The ending is calm and leaves nearly no strings open. (if you are like me who thinks that most Warhammer book endings are terrible you will be quite surprised how good it is) Determined to flee the Isstvan System for Terra so as to warn the Emperor of Horus' terrible betrayal, the Eisenstein was badly damaged by the massive Death Guard Battleship Terminus Est that was under the command of the Death Guard's First Captain Calas Typhon and barely made the jump into the Warp. The Eisenstein was an Imperial frigate that served under the authority of the Death Guard Legion of Space Marines during the end of the Great Crusade and the start of the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium.

Sometime after the formation of the Great Rift in the Era Indomitus, many across Imperial space saw the vessel reappearing on multiple occasions. When the ghost vessel appears for the seventh such time, it is said that Mortarion himself will appear and wreak destruction. That said, there are parts of this novel where the conflicts seem to get solved a little too easily. Normally I would complain about it, except that later on these easy wins make the battle with Nurgle's folk seem like that much more of a battle, harder, vicious, you get the picture. It helps to illustrate just how touch the corrupt space marines will become as they continue down their path of corruption. Not long after, the Eisenstein took aboard other victims of the betrayal who had fled the Warmaster Horus' own flagship, the Gloriana-class Battleship Vengeful Spirit, including Captain Iacton Qruze of the Sons of Horus' 3rd Company and the Remembrancer-turned- saint Euphrati Keeler, whose conversations with Garro in the times after the betrayal strengthened his belief in devotion to the Emperor and ignited the flame of his growing faith in the Emperor's divinity.

Before their purge in the first battle of the Horus Heresy, there were still many Space Marines in the Traitor Legions who were loyal to the Emperor, rather than to the Warmaster Horus or their individual primarchs. Among them were a small cadre of 70 Death Guard Astartes who were led by Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro of the Death Guard's 7th Great Company. My first problem with this story is the main character. Nathaniel Garro just feels in every way as Loken lite. Almost identical to the previous main character in every way except that Loken's natural disposition to question and consider lead to his position as a hero, whereas happenstance and fluke largely lead to Garro's actions. There is some effort made in the first act of the story to flesh out his legion in the same way the first trilogy developed the Luna Woves/Sons of Horus, but in FOTE the bad-guys are so obvious and obnoxious as to make any tension boring, this along with a metric tonne of plot armour the story didn't carry much compulsion. Our new hero of the Empire, Garro reminded me of the early Horus in some ways. Not a vengeful overlord so much as an intelligent leader. He really was a pleasure to meet and he confronted many wrongs in this story.

In the centuries since the end of the Horus Heresy, the Eisenstein has garnered a mysterious reputation and its current status -- whether it was truly destroyed or not by the Imperial Fists' fleet -- remains unclear. The Eisenstein's shipmaster explained that the vessel's name meant "iron-stone" in an ancient language of Old Earth and that it had actually been named after two famous men of the Age of Terra. One had been similar in profession to a Remembrancer, and the other had been a scientist. Flight of the Eisenstein is a heavy and powerful read, but it also exactly what I needed to read after the events of Galaxy in Flames (I'm still feeling broken-hearted over that one, and I knew what was going to happen!). The Eisenstein was originally created for the 1988 1st Edition Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness sourcebook and served to introduce the storyline of the Horus Heresy. The one-paragraph mention describes how "loyal Adeptus Astartes officers and troops" took over a frigate named Eisenstein after they discovered Horus' Chaos taint when Isstvan III came under bombardment by bioweapons. The ship was reported to have fled to warn others of Horus' betrayal as he moved on to Isstvan V.

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Set slightly before the events of Galaxy in Flames, The Flight of the Eisenstein introduces the reader to more of the Death Guard and puts Captain Nathaniel Garro in the driving seat for most the novel. After receiving a desperate message from a comrade whilst aboard the Eisenstein, Garro witnesses the terrible actions committed by Horus and flees with his men to warn the Emperor of the Warmaster’s treachery. I The Solar War • II The Lost and the Damned • III The First Wall • Sons of the Selenar • IV Saturnine • Fury of Magnus • V Mortis • VI Warhawk • VII Echoes of Eternity • Garro: Knight of Grey • VIII The End and the Death ( Volume I • Volume II • Volume III) This is an unfortunate event to build a book on, as the outcome is guaranteed: the forces of Chaos don't come out victorious. But much like a James Bond movie, the fun isn't so much if the good guys will win but instead how they will win. And in this sense the book works. In particular the escape of the Eisenstein from the rest of the fleet is probably the best sci fi ship-to-ship action I've ever read, being thrilling and fast-paced while still being exactly clear about what's going on. I also liked the character arcs of a few players such as Voyen and Decius, and the depiction of Rogal Dorn was spot on. However a lot of the dialogue falls into a common trap authors face when depicting astartes, particularly in 30k: they sound like parodies of Shakespearean characters. Of course I understand that the point is to distinguish the marines from the men, but it still comes across as very stilted and clumsy. In addition to this, Nathaniel Garro is definitely the most Mary Sue marine I've come across outside of Matt Ward's territory, and to be honest he was a bit dull. If you're going to have a premise with one, known, outcome then either have a protagonist who might have ulterior motives, or introduce some other uncertainty either in the plot or in the intentions of the characters. It felt like a slightly wasted opportunity. Similarly, she spoke well of him to the Death Guard's Primarch Mortarion, who rewarded his battle-captain by selecting him for the tradition of sharing his cup aboard the Death Guard flagship Endurance. Mortarion also chose this moment to subtly sound Garro out about where he and the Astartes of the 7th Great Company might stand if the primarch chose to join the Warmaster Horus' rebellion against the Emperor. Garro was a stead fast character, and I really took a liking to him pretty immediately, and I really enjoyed his group of battle-brothers. Rahl, Sendrek, etc. even his housecarl was downright awesome in all of his scenes!

An awesome addition to the Horus Heresy series, Flight of the Eisenstein is a very strong read from veteran Blood Angels author James Swallow.” ~Bane of Kings, The Founding Fields Finally unless you like OTT Chaos gross combat there really isn't much to the story beyond what was already covered in Galaxy in Flames, there was a moment of tension when Garro finds that others will not accept his report of traitorous activity, but this is resolved in a way that makes one question "why not start with the video evidence?" Incredible, this series continues to astound and impress me. The care with which the stories have been crafted is much more than I could have hoped for. The events of 'The Flight' are equally as intense and emotive as they were in 'Galaxy in Flames' if only slightly diminished by the story being centred on a new cast, predominantly made up of The Death Guard. Those of you who read the first three of the serie will read it just to follow the story line and you won't be disappointed.This is a novel that does provide many perspectives, as have the rest of the series up until this point. It's refreshing to see a different side of events, and these perspectives really did help to create a new web for readers to follow.

The command crew of the Eisenstein at the time of its flight to Terra included the following individuals:One thing that I loved about the novel was that where we would normally see hope, the arrive of the Phalanx and Co., was NOT the end of the book. Dorn didn't even believe Garro and his men. Out of all the things I thought could happen, that wasn't one of them. I was not expecting the Death Guard(or.. Ex-Death Guard now) to be treated as prisoners! Another thing that I loved to read was how the Death Guard all reacted to not being believed. Truly awesome. Having witnessed the terrible massacre of Imperial forces on Isstvan III, Death Guard Captain Garro seizes a ship and sets a course for Terra to warn the Emperor of Horus’s treachery. But when the fleeing Eisenstein is damaged by enemy fire, it becomes stranded in the warp – the realm of the Dark Powers. Can Garro and his men survive the depredations of Chaos and get his warning to the Emperor before Horus’s plans reach fruition?