Warhammer Horror??

I think the WH universe in its entirety is a life or unlife of horror so how does an author tell a tale sold as horror? Not with this story sadly, a mediocre tale of artisan astartes more concerned with materiel possessions and dare I say it emotions than being an Angel of the Emperor, it’s a hide and seek story with very little to save it other than John Banks superlative narration

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1 person found this helpful

confusing and enchanting

confusing and enchanting
I really enjoyed the vagueness and cryptic nature of some passages. Those texts brim with potential
probably worth a second listen

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1 person found this helpful

An excellent psychological thriller - with space marines!

If you are like me and tired of regular space marines this is a fantastic little Warhammer horror and a real expression of what that off shoot of black library can be. Really impressive and I really recommend it

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Deserves a 2nd listen

Lovecraft in the 40k universe ✨ a perfect symbiosis very well written 👏 hooked from the start

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3 people found this helpful

Engaging, illusive and intriguing

It's like reading a dream. Definitely one of the most interesting and evocative 40k books I've read. The atmosphere of the book is spellbinding. Highly recommended.

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Umm, what???

I liked Requiem Infernal, Peter Fehevari's last contribution to the 'Warhammer horror' series, so I was looking forward to this. I read 'Requiem' on Kindle (it's not available on audiobook) and it wasn't the easiest read I've ever experienced. Unlike some Black Library authors, Fehevari seems to favour character and plot over regular doses of space marine hyper-violence. Refreshing as this is, the plot of 'The Reverie', like his previous book is very much 'conceptual horror' - it's the overall tone and style which produces the horror atmosphere, rather than any specific incidents. The reader/listener needs to pay close attention to who is who and what is happening in order to engage with the story. That is easier said than done when both plots jump around different character's points-of-view and scenes are not necessarily presented in a linear order. With Requiem, this kind of worked as the plot has a hallucinatory, 'descent-into-madness' feel to it. Also, as a print novel, you can go back and check the parts you didn't understand first time round.

The problem with The Reverie - at least as an audiobook - is that it is literally impossible most of the time to work out what on Terra is going on. I honestly can't give you much insight here, because much of the time, I literally didn't have a clue which character was narrating, whether it was a linear scene or a flasback, real or a dream (there's a bit of that going on). Once I'd lost the thread, the scenes flashed by and I got more and more lost.

In the same way that I wanted to like Fehevari's writing, I have enjoyed John Banks' narration of other W40k audiobooks and was glad to see him back for this. However, his flat monotone throughout doesn't add any feelings of dread or horror to proceedings, it just makes it harder to follow what is going on. Neither is there sufficient differentiation between the various character's speech to help the listener make sense of it all. I rather wished for a narrator like Toby Longworth or Jonathan Keeble who might give distinctive voices to each of the characters.

So plotwise, The Angels Resplendent are quite an arty bunch of space marines who seem more interested in aesthetic values than blowing up the Emperor's enemies. Then there's a thing called 'the Reverie' (don't ask, I've no idea), and some obviously witchy, chaos stuff. Um...and that's it. It made no more sense to me than that, and I listened to the whole thing. It was a pity as I felt throughout like I was missing out on something rather clever and good, but who knows? Maybe I'll revisit it someday - on Kindle.

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6 people found this helpful

Boring.

I got halfway thought i mite of missed something interesting, so i started it again same thing. Its just boring. much better ones on here.

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