Warrior Brood [Mass Market Paperback]

Or if you do buy it do so only so that you can laugh.

If you have the option of reading a novel writen by C.S. Goto or punching yourself in the face I recommend you go with the latter.

I made an attempt at reading 'Dawn of War' by Mr. Goto and barely made it through the prolog. I gave up in favor of drilling holes in my skull. However I gave the author the benefit of the doubt in that he might have been restrained by having to write within the confines of the game's plot.

How wrong I was.

I picked up the novel 'Warrior Brood' yesterday because I like Death Watch and I like Tyranids and figured that it was atleast worth a try.

It appears that before writing the book the author took a very brielf glance at both the Space Marines codex and the Tyranids codex. I mean atleast he is aware that there are both Marines and Tyranids in the 40k universe but that's about it.

Let me go over the most glaring crap that I have discovered in the first chapter of the book.

First the book starts off in the middle of a battle that has no backround in anything at all. No one knows why these guys are fighting or what brought them there. They just start off in the middle of a fight with the bugs.

No less than four or five times the author describes the Tyranids as 'arachnids'. Arachnids have 8 legs, like spiders. To my knowledge there is nothing in the Tyranid force with 8 legs.

A squad of Space Marine veterans are described as firing their MULTI LASERS! Yes, that is correct, multilasers. There are no guard present whatsoever in this battle.

C.S. Goto introduces a new unit into the Tyranids army, though since he did not see fit to name it, I named it for him. I call it the Hormifex. The Hormifex is described as having 'massively powerful forelegs' and 'giant scythes' for weapons. This creature (who the author would have you believe is a regular hormaguant) is capable of tackling and pinning down a space marine Librarian. So strong is this large dog sized creature that a genetically enhanced warrior with dozens of years of combat experience and wearing power army cannot push it away.

Goto continuously refers to the space marines armor as adamantite. I was always lead to believe that was saved for certain other super heroes and that space marines had to make due with ceramite.

A spore mine floats in and DRAGS THE COMPANY STANDARD BEARER AWAY!. Yes that is correct a Spore Mine is launched into the command squads midst and instead of exploding when several marines shoot at it, the thing wraps it's unbelievable powerful tendrils around the standard bearers leg. When it does so it does with enough strength to dent the marines 'adamantite' armor and drag him off a bunker into the swarm below. Wow.

Another favorite of mine was the devastator squad that broke it's posistion to charge straight into the swarm so that their sergeant could assault a biovere. Of course the entire squad was killed by this heroic act (you know instead of doing something cowardly like shooting it with a heavy weapon) but they bought their sergeant enough time to shove like a dozen frag grenades into the monster and blow it up.

Then there is what I like to call, 'The forgetful space marine' who remembered something about shooting the big bugs (like the Hive Tyrant charging at his devastator squad, the other dev squad in the story) because he and I quote, "...could vaguely recall moments of Audin's briefing...'

More on that. Excellent dialog in that part like, "Use the lascannon!" and "Bring that thing down!" as though a devastator would be using his lascannon for singling out guants for anihilation as opposed to the monstrous creature charging him who he 'could not get a line of site to' for some reason though there were no tyrant guard or anything of the sort hanging around.

Lets not go too into detail about the invincible Zoanthropes who could not be harmed no matter what was fired at them.. They also had the ability to pick out the company's Chaplain from the rest of the command squad and destroy him with a war blast. A blast that blew his adamantie armor all over the place.

Um, what else. Oh yes, the entire force using hellfire rounds was a good one. And recoall, these are marines from the Mantis Warrior Chapter. Not Death Watch.

Then there's my personal favorite. An entire squad of Terminators slaughtered by a carnifex. Not so unbelievable right? Until you realize that they did not engage in close combat. The entire squad was killed by a shot form a barbed strangler. Appearantly the barbed strangler in this book was AP2 or something. It was so powerful that Terminators armed with chainfists (you know, those things designed for cutting through armored bulkheads) could not cut themselves free, though they did struggle a bit. The Terminators armed with those silly regular powerfists, the ones with a destructive energy field that can punch a hole in a tank, couldn't tear through a single strand.

Furthermore, the Terminators entire plan for dealing with the carnifex involved standing in one spot shooting it with hellfire rounds (?) from their storm bolters. Neither they nor the carnifex, living engine of destruction that it is, seemed interested in duking it out.

In the end the carnifex was brought low by the squads sergeant in his last moment of life. You see, though he was being torn apart by the barbed strangler tendrils he 'still had one trick left'. That trick my friends was to fire his previously unmention CYCLONE MISSILE LAUNCHER. You see, though he was without a doubt a Terminator Sergeant, power sword and all, he had a cyclone to fall back on. Of course he didn't see fit to fire the fracking thing at the wall of gaunts assaulting them, or shoot it from long range at the carnifex. Nope, he was saving it for something special.

I kid you not, all of this in the first chapter of the book. 29 pages total. There's more too but I cannot bring myself to go back and find it all.

On top of all of this the book is rated about PG-13. I have gotten rather used to 40k novels being very vicseral and violent with lots of description of brutal combat. Now a book doesn't have to be gory to be good but this is so toned down it's an insult.

I think that I am actually going to sit down and write a 29 page short story about my own personal chapter in the same situation and see if I can make it suck any less.

Please go and get this book, or shoot yourself in the leg. If there is anyone else out there who has read this tragety please back me up on this

M. Goto has been a champion of the Xenos aspect of writing for the Warhammer 40K universe with some of his previous works. Apparently he's decided to take a look at the other side of the coin in this tale of the Ordo Xenos and the Deathwatch. Sadly, this effort may not appeal to all.

If all you need in a book is action, super-heroism, and over-the-top situations (from which our heroes emerge, battered but ready for another round), then you'll enjoy this tale. The Deathwatch marines are extreme examples of the traits of their various chapters, such as the Black Templar Chaplain or the Blood Angels Librarian. The action is almost constant, and all the 40K players are on parade: the cunning Inquisitor, the brash Imperial Navy pilot, the stern-faced Captain. The situations are of almost comic-book intensity, never one alien where are rolling sea of them would make a better frame.

However, if you're looking for more, you will be disappointed. The characters are stereotyped, some might say hackneyed, and few have any real depth. The descriptions are constantly extreme, till after only a few chapters, the reader has become desensitized to the sea-of-chitin or the excessive nobility of those that sacrifice themselves for the greater good. The Tyranids continuously "bray" (you'll be sick of that word before the end) and the weapons of our heroes are "pristine and radiant like the light of the Astronomicon itself." You can get away with writing a description like that once, but at the third time, it looses its impact.

Likewise, some of the resolutions don't make much sense. Three Zoanthropes, admittedly with MANY of their friends, are more than a match for nearly an entire force at the beginning of the book, but an entire room packed full of them somehow fails to use their abilities to any great effect later on. An explosion that levels thousands of the foe somehow leaves our heroes still standing and unscathed.

In conclusion: if you're a diehard 40K fan who just wants action, it's worth a read; if you want more from a book, look elsewhere.

I have a problem with much of the book. The battle scenes feel like Goto has watched some 40k and Battlefleet Gothic games and taken notes but at least for once Space Marines seem not only to have personalities but brains as well. Overall a lot of the plot seems to have been recycled from other 40k novels but I will give Warrior Brood 3 stars just for the Space Marines alone. Let us hope that if this is the first in a new series that the books do get better each time.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 17 reviews  3.9 out of 5 stars