Followed up my last read with another WH40K entry. This one follows the trials of Captain Becket, newly appointed leader of the war vessel Relentless who begins to crack down on operations and discipline on the ship, much to the chagrin of Commander Ward, acting captain up till this point and involved in a covert siphoning of funds and goods off of ships currently in trading routes. Naturally, Ward considers Becket a threat to his operation and arranges for him to be involved in a shuttle "accident" after a contrived riot on a planet where Becket was needed to secure a treaty arrangement. What follows is Becket's own personal hell as he survives the "accident" and ends up as a lowest level slave on the very ship he used to command. No spoilers, but his goal is to find his way back to the top and confront Ward. Along the way the Dark Eldar show up and make things really interesting. I understand that this is Williams first venture into the 40K universe, and for the most part he pulls it off fairly well. I do wish he had fleshed out Becket's journey a little more and backed off the other 40K elements some (the Dark Eldar was more of a convenient plot point at the climax of the story), but I did enjoy how it all tied together at the somewhat rushed ending. ( )

“Relentless” is Richard Williams’ first full novel outing for the Black Library and he does a rather respectable job. There was good characterization and action throughout the novel, and it was fashioned far better than I would have expected in an author’s first work. What I especially liked about this novel was that it took a new direction that I have not seen in other 40K novels, there was a definite sense of Hornblower and his seafaring nautical ilk here, which was enjoyable and comes as a fresh breeze to this reader. There were little annoyances that were irksome, like the overuse of the phrase “had had” which drives me up the wall but that is more a personal foible than Mr. Williams’. The Black Library appears to have a decent novelist here and I hope to pick up Mr. Williams’ next tale soon. ( )