Customer Reviews

Fire Warrior (Warhammer 40,000)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are rabid 40K enthusiast, you may be tempted to give this review a negative rating simply because I gave the book 2 stars. Well, please hear me out. The Warhammer 40,000 universe is one of my favorite settings. I have been playing the game for nearly 10 years. And over those years there have been many high-quality novels written for this universe.

This, however, is not one of them. Let me be blunt: as much as I like 40K, I know excrement when I see it.

I went into this novel accepting the fact that it would be a fairly faithful translation of the video game. In that aspect, it definitely succeeds- although I wouldn't necessarily call that a good thing, as I'll explain.

The plot, such it is, follows a young Fire Warrior named Kais as he carves a bloody swathe across the border between Tau and Imperial space. Despite a standing peace treaty the Imperium has become increasingly aggressive in military actions into Tau space, which results in the capture of an Ethereal by the governor of Dolumar IV. This forces the Tau Empire to take action. Of course, as the Imperium and the Tau engage in full-blown combat all of the resulting bloodshed is merely the backdrop for a much more sinister plot that threatens both sides.

Kais' main traits are his unresolved issues with his father, and his increasingly callous thirst for combat. I wish I could say that there was more to his personality but there really isn't.

There are a few other characters, but all of them suffer from a similar lack of development, even the Imperial governor who serves as Kais' primary enemy. He's simply the Bad Guy. There is also the Gruff Veteran, the Calm and Collected Ethereal, and to top things off we have the Reluctant Ally in the form of Ultramarines Captain Ardias. But surely, you ask, there must be more to these characters!

No, no there isn't.

Now let's get on to the writing. The authors employ two main techniques. The first is to spend a few pages introducing a minor character, only to have him killed off at the end of that very same introduction. The second technique is to show an event happening at one location, and then turn back the clock to describe something that Kais had already done somewhere else (the effect is quite distracting, not unlike a clumsily pressed rewind button). The authors then repeat these techniques again, and again, and again until by the end of the novel it becomes completely predictable. Spurrier and Gascoigne seem to have chosen these techniques primarily to increase the page count and nothing more.

Interspersed throughout all of this are the obligatory and inconsequential flashback sequences. The bulk of the novel, however, depicts scenes of combat, most of which is actually fairly well done. The combat is sometimes contrived, however, particularly at times when Kais faces Space Marines who seem to have been trained to be incompetent (such as the Marine who caught a live grenade that was thrown at him, then took a few moments to stare at it before it blew off his arm).

I would have to say that the single bright spot is the insight the novel provides into Tau culture and into the relationship between the Tau and the Imperium. These few passages are quite interesting, but unfortunately cannot make up for the book's other flaws.

Overall the novel clearly fails to deliver. I would still have given it a higher rating, however, if there had been at least some attempt at character development. There is none. As I noted earlier, Kais is completely blank and uninteresting as far as personality is concerned. By the time the final showdown takes place, I honestly didn't care one way or the other whether Kais emerged victorious. The novel's main, telling flaw isn't that it is based off a video game, it's that it READS like a video game. This is unacceptable.

If you don't mind having your intelligence insulted, then you'll probably enjoy this novel. Discerning readers of 40K fiction, however, will almost surely be greatly disappointed.

Fire Warrior by Simon Spurrier is a novelization of a first-person shooter computer game recently published by Games Workshop.

I want to say up front that I refuse to give any book a 5-star rating. I don't believe that any book, no matter how well it's written and/or who wrote it, is perfect. But Fire Warrior is a VERY strong 4-star read.

I consider myself relatively well read in Games Workshop (or Black Library) fiction, and while I've found several warhammer novels in the past to be good reads, I consider Fire Warrior to be a singularly unique offering in Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K universe.

The main character of the novel is a young Fire Warrior named Kais. Kais is a Tau - one of the newest races introduced in the 40K universe. The fact that the primary character of the novel is an alien (or a "xenogen" as the Imperium of man would say), gives the book such a fresh feel that it's a wonder why Black Library and GW waited so long to actually portrait a non-human race in such a fashion. Certainly, other 40k novels have introduced alien (or non-human, therefore "chaos-tainted") characters, but never in the manner that Fire Warrior portrays them... at least as far as my reading of BL fiction goes. Most mainline characters in 40K fiction are human, members of the Imperium (Imperial guardsman or super-human Space Marines), and as such their "perspective" (even if intelligent and considerate) is inherently fraught with "insiderism" weakness. A human being of the Imperium simply cannot, in my view, look upon the Imperium with as fresh a perspective as a Tau "outsider".

And so what we have here in this novel is a brand new look at the Imperium, and through the eyes of our sleek Tau fire warrior, we see a gangly, uncontrollable, smelly, oozing race of cybernetic augmetics, once-human servo robots fluttering about on scripted I/O tasks, uber-human Space Marines whose supped-up bodies defy logic, and weird tech-priests who wield auguristic powers that would make any Greek mystic blush. In short, through the eyes of Kais, we see that the human race is threatening to become the very thing that it rails against: Xenogen. With every awkward, brutish lunge into space, humanity is losing its "humanity". Which begs the question of when will the Imperium be rocked by a serious Luddite movement. I tell you, it needs one, or we may wake up one day to find the distance between Order (the Imperium) and Chaos (the heretical followers of Horus) so small as to be indistinguishable.

