Product Description

In the nightmare future of Warhammer 40,000, a superhuman warrior must battle his way free from a world of daemons.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #278157 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 416 pages

About the Author
Freelance writer Ben Counter is one of Black Library’s most popular SF authors. An Ancient History graduate and avid miniature painter, he lives near Portsmouth, England.

Customer Reviews

Another Exciting Grey Knights Novel
In the third installment of his Grey Knights series, Ben Counter delivers yet another good showing. As before with the other two novels he continues with a mix of intrigue, action and character depth with a healthy balance of each.

The strength of the this book is that the story separates itself from many other Warhammer 40K novels in that it doesn't follow the linear storyline most books of the universe follow. Normally a Warhammer 40K book will have the main antagonist with the hero racing to catch up and end with a big battle. Hammer of Daemons is different.

Again the book follows the exploits of Justicar Alaric, hero of the past two Grey Knights novels. This time though he is captured early in the book and taken to a Chaos world near the Eye of Terror called Drakaasi. Drakaasi is different from the Chaos infested world Chaeronia from the previous Dark Adeptus novel so don't worry, you won't feel like you are reading about the same place at all. Plus you get a much healthier dose of the Chaos forces on the planet than the previous book along with a lot better look at what Chaos is actually like in terms of thinking and culture, not just appearance. I don't want to go into the planet as it is better if you just read about it and see for yourself, but you'll like.

The book delves much more into Alaric's character, something that doesn't often happen with the space marines as they tend to be rather two dimensional. However you get much more inside Alaric's head so you can get more connected with the book as his emotions are really his, and not just the mental conditioning that normally guides a Warhammer 40K space marine.

As always with Counter, expect a twist or two. Again though, I can't tell you without ruining the novel for you as it is quite pivotal for the plot, but know you won't be disappointed with it. I thought I had it figured out only to find I was pretty far off. The ending I found to be fitting and satisfying at the same time. While not quite as original as I hoped it was still very entertaining.

Also there was really no boring part of this book. When there was fighting, and there was plenty, the plot building chapters were quite interesting themselves. Counter used his imagination quite nicely in this, and was again quite descriptive, so you can get a good grasp of what he is going for easily. Everything from the world, to the characters to the battles were clear.

I wouldn't say Hammer of Daemons was quite as good as the original Grey Knights, but it was good and a step above Dark Adeptus. It was entertaining throughout and its different approach from other Warhammer 40K novels make this a good read. I recommend picking it up, especially if youn liked the first two; you wont be dissapointed.

Back on track
In GREY KNIGHTS, the first book in this series, the reader was introduced to Justicar Alaric of the Imperium's superhuman daemonslayers. The Space Marine chapter that works closely with the Inquisition to quash the particularly tough servents of Chaos (for the layman, that's the bad guys), the Grey Knights are as cool as Space Marines get. The first book in the series had some weird parts, but generally was a first class science fiction/40k invention.

Counter really lost the thread in DARK ADEPTUS, however. His characters got more wooden, the story was painfully narrow, and Alaric ended up talking a daemon into actually becoming a daemon. If you're asking "what?" It's because the book generally had issues with common sense.

So it was with anticipation and quite a bit of reservations that I picked up the third book of the series. Good news: it delivers. With this third book in the series, the Grey Knights trilogy surpasses the SOUL DRINKERS series (Counter's other series of note) easily. When Alaric and his allies suffer a terrible defeat, he is taken captive and brought to the Chaos world of Drakaasi. Forced to fight as a Gladiator in the arena without his shield of faith (all Grey Knights have psychic powers), Alaric must fight his own impending madness as well as Chaos horrors to find a way to survive. But survival is not another for Alaric, he needs to find a way off Drakaasi.

I won't spoil the plot. It's a bit a simple, but very smoothly executed. Alaric goes back to being a three dimensional character--as he was in the first book--and the subplots involving his relationships with the other arena slaves were well done. The action scenes were straight out of GLADIATOR and it's a little hard not to imagine...Whatsisface...Russell Crowe fighting the chaos champions. Anyways, the novel is action-packed and gives the series exactly what it needs to continue a positive fashion.

Conan in the 40k universe
I enjoyed this book greatly, but if one changes the name of the planet to 'Stygia,' 'Space Marine' to 'Cimmerian,' and 'Alaric' to 'Conan' you get a pretty good book too. Ben Counter develops his Grey Knight hero greatly, but at the cost of developing the Warhammer 40,000 universe. The Chaos world setting is not particularly believable or original. The story does point to a very interesting future novel, however.