Nightbringer by Graham McNeill
Nov. 7th, 2009 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koilungfish30/10/09 - 4/11/09 - Ill
5/11/09 - 1147 words on Pral-Vrai System
6/11/09 - 4343 words on Pral-Vrai System
7/11/09 - 3958 words on Pral-Vrai System
Title - Nightbringer
Author - Graham McNeill
ISBN - 978-0-74344-299-2
From the offing readers can see they are in for a good read. The prose is clean and smooth, interrupted only by typesetting errors which come as doubly jarring for the quality of the writing. The plot is set up in a couple of scenes which provide the necessary exposition without any sense of infodumping.
It is impossible to talk about the plot of Nightbringer without talking first about the characters, so let us begin there. The main character is Uriel Ventris, Ultramarines company captain [read: mildly boss], newly promoted [read: big shoes, small feet], and perhaps the first character in any W40K fiction I've seen who actually likes human beings. Unlike even Mr Abnett's Imperial Guard, one gets the sense that, if all war ended suddenly, Captain Ventris would have things to do other than twiddle his thumbs and look embarrassed. This most likely comes from his being one of the best-written characters I've seen in W40K fiction - he's at turns proud to be what he is and humble to serve as he does, eager to shed enemy blood and reluctant to let innocents die, uncertain of himself as a captain and learning rapidly to be one.
The only problem with Captain Ventris is that he is thoroughly upstaged by Ario Barzano, Imperial adept [read: bureaucrat] who whisks in unexpectedly, steals the scene and refuses to give it back for the rest of the book. This is not a bad thing, as Barzano is a good character in his own right. A definite sense of energy and purpose comes off the page from him.
Barzano and Captain Ventris are backed up by Sergeant Learchus, Ventris' ex-rival with whom he has a mildly awkward relationship, Virgil Ortega and Jenna Sharben, judges in the Dredd sense, and Mykola Shonai, planetary governor and a woman trying so hard to do the right thing that she's having trouble admitting when she's doing it wrong.
Mr McNeill succeeds at writing female characters, always a plus and doubly so in the vastly male-dominated W40K universe. The three female characters with speaking parts - Jenna Sharben, Mykola Shonai and Lutricia Vijeon - all acquit themselves well. Sharben breaks faces for justice; there is no suggestion that she is a Tough Woman or Just As Good As A Man. She's just doing her job, the same as all the other judges, male and female. Lutricia Vijeon's three-scene arc is about loyalty and courage, qualities presented entirely indifferently to her gender. Mykola Shonai's abilities as governor are questioned heavily, but no more or no less than they would be if she were male. She gets a very human moment with Ario Barzano that would not have happened if she was a male character, but it does not detract from her character. Sometimes it takes more courage to cry in public than to hold tears back. All in all, Mr McNeill fails the Bechdel Test, but only because none of his female characters have a chance to get into a conversation. One suspects that if Governor Shonai and Judge Sharben had a conversation, it would have nothing to do with love interests, largely because there aren't any in the book.
It is interesting to note that W40K's odd quasi-sexism [95% of the characters in W40K are male and the ones that aren't are generally short on clothing] bumps into Black Library's no-romance rule, leaving the female characters who do appear free to act as equals and to do things without gender-based hassle. Apparently two wrongs can make a right ... if you can call the no-romance rule a wrong, given that it is such a relief to get away from mandatory love interest plots. Possibly one should picture the no-romance rule as like unto the cat in M. R. James' The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral, tripping the unequal presentation of the sexes down the stairs and out of the way.
The opposing side is largely fronted by Archon Kesharq, an eldar disaster mostly there to fill in space and provide something for the Ultramarines to shoot at until the plot really starts moving. It has been said that W40K has no good guys and no bad guys, only points of view, but I'd disagree. The dark eldar are straight-up bad guys and it's difficult to see how they could ever be presented as anything else. The real antagonist spends most of the book off-screen, being anonymous.
All in all, Nightbringer presents an unusually well-developed cast for a W40K novel. Despite Nightbringer being perhaps a quarter of the length of The Terror, Captain Ventris is ten times more alive than Captain Crozier, and I'd sooner read a five hundred page book about Ventris than a five hundred word story about Crozier any day. Mr McNeill's strength is his ability to create characters, to make them live, and a writer who can do that generally finds all the other problems solve [or cause] themselves.
Mr McNeill attempts some subtle misdirection early on, presenting the reader with a nameless human character obviously tied to the dark eldar, and then presenting three possibilities to his identity, each with a small clue to suggest that they are the traitor. Unfortunately Mr McNeill was being a bit too subtle [or I was too tired whilst reading this part] and the presentation remains mildly confusing but ultimately sensible. Mr McNeill appears to be making some similar attempts at mild misdirection as pertains to Ario Barzano and one of his scribes at one point, and when a traitor does pop out of the woodwork, they do so with no reader anticipation. Either I'm getting thick of Mr McNeill was being too subtle for his story's good.
