Vulkan Lives: The Horus Heresy, Book 26

My collection grows! The package arrived in perfect condition and faster than anticipated. The protective cover is still in good condition, along with the interior hardcover. The spine is undamaged and the book feels hardly even read. I'm happy to have this book and look forward to finishing it quickly!

Given the title that should be obvious, but (SPOILER alert) the plot is split across 2 physical locations: Vulkan's prison and a world the Bearers of the Word are doing Chaos Things on. John Grammaticus is also there, and given what happened in 'Legion' his presence is automatically extremely suspicious....also IMHO JG the most likeable in 'Legion,' he's been showing up WAY too often in the other books, is definitely underprepared for his mission here, and I wanted to smack him for some of his decisions. But I digress.The part of the plot following the Istvan V survivors trying to stop the Chaos cultists was...ok. It served its purpose, and it showed how very much on the back foot their legions were, especially the Salamanders. And yet they refuse to give up. Which brings us to Vulkan, and the part of the story I kept wanting to skip ahead to.Konrad Curze spends the entire book trying to break Vulkan, and escalates the sadism as Vulkan proves to be far more resilient than he knew, both physically and emotionally. Curze finds out pretty quickly that he literally can't kill his brother, so as time wears on he puts most of his efforts into breaking his mind. He gets close, but nope. The whole thing is a character examination of both Curze and Vulkan, and it's both harrowing and fascinating.(I'm not annoyed at Vulkan being a Perpetual, mostly because the Emperor is ALSO a Perpetual, and it follows that at least one of his sons would end up with the Perpetual gene. It also really sucks for him in this circumstance, and on a meta level because emotionally speaking he seems to be the most 'human' of the Primarchs.)Also, I get why Vulkan didn't kill Curze. In 40k madness is a very physical thing (hi there, Chaos), and every time Vulkan's monologue mentioned the call of the abyss it was (IMHO) a red flag that the consequences would be Very Bad if he went over the edge. So there was a bit more at stake there than a moral victory. I doubt that Vulkan would hesitate in a 'normal' duel, and nothing about this was normal.4/5, for the Vulkan and Curze character stuff. The rest of the book was ok, but IMHO the real heart is in the Vulkan chapters.

Vulkan Lives has many negative reviews. Most are at the approach of how the Black Library is choosing to cut apart the Heresy of which can be seen & felt in many books, & of course impacts this one as well. Mainly, only bits & pieces are given & along with a totally fragmented time line, there are many loose ends, cliff hangers & mysteries which carry over to another book at another time, perhaps even an audio drama or a Black Library exclusive which you'll have to fork over $50 or more. I agree with many of the negative comments from the fans, because, books series survive only through their fans, & so these complaints should be listened to.However, these complaints didn't come to mind while I was reading Nick Kyme's Vulkan Lives. It didn't disappoint me. I purchased this book after reading the bad reviews & so didn't go in with much hope, but I had read the Salamanders omnibus and was interested in their primarch. Promethean Sun was another book which put Vulcan at center stage, but I have to say, that story didn't feel worthy of being novella and Vulcan deserving. I'm not the biggest Kyme fan, and although, like another reader stated, switching from first to third person was very noticeable, unlike him, I really enjoyed it. Although the primarchs are idolized by their sons & the Imperium, it does turn out they are much more screwed up than pretty much everyone else.This book had awesome characters, yeah I do feel the Iron Hands could have been developed more & the Black Library seems to kill off all of the good ones & leave those you don't like alive. I would have loved to have read about the small group of Istvaan V survivors in another book, so like usual, I wold have preferred a different ending, I think the perfect example is the ending for The Outcast Dead, love the small group of Space Marines who actually had their own personality but were killed off. This book had a lot of emotion, which I think fit perfectly with the Salamanders, & the new insight on Vulkan just threw him up there as my favorite primarch next to Perturabo. He has his father's strength & immortality, which can really open this up as a return of primarchs to new 40K settings, how awesome would that be, maybe Vulkan can bring back his 2 expunged brothers, jeez, I would love to read something like that.Things I didn't like: John Grammaticus is a horrible character whom was especially whiny in this book; the Cabal is a very bad ploy to keep any type of decent plot going, Cabal has to be the worst thing in this series.Overall, this was a very good read with a ton of description & discovery on the immortal Vulkan. This book deserves at least an average 4 star rating, come on peeps, push those ratings up.