Primarchs - Ferrus Manus: The Gorgon of Medusa by David Guymer (Book Review)

A good few years ago, we reviewed Mortarion's Heart, and since that time I have served as something of an evangelist to it. To put it simply, the audio drama did the impossible of re-writing one of the single worst parts of an abominably bad codex, and turned it into a fantastic story. It kept the same events, the same enemies and the same essential actions, but reworked them from the ground up to make Kaldor Draigo a genuinely good character. The Gorgon of Medusa is a dark reflection of this. It took one of the few genuinely good bits of Iron Hands lore to be offered up in the last decade and re-wrote it to disgrace them. The result is about as bad as you can imagine.

To give a brief impression of why, please allow for this brief diversion. You might have noticed that, despite my nature as a fan of the Iron Hands, we did not cover the Eye of Medusa. There's a simple reason for that. Upon the announcement that David Guymer was to write an Iron Hands series, I asked him one simple question: 

"Will this trilogy ignore Codex: Clan Raukaan's stuff?"

His response: 

"I didn't write the Codex, so it'll be my own take, but in a word: no, I can't ignore the Codex."

So, naturally, I skipped it. Going from second-hand sources, it did seem to heavily influence how he depicted the chapter, and much of its rampant stupidity was present in the first of his novels. The problem is that this seems to have now seeped through into his Horus Heresy works, as many of those same flaws quickly arise here as well. I will freely admit that this is speculation on my part, but it seems that this was Guymer's defining go-to source for how to write the Iron Hands, and it defined most of his works about them.

Where are we going with this? Because it led to one obvious problem with The Gorgon of Medusa: It means we had a genuinely talented author trying to envision a great Horus Heresy story by using something which is less a rulebook than a tabletop gaming hate crime as his point of reference.

This is going to be painful.

Synopsis

The Lords of Gardinaal have managed to remain steadfast in the face of the Great Crusade. Against all odds, they have constantly held their ground, overwhelming and deflecting one attack after the other with highly advanced technology and superior air power. Even the mighty Titan Legions have found themselves hard pressed against their opponent, with more than half of their number lost in the opening attack. Ferrus Manus aims to correct this.

Arriving in orbit of Gardinaal with a detachment of Iron Hands and Emperor's Children, he initiates a massed assault on the world below, seeking to break it once and for all.

The Good

Now, let's be clear from the start: There is some good in here despite that introduction. Unlike, say, Empire's End, this isn't a desperate clawing attempt to find a silver lining either.

The most obvious point from the start which works in the book's favour is how Guymer builds atmosphere through minimal description. As an author he has a distinct talent for taking bleak, hopeless or depressing tales and adding engaging qualities to them. In a manner akin to Dark Souls' storytelling, he can build a world of monsters, remove almost anyone with typical sympathetic traits and still produce something which keeps you hooked. In a conflict with has tyrants on one side and on the other the Emperor's personal breaker of worlds, this was something essential to the story. It never pulls its punches and never lessens the sense of somber bitterness which haunts many of the events.

More than a few of the secondary characters are quite well fleshed out, with Akurduana of the Emperor's Children being foremost among these. The character is well rounded and displays what the legion could have become with a few more like himself, Tarvitz and Abdemon at their head. Combined with the events of The Palatine Phoenix, this allows the reader to gain a far better impression of what the legion was like prior to Laer than Fulgrim permitted. More importantly, none of them ever feel superfluous to the plot, as they always have something to do. That's a point we'll be expanding upon in the next section, however, as it was a double-edged sword.

Another interesting aspect of the story was how it plays with certain events. The original story was excellently told, but you could see how there would have been periods of waiting between major setpieces. This streamlines events without simplifying them, and it certainly allows them to fit the novella format far better than I otherwise might have expected. Combined with how Guymer typically uses a minimal word count to tell as much as possible about a scene, it makes far better use of its limited page count than a few previous series books.

Most importantly still, the battles and pitch engagements are extraordinarily violent and utilise every opportunity to define each side. For all the faults present here that we will be getting to later on, the Iron Hands' brutality is still at the forefront of this conflict. You see just why they were needed among the legions rather than being some superfluous addition many write them off as. Equally, their attitude initially swings more toward being the usual "necessary evil" that the Index Astartes depicted them as, especially in the face of enemies such as the Lords of Gardinaal. Said lords themselves are effectively the antithesis of the Imperium. For all the atrocities, mistakes and massacres the Emperor inflicted, it was in an uncompromising approach to restore humanity's glory. The Lords show just how far they have fallen, and what true tyranny is. It ends up being an "end justifies the means" view fighting against "tyranny justifies itself" in regards to where they stand.

