This is advice Pete Bagley never accepted. This scene from "Smiley's People" resurrected itself as I read this book, a thrilling story without question, but incomplete at best and beset with unsupported, if dubious evidence. Why was Pete Bagley conducting his 'private enterprise' to find the mole at the heart of the CIA's directorate of operations? Isn't this the job of the CIA's agency director, who at least for part of the time was the discredited J Sometimes the truth is too hard to bear especially when it is found in an agency that is supposed to work for your country and not against it. I read Deliverence Lost not that long ago, but this did not help me find great interest in this short. It was fairly enjoyable, not bad, but nothing to write home about. The late Allston (sadly, he passed away in 2014) wrote a few of the books in the NJO series, and I considered them to be some of the better-written ones. His strengths: he could tie numerous ongoing storylines together seamlessly, which is something not all authors can do. Others in the series tried but the results were clunky and confusing. Allston was a great writer, and he will be missed.

Only from out of great conflict can true heroes arise. With the galaxy aflame and war on an unimaginable scale tearing the Imperium apart, champions venture onto countless fields of battle in service to their masters. The overwhelming majority of characters who have fought and sacrificed for so long to establish and defend first the New Republic and its present political entity the GA choose to remain loyal. Most notable are of course the Skywalkers. Luke and Mara are in my opinion well depicted and require no description on my part. However Betrayal features some newcomers. The one I liked the best is...You get something similar for the White Scars in “Brotherhood of the Storm” (Chris Wraight), which, in addition to being one of the longer stories, was also one of the ones I preferred, probably because there are not many books featuring the Scars and their Primarch up to now, apart from the recent “Scars”, by the same author. Another one of the better stories, or, perhaps more accurately, of the ones that I preferred, was “Veritas Ferrum” featuring a desperate bunch of Iron Hands who are survivors of – guess what? – Isstvan V, of course! Here again, we have just seen something similar in a recent Space Matines "Battle Series" title. Despite this, "Veritas Ferrum" was a good and an exciting story, even if it settings (the aftermath of Isstvan V, again!) were desperately unoriginal. By the way, the short “Strike and Fade” is also about the aftermath of Isstvan V but, this time, it features a few of Vulkan’s Salamanders stranded on the planet. Fantastic short, a great example of how to properly use a limited amount of words to tell a full story. A wonderful portrayal of one’s loyalty and power, Nisha Andrasta showing both strength and weakness, quitting and making an impact at the same time. Betrayal introduces the two main conflicts of the Legacy of the Force series: the beginning of a civil war between the Galactic Alliance and some of its member systems, as well as the beginning of Jacen’s fall, courtesy of the Dark Lady Lumiya. There are also big revelations about Vergere’s nature that will have ramifications for everything to come (although your mileage may vary what you think of those). I did feel that Betrayal was trying to do too much at times—that in trying to set up both Jacen's downfall and this galaxy-wide war, the book ended up with a bunch of exposition about long-standing tensions that have been simmering below the surface, without actually showing us many concrete examples of these tensions before the Galactic Alliance vs Corellia standoff. The first entry in the anthology is Chris Wraight’s Brotherhood of the Storm here. I have previously reviewed the novel , so you may read that review of it to get my thoughts on the novella. It was a fantastic read, even better than I remembered and with the help of hindsight I see also how it stands as one of the best examples of the relationships between mortals and Astartes depicted in the Heresy. And of course, the bonds forged in battle between different brothers of a Legion, before those bonds are sundered by treason and mistrust. And if you ever want to see Jaghatai Khan in action, then this should be your first stop for sure. An assault is planned on Corellia, one that is generating controversy as Corellians (including Han) currently living on Coruscant are facing strong anti-Corellian sentiments by other Coruscanti. Acts of protest and other violent outbursts are happening more frequently. The GA has started branding Corellian troublemakers as “terrorists”.

A bigger issue: I think that Betrayal is trying to do too much here. Not only is Allston setting up Jacen's Sith journey, but this conflict between the Galactic Alliance and Corellia which will spiral out to other systems. That's a lot to do, and unfortunately the book throws us into this Galactic Alliance military action against Corellia with not a lot of setup. We jump from “Corellia is unhappy about centralization” to the Galactic Alliance parking a fleet in Corellian space and sending in Jedi teams to kidnap Corellian heads of state. I know that the Dark Nest trilogy was all about this Chiss/Killik conflict in the Unknown Regions, but I would have liked to see hints of this situation in those preceding books. It would have helped to have this built up, instead of dropping the reader into the middle of a conflict that we’ve been told has been brewing behind the scenes—with not many examples of it before everything explodes. Again I realize that I prefer Guy Haley’s longer works compared to the short stories. Good thing about this one - human characters, they were interesting, but Astartes – not so much. My issue here is also the fact that I am rarely a fan of both Space Wolves and Alpha Legion stories, and here we have them both. Probably just not my cup of tea. But will I read it twice? Nope. I don’t want to listen to Jacen being a dummy anymore than I have too. Tahle knížka není pro sklerotiky. Ačkoliv se považuju za fanouška Warhammeru 40.000, tak se mi v paměti drží tak maximálně velké legie, hlavní primarchové a pár důležitých hlavních postav. Tahle kniha je spoustu dílků rozsypané stavebnice, pro lidi, kteří mají paměť jako slon… nebo si dělají poznámky. I když tady jsou i delší věci, které nabízí i nějaký samostatný příběh, tak dost z toho jsou spíš jen střípky do mozaiky, popisující, jak hrdina dostal rukavici, jak mu definitivně hráblo, co dělal mezi dvěma velkými příběhy, jak se dali tyhle postavy dohromady… nebo prostě jen jak kdo uvažuje. Pro mě tahle kniha byla seznamem informací, které by byly určitě zajímavé, kdybych si je do doby čtení další knihy zvládl zapamatovat. Plus, další nevýhoda téhle knihy – žádný Abnett. Ten celkově z Horus Heresy vymizel, což je dost mrzuté.