I have gotten rather tired of W40K books that end on either a) the dark eldar being bastards or b) necrons happening [and I count First and Only in this class, although you may argue with me for it]. Given how Nightbringer ends, I ought to be thoroughly annoyed at it for following the pattern, but I'm not ... because there's something very odd about the last forty pages of this book.
One of the hardest things for a writer to do is find an ending that lives up to the rest of the story. Mr McNeill has done the reverse of this. His ending is much better than the rest - indeed, the quality and emotional closeness of the book ramps up so suddenly one could almost point out the page where it happens. When something like this happens I'd be inclined to suspect that the ending had been re-written, or perhaps that it had been written first and the rest of the book tacked on in a rush, but Nightbringer doesn't feel that way. This is not like Dark Apostle, where the whole plot arrives in the last thirty pages and the rest of time everyone is treading water. It's simply that the last forty pages are better than the rest of the book, which isn't what you'd call bad.
Suddenly the characters all seem to be that bit bigger. Virgil Ortega, having spent half the book breaking faces to no vast interest, is suddenly breaking faces in a very important way. Captain Ventris, having been led around like a dog on a leash by Barzano, starts leading his company with authority and confidence. Possibly it is Captain Ventris' maturation as a leader than makes the difference; his ability to determine the course of actions where he as previously been a bit rudderless cannot but make events more decisive.
Yet there is also a prose shift. We go from this:
As said, this appears to be Mr McNeill's first book. He starts out better than most writers on their third book and ends better than most on their fifth. Add to that the little matter of Captain Ventris being an Ultramarine, the most archetypal and least weird of the Astartes chapters, and Nightbringer is not only a very good W40K story but also the ideal place to start reading W40K fiction.
The only problem is that it's all downhill from here ...
This book is:
* - a good book with a great ending
* - contained of excellently-realised characters
* - a good starter book for the new W40K reader
This book is not:
* - taking any risks
* - doing much for in its first three-quarters
* - going to suffer for a second reading
5/11/09 - 1147 words on Pral-Vrai System
6/11/09 - 4343 words on Pral-Vrai System
7/11/09 - 3958 words on Pral-Vrai System
Author - Graham McNeill
ISBN - 978-0-74344-299-2
"They were here to save these people, not destroy them. Leave such simpleminded butchery for the likes of the Blood Angels or Marines Malevolent. The Ultramarines were not indiscriminate killers, they were the divine instrument of the Emperor's wrath. The protection of his subjects was their reason for existing."Nightbringer is by W40K's other author, Graham McNeill, the man who isn't Dan Abnett. I am given to understand that Nightbringer was Mr McNeill's first published book; it doesn't show. Mr McNeill, whilst clearly taking care to go straight down the middle of the party line in terms of plot and cast, shows no signs of uncertainty, little hesitancy in actions and a good, clear, unembellished style.
From the offing readers can see they are in for a good read. The prose is clean and smooth, interrupted only by typesetting errors which come as doubly jarring for the quality of the writing. The plot is set up in a couple of scenes which provide the necessary exposition without any sense of infodumping.
It is impossible to talk about the plot of Nightbringer without talking first about the characters, so let us begin there. The main character is Uriel Ventris, Ultramarines company captain [read: mildly boss], newly promoted [read: big shoes, small feet], and perhaps the first character in any W40K fiction I've seen who actually likes human beings. Unlike even Mr Abnett's Imperial Guard, one gets the sense that, if all war ended suddenly, Captain Ventris would have things to do other than twiddle his thumbs and look embarrassed. This most likely comes from his being one of the best-written characters I've seen in W40K fiction - he's at turns proud to be what he is and humble to serve as he does, eager to shed enemy blood and reluctant to let innocents die, uncertain of himself as a captain and learning rapidly to be one.
The only problem with Captain Ventris is that he is thoroughly upstaged by Ario Barzano, Imperial adept [read: bureaucrat] who whisks in unexpectedly, steals the scene and refuses to give it back for the rest of the book. This is not a bad thing, as Barzano is a good character in his own right. A definite sense of energy and purpose comes off the page from him.
Barzano and Captain Ventris are backed up by Sergeant Learchus, Ventris' ex-rival with whom he has a mildly awkward relationship, Virgil Ortega and Jenna Sharben, judges in the Dredd sense, and Mykola Shonai, planetary governor and a woman trying so hard to do the right thing that she's having trouble admitting when she's doing it wrong.
Mr McNeill succeeds at writing female characters, always a plus and doubly so in the vastly male-dominated W40K universe. The three female characters with speaking parts - Jenna Sharben, Mykola Shonai and Lutricia Vijeon - all acquit themselves well. Sharben breaks faces for justice; there is no suggestion that she is a Tough Woman or Just As Good As A Man. She's just doing her job, the same as all the other judges, male and female. Lutricia Vijeon's three-scene arc is about loyalty and courage, qualities presented entirely indifferently to her gender. Mykola Shonai's abilities as governor are questioned heavily, but no more or no less than they would be if she were male. She gets a very human moment with Ario Barzano that would not have happened if she was a male character, but it does not detract from her character. Sometimes it takes more courage to cry in public than to hold tears back. All in all, Mr McNeill fails the Bechdel Test, but only because none of his female characters have a chance to get into a conversation. One suspects that if Governor Shonai and Judge Sharben had a conversation, it would have nothing to do with love interests, largely because there aren't any in the book.
