Taker of Heads is probably the best example of how to handle a short and succinct story set in the Grim Darkness of the Far Future. It’s brief, focused, handles direct and engaging themes, and emphasises the qualities of the astartes without turning them into unstoppable god-monsters. Better yet, it’s a rare story which doesn’t throw Chaos into the mix, and instead focused upon the T’au Empire stirring up trouble.
Admittedly, part of the reason we are covering this today is due to the fact it focuses on the T’au Empire as a villain. Due to comments in the Spear of the Emperor thread involving its more nihilistic themes, it seemed best to bring out a story where the Imperium is losing. Even after the astartes get involved the outcome is still heavily in question. It becomes as much a study on the conflict between the techno-feudal mysticism of the Imperium vs the T’au technological enlightenment as it does the story of a Scout finding his place in the chapter.
The Synopsis
With the forces of the T'au Empire rapidly gaining ground among the steaming jungles of Aztlan, the Mortifactors are called in to even the odds. Only able to spare a small unit of neophytes and a single veteran, this battle is to be final proof that they have earned their place within the chapter. Yet it quickly becomes clear just how badly the Imperium has underestimated the T'au, and following a disastrous first engagement, Scout Adoni must find a way to combat his elite foes and return to his chapter in glory.
The Good
There are two major benefits to the book right from the start. Firstly, this is how you should write the Mortifactors. In fact it’s arguably a “how to” guide on how to write these marines. While I will admit to personally having a liking for this bunch for a long time, what we get is a general breakdown of how they work. We see through Adoni’s experiences how their recruits live on their world, the challenges they go through, and their odd association with mysticism and death. It’s a good blow-by-blow breakdown, along with a brief demonstration of their tactics. This is worked into the story itself, and it’s used as a means to bolster Adoni’s own development throughout the tale.
The other major benefit to the story is the T’au themselves, who are beefed up to be a major threat here. More than a few writers seem to struggle when it comes to balancing out the T’au Fire Caste and keeping them in check, with them either falling into cannon fodder territory or the author treats them as if they have a “god mode” cheat switched on. Here however, what we get emphasises their intelligence: They have limited resources, numbers and an advantage in tech over the Imperials. All of this comes into play, along with utilising their auxiliaries to bolster their numbers. While they hit extremely hard, and inflict a large number of marine casualties, it feels earned through prior planning to stack the deck in their favour. Plus, even when they lose, it’s only due to Adoni using prior knowledge to help exploit their blind spots.
So you have a well-developed hero faction, a cunning an engaging enemy, but also a solid protagonist. While Adoni comes across as something of a blank slate at first and something of an everymarine, there’s an emphasis on his nature as a quiet thinker. He needs to overcome himself to focus upon what the chapter needs, but ironically that same savagery gives him a desperately needed edge against his foes. It makes for an interesting contrast against the T’au, and helps to remind listeners of just how strange some elements of Warhammer 40,000 can be.
Much of this thus far has been devoted to individual elements of the story over the story quality itself, but they really needed to be specifically singled out. The story is extremely tightly written and incredibly well paced, allowing it to fit a novella’s worth of content into a relatively short timeframe. What we see are often brief glimpses of events with far wider implications, such as a very brutal moment involving a wounded soldier early on, which allows it to cover a broad range of subjects at once. When it does pause for a while on a single scene, the brisk nature of these other moments gives these segments more space to do their magic, and as such they lack the rushed quality which other tales sometimes retain. Given how the fight against the T’au rapidly turns into a cat and mouse affair shortly after their initial battle, it was a much-needed move to help benefit the story.
Finally, and most obviously, the sound design and voice acting is absolutely top notch. That should really go without saying by this point, as the audio dramas of Games Workshop’s products have rarely fallen short of being utterly spectacular over the past several years. However, it needs to be emphasised that the talent on display and vocal direction remains a vital and extremely effective addition to bringing these worlds to life. Without it, even the most talented author would struggle to match the same effectiveness.
The Bad
If there is one major point to cite against Taker of Heads, it’s that the tale really doesn’t offer enough time to engage with the other astartes. While Adoni himself has an obvious arc and one or two of his fellow neophytes share some decent moments, it’s really not much. This makes some of the losses taken lack impact, despite how excellently delivered they were. Furthermore, the actual moment itself felt as if it could have been more of a one-two punch to help really emphasise how badly things had gone. While there is something of a focus upon this, but the second “punch” is more of an afterthought which is lost in the mix of combat which follows.
A further issue lies in the T’au themselves here, who leave a decidedly mixed impression upon the reader. In terms of their competence, ability to utilise their auxiliaries and to overcome far more numerous foes, you couldn’t ask for a better story. However, the brutality of one particular method crosses a line into Chaos territory, and once their main plan is beaten they don’t have enough of a fall-back strategy. What is offered is still excellent, and a large chunk of the tale emphasises their best strengths. However, a little more of their adaptability would have gone a long way to boosting up the final score of this tale.
Finally, the story relies upon thematic a little too much for my personal liking. Warhammer has always used history as a starting point for many key ideas, and even with those twists you can usually see the inspiration at work. However, the ‘Nam 76 vibe of the story isn’t so much an inspiration as its whole defining feature, and the tale could have used more. A more diverse locale or even some more alien fauna would have helped it seem more alien. Without it, there is more time to focus on the story in question, but it lacks the sort of fantastical edge which so often benefits many tales. Say what you will about Gaunt’s Ghosts relying on historical call-backs, but the settings there rarely felt anything besides alien.
The Verdict
Despite a few grips here and there, Taker of Heads still remains a very solidly written and engaging tale. It’s definitely one of the best examples of how to write a low key and isolated event with an emphasis on small scale action away from bigger battlefields. What’s more, it also helps to show just how to make tense encounters work without resorting to bolter porn or clichés. Combine that with a well-balanced treatment of both sides and makes for a story that I would suggest adding to your personal libraries.
Verdict: 7.2 out of 10
A good review and honestly a fine audio drama, but it's a bit disingenious to say the Imperium's losing in it when they still win at the end. This makes it sound like the Imperium lose the conflict when they still win in the end, they just have an uphill battle. It still is another case of the Space Marines beating Xenos.
ReplyDeleteThe Marines get butchered down to one person, who achieved their main goal by the end but it's a Pyrrhic victory at best. The T'au had them dead to rights and it was more luck that any of them emerged alive by the end than anything else. Plus, to be honest, I read the ending as the marines removing one threat from the ongoing war rather than resolving it entirely. There's still a lot of xenos elements on the planet, and the conflict seemed to be in full swing toward the finale. Plus, when the Mortifactors show up, the Imperium IS losing. The first thing we see is them losing people to a rigged bomber, multiple people killed in traps, and a repeated emphasis that the Guard are out of their depth. It's not simply a Impeirum shows up = wins that you seem to keep boiling every single story down to, as if none of the Imperial characters even have to try and do anything to win.
DeleteI'd point to this as a much better example of how to write such engagements over a few others that I have seen, like the Dawn of War comics, Deathwatch novels, the Shadowsun novella or quite a few others.