The Swords of Calth: The Chronicles of Uriel Ventris: Warhammer 40,000, Book 7

This is the first Uriel Ventris book I have ever and I can say I am I pressed. Captain Ventris is mighty warrior. Throughout the book he battles with his newly transformed body while retaining himself. Luckily for him he has his most trusted marines with him, The Swords of Calth.The Swords of Calth are Ventris' command squad. They consist of his Ancient, Apothecary, Champion, Tech Marine, Dreadnought, and some veterans. It's obvious these soldiers have been through a lot together. In battle they know each has the others back.The book test the captain and his swords from start to finish. The books takes off running with Ventris landing on planet in the midst of a war between the local Astra Militarum forces and Necrons. This war takes the Swords across the planet and under is surface. Like any war loss is inevitable. Has captain, Ventris must drive his men forward to defeat an old enemy.Overall I really enjoyed this book from start to finish. I can say I am Captain Ventris fan. This "may" have pushed me to get his model

The story here is just barely longer than novella length; Captain Ventris crashes behind enemy lines and has to get back to the command center. Necrons are killed along the way. An old adversary shows up a few pages from the end. That’s what you get.What makes the earlier Uriel Ventris stories so interesting is largely missing here. We get very little build-up to his involvement in the conflict; I’m not even sure how or when he actually arrives at the planet. Ventris’ involvement with Guilliman makes no sense in terms of the timelines, but I suppose they’re fixing that with the Dark Imperium ret-cons. The supporting characters are largely one-dimensional with almost no back story or introduction. Makes it hard to be invested in the stakes of the story.The central character conflict for Ventris is barely touched upon. That’s probably the biggest crime of this entire story, because it’s the first time (that I know of) where we get a look at the personal aftermath of the crossing of the Rubicon Primaris. Uriel Ventris is the perfect character to do that with, but we get very little.What’s in the book is good. However, it’s what’s missing that’s the problem. It feels like half the story got cut out at some point in editing. Really a shame, and all the more irritating because BL chose to release this as an expensive hardback.

This was a entertaining read as usual but was very short. I also thought the character development was lacking in this book. The action was top notch and Uriel is one of my fav characters though so I still enjoyed it, just wanted more.

So I found out about this book because of a Warhammer 40k lore channel in YouTube, but the discussion of this book on that channel doesn't do it justice. It has the obvious insanity of scale of war in 40k, with the badass fighting one comes to expect of the Adeptus Astartes. But one element that took me by surprise was the humanity of the Emperor's Angels of Death. A superb read, which I feels highlights why the Ultramarines are the poster children for the Space Marines.

Brand new book, honestly no creases or nothing

It's getting worse.The books weren't ever that long in the first place.But the price keeps going up, and the page numbers keep going down.Oh Holy God Emperor, help us. Deliver us from this evil.(Yes I know The book is actually 205 pages but there's less than 200 pages of actual story.)

McNeil’s books are so hit and miss. This one is too short to be a full novel so not worth the 16.99 Black Library charges and I thought the story just made me roll my eyes. Graham can write good Chaos Marine stories but his Necron stories are subpar. “Cannibal Robots” that eat people, uggghhh! If he had just made it a Chaos Cult that would have made more sense than what he tried to do with the Flayed Ones. As a Necron fan I hate to see it when McNeil has his name on a story about them. Read the “Infinite and Devine” for a good Necron tale. Although on a positive note there were a few good character development scenes between the Main characters he always does that well. All in all it’s too expensive and not a good story. You won’t miss much if you skip it.

The story is a good one, with all of the shooty-death-kill one might expect from the Ultramarines vs. Necrons conflict stories. The addition of Kura, Ella, etc was also a nice touch.the story is, however, abit light on meaty moments and emotion.

While it is fantastic to one again see the hero of Pavonis in action once again, as ever framed by his loyal sergeants and faced with a terrible foe, I could not help but feel that this latest installment lacked some of the depth and character that McNeill is utterly famous for.

Not quite up there with the previous novels, in my opinion, but still a good yarn and it was good to read about UV and brothers in action once more.

Really enjoyed the subtle weaving of references to previous books and updated lore.Well worth a read to any ultramarine or Uriel Ventris fanWhere is Honsou!!