Customer Reviews

Dawn of War (Warhammer 40,000)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I can't believe the "reviews" about this book.

Plainly, it's a sad excuse of a book, and yes I have read between 45-50 Warhammer 40K novels so far (almost all of them), and sadly this is one of the worst (maybe even the worst). I don't blame the writer or Black Library for putting this book out, they did what they could with the material, but the material was too weak to none existent.

First, all the WH40K novels suffers from some restraint of the "playing universe that is WH40K" then if that's not hard enough, confine it even more to follow a weak story line from a game. (The game is great, but the story line is paper cut out and then some.)

The end result, is a bunch of one dimension characters, with empty minds, and as mentioned before, they change their mind at a whim, just making them feel below 1 dimension, I respect that the Eldar are not covered in many book as mentioned before, but Farseer is a much better choice then this "novel".

The big story line are classic and has been done 100 times before in all games, even outside the WarHammer 40K universe, some of the Codex short stories are better then this novel, and that's saying a lot. Characters and setting are bellow one dimension, it feel like reading a small intro to a game that went horribly wrong and long, it would not fit in the box, and decided, let's make a "novel" with this mess and sell it.

I cannot recommend this book to anyone, and I just wish that peoples wont judge the Black Library's book collection with this one book, that would be a tragedy.

You want to read :

About Eldar's - Farseer

About Space Marines turning to the dark side - Soul Drinker, Crimson Tears and The Bleeding Chalice

About Chaos Marines - Storm of Iron

About Inquisitor - Eisenhorn Trilogy, The Inquisitor War (Draco) and the new Ravenor's.

My recommendation - Anything written by Dan Abnett and William King.

Considering that Dawn of War is the novelisation of a computer game, it was fantastic! The writing is powerful and the action scenes are the best I've seen. If you like Black Library stuff, you'll love this.

I don't know what the heck I was expecting when I got this book. I think my buying this particular work of CS Goto occured before I actually made the distinction between the good writers of the Black Library and the ones that are something less. Dan Abnett, Graham McNeill, William King, Ben Counter, James Swallow, Andy Hoare, Steve Lyons, Mitchell Scanlon, and...actually, reading much pretty any other fething writer that the BL uses is better that reading Goto. He's an adequate writer at best, and most of the time worse. Abnett and McNeill are my favorites, in that order.

I'm too long-winded, so I'll get to this specific book. It's based on the Relic Warhammer 40K Real-Time Strategy game, Dawn of War. DoW is an excellent game and so are both it's expansion packs, and the plot was certainly good enough for someone to write a good book based on it. True, sometimes it's tough to translate from a game to a good movie or book, but there was enough space to maneuver within the storyline that Goto--if he was a good writer, let's assume for a moment--ought to have been able to do better.

First of all, the whole idea of writing a book on this game, it would seem, would be to flesh out the characters a bit and at least make them seem a bit three-dimensional. Not true of anyone in this story. If you played the videogame, you know exactly what the characters of Captain Angelos, Librarian Isador, Chaos Lord Bale, Sindri the Sorceror, Colonel Brom, Inquisitor Whatevertheheckhisnameis are all like. The backstory at the beginning suffers from lethargic writing that manages to make a scene where a giant eldar avatar fights a demon prince seem dull.

From there, our man CS is off to the races.

The plot is fine, really. The thing is, Goto didn't come up with the plot in the first place. He does an adequate job of telling people what they already know if they played the game. Some of the fight scenes are okay. But seemingly any time he tries to expand a theme, he manages to screw up. A light Eldar, for some reason, is seen shouting "blood for the blood god." That is simply not something you'd ever catch an eldar saying outside the weird world of Goto. Other lowlights:

-Lord Bale, the Chaos leader, is a piece of cardboard holding a scythe, but the best part is how Goto describes him as "rampaging across worlds and galaxies" in the past. Worlds: okay. Galaxies: no. Bale has not been to a different galaxy unless you're talking about the warp. Even if that's the case, the poor word choice is an indictable offense anyway.

-Colonel Brom, the local PDF leader, is a bizarre character. Most of the time, the Space Marines flat out ignore him and piss him off to the point where he...well, I won't spoil it, but Brom in the game NEVER TURNED TO CHAOS, GOSH DARN IT. Sorry, I spoiled it. But what the hell? It's not even accurate to the storyline of DoW. How hard could it have been to stasy faithful to a frickin' video game storyline made up of a few cutscenes?

-Goto is just not very good switching scens constantly, and he chose to try and show this conflict from all four sides (Good, Chaos, Eldar, Ork) and it doesn't work. Too much face time for the Eldar, too much face time for the ridiculous Ork characters he crafts.

-The Guardsmen who defend the city of Lloovre Marr have NO senior officer in command of them. Thus, one of them opens the gates when the Eldar come calling while another opens fire on them. They put up pathetic resistance and die. What possible explanation is there that there wasn't even a frakking Lieutenant to watch over the walls of one of the bigger cities on the planet?

-Gabriel's duel with Bale is a pathetic fight scene. Awesomely pathetic.

There's more, and I could go on and on. Instead I'll just say that Goto gets the second star more because I know it's tough to adapt a storyline from another source. Otherwise, this would get one star. I do not recommend this or any other Goto WH40K book unless you're flat out of WH40K to read.

