problem I had with this book was I simply didn't think the characters were fleshed out enough. And in that, it's a bit of a shame. These troops are pariah's among pariah's. They can't conform to military code, they know their lives are measured in months and each time they survive another fight is another day to drink, cavort and start fights. These troops are fertile ground for developing, for humanizing, but as I finished reading Flesh and Iron, most of the troops seemed to be vehicles for delivering lines instead of the story being developed around them.

Overall, Flesh and Iron is a worthy read. I liked the moral ambiguity and the fact that it ended up about as realistically as one can expect in the Warhammer 40k universe.

I very much enjoyed Mr. Zou's viewpoint on the 40k universe. He brings in a more "realistic" environment which by itself can be boring; however his style of writing kept me glued to this thing in the two day period in which I read it. Although I might be mathematically incorrect it felt as though 90% of it was action. By action I do not mean a mere combat sequence but a very engaging "feels like your there" (as an observer) type of experience. I liked his other book to for the same reasons being that it was extremely fast paced and brings a slightly different take on the 40k universe.

The vast majority of this book is the typical 40k Imperial Guard fiction most fans are familiar with. Guns, guts, battles and blood. For three quarters of the book there is absolutely nothing that sets this apart, or even makes it all that interesting. Personally it was just a blur of one uninteresting battle after another, with a few nice twists when the author decided to pick up the story of the opposite side. Its not until the last 100 pages or so that the book actual breaks away from the mold and takes a life of its own. It's a shame that you have to wade thru so much sameness to get to the actual meat of the story that the author is trying to tell, because once you realize what he's trying to convey things actually get intensly interesting. I won't ruin anything for those who chose to read the book but the end does make it worth it.

The author definatly should have expanded the last quarter of the book, and increased the moral ambiguity facing his characters. It would have made a far more interesting read than one unecessary battle(as the end of the book bears witness) after another. If two decades of reading 40k fiction have taught me anything its that anyone can write a good battle but a good story is what is going to pull me back to read your next book. With that said while I was about to give Zou a pass, the end gained him a break and I'm willing to read his next book simply to see what he's going to do with what he's written.