Battle of the Fang by Chris Wraight
I wrote book review on the topic but actually I usually whine about stuff I don't like and go crazy on the stuff I like in book reviews. So be warned.
WARNING: Spoiler are placed and ready to explode. If you want to read the book without spoiling the fun, just read the "TL;DR with Q&A" part.
TL;DR with Q&A
Q: Does this book sucks?
A: No, It is definetaly readable
Q: Does Thousand Sons cry like in the "A Thousand Sons" book and Magnus got his back broken again?
A: No, the power balance is reasonable and magnus kick some serious @ss.
Q: Should I buy this book?
A: You should.
Q:What is this book about? And who should read it?
A: At M32 Thousand Sons come back to invade Fenris then battle rages. Space Wolf, Thousand Sons fans as well as any 40K fan because it also has some 40K background.
Enough TL;DR now is the real deal:
KEYPOINTS:
The story was power-balanced(no draigo), it was detailed and not rushed. The plot was good and well thought off. The ending was good(40K like). Overall the story was a respectable 40K story. Worth reading.
STUFF I LIKE:
So why did I like this book? I won't just say it, I will argue it. There are some interesting points I want to share. Some of these are open discussion while some of them are just stuff from the book.
1) Rubric Marines ranks contains 18 marines each, 2x9, page 155.
2)Magnus brokes the back of the statue of Russ in the Fang. page 456.
3)Flesh Change still effects the sorcerors even after the Rubric of Ahriman.
4)All Thousand Sons are effected by the Rubric of Ahriman even if they didn't attended the spell. All non-sorceror marines are reduced to dust while sorcerors retained their flesh.
5)Space Wolfs didn't produce any successors but one: The Wolf Brothers, which was given half the fleet, half the priests, half the armory etc... But It doesn't tell how many brothers were given to that chapter and how many Space Wolfs remained as original. This is linked to the book's plot. Page 420 but also mentioned throughout the book.
6)Wolf Brothers are turned to some kind of wulfen/chaos spawn marines because of their geneseed flaws. Therefore Space Wolfs cannot produce anymore successors.
Now some personnal opinions:
1)Magnus was nothing like the Magnus in the book "A Thousand Sons". A Thousand Son' Magnus cried the entire book and was powerless to do anything, he didn't even put up a fight just cried like an emo moreover he wasn't wise as he should be. But in this book Magnus was a real primarch(deamon primarch). No one had the power to stop him and It is pure fact that deamon primarchs are much more powerful than Greater Deamons.
2) KillStreak of Magnus: 6 Dreadnaught, 2-3 dozens of Blood Claws, entire group of Terminator Wolf Guards, Great Wolf(Chapter Master) , hundreds of kaerls(Fenris PDF), 1 rune-priest, 1 wolf priest.
He gave 2 Weapon Destroy and 1 Immobilized result to the Bjorn the Fell-Handed, also followed by these additional results: shakenstunshakenstunstunstunstunshakenshakenshakenstunshakenshakenstunstunshakenstunstunstun
shakenshakenshakenshakenstunshakenstunstunstunstunshakenshakenshakenstunshakenshakenstunstun
shakenstunstunstunshakenshakenshaken.
I might missed some victims.
THE PLOT:(MAJOR SPOILER)
The Space Wolfs don't have any successors as described as above, their only successor was the Wolf Brothers which is disbanded once all the brothers turned into corrupt mutant because of the flaw in the geneseed. So this wolf priest works on the geneseed and find something he calls the tempermant and with it he can banish the curse of the wulfen. So without the curse the wolves are free to produce as many successors as UltraSmurfs or Lamefists can produce. Resulting in the total invasion around the Eye of Terror and blocking all path out of it, prisoning the traitors hiding within. They want to make an Ultramar of their own(Wolframar?) around the Eye of Terror and then re-forge the imperium in the design of the Russ. But hey! Magnus barges into his lab and trashes the entire stuff and the research. The only hope the wolves ever had is now destroyed. Then Bjorn and his buddies ambush Magnus after he is done with the wolf priest then they raid Magnus and able to destroy his flesh-shell exposing the innard warp-self, but that alone is made by the deaths of Wolf Guard squad, rune priest and the waste of Bjorn himself(They hit Magnus with a plasma cannon for dozen times and smashing him into a thunderhawk resulting in the explosion of the prometheum tanks of the craft). Then Chapter Master shows up and starts to beat the Magnus but that won't last long. Magnus regains his footing and beat the crap out of the Great Wolf. While dying on the ground Great Wolf laughs that he crushed his legion again just as on prospero and many of rubric and sorcerors are lost forever. But I don't think that is important as losing the entire temperament research. Then some rubric are destroyed while wolfs retake the fang but all sorcerors, majority of rubrics and Magnus flees Fenris with methods unknown to the wolves. Thousand Sons fleet also runs away with no significant damage but they leave the cult-troops(traitor IG) for the wolves to slaughter(And not a single f@ck was given that day). The End
THOUGHTS ON THE WRITER: Chris Wraight
I don't remember reading any of Chris' works, even if I did. When I start the book I made some power reading because I thought it was going to be like other lame Space Marine Battle books, but as the story progressed I haven't seen any overpowered Space Marines with ridiculous background, so I took is seriously after some point and it turned out to be a great book. I hereby declare Chris Wraight a level 2 writer on G-Canon. Which makes him a good writer if you don't know what G-Canon is.
Hell, I'm even thinking of reading his Fantasy books now.
Note: Sry for any typos.