--- title: "Knights of Macragge" subtitle: "Science fiction horror" author: Seth publish_date: 2025-02-10 08:00 hero_classes: text-light title-h1h2 overlay-dark-gradient hero-large parallax hero_image: warhammer_space-marine-troops-by-games-workshop-1600x800.webp show_sidebar: true show_breadcrumbs: true show_pagination: true taxonomy: category: culture tag: [settings, scifi, warhammer] --- I read **Knights of Macragge** by Nick Kyme, partly because I'm mystified by Black Library's sequencing, and this is my review. This review contains spoilers. I thought **Knights of Macragge** might be part of the **Indomitus** series, which is weird because **Indomitus** (I think) isn't a series but a single book. Anyway, I saw a blue space marine on the cover and figured I should read the novel, if only because I've been immersed in Guilliman's return lately. I had no idea what to expect, and I think this novel lived up to that: it was indeed a totally _unexpected_ experience. ## The miasma of the void Like the book itself, my review starts out a little weird. About half way through the book, I felt like I'd read all I could take about a spaceship floating aimlessly in the Warp. In fact, I'd been here already. I just read a book about a ship getting lost in the Warp. I was very nearly going to give up on the book entirely, because I just didn't think I could take that much stagnation. Not that the first half of the book actually is stagnant. ## Tales of horror The first half of the book is actually really good, and I know that's hard to believe after I said that it nearly convinced me to stop reading. The thing is, the first part of the story is designed to give you cabin fever. The ship **Emperor's Will** is lost in the Warp, and there's a serious power drain happening so lots of things are glitching or just plain non-functional. Its crew is experiencing cabin fever, to put it mildly, and I think it was the author's theory that you should too. And it works. I was cognizant enough of the "trick" being employed by the author to persist despite feeling like I'd had my fill of ship corridors. And besides, I had to admit that I didn't have it half as bad as the fictional characters I was reading about. The power outages on the **Emperor's Will** effects the Gellar field (that's the force field in 40k that keeps daemons out of a ship moving through the Warp). As a result, there are persistent incursions of daemons on the ship, and factions of the human crew that become tainted and turn suicidal or traitorous. Naval Voidsmen fight for their lives, Space marines are deployed, and daemons spawn and ravage the ship. It's a constant battle, described in gory detail. I'm a horror movie fan, but I have limited experience with horror books. The few that I've read seem to follow a template for gory descriptions that don't tend to do anything for me. Hearing about a head exploding like a melon isn't nearly as fun as seeing the special effect of a head exploding on screen. **Knights of Macragge** does a good job of feeling like horror, though. Many of its descriptions fell flat for me, but it maintains tension and mystery masterfully. If your horror preferences tend toward Hitchcock but you don't mind Friday the 13th gore, this book strikes a perfect balance. ## A space marines in King Arthur's court And then everything changes. The second half of the book takes place mostly on a planet that holds a mysterious secret, and possibly salvation for the **Emperor's Will**. Sorry, I mean it holds LOTS of mysterious secrets. It's basically made up of secrets, and I won't spoil any of those here. It's a world that's regressed to a medieval societal scructure, and of course there are creatures that come at night to carry innocent people away. A team of space marines, and a handful of humans, are dispatched to the planet in hopes of finding something to power the **Emperor's Will**. As you can probably imagine, things don't go quite as planned, and our heroes make enemies as well as allies while trying to fight for the lives of the planet's inhabitants as well as their own. The planetside storyline is gripping and intriguing. I absolutely believe that the claustrophobia of the first half of the book is largely responsible for the simultaneous sense of relief and agoraphobia you feel once the story touches down on a [partly] civilized planet. In many **Warhammer 40,000** books, there's a moment or two that convinces me that it's the very best **Warhammer 40,000** book. **Knights of Macragge** is no different. The second part of the book, whether by Stockholm Syndrome or by good old-fashioned honest storytelling, is one of my favourite 40k stories. It's not the most profound story by any means. I guess it hints at some major 40k lore. But mostly it's just a story with some characters I'd become invested in through the first half of the book, and some new characters who impressed me, and a really simple and good plot. Surprisingly, there's an actual love story in this novel, too. You don't get that too often in **Warhammer 40,000**, and I don't generally miss it. But when it's absent for 90% of the time, it becomes all the more meaningful the 10% of the time it does show up. This being a horror story, I guess it could have arguably felt strange not to have a nice gentle couple to have all their hopes and dreams and plans dashed by a horrific monster. ## Great Warhammer This was a very good book. It's what you want from **Warhammer 40,000** but in ways you don't expect. It absolutely made me want to break out my boarding actions terrain and send a bunch of space marines hunting for daemons. There's also not really a B or C plot, as there often is with 40k novels, which was nice. This is a focused story. And a good one.

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