I came to this book after reading Goto's awesome 'Warrior Brood' and, to be honest, I didn't expect much from it, given that it is a novelisation of a computer game (albeit a dashed good computer game). However, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. The plot of the book is much more intricate and interesting than it is in the game -- the author clearly did a lot of work to transform that lame duck into something that could fly (can lame ducks fly anyway?). The result is a storming action romp. It feels a little 'outside' the normal WH40K stuff, as though it exists in a little bubble in a galaxy far far away, but I can forgive that (and enjoy it) given that it is rooted in the computer game rather than the wargame. Don't get me wrong, all the regular 40K elements are there: eldar, space marines, orks, chaos marines ... It just feels like Goto has made them his own rather than slavishly sticking to what has gone on in other books. In many ways, this is great, and it is exactly the kind of creativity that franchise fiction needs.
The second volume 'Ascension' is already out in Europe, so I've ordered that already!

It was decent in overall but unfortunately the author did not know or understand the background of the Alpha Legion so he made so rather basic mistakes in the story regarding them. Otherwise the story was good but nothing too great. A good way to kill some time.

I have just said this on the UK site, but wanted to say it here too: I don't normally read stuff like this, and only did so because my flat-mate left it out on a shelf. It was raining outside, as it does in Glasgow ALL THE TIME. I thought it was going to be terrible: Warhammer and based on a computer game! But it is awesome! Really exciting and dramatic. Even intelligent. Really well written. Can't wait for another one.

They are hand-picked from the elite of the galaxy's fighting men. Then they're surgically augmented for years until they are finally implanted with a black carapace that runs under their entire skin, permitting them to interface completely with the ancient power armor that enwraps them like a second skin. They are the Adeptus Astartes, , the Emperor's Space Marines.

Brother Gabriel Angelos is captain of the Blood Ravens, Third Company. He and his men arrive on the planet Tartarus to aid in its defense with the Tartarans Planetary Defense Force. A brutal ork invasion is devastating the planet. At the same time, the mysterious eldar is clashing with the forces of Chaos in a battle that has raged since before human time.

Gabriel would have his hands full with all this alone. But things become worse when Inquisitor Mordecai Toth arrives, demanding that Gabriel and his Blood Ravens evacuate Tartarus immediately. Yet things just do not seem right to Gabriel, especially when the inquisitor continues to say there are no Chaos forces on the planet even though there is evidence otherwise.

**** This military sci-fi begins in battle and ends in battle. Non-stop war and mayhem is the order of the day. I recommend this novel to all military sci-fi fans, but especially to those who have played the game! Well done! ****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

This is becoming a bit of a debate!
The last reviewer (Wiederhirn) clearly has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to the WH40K background. First of all, there's no such thing as 'Light eldar' -- there's just eldar (and Dark Eldar). Second, all Aspect Warriors are committed to Khaine (the 'Bloody Handed God') ... hence they call for blood in his name. If these things made it hard for him to get into the story, then they must also make it hard for him to get into any WH40K story ...
In anycase, the idea of 'facts' in a fictional world is a bit odd.

One of the best things about 'Dawn of War' is that it deals with the eldar at all! Hardly any of the books talk about them, and CS Goto has got them EXACTLY RIGHT! I hope he/she writes more. Yes, there are some problems with the plot, but those problems are in the game too. Goto has done an amazing job of transforming a dubious game-narrative into a storming novel.
Read it and see what all the fuss is about: YOU decide!

This debate is clearly getting tired. It seems to me that everyone thinks the writing is good but that there are problems with the story-line (because of the computer game). I agree with both: the writing is AWESOME. It might be better than all the other WH40K books. It is a shame that CS Goto had to stick to the plot of the computer game. Having said that, he makes it MUCH BETTER than anyone else could have done! Were it not for him, this would be a pile of pants.
I have just read SALVATION (also by CS Goto), and it is incredible. All of the great writing, and this time a great story too. Check it out.
I notice that he is also writing a Deathwatch series, called Warrior Brood or something. I can't wait for that.

Dawn of War, I think, Is a great book. The story is set in the future in the popular world of Warhammer 40,000. The story takes place on a planet called Tartarus. The planet is being sieged by aliens called orks. The Imperial Guard Regiment there is reinforced by the mighty Blood Ravens 3rd company of Space Marines. The Space Marines along with the guard repel the orks only to find out that another alien race the eldar are there and the traitorous forces of Chaos are there too. The Blood Raven's leader Captain Gabriel Angelos along with his best friend the pysker Akios Isador lead 3rd company too victory against the aliens. Later on in the book Gabriel's best friend Isador turns to Chaos and Gabriel then killed his traitorous friend. They later fight a Chaos demon Sindri and successfully save Tartarus.
There was many things that I absolutely loved in the book. The best part was that there was tons of action. Almost every page had an awesome fight with huge battles against the aliens. The proof is all in a quote "...Tanthius and his squad of terminators were storming towards the felled section of the wall, their storm bolters spluttered with fire..."
Not only did I love the action I loved the treachery. The treachery of Gabriel's best friend was the best though.
Just because th book was great doesn't mean it had a few parts I didn't like. The most annoying thing was the talking parts. There was about 3 or 4 talking parts that were 10 to15 pages long. No action just conversation. For example "...What do you think he wants,..." And it goes on for 10 more pages.
Overall my favorite part was when The Marines and the Guards repel a huge Ork offensive. It is my favorite part for a few reasons. First, the action is intense. Second, there is thousands of Orks in a huge charge against the lines. Overall the book is an action packed book with a great story.