Blood Angels – The Complete Rafen Omnibus (Warhammer 40,000)

It's a really good book. I bought it, thinking I would read more but I'm incredibly lazy. But as far as a book goes it's pages are nice, and the cover has a fantastic gloss.

This is a massive compilation of 5 full-length novels and 4 short stories, giving you the complete arc or Sergeant Rafen's story at a pivotal point in the history of the Blood Angels. It's the kind of omnibus that will keep you occupied for a good month, and you may want to take a break or two because of the relentlessness of the narrative. James Swallow tends to be a polarizing author for the Warhammer 40K universe, but I found the story arc highly enjoyable, as each event cascades into further consequences for the chapter. I enjoyed the introduction of the Flesh Tearers into the plot in the second story arc, and the depiction of the Conclave of Baal with its inter-chapter politics isn't something we see often in the setting. One minor nitpick is the amount of typos in the Kindle edition, which I found frustrating and had to constantly report errors for. You'd think something that's been in print for more than a decade would have been proofread rigorously by now.

It is a good book so far, but there were a few scratches on the cover.

Great read if you are at all interested in the war hammer universe glad I found this on kindle now I can read it wherever i am !!!

But it was worth it. Now a I really understand the blood angels and even love them a bit. It was nice that I had read the HH books before as I understood better some things.

The forced written review sucks one star away from the product...just take the star count and be happy

Awesome!

My wife bought this one for me as a gift since she sees me reading 40k novels all of the time. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I wasn't planning on reading anymore James Swallow novels after the disappointment that Flight of the Eisenstein was. Let me put it this way. James Swallow can write. It's not his writing that's an issue. When he describes a scene, I can see it in all of its intended glory in my head. I get the intent of the writing and I'm never confused about what's going on... something I can't say about "better" 40k authors. Where he fails, however, is in plotting. He really needs to partner with someone who knows how to twist and turn a story just enough to make the turns in a plot diagram surprising. With this Omnibus, I knew almost exactly how the last couple of chapters would read from the first couple of chapters. It was so predictable, it was like watching a movie for the tenth time in a row. You know how it's going to end. I'm not even kidding when I say that after the first five chapters, I could have stopped reading and written down the character arcs for each character and hit all of them on the head. The plotting is that predictable. Another thing that annoys me is that major characters, which are well known throughout 40K fandom, die within the space of two sentences while minor characters without any back story or future beyond brief encounters with the main characters get entire pages dedicated to their actions, thoughts and sometimes deaths. Seriously, one very well known character dies with barely a paragraph dedicated to their passing.

Difficult to put down. Easy to follow fits in with the lore well and answers a few questions about the successor chapters and their differences.

A great book with a great historical awareness of Warhammer and it's canon and story arc. Look forward to more with the ongoing story that never ends with great characters and life.

N/a

A must for all blood-angles lovers.

Would highly recommend for any Blood Angels fans, elements of Flesh Tearers, Tyranids, Civil war and the Primogenitor himself Fabius Bile.