Descent of Angels

For a book that relished every detail, the change in the Lion near the end of the novel feels relatively unexplained. Spoilers: Particularly with attias and eliath like why do they deserve his scorn? Like I could zahariel and luther because he might've seen through the details they left out regarding the bomb, and although it seems a bit odd that he would admonish the forces that just saved his life by sending israfel to caliban especially considering that israfel is not a calabinite I can see the line of reason, but are attias and eliath just in trouble because they are friends with zahariel? Why is nemiel still in favor? What happened to all the good will that the lion had for zahariel prior? Is this intended to be the mystery at the end of the book? If it is explained later in the series and this was all intentional that i fell hook line and sinker for then I will change my review to 5 stars.

I have read nearly every single 40k book black library has released in the past 10-15 years. And I must say, both of the dark angels books in the horus heresy series were two of the most dissappointing. It was well written, and the second time I read them I liked them a LITTLE more than the first time, but they were far from the best. Most of the events of this book take place before the emperor even arrives on the planet and meets his son, so a vast majority of the book is battles with essentially industrial weaponry, though tword the end in really gets more into the 40k universe. I was very disappointed with these 2 books, regardless.

This book felt so incredibly thorough, yet paced forward incredibly well. It covers practically a lifetime of action and culture prior to any mention of the Emperor or Astartes. It’s the origin story of the Dark Angels, and I won’t spoil anything else. Read it!