Spurrier all but suggests the very same thing through the inner-mumblings of Kais. During one scene in the novel, as Kais is running for his life, he sees both human and tau body parts strewn along the way, mingling in ghastly flesh heaps, and he wonders...

"Here a tau arm lay, knuckles clenched, beside a de-limbed human corpse. There was a symbolism here, perhaps. A sense of unity, a sense of physical sameness. Given a talented enough por'hui journalist, this scene might mean something. `In death, we're all the same'..."

This simple passage basically sums up the novel for me. Not only in death are tau and humans the same, reduced to simple chucks of meat, but I argue that they are the same in life as well. Humans, tau, eldar, and even the savage green-skinned orks are, in essence, all the same: "humanoid" races adrift in a sea of stars trying desperately to carve out a slice of the cosmic pie. Who is right and who is wrong? In desperate combat, humans and tau speak past each other, neither side willing to fully understand and appreciate the other, and all the while an even more dangerous threat lurks just beyond their comprehension, an evil that threatens to "force" them to work together to ensure their mutual survival. These things and many more thought-provoking tidbits await you in this novel... if you only care to peel back the layers of relentless action and look.

Character development is very good as well. Kais is not just a killing machine, plowing his way through the enemy with first-person shooter precision (side note: This is a novelization of an action game, don't forget, so some suspension of disbelief must be made to accept battle scenes that defy realism). He's a flawed being, a young, untested fire warrior who constantly questions his abilities. And as he becomes a better fighter, he fears that he's losing his soul, so to speak, becoming what the tau call Mont'au, a unstoppable killing force that may consume him. Other characters, both tau and human, are introduced throughout the book, some whose purpose is nothing more than to be introduced on one page, and then be blown to paste on the next. Yet, even with these "minor" characters, Spurrier offers up enough meat on the bones to make you care (at least for a second) about what happens to them.

If there is one criticism I could level against the book is that from time to time, the prose flirts dangerously close to turning purple. Spurrier tends to over-describe the setting from time to time, and I admit getting a little annoyed by the excessive use of the word "blood". But these problems didn't keep me from reading and enjoying the book, and it shouldn't keep you from doing so either. As a media tie-in novel, it succeeds on many levels.

OK - I had read the prior reviews before reading this but, they didn't quite prepare me. I know this book is based off the video game (which I've never played & don't intend to) but, as one reviewer wrote, it reads like a video game. I realize we are supposed to "suspend our disbelief" (which I do), but this takes things a little too far.

I play Tau in WH40K - I want this Fire Warrior (FW) to be the Shas'O in my army - that's the only figure I'll need! I hope that Kais is looking for employment! Maybe GW should write up some rules for Shas'la Kais, make a new mini for him & make him a special character. Let's see, BS of about 10, I10, S8, T10; plus he cost about 1000 pts to field him.

############# SPOILER WARNING ##### SPOILER WARNING #########

The fight scenes were done well in their dscription. My main issue with this book is how 'good' Shas'la Kais is. He should be wearing a light blue cape and have a big RED T on his chest - Super Tau!!

I would have appreciated the book more if Kais' exploits weren't so outrageous - taking on & defeating scores of Smurfs single-handedly; single-handedly destroying the engines on the Enduring Blade; single-handedly fighting & defeating a Chaos Dreadnaught; single-handedly killing about a hundred or so Chaos SM and a Titan; etc., etc.

I know the Tau are an awesome race, but, please! If this follows the video game - shame on it as well.

This would be about as believable as a novel based on the exploits of a lone Tyranid Termagaunt! The Hive Mind controls it but it would make as much sense! It picks up a dead Genestealers rending claws & takes out a Baneblade, it then tackles a squad of termies plus 1 or 2 dreadnaughts, then, it picks a venom cannon and takes out a Land Raider, etc.

Other than the over-the-top exploits of Kais, it was a good book. I especially liked the background on Tau culture that it provides. I also like the idea that it was written from the Tau perspective rather than a human one.

