Book Review - Blood of Asaheim by Chris Wraight

(no big spoilers) 

Before I get to the novel itself, I’d like to put down some general thoughts about Space Wolves and the related fiction, because this is the angle from which I appreciated the novel’s best qualities:

In the evolution of 40K background, Space Wolves long represented a particular deviation from the usual tone of 40K, and to some extent they still do.

From the time of William King's series about the young Ragnar Blackmane, the chapter represented unfettered heroism with a sense of adventurous good humour quite distinct from other Space Marine chapters. Although the conception drifts a bit depending on who is writing, Space Marines in general have an alienating streak of post-humanity. In the top-down view - where we leave aside chapter or character specific motivations for the time being - Space Marines live for war and nothing else.

Space Wolves too live for war, because all of 40K is about war. But they were also shown drinking, boasting, joking and in general acting like lads at the football. It was not quite as if fighting traitors or all this other horrifying darkness was a mere lark, but there was lightness to it seldom found elsewhere ('seldom' allows for the likes of Ciaphis Cain, obviously...).

Then Dan Abnett, that tremendous writer, brought the Heresy period novel Prospero Burns to an eagerly waiting audience and showed the Space Wolves, albeit in another epoch, from the point of view of an outsider. With that he brought a much more sophisticated conception, a new and culturally evocative use of language and word-play, and a deeper and more primal vision of the Wolves, their purpose, and where they see themselves in the broader 40K universe.

Not everyone was prepared for that, but I for one regard Prospero Burns as a masterpiece.

The very terms 'Space Wolf' and "the Fang' became outsider's words, not the language of Fenris, and that felt very right.

There were no Blood Claws or Grey Hunters in the days of the Heresy either, it seemed, and Abnett introduced us to the original Long Fang, a warrior so old that he was born on Terra before the Emperor even came to Fenris.

Then Chris Wraight wrote Battle of the Fang - one of the Space Marines Battles series. That was set 1000 years after the Heresy and is a bridge of sorts between that era and the 'present' one. Blood Claws and Grey Hunters now existed, but Wraight imported Abnett's enlargement and created characters whose follies could be catastrophic, not merely amusing.

And now to Blood of Asaheim…

Both Ragnar Blackmane and Arjac Rockfist have key scenes but they are supporting characters. Indeed it is interesting to see Ragnar from this perspective.

“Ragnar was a curious mix: insane levels of self-confidence coupled with a definite aura of fatigue. Perhaps command had proved harder than he’d anticipated”   

The novel opens with a peripheral incident which will reverberate into the later story and then we are introduced to our protagonist, whose wyrd we see unfolding:

The Grey Hunter, Ingvar Orm Eversson, returns to Fenris after much time away, changed by his experiences in the Deathwatch. The changes are noted by all and a rift opens between him and his new pack leader, Gunnlaugur.

Gunnlaugur is honourable and not without complexity himself, but his pack is to be reforged after losses and with new blood and he sees Ingvar as a dangerous distraction. Gunnlaugur does not weigh the odds like Ingvar has learned to, nor is he awed by the enormity of what the Imperium faces. There is Fenris and there is the mission…. and there is nothing else.

The pack, Janhamar, is sent to the shrine world, Ras Shakeh, where a sisterhood is active.

They grumble. It sounds like garrison work. But Janhamar learns to their cost that it is anything but garrison work, and therein is a compelling story of warrior’s rivalry, self-examination, and a dawning realisation that life just got more complex.

A void battle between their aging vessel and the enemy ensues, and the costs of the mission begin to mount for Gunnlaugur, who becomes openly antagonistic to Ingvar, or rather the impurity of Fenrisian strength that Ingvar represents. The battle is thrilling and as with Wraight’s Battle of the Fang we see the other Fenrisians in the chapter’s service who are not Astartes, giving us a much bigger picture of Fenris than can be gleaned from Space Wolves gaming background. The confrontation with the enemy ship’s ‘commander’ is a very worthy and memorable scene indeed.

We meet a battle sister, Uwe Bajola, who perceives Ingvar's isolation. She herself is an interesting character – an odd fish in her pond much like Ingvar - and there are some hints of background for the orders of Sororitas that I would like to see more of somewhere someday.

It’s via dialogue with her, the shadow of the the coming battle for Ras Shakeh's last bastion, that we begin to learn that there are enemies abroad that the warriors of Fenris are not even aware of.

Plague marines enter the story and Wraight gives them a particularly indolent evil. Even by a Space Wolf's standards they are a terrible implacable enemy. Much warp-tainted action follows.

As an aside: for all those who have ever idly pondered the unequalness of one chapter with their own codex to a whole inter-galactic menace of the scale of the Tyranids... Wraight delivers haunting visions from Ingvar's memory, deep into the later part of the novel:

"I have seen things, brother. I have seen star systems burning. I have heard the screaming of a billion souls.... There are weapons, Fjolnir, things you would not believe... The Shadow, so vast it might have been another star system in motion. We had to watch it move over us, blind to our presence, day after day, huddles away from its wrath..."

I’m abridging here, and this is just one passage where I was reminded of what an incredible background we have in 40K and what dark poetry it can offer.

Downsides:
Not a lot.
Although the story is full and satisfying it becomes apparent that much is being set up for the sequel (Stormcaller). The Sisters aren’t ever really given their moment in the sun and Bajola’s purpose in the novel is ultimately revealed to be very much the machinery of a bigger story, which is not how she seemed when introduced as a secondary protagonist.

The adversary has menace but it does not have a true figurehead or manifest purpose beyond being ‘the enemy’. This too may be answered in Stormcaller.

Ingvar, however, is a great character, and not like Space Wolf characters we’ve had before. Wraight clearly has a plan, I would just like to have seen more of it revealed straight up in this novel.

 

Overall... definitely a worthy read, and if you a Space Wolf fan you can't really pass it up. This is where Space Wolf fiction is at the moment, and Wraight's keystrokes are steady and sometimes inspiring.