It is interesting to note that W40K's odd quasi-sexism [95% of the characters in W40K are male and the ones that aren't are generally short on clothing] bumps into Black Library's no-romance rule, leaving the female characters who do appear free to act as equals and to do things without gender-based hassle. Apparently two wrongs can make a right ... if you can call the no-romance rule a wrong, given that it is such a relief to get away from mandatory love interest plots. Possibly one should picture the no-romance rule as like unto the cat in M. R. James' The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral, tripping the unequal presentation of the sexes down the stairs and out of the way.
The opposing side is largely fronted by Archon Kesharq, an eldar disaster mostly there to fill in space and provide something for the Ultramarines to shoot at until the plot really starts moving. It has been said that W40K has no good guys and no bad guys, only points of view, but I'd disagree. The dark eldar are straight-up bad guys and it's difficult to see how they could ever be presented as anything else. The real antagonist spends most of the book off-screen, being anonymous.
All in all, Nightbringer presents an unusually well-developed cast for a W40K novel. Despite Nightbringer being perhaps a quarter of the length of The Terror, Captain Ventris is ten times more alive than Captain Crozier, and I'd sooner read a five hundred page book about Ventris than a five hundred word story about Crozier any day. Mr McNeill's strength is his ability to create characters, to make them live, and a writer who can do that generally finds all the other problems solve [or cause] themselves.
Mr McNeill attempts some subtle misdirection early on, presenting the reader with a nameless human character obviously tied to the dark eldar, and then presenting three possibilities to his identity, each with a small clue to suggest that they are the traitor. Unfortunately Mr McNeill was being a bit too subtle [or I was too tired whilst reading this part] and the presentation remains mildly confusing but ultimately sensible. Mr McNeill appears to be making some similar attempts at mild misdirection as pertains to Ario Barzano and one of his scribes at one point, and when a traitor does pop out of the woodwork, they do so with no reader anticipation. Either I'm getting thick of Mr McNeill was being too subtle for his story's good.
I have gotten rather tired of W40K books that end on either a) the dark eldar being bastards or b) necrons happening [and I count First and Only in this class, although you may argue with me for it]. Given how Nightbringer ends, I ought to be thoroughly annoyed at it for following the pattern, but I'm not ... because there's something very odd about the last forty pages of this book.
One of the hardest things for a writer to do is find an ending that lives up to the rest of the story. Mr McNeill has done the reverse of this. His ending is much better than the rest - indeed, the quality and emotional closeness of the book ramps up so suddenly one could almost point out the page where it happens. When something like this happens I'd be inclined to suspect that the ending had been re-written, or perhaps that it had been written first and the rest of the book tacked on in a rush, but Nightbringer doesn't feel that way. This is not like Dark Apostle, where the whole plot arrives in the last thirty pages and the rest of time everyone is treading water. It's simply that the last forty pages are better than the rest of the book, which isn't what you'd call bad.
Suddenly the characters all seem to be that bit bigger. Virgil Ortega, having spent half the book breaking faces to no vast interest, is suddenly breaking faces in a very important way. Captain Ventris, having been led around like a dog on a leash by Barzano, starts leading his company with authority and confidence. Possibly it is Captain Ventris' maturation as a leader than makes the difference; his ability to determine the course of actions where he as previously been a bit rudderless cannot but make events more decisive.
Yet there is also a prose shift. We go from this:
Uriel charged through the door, battle-hungry Ultramarines on his heels. They entered a vast, high-roofed dome and Uriel grinned with feral anticipation as he realised they must be on the command bridge at last.to this:
He roared with primal rage, picturing the slaughter of hundreds, thousands of enemies, seeing their split-open corpses, flies and carrion feasting on their butchered flesh. Prisoners butchered and their blood drunk as a fine wine was his only desire.Whilst such judgements of quality are entirely subjective, it does seem to me that the prose of the last forty pages is more vivid and more immediate than the rest of the book.
As said, this appears to be Mr McNeill's first book. He starts out better than most writers on their third book and ends better than most on their fifth. Add to that the little matter of Captain Ventris being an Ultramarine, the most archetypal and least weird of the Astartes chapters, and Nightbringer is not only a very good W40K story but also the ideal place to start reading W40K fiction.
The only problem is that it's all downhill from here ...
This book is:
* - a good book with a great ending
* - contained of excellently-realised characters
* - a good starter book for the new W40K reader
This book is not:
* - taking any risks
* - doing much for in its first three-quarters
* - going to suffer for a second reading