Navigation menu

A Horus Heresy anthology Only from out of great conflict can true heroes arise. With the galaxy aflame and war on an unimaginable scale tearing the Imperium apart, champions of light and darkness venture onto countless fields of battle in service to their masters.

So, I was quite surprised to see how much I enjoyed the late Aaron Alston's first book in the series. While note everything necessarily works -- Jacen's turn, while well foreshadowed still seems sudden, and Lumiya, a little know EU character's sudden appearance and large role left even me, who has a encyclopedic knowledge of the Star Wars universe, confused. That is certainly An Interpretation. I’m just not sure it’s an interpretation I buy. While Vergere did terrible, morally dubious things, she’s always felt more like a Gray figure to me—neither Jedi nor Sith. I’m not sure that this is what Matthew Stover intended, or even James Luceno and Walter Jon Williams intended, but stories always evolve over time. I may not like this retcon—I think it makes more sense that Lumiya is lying to Jacen and giving him events “from a certain point of view” to push him towards her desired outcome—but that’s definitely not the official LotF explanation. Stranger things than xenos and mutants dwell in the dark places between the stars – things known only too well to the inhabitants of Davin. Cult priest Thoros calls upon the favour of his patron gods to aid him in casting out the pretenders and non-believers, for only the true disciples of Chaos can be allowed to rule the galaxy... [1] Related ArticlesAaron Dembski-Bowden is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Betrayer and The First Heretic, as well as the novella Aurelian and the audio drama Butcher’s Nails, for the same series. He also wrote The Talon of Horus, the popular Night Lords series, the Space Marine Battles book Helsreach, the Grey Knights novel The Emperor’s Gift and numerous short stories. He lives and works in Northern Ireland. The plot was interesting and well paced in my opinion, and I was never lost or bored by any of the more politically based story lines. I like the idea of the characters we love being at odds with each other, even if it ultimately doesn't last, and there was a lot of fun to be had in the war on/with Corellia. I was frustrated by the development of Jacen, simply because at the beginnning of the book he was finally the jedi I wanted him to be in the last couple of series. However, since I already knew his fate in the series, I understand and accept what happened. Bagley himself was unable to follow his brothers at Annapolis because of his “dodgy eyesight.” His career in the CIA was distinguished, involving him in some of the agency’s biggest wins over the years. Colleagues believed he would some day become Director of the CIA. This was not a man to himself betray his county, as some in the CIA maintained. As an author of licensed material myself, I can understand the thin line an author walks when working with characters that are not only beloved but have a complex history that has existed oftentimes long before you had the chance to put pen to paper.

Unlike most of the previous anthologies in this series, this one felt thematically cohesive. We are 31 books into the full series and it sometimes gets confusing on what is happening where. This book helped to correct that. The stories progressed the overall plot along and fleshed out many of the many plotlines. Han and Leia get to flex their spy chops, and their motivations and actions seem to be MUCH more intelligent and carefully crafted. All the other side characters grabbed my interest. In particular, there is a family dinner at Han and Leia’s house in or around chapter 4. Han is overwhelmed and surrounded on ALL SIDES by Jedi, all of them being his direct family.Butcher's Nails (*****) It had everything you could want from a story about the World Eaters and Lorgar. Lotara maybe my favorite ship Captain. Only from out of great conflict can true heroes arise. With the galaxy aflame and war on an unimaginable scale tearing the Imperium apart, champions of light and darkness venture onto countless fields of battle in service to their masters. Meanwhile, Luke is a guy who isn’t very good at his job. Jacen is an idiot whom Luke is 100% responsible for. While Jacen is botching up hostage negotiations and letting people blow themselves up, literally no one thinks, “Gee, maybe Master Skywalker should know this?” No. I’m sure someone would have informed Luke about the activities of his Jedi and what they were up to. It’s utterly STOOPID that he isn’t keeping a watchful, fatherly eye over the very person he is letting EDUCATE HIS SON! This arc is literally called “Legacy of the Force,” and Luke would have known that his “legacy” needs to be carefully trained. In my humble opinion, they didn’t go about writing Jacen's story with intelligence. Jacen’s motivations and reasoning are lazy and poorly thought out. His philosophy doesn’t add up to the conclusions he reaches without completely throwing away REASONING POWERS. This is probably by design, showing that Jacen has been trained to focus on the wrong things. But if that’s the case, his training was STOOPID.