Horus Rising, by Dan Abnett. Reason #17 why Abnett is one of my favorite authors: he actually pulled this novel off. I was kind of wary of the idea of taking the origin story of what had been an already admittedly rich and complex setting, and actually trying to make a novel out of it. That is, to story-tell it and give voice to the characters, rather than to read it like a distanced docu-epic, didn't seem a possible thing to do without just turning...disappointing.

But by golly. I mean, it wouldn't make sense to anyone not versed in the setting, but what was a relatively black and white affair before has become a personal, tragic thing in my mind - I mean, this one novel changes the nature of every other story I've read that's based on that setting. Of course, Abnett's incredibly cinematic style and developed, layered characters (especially in a setting where it's incredibly hard not to de-humanize characters) were a great help, and furthermore his interesting tact of adapting the idea of the embedded journalist to the gothic setting. It's not light reading, to emphasize - it's definitely a tragedy...I actually found myself thinking something like, "Oh, no, please no no no...." often, even though I knew the eventual outcome, like Anakin/Darth Vader style. But this is much better.

A nice article on satya, or 'truth' (but not exactly), in a way closely related to one of my favorite things - tact