Void Stalker: Night Lords: Warhammer 40,000 Book 3 (Unabridged‪)‬

All over the place, and not in a good way.

SPOILERS!
The author has great skill in creating likable, interesting characters. The only problem is that he frequently either ruins them, kills them, or both.

At several points, things happen in the story that directly contradict what was established in the previous books. For example, when Talos met with the four representatives of Chaos, one of them said Cyrion was resisting the “gift” he’d been given and wasn’t enslaved to Chaos…not yet, but soon. However, it’s revealed here that Cyrion has been enslaved for centuries, murdering the crew and feasting on their fear like a vampire psyker, all the while constantly framing Uzas for the crimes. Cyrion was my favorite of First Claw, and this story obliterated his character, making a lie of everything good that came before.

Talos has always been incapacitated when the visions took hold, but in this story, he broke out of his cell and killed two members of the Legion without knowing it. Are there any consequences like there was when Uzas killed a fellow Night Lord? Nope. It’s mentioned, not explained, then dropped and forgotten.

When Octavia killed accidentally with her third eye, it attracted the Neverborn, and a warp-spawn creature showed up in the flesh of a dead warrior and had to be killed again. In this story, Talos has Octavia kill over a hundred people with her eye in order to create a psychic “chorus” in the warp that kills astropaths and others who are mentally receptive enough to hear it. So, if one death drew a Neverborn, hundreds should draw untold numbers like moths to a flame. Nope. Not a one so much as glances in their direction.

There’s a significant time jump between the end of the previous book and the start of this one. Septimus and Octavia had barely been past holding hands, and now they have a kid on the way. I think it’s written with obvious gaps so the reader can share in the confusion of Talos at what transpired while he was out, but I prefer to witness the confusion of characters rather than being an unwilling participant.

Variel, the Flayer, intends to make Octavia’s child one of the Legion. Septimus and Octavia flee, but since Variel shows up with a new “Prophet” named Decimus, most likely with Talos’ geneseed, we can assume the Flayer caught up with them. It’s not specified what happened, but if they resisted, he would’ve gotten his new flesh-cloak.

Atramentar Malek and Garadon survived the destruction of the Covenant of Blood by teleporting onto an enemy ship, but it’s not revealed how they got away from their enemies in order to rejoin the Legion. They just show up at the end with no explanation.

A messy finish for what had been a great and enjoyable set of books.