“Ultimately, I enjoyed much of Eidolon but found myself wishing for more from it, too.
“More separation between the action sequences and the introspective ones to keep the momentum going. More of the supporting cast of characters, who Eidolon easily overshadowed. And more of Eidolon’s backstory, as the “boy from Europa” narratives were very modest and occasional.
“Of course, there are certainly going to be those for whom the high level of introspection and thoughtcasting from the lead character will be an intriguing and welcome break from all-action, shallow-depth “bolter porn” stories too. I’ll certainly be keen to see another release from Collins in the future.”
That was me writing on social media last year (before I started writing for Goonhammer), sharing my thoughts about Eidolon, the Auric Hammer.1 It didn’t exactly blow me away, but there was enough in the writing from Marc Collins that I held out hope I’d see more that I liked in the future.
Well, Collins is back with his latest, Krakenblood, and has left the Emperor’s Children behind in favor of the Space Wolves in his sixth novel for the Black Library since 2021 and Grim Repast.
Here, Wolf Priest2 Ivar Krakenblood is sent to reclaim a Chapter relic, lost amongst the stars during an ill-fated expedition. Leading a crew that includes an Iron Priest’s3 retinue and a Guard contingent, they take passage on a ship belonging to an inexperienced Rogue Trader of a lesser, cadet branch of the Fenrisian House Helvintr (a house that featured in Collins’ 2022 novel Void King).
I’m a sucker for a good ‘lost expedition’ story, with the last one I got to enjoy being The High Kâhl’s Oath by Gav Thorpe (review).
How did this one hold up?
Painting with Words
One of the first things I noticed about Krakenblood was the writing. It’s lush. Particularly in the first half of the novel, as he’s setting up the tableau, Collins prefers to linger on his ensemble rather than sprint right to the action. Consider this passage, which is simply the ship’s Navigator confirming readiness for departure:
She tries to keep the tremor from her flesh. To be as still and stalwart
as the bones of the vessel.
Calm is what you seek in the storm, child. Be the eye that holds tranquility and seek the light.
Her father’s words. Old knowledge and recitations etched into her mind
as surely as ink upon flesh. Graven into her Navigator’s soul. A harsh but
fair master, he had ruled their house for decades with judgement and
guile. She remembers how he had been in his prime, before the inevitable decline. Sharing that same dark hair and aquiline nose.
He is long gone now, lost to time and the ravages of the bloodline. She
thinks of him often, especially as the waves of unreality buffet the ship.
Stabs of psychostigmatic pain scythe through her, her nerves catching
fire with the directed animus of the sea of souls.
It wants us. It always wants us. We fight it, every step. Every moment
of every leap. We are the calm, seeking the light.
Every breath trembles from her. She quivers with the subtle motions
of the ship and strains up, adjusting her position upon the throne. The
chains kiss skin and whisper against silk.
‘All is within parameters,’ she says softly. ‘I see the way, lord. I see our path.”
Collins isn’t writing words here, he’s painting with them. There are whole chapters of the book where you could summarize its proceedings in a sentence or two, but the languid prose and rich depth of narrative and description he weaves carries its entirety.4
There’s a risk in this approach, given that we typically associate the Warhammer universe with action and excitement over tapestries of words. Krakenblood isn’t going to appeal to every reader- but then what book does? Looking back I think what I didn’t like particularly enjoy about Eidolon was the way the mixture of introspective and action dragged the book’s momentum; here, Collins gives each of them more room to breathe in isolation from one another, and it works spectacularly well.5
Picking Nits
That isn’t to say that Krakenblood is flawless, though I’ll preface this section by noting that on balance these are relatively modest when compared to the book’s successes. There are a couple of things I didn’t love quite as much as the writing.
First, after spending the first half richly decorating the story arc, once the more kinetic, action-oriented sequences arrive it becomes a little uneven. A terrific sequence involving renegade Mechanicum tech-priests is partly undone by having a leader who comes off like something of a Bond villain, spending far too much effort emoting and speech-making before his captive audience. Not quite to the level of moustache-twirling, but certainly within bolter range.