Disappointing book. Most W40K fans might want to take a pass on this book. It apparently follows the computer game as the action, characters, and events appear to be based on it (haven't tried the game myself). Unfortunately, the action is not engaging, nor is the main character. Super Tau can kill everything and anyone at ease and simplicity, from Space Marines to Chaos Marines with little trouble. Even Chaos summoned demons easily fall to this lone warrior. Super Tau Fire Warrior does what entire chapters of Space Marines or Regiments of Imperial Guard are unable to do and survives with barely any damage and heals in less time.
Doesn't fit into the W40K "logic" and books written by other authors. The action is brief and very dull, basically in one sequence: he picks up a plasma pistol, shoots, and the Space Marine Sergeant is killed. If Space Marines and Chaos Marines are so easy to kill, (well actually in the book, the Chaos Marines kill each other while trying to hurt the Super Tau Fire Warrior in hand to hand combat, duh...) then the Tau should be masters of the W40K universe. Not very descriptive or engaging like CS Goto or Ben Counter have done in their W40K books.
The one positive about this book is the space battle and boarding of a Tau spaceship. It had a lot of potential, but again, Super Tau does more than the rest of the crew, sigh...
If one is really must read this book, sign out from the library instead of buying it, there are much more entertaining W40K books to to own as part of one's collection.

I am a big fan of the Tau and there is a lot of interesting development that could be done with the race. Unfortunately, this novel provides very little in comparison to what is typical of Black Library novels. The basis for the story could make for a great novel but the writing was poor in comparison to other Warhammer 40,000 novels I have read. Had it been written by Dan Abnett, or Lee Lightner, it could have been a real treat.

Some parts of the book were hard to follow the first time through, forcing me to go back and readjust my mental picture of what had just happened. Some things did not follow logically from the events that had already occurred, though it is evident later how they tie in. The characters are not very deep, and in some cases they are downright absurd. The novel covers a lot of events, and the pacing is sometimes inappropriate. This is an area where following the video game too closely probably hurt the novel. So many events occur that too little time is spent developing each one. A novel which only loosely follows the game, and omits many of the events from the game, would probably have turned out better. The Dawn of War omnibus is an example of such an approach.

Having played the game this novel is based on, I did not expect much. The other reviews I found of this book were not encouraging either. I bought the book anyway because I was interested to see what development had been done with the Tau race and stories featuring the Tau are few and far between. I have read over 20 Warhammer 40,000 novels and this is the worst I have read by a significant margin. If you love the Tau, this book is mediocre but better than nothing. Otherwise, I would not recommend this book when there are so many great Warhammer 40,000 titles available.

Fire Warrior felt like Spurrier didn't have a clue of what to do with the Tau or any of the other non-Tau characters for that matter. Reading it through, the book was very descriptive oriented in trying to overcome its shortfall of dialogue and development; Kais our main character, the non-stop killing machine who is troubled by shame. Lusha, the guiding hand for Kais. Ardias, the Space Marine captain who is unsure if he earns the rank. Governor Severus, the antagonist who spews his plan like a cartoon villian. They were barely touched upon in the story and when they were, it was a bore reading these characters.

It didn't help that the action was sub-par. As other reviewers have noted, Kais comes out victorious in his objectives no matter how ludicrous and he somehow manages to keep going even with a bad leg and shoulder towards the end. Another reviewer wrote that since this came from a video game, we should suspend disbelief but to do so we would acknowledge the poor action writing of this book as good by giving it that excuse. If we wanted action scenes like in the book, we'd just play the video game instead. We probably would have more fun that way.

Perhaps Spurrier didn't know what to do with this book or he just lazily followed the game. Either way this is not a book you want to buy for the prices on eBay, here, or anywhere else. Save your cash and borrow it from the library or someone else if possible.

Fire Warrior is nothing but Tau fluff, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Unlike most - most meaning all - the Tau in this novel feel more charismatic and human then the actual human. Never thought I would root for the alien side. All for the Greater Good.

The ending of this book was not only confusing but rushed, after he killed the daemon lord or whatever, he had one arm, and he was crazy... But before he kills it, it shows in the book, how he realizes how his father wasn't perfect. but he is still crazy?

I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The Tau have always been my favorite race in the 40k universe as they're the only empire who have the "Greater Good" as their way of life. I thought the story was believable and not too far fetched - Kais is described throughout as much more than a simple line soldier, and there are hints that his abilities might be hereditary. The insight into Tau culture and way of life was a breath of fresh air from the characteristically gothic 40k literature, and seeing the Imperium from an outsiders perspective is really interesting. Although I have to agree that at some points in the book *** MAYBE SPOILER??*** (aka the ending) that it really does read like a video game. The first 75% of the book isn't too bad, and very much worth the read if your itching for something other than a bunch of Imps or Space Marines.

To start off, the number one thing which puzzled and annoyed me, is why did the author portray Kais, tha main character, as almost immortal. He kills entire Imperial Guard armies, Space Marines,Chaos Marines and Deamons without as much as a scratch on his armor. In C.S. Goto's books, Space Marines were portrayed as they should be. Powerful, vigilant and able to take great amounts of enemy fire. Not get killed by a few pathetic tau pulse rifle shots. If the book had more balance to it, Kais would have met his bloody end on his very first encounter with the renowed Ultramarines. Just shameful how weak the Space Marines are in Spurrier's book. It didn't matter if Kais was possesed by a deamon or not. He should have been killed like his fellow Fire Warriors were.Under the overwhelming lasfire from the Imperial Guard,on his initial drop-off on the planet Dolumar.