However, covert operatives and the Primarchs Alpharius Omegon of the Alpha Legion ( Book 7) play prominent roles. It's known as the Corvus suit and the beaked helmet is an Imperial in-joke that the Primarch appreciates, even if his men don't.

Gav is published by Angry Robot books where you can find his epic swords-and-sandals fantasy saga gathered in the omnibus collection entitled Empire of the Blood. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. The plot involves Corvus' attempts to rebuild his annihilated Legion and becomes deeply enmeshed in some of the most primordial 40K mythos. As the Horus Heresy divides the Imperium, Corax and his few remaining Raven Guard escape the massacre at Isstvan V. It is about the gene-experiments and the creation of the Raptors, too, of course, but primarily it seemed to me as a study of Corax' growing distance between himself and his remaining Legion, his obsession with a supposedly simple solution, his impatience and disregard for what he has left in favor of reaching for the stars and risking to lose everything he had left.

Corus, nicknamed "Corax" which means "saviour", was found on a prison planet where he was adopted by the prisoners and raised not in hatred and fear, but in understanding that his people are being oppressed and he is the only man who can actually do something about it.

This may be Gav Thorpe's first Horus Heresy novel but he successfully brings his years of experience with other Black Library franchises to bear on what seems, at first glance, to be a side-story in the epic's history. He personally is hurt and angry from these betrayals, causing Corax’s emotions and decisions to be unclear and irrational. Maybe that was the authors intention, but even their Primarchs make Erebus look like a nice guy by comparison, and I really wasn’t expecting that. Still, for all their power and super-human like abilities, the space marines must be brain damaged to make them so blindly loyal to their primarchs. Where he seems, at first, eager to just end the guards on his own without fuss, he is taught not to be too rash and consider carefully.And the primarchs and legionaries of Alpha Legion are fascinating antagonists - surprising, mysterious, and even at times sympathetic. Things start well enough, but deep down we know they cannot end well and we spend the entire book waiting for the hammer to fall and shatter all hope.