Finally, we have Ferrus. Before we get into the negatives, the book does try to utilise a few of the elements seen in Fulgrim for his personality. Some of the rage he is known for is better tempered with other qualities such as humour and secondary traits. What's more, he's more willing to correct himself on mistakes than almost any other primarch and is far more satisfied in his role as a simple tool of the Emperor's will than even Russ or Guilliman. Interestingly, along with addressing a few blind spots in his history, it's suggested that he cultivates some of the more negative qualities detractors often depict him as. Thanks to this, it makes him more three dimensional than many write him off as at first glance.

Unfortunately, the moment you look away from these qualities things start to go wrong. Very, very wrong indeed.

The Bad

So, after all of that good, you might be asking just how this could go wrong? For starters, the focus is in completely the wrong place.

Remember Akurduana? The story is much more about him than the Iron Hands. Really, in a move which eclipses even Prospero Burns, the story shifts completely away from the legion or primarch in question and favours frequently following this member of the Emperor's Children. This in of itself isn't a bad thing. Akurduana was a likable example of how to humanize an Astartes, and for all its flaws the aforementioned Prospero Burns did show how to make an outside view of a legion engaging. The problem is that it doesn't know where to draw the line, so it quickly stops being a story about Ferrus himself and begins following Akurduana, as he starts to do everything of importance.

To offer a quick example of how this is misused, the book frequently has Akurduana "teaching" the Iron Hands and their primarch the error of their ways. He continually cites failings without end, his comments gloss over their strengths and he relentlessly outperforms them at every turn. In the training cages he smacks about every single last member of the legion until Ferrus rages out and gets involved personally out of sheer envy. This is promptly treated as some great lesson of how his anger and arrogance constantly gets the better of him, and how little honour there is in a primarch fighting an Astartes. Everyone then just nods sagely as if this is some great lesson, and some vast failing they have overlooked. Something which might have carried more weight if Akurduana's primarch wasn't fucking Fulgrim!

The story relentlessly blindsides the legion with moments like this, seemingly ignoring how hypocritical many of the points Akurduana levels against them are. Worse still, when he's not outperforming the characters he's stealing screen time away from them. Ferrus himself appears or is discussed in the relative minority of this book's chapters, and the focus itself never bothers to try and address this point in any way. This would be akin to watching Big Trouble in Little China, if it dropped the parody element and Jack Burton was replaced with John Matrix.

Frustratingly, the book deals with little of Ferrus' true history and doesn't spend enough time showing what makes him tick. For better or worse, every other release in this series goes into details behind each primarch's past. Guilliman's depicted his difficulties adjusting to leadership, Lorgar and Perutrabo's both delved into their childhood, Fulgrim's covered his adjustment to leadership and need to outperform his brothers, and Russ' one detailed how he was shaped by his experiences on Fenris. Ferrus though? No dice here i'm afraid. It tries to overcome this via second-hand accounts and detailing how those around him are shaped, but it doesn't work for a multitude of reasons.

The foremost among these is that the novella's descriptions and depictions of figures are typically about those figures. They occasionally describe Ferrus in comments and consider his role there, but this is more often than not in passing and without the sort of reverence you might expect. Often the best way to build up a figure as a legendary individual - even when the focus is placed elsewhere - is by having others discuss them in high terms. Griffith in Berserk and Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects are the two foremost examples of this done right, without it veering into pandering or needless boasting. Yet, the story uses Ferrus all too often as a point of discussion more than anything else, so it's not so much hyping him up as using him as a conversation piece.

A second issue which stems from this simply is the fact that, compared with the others, we know little of Ferrus himself. We have rarely seen his style of leadership, associating with his officers or even how his outsider approach to governing Medusa's clans was viewed. As the book actively avoids looking through his eyes, it robs the story of showing his true strengths and flaws in a manner akin to the others, or making him personable enough to become engaged in. This was essential as, with Ferrus dead and the Horus Heresy series having no desire to move backward, we are left with nothing save for Feat of Iron. A short story which is top on the list of "Avoid at all costs!" tales produced in this era.

