I was surprised to find that I hadn't read this book before. I thought it was a completely different story and was pleasantly surprised that this was all new to me. Of course, the fact that it was bobbins meant that the surprise wasn't so pleasant after all. This is a novel of three parts. Part one is a standard Space-Marines-at-war story. Part two attempts to introduce a twist that makes no sense plotwise or in terms of the established 40k fluff. Part three is a return to the standard again. Parts one and three are pretty good but unremarkable Part two, well, I think you get the idea already. Somehow or other the Assassins have made a mutant human weapon that can't be stopped or killed and multiplies and despite it having a massive backstory and mythology, it hasn't been mentioned before. This creature rebelled very quickly, and did a bunk. Instead of settling down somewhere quietly it seems to have formed a chaos cult. The Assassins decided to help the chaos cult out a bit, and got a load of other chaos people to go and help them. This is so that the Assassins have the fog of war to hide in. An inquisitor came along and they thought something was up to the Assassins killed them too. Some Guard and Marines got dragged in to fight the cult. They discover the plot, Lysander fights the Assassins, they kiss and make up, then they fight the creature together and chaos and Lysander kills it with a big hammer. The end.

The best bit about this novel is the cover art, which appears to show a micro-cephalic space marine. The person who drew that is a professional artist. Its hard to imagine, isnt it. You'd think that somewhere along the line someone would have said, look at this space marine, what happened to his bloody head?! but apparently there isn't an art department at Black Library (or at least not one who is an actual human being). This book got a whole extra star for this, on the grounds that not only did this shit get published but at some point or another I actually bought it. ( )