Catachans versus a dying planet overrun by tyranid horrors
On a planet trapped in the closing jaws of the Great Devourer, Major Wulf Khan of the Catachan 903rd receives a final, desperate mission – one which will take her soldiers into the maw of the tyranid threat.
Lazulai is a world beyond the brink, its battle against the tyranids all but lost. Once-magnificent cities lie in ruin. The seas boil. The skies crack. Horrific alien bioforms devour. In mere days the planet will be consumed.
The 903rd Catachan ‘Night Shrikes’ defend one of the last fortresses still standing. Led by Major Wulf Khan, to die fighting is all that is expected of them… until she is given one last mission: to lead a squad through the apocalypse and recover a piece of archeotech that may doom or deliver the entire Lazulai System.
Facing impossible odds and zero hope for aid, the major must hold her squad together as they pick their way through an endless xenos jungle. The enemy is merciless, relentless, endlessly adaptable and formidably resourceful… but so too is Khan.
This is an excellent addition to Black Library’s growing Astra Militarum range/series. Following a small squad of Catachan commandos on a desperate, deadly mission, Hayward manages to evoke not only the brutal (often short) careers of Imperial Guardsmen, but also the horror that is the Great Devourer. I very much enjoyed this.
This is Hayward’s first novel for Black Library, following a handful of very good short stories. I was particularly impressed by Hayward’s contribution to Once a Killer (“No City for Heroes”), which I read last year. So, when Deathworlder was announced, I knew I wanted to read it. Major Wulf has appeared in a short story prior to this outing (“Nightsider Imperialis”), but it is not essential to have read that in order to follow and enjoy this novel.
The novel starts long into a campaign to defend the planet Lazulai from the ravening swarms of tyranids. In fact, it’s really the end of that campaign. The planet is all but lost, and is already undergoing the bioforming that tyranids engage in whenever they invade a new planet. The atmosphere and the biosphere are slowly becoming more toxic to non-tyranid life, as the Great Devourer lives up to its name.
Major Wulf and her soldiers are given one final mission, a Hail Mary that may or may not hold the key to taking the fight to the tyranids, or at the very least give the Imperial forces a (slim) chance to leave. Wulf and the Catachan 903rd are perfectly suited for this task, too: they are from a deathworld, and so are accustomed to operating in environments in which everything is trying to kill or eat you (usually both). Wulf assembles a small squad, and sets out into the evolving wilderness to reach a remote Mechanicum base/laboratory. Along the way, she’s joined by a lone survivor from a Cadian detachment and a tech priest.
Hayward does a excellent job of bringing these characters to life on the page, writing three-dimensional and varied characters that both epitomize what fans of WH40k will know about their faction, while also breaking these moulds on occasion. The Catachans frequently point out to outsiders that their stereotype is not as simple as fellow Imperials believe, and Hayward does a great job of rounding out the characters — in a way, explaining why they are such prized and valued fighters. They may be slightly unorthodox, and chafe at certain Imperial regulations and practices (some of which they just ignore), but they are fiercely loyal to the Imperium and each other — as well as the stragglers they “adopt” into the squad. Readers will quickly get to know them and become invested in their fates.
Haruto gave a dry chuckle. ‘Catachans are strategic too, lieutenant. How do you think our ancestors survived on a death world alone for so long? People think we just like fighting–’
‘We do,’ Adair interrupted.
‘We do,’ Haruto conceded, ‘but we don’t like waste. There’s no room for that when everything is trying to kill you, so we take the straightest line to a thing. Sometimes that means thinking, sometimes if you can’t solve a problem then you…’ He gestured as he thought of an example.
‘You tear it in half?’ Anditz offered.
‘You tear it in half,’ Haruto agreed with a half grin.
The author is also particularly skilled at evoking the horror of the tyranids. The description is sparse, which I appreciated (tyranids can present opportunities for over-writing, but Hayward avoids this), and it was never difficult to get a sense of the terror and fear they can elicit in humans who come face to face with these creatures. Whether engaged in single-combat, or looking out at a horde of silent xenos, one never forgets the stakes, situation, and peril our protagonists are confronting. There was one scene, in particular, that was superbly cinematic and yet so tightly-written — a massing horde of tyranids, in the dark, temporarily lit only by sky-burst rounds… Very well-done.
It’s been a while since a stand-alone Black Library novel held my attention as much as Deathworlder did. I was eager to get back to reading it, whenever I had to pause for real life (or sleep). The book has also placed Hayward firmly on my list of Must-Read Black Library authors. I’m very much looking forward to reading whatever else she writes, and hopefully we won’t have to wait too long. (In the meantime, I’ll catch up on the author’s other short stories; a couple of which I haven’t read yet.)
Definitely recommended for all fans of the Astra Militarum, WH40k in general, and should appeal to general fans of military science fiction as well.
*
Victoria Hayward’s Deathworlder is out now, published by Black Library in North America and in the UK.
Civilian Reader 