Second, and more significantly, Collins didn’t quite ‘do the work’ on the emotional journey of his characters. ‘Doing the work’ is the term I use to describe writing characters in a way that makes their thoughts and actions consistent over the course of the story. It’s a bit like Chekhov’s gun in reverse; if you want a shot to go off in act three, show the gun in act one.
When, for instance, on page 172 Collins writes that “mania has crept into [Krakenblood’s] words and motions,” I found myself surprised. That was the first sign of that in the character I’d picked up on in all the preceding passages. Just one page later Krakenblood and Brynjar, the Iron Priest, nearly come to blows over a disagreement over their course and the motives behind Krakenblood’s decisions, but it landed a little flat because I hadn’t seen much evidence of these tensions flaring up before that point. Emotional beats are most effective as a natural progression of what we’ve been shown before. Otherwise, you end up with a shrug and an, “okay, well I guess that happened.” By way of counterpoint, he did the work quite well on the Navigator, whose own instability was hinted at earlier on.
That brings me to the role of meanders and side-quests. I’ve long since forgotten the name of the fantasy author who noted that if ever he was falling short on the word count of his book, he’d write in a simple goblin fight to fluff the content a bit. Nothing consequential really happened, but it fit the story because everyone associates random encounters with fantasy heroism.
To be clear, I’m in no way saying that Collins fluffed anything in Krakenblood, but rather I bring that up to highlight that I take an contrary position. Everything in a story should be in service to the greater narrative, and things that don’t might be better edited or left on the cutting room floor. These don’t necessarily need to be major plot beats, but they should add something- even if that something is just more insight and understanding around the characters.
Earlier I mentioned enjoying a sequence involving renegade tech-priests, which occupies a decent chunk of the book’s latter half. But once it had resolved, I found myself wondering what the point of it was. It felt very self-contained, like you might imagine a short story dropped into a novel to be. There was a wonderful opportunity for Krakenblood and Brynjar to settle their differences during its climax, giving the scene its purpose- but it is left untaken. Rapprochement does come later as it must, but it’s somewhat anticlimactic when it does as a result.
It left me wondering, given the lack of narrative or emotional consequence in these (otherwise very solid) scenes, would Krakenblood have been better with them cut (and easily repurposed as a short story) and turned into a tighter, beautiful novella?
Final Thoughts
But again, those are nitpicks as far as my overall enjoyment of the book went. Krakenblood is a standout book, one whose tale is outshined only by its telling. I had two great impressions in reading this book, with the first one (the quality of the writing) being covered above. I’ll share the other here: I have read few books that so respire with the soul of their Legion or Chapter than this one. I’ve read loads of so-called ‘bolter porn’ in Warhammer where you could easily substitute one Chapter for another and not miss a beat.
Not here. This book could only be the Space Wolves. The Fenrisian pride, arrogance, and swagger. The boasting and the bravado. The ferocious independence and, underneath all of it, the grudging respect, Collins infused every page with it.
“More than anything else,” he wrote in the Introduction to the Special Edition, “I wanted to ground this novel in the heart and the soul of the World of Winter and War… This is a novel written as a love letter to all those who have gone before, carrying the torch for the Space Wolves. I have only got here by reading and enjoying what has been written by countless other authors.”
Mission accomplished. Collins may be a humble writer for the Black Library, but in him the Space Wolves have found their skald.
Footnotes
- My axiom that, “there are no bad books, just books that aren’t for you” was underlined when Eidolon, the Auric Hammer eventually took runner-up in the Black Library Book of the Year.
- The Space Wolves’ version of an apothecary.
- Essentially a techmarine, an Astartes trained by the Mechanicum.
- I had to share at least one, but if I excerpted every passage so exquisitely written I fear I’d be done for a DCMA violation.
- Interestingly enough, revisiting my review of the Blood of the Imperium anthology, I was struck by the parallel to my reception of Collins’ earlier Ivar Krakenblood story, The Price of Morkai. “It’s a more contemplative piece that will appeal in particular to fans of the Space Wolves,” I wrote, “but following on the heels of three more kinetic tales I feel Collins was done an editorial disservice here.” Perhaps the right analogy for Collins’ writing style is that of a plant that is very particular about its conditions for growth, but when it has them the botanist is rewarded with the most delightful bloom.
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