Review of Saturnine by Dan Abnett

The assault on the Emperor's Palace is in full swing. Horus throws his forces, wave after wave, at the kilometer high walls, looking for a breakthrough. The forces of Chaos have been unleashed, and now attack the walls along with the traitor legions. In Dan Abnett's Saturnine (2020) something has to give. But where?

Assault after assault, bomb after bomb, death after death. Horus' attack on Terra is starting to have an effect. Endless supplies of munitions becoming finite, Rogal Dorne's storage facilities are starting to run dry. And with The Lion and Guillaume still nowhere to be found, the manpower the Emperor can throw at the traitor legions is starting to come up short. Dorne cannot keep up with Horus' volume of men and materiel. Hard decisions now sit in directly front of Rogal Dorne, no avoiding them. Horus is attacking at four critical junctures, but only three can be defended. Does Dorne have one last trick up his sleeve for his nemesis Peturabo at Saturnine Gate, or is the writing on the wall?

Review of House of Chains by Steven Erikson

It's an understatement to say Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series is an acquired taste. It's a MASSIVE fictional world that seems to be constantly in flux. Every chapter, every book requires the reader to update their knowledge. Each book is also different in its own right; Erikson evolves his style volume to volume. It all makes for shaky footing that a minority of readers have the patience for. For me it's here, the fourth book in the series House of Chains (2002), that things solidified.

For those paying attention—which can be difficult given the plethora of plotlines and endless-endless strings of characters running through the series—Sha'ik's rebellion in Deadhouse Gates was unresolved. The desert folk found a new Sha'ik in Helisin, but the Whirlwind didn't actually whirl. At the beginning of House of Chains, Adjunct Tavore arrives on the Seven Cities continent with a rebuilt Malazan army to finally put an end to the Whirlwind, and maybe patch ends with her sister, Helisin. Memories of Ice revealed that the Crippled God was looking to take down the system, and in House of Chains he recruits more servants to achieve this goal. Everyone's goals—the Whirlwind's, the Crippled God's, and the Malazan Empire's—come to a crashing, massive head that leaves the series wide open.