Warhammer 40,000: Red Fury (Blood Angels, Bk. 3) (Mass Market Paperback)

~ James Swallow (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The next installment in the popular Blood Angels series, Red Fury starts a new story arc telling the Blood Angels fight to restore their Chapter to its full glory!

About the Author

James Swallow has written several books, including Star Trek: Terok Nor: Day of the Vipers and Seeds of Dissent (from Star Trek: Myriad Universes: Infinity's Prism); the Sundowners quartet of ?steampunk' science fiction Westerns (Ghost Town, Underworld, Iron Dragon and Showdown); the best-selling novelization of The Butterfly Effect; The Flight of the Eisenstein, Faith and Fire and Jade Dragon; the 2000AD tie-ins Eclipse, Blood Relative and Whiteout; Stargate Atlantis: Halcyon; and the Blood Angels duology Deus Encarmine and Deus Sanguinius.

In addition, Swallow's short fiction has appeared in Inferno! and Stargate magazine, the anthologies Star Trek Voyager: Distant Shores, the Doctor Who Short Trips collections Dalek Empire and Destination Prague, Something Changed, Collected Works, What Price Victory and Silent Night.

His non-fiction includes Dark Eye: The Films of David Fincher and books on writing, genre television and animation; he has also written for Star Trek: Voyager, Doctor Who and Space 1889, along with several scripts for audio and videogames.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Games Workshop (August 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1844165604
• ISBN-13: 978-1844165605
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #525,389 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Action & Background - Questionable Plot, December 28, 2008

By	Sean B. Schoonmaker (Oakland, CA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is M. Swallow's fifth Black Library novel set in Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K universe, and continues the story begun in Deus Encarmine and Deus Sanguinius. Again we follow Sergeant Rafen and his squad, Brothers Ajir, Corvus, Puluo, and Turcio, though the high-level plot touches on all the heroes of the Blood Angels - Dante, Mephiston, and Corbulo - as well as the Chapter Masters of many of the Blood Angels' successor chapters. The story uses its political plot, a conclave of the successor chapters called by Dante, as a means of linking its action scenes. The emphasis is pretty much all on the action and conflict, with little in the way of character development or subtlety.

If you have not read any of the previous books of this series, or possess a solid knowledge of Blood Angels "fluff," you'll have difficulty figuring out the characters, as there's very little exposition and what's there relies heavily on prior knowledge. However, as all the characters fit neatly into their stereotyped slots, this is only a problem if you're new to the 40K universe or want character development in your storylines. Many of the sub-plots are fragmentary unless you've read the other books - or plan to read the ones clearly planned for the future.

The villains - and their sometimes unwitting pawns - act with two-dimensional behavior, though not always in character. They act according to their base instincts or disobey orders as necessary to drive the plot forward. Some readers will find the instances where Space Marines act like characters from a soap opera particularly grating. Likewise, the villains frequently bypass security and safeguards with no reasonable explanation.

The top-level plot is fairly creative in concept, even if it disregards much of the established canon concerning Space Marine gene seed, and allows M. Swallow to include a wealth of information about the Blood Angels and their cousin chapters. This comes very close to making the book worthwhile all by itself to fluff fanatics. It includes a large number of Blood Angel Successor chapters, such as the Blood Drinkers, Angels Encarmine, Angels Sanguine, Angels Vermillion, Flesh Tearers, and many more. If you can forgive the departure from the established background and some forced plot vehicles, it's entertaining and ingenious.

The action writing is actually pretty good. It conveys a good sense of the immediacy and chaos of combat, even if some of its situations strain the limits of believability. Could a Sergeant succeed where a Chapter Master and several other heroes failed? The bolter fire of many Marines fails when a single shot from one of the main characters brings down the foe.

If you want plenty of action and lots of Blood Angels successor Chapters without worrying about things like character development or plot, then this is the book for you. However, if your suspension of disbelief requires sensible plot devices and logical character motivations, then you might want to pass. In short: if you enjoyed the first two books of the series, you'll like this one too, but if you're more discerning, then leave it alone.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great background and description, but a few flaws, November 26, 2008

By	Brian Long "Brian" (Ogden, UT USA) - See all my reviews

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Red Fury picks up after the Blood Angels Akrio insurrection. After gathering the succesor Chapters of the Blood Angels to Baal, Dante leads a discussion of the potential survival of their Chapter. At the same time, the Apothecaria is working on a radical new procedure to replenish the ranks of the Blood Angels in one swift stroke: the lost art of replicae.

This book is beautiful, with fantastic flavor for all of the arriving Chapters, as well as the structures on the Blood Angels homeworld. the description of the coffin of Sanguinus, the chapel of the Red Grail. Character interactions are rife with strain, without being either over the top or seeming like petty whining. The storyline starts slowly, in runs at a breakneck pace from about 2/3 of the way through the book.

Probably my biggest criticism of Red Fury, and indeed the majority of recent 40k fiction, is the overarching drift. The Imperium fails, and fails, and fails some more. The concept of victory is now turning a slaughter into a mere disaster. Chaos wins and wins and wins, and while the Guard or the Marines gets a lieutenant here, and a commander there, there has not been a definitive Imperial victory since Sabbat Martyr, and not one before then to my memory. Everything crumbles, and only the bad guys seem to grow stronger at every conflict. GW better have another worldwide campaign soon so the good guys have a chance to turn the tide, because its going to be hard to reconcile a 2-4,532 record into a "narrow defeat" of the Imps.

3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed Review, February 3, 2009

By	M. Leland Gross "Weylander" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I loved the first two books in this series by James Swallow but after finishing Red Fury I have some issues. Being a regular reader of Warhammer 40k fiction I believe Swallow went a little too far with his liberal use of legendary characters and the defiling of a Blood Angel artifact for what seems like purely shock value. It seems the Horus Heresy series has taken away the taboo of writing about chapter masters, and primarchs. The authors are now trying to one up these tales and I although the story is well written and continues the series well these hang ups left me annoyed at the end of the book. I will most likey continue to read his books but would like to see Swallow (and other 40k fiction writers) return to good story creation without feeling they need to add in the historical paragons....its a 4ok "universe" there are unlimited possibilities!!!