To date I'm twenty-two novels deep in the Horus Heresy series, yet the Emperor, the character on which the series pivots, has primarily existed offstage. Like the king in chess, his early movements have been minimal. Almost all the action in the series has been through the bishops and rooks, queens and pawns. Considering the Emperor is the piece Horus is trying to topple, the metaphor is real. Castling the rook to bring the king into the field of battle, Aaron Dembski-Bowden's The Master of Mankind (2016), 41st book in the HH series, looks to raise the series' stakes and peel back the curtain on what has been happening on Earth meanwhile.
A lot has been happening. Extending directly from the events of A Thousand Sons, The Master of Mankind takes the reader into the webways between worlds and the ongoing intrusion of Chaos there. If there were a similar scene in reality, it would be that of a mother returning home with groceries, opening the front door, and discovering a raging chaos of a dozen children—swinging from the chandeliers, throwing water balloons, drawing on the walls, etc. The Master of Mankind is exactly this, just with chaos demons and chaos space marines roaring around. This is what has been happening on Earth while the events of Isstvann III and V went down and the Imperium Secundus attempted to keep the Emperor's mission alive. The novel describes precisely what the Emperor is doing in response as he is attacked from the webways.
The Master of Mankind is supported by a couple pillars. As the reader would hope, one is the past and present of the Emperor. Featuring several flashbacks, the reader gets insight into the man's worldview and why he has been so damn quiet while Horus' rebellion rages in the universe. The second pillar is the activities of those closest to the Emperor during Horus' rebellion—the Imperial Fists led by Rogal Dorn, the Custodes, and the Silent Sisters. And the third pillar is the war raging in the webways. Magnus' folly having opened the space between realities to all manner of Chaos, a massive war rages in nether space. Titans, space marines, Mars Tech, and all other manner of fighters attempt to keep the flood at bay.
Aaron Dembski-Bowden was a good choice for the novel. His dark, brooding style puts the Emperor in an appropriate light, just as his slightly obtuse prose provides interesting detail about the Emperor and his past while preventing the narrative from having too many anachronisms or potential points of conflict with canon. And when action is needed, it's there. The climax of this novel is fiery, personal, and symbolic. I will not spoil anything, but I will say Dembski-Bowden does a great job capturing the moral gray—the bittersweet—existence of the Emperor in the events that transpire.
Expressing that last idea in alternate fashion, The Master of Mankind ends up playing two roles in the series. It is both a catching up with what's happening on Terra before the action of the Horus Heresy series switches there, but it's likewise a prequel, a view to the Warhammer universe before the Horus Heresy. A couple of the key elements that readers versed in the 40k universe know well have their origins explained. I will not spoil things here, but I can say their origins are fitting. Respect to canon is given while evolving the HH.
If there are any issues with the novel, one would be the descriptions of the webways. Perhaps I missed it, but my brain struggled to picture the webways. One of the primary settings of the novel, I had difficulty imagining the space. Where battles in other HH novels are often staged with physical description (terrain, choke points, defensive fortifications, etc.), The Master of Mankind seems to lack much of this—at least to my understanding.
In the end, The Master of Mankind is a critical element of the Horus Heresy tapestry. And symbolically, it is one of the most critical elements. Readers looking for more bolter porn will likely disagree on the novel's criticality to the series considering the relative speed it moves and general character focus. But for readers who appreciate the series' architecture and underpinning concepts, particularly the role the Emperor plays in both the Heresy, the universe, and the Crusades, this is unmissable.
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