The story seems to actively divert itself away from making the Iron Hands engaging or even offering them victories, while also piling on additional flaws. This is evident from the very start, as the book has Ferrus rushing in rather than waiting for reinforcements. Not only is this done out of an apparent need to send a statement to the Emperor and his brothers, but it's a contradiction to the original tale itself. In that, he was the reinforcements the Imperial taskforce had been needing to attain victory. It's done simply to try and draw parallels with the Drop Site Massacre and make it seem as if he can't help but continually rush in in acts of recklessness. He stays at the back of the army itself for much of the book, and when we finally do see him, it does offer him all of the power and strength he deserves. The issue is that, very soon after this, that is promptly overshadowed by Akurduana single-handledly correcting a mistake every member of the Legio X had completely missed. One which could have erased every single victory they had accomplished.

So, you might be wondering why nothing here is covering the secondary Iron Hands characters. To put it bluntly, they're forgettable. The book makes the Emperor's Children, Ultramarines and even the small band of Thousand Sons more successful and engaging by far than any member of the legion who is supposed to be getting their victory moment. In the case of the Emperor's Children they simply outdo the Iron Hands at everything (better tactics, fewer losses, more kills etc) and leave everyone in the dust, while the Ultramarines get more memorable moments to themselves. Worse still, Ferrus sends the Ultramarines in via the first wave of the final assault, ordering their leader, Ulan Cicerus, to correct his mistakes. This could have come across as a sign of Ferrus' typical cold brutality, and Cicerus did indeed die during the final assault. The problem is that, given how it is framed, it comes across as Ferrus using the Ultramarines as cannon fodder more than anything else.

The likes of Gabriel Santar are all but pushed out of the book, to the point where he's near constantly overshadowed by everyone else there. This just ends up causing far too many problems, and contributes to the book's single greatest sin: The Gorgon of Medusa does nothing to make Ferrus' loss any sadder. It does nothing to show the Iron Hands at their best, nor does it give you any reason to root for them. If anything, it seems hell-bent on making you feel as if they had the Drop Site Massacre coming to them. It wasn't undeserved or a loss, it was inevitable. The fact that Ferrus treats diplomatic efforts as a mere annoyance, and even seems to be looking for an excuse to blow up the planet, is depicted in such a way that he is almost unlikable the entire way through. He's less the monster humanity needed than a simple-minded raging thug who was constantly spoiling for a fight until he bit off more than he could chew.

Betrayer seemed to cement the World Eaters as the "joke legion" in the minds of too many people. In that same regard, The Gorgon of Medusa seems structured in a way which could only make the Iron Hands remembered as the "failure legion" of the Astartes.

Perhaps the single most frustrating part is how the novella stretches and twists the timeline until it resembles a slinky. This is supposed to be partway through the Great Crusade, before all of the primarchs have been discovered and perhaps a decade or two after Guilliman took command of the Ultramarines. The problem is that events are referred to that shouldn't be widely known yet, and a multitude of vehicles which shouldn't exist yet show up. 

Personally, I try to be forgiving on this front. Mistakes happen and while it's worth joking about it, it's only a minor issue. However, when you have Storm Eagles, Sicarans, Fire Raptors and Thunderhawks all showing up (vehicles which should only be made a few hundred years from now, or by people who have yet to actually join the Imperium), it becomes a significant flaw. If you feel this is being unfair somehow, imagine watching Dunkirk, only to see the Nazis arrive with ME-262s and Tiger Mk Is. That's how immersion breaking this can be when done en mass like this.

The Verdict

The Gorgon of Medusa is by no means the most painful thing reviewed on this website. Nor is it even in the top twenty worst books covered on here. That being said, it horribly botches an essential victory the Iron Hands and Ferrus Manus needed. Rather than breaking the constant barrage of "We're failures! We're disgraceful! We lose every battle! Ferrus is angry thus he's stupid!" it compounds it. The end result is a work which honestly seems as if it has been written with the intention of preventing anyone from being interested in the Iron Hands over actually exploring the legion.

The core prose is fine, the structure works and the descriptive style remains solid. It's just everything else which drags down this book. Again, let this be made clear - David Guymer is by no means a poor penman nor an untalented author. The man wrote a spectacular end to the Gotrek and Felix saga, his work on the Age of Sigmar short stories has far more hits than misses and he remains one of the few authors I would trust to pen a truly hopeless story while keeping it engaging. It's just that he seems to have been given the worst sort of reference possible to work from when writing this chapter. If you truly want a worthwhile story by this author go to Black Library and buy almost anything else which isn't Iron Hands related.

If you're after a good Heresy-era Iron Hands story, i'm afraid Angel Exterminatus and Damnation of Pythos are still the closest we have come to such a thing thus far. As for this? Just read the Lexicanum article on these events. You'll be left with a far better and more concise impression of events than anything found in this book.

Verdict: 3.3 out of 10