Following the catastrophic losses endured during the Tartarus campaign, Captain Gabriel Angelos journeys to the planet of Rahe's Paradise in a desperate attempt to recruit new warriors into the Blood Ravens Space Marines. However, once there, he discovers that the Chapter's outpost-monastery has become an archeological dig, which contains artefacts that could challenge everything that he thought he knew about the origins of the Blood Ravens. Under scrutiny from the Adeptus Sororitas and under attack from his old nemesis -- the eldar Farseer Macha -- Gabriel is unwittingly threatening the resurrection of something ancient and terrible from both his and the eldar's past.

As great space fleets clash above the planet's surface and all-out war is unleashed around them, Gabriel and his allies must discover the secrets of the planet's past ... secrets that could lead to revelations that might destroy them all.

(2005)

(cover art: Niel Roberts)

Reviews:

5 STARS! Dawn of War: Ascension

A raw boost of pure excitement from start to finish, December 10, 2005

Reviewer: Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)

The eagerly anticipated sequel to Dawn of War, Dawn of War: Ascension continues the lightning paced, action-packed adaptation of the best-selling, real-time strategy computer game by THQ, and the long-enjoyed dark science fiction war game Warhammer 40,000. Following the Blood Ravens Space Marines in their struggle to protect their worlds from horrific aliens, Dawn of War: Ascension reveals a shocking twist in the bloody galactic conflict - the true menace is not necessarily the mysterious and ancient Eldar, but rather a horror far more lethal! Violent, gritty, gripping, Dawn of War: Ascension is a raw boost of pure excitement from start to finish.

5 STARS! Book 2, November 29, 2005

Reviewer: Detra Fitch (USA); Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews

The young squadron sergeant from Tartarus, Ckrius, now undergoes trials and surgeries to join the Adeptus Astartes. Due to all the previous casualties, the need for new recruits is vital. Ckrius is being rushed through it all, more than doubling his chances of dying.

Captain Gabriel Angelos is driven to return with all haste to Rahe's Paradise. Attacks by Eldars and Dark Reapers are underway. The Space Marines eagerly join into the fray. Gabriel is shocked to come face-to-face with Farseer Macha again. Gabriel wants nothing more than to set the blame for everything at her feet. He soon comes to find it impossible to do so. Gabriel is also being besieged by visions. He is not the only one. It seems that at least one of the Adeptus Sororitas, Sister Superior Meritia, is getting them as well.

Sister Meritia and Father Jonas have found some interesting Eldar artifacts under the foundations of the monastery-outpost. While Gabriel and his men deal with the attacking aliens, Meritia and Jonas learn. It seems that whatever lies beneath the planet's surface is a far deadlier foe than imaginable.

***** I found this one to be as exciting as the first. Author CS Goto had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. Battles, ancient mysteries, and even a Blood Trial will keep readers practically drooling for more! Impressive! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

5 STARS! Death, glory and intrigue, December 1, 2005

Reviewer: Alchemist (London)

I came to this after reading the fantastic 'Salvation' and I have to confess that I was doubtful that Goto could work his magic on the space marines of WH40k; there is usually far less scope for characterisation with space marines (and Goto's Salvation is so superbly humanised and characterised, albeit set on Necromunda where there are no marines!). But I was delighted and surprised by this book. Goto has genuinely created 'real' space marines, with character and humanity. Not only that, but this is a storming read too -- great battles, loads of aliens, lots of death, glory and intrigue. For the fans of WH40K, this is probably even better than Salvation (because there is so much more action, combat and blood). I hope this is a sign of things to come from the Black Library.

Extract:

From pp.7-11:

Beginnings swirl into the forgotten past, like ideas fading into the inconstant oceans of memory. They swim, free-floating on the cusp of the empyrean, flickering in and out of reality, as though prodding at the consciousness of a submerged mind. Without warning – or with warnings so subtle that they pass as mere comets’ tails or clouds of burning gas – an old beginning can push itself out of forgetfulness and cast itself into the glare of a new sun, dragging itself out of the oceans of darkness and into the light once again.

There are but few whose thoughts sense the eddies and dances of moments gone by, and fewer still whose souls sail the very brink of the abyss from which the ghosts of beginnings and ends emerge into our world. And those few are both the best and the worst of us, for there is nothing hidden to them in the great expanse of time. But even the greatest of them is not always free to choose the sea-lanes on which their visions might sail.

The future is no different from the past. It is nothing more than a beginning yet to come, and it curdles in the endless ocean of time, riddling the depths of the invisible realms with immaterial phantasms. It is the idea of a current and the suggestion of a storm; it is the gathering cloud that persuades a sailor to drop anchor, to head for land, or to brace for the coming of hell. But not every wisp of vapour births a maelstrom, and not every sailor looks up to heaven.

The future grows from myriad beginnings, but each of those beginnings also have a beginning of their own – an infinity of regressions back to The Beginning, before which an origin was not even a word and the future was an unbounded explosion of light. It was not a moment or an event, but a tear in the very fabric of our universe, through which the empyrean and the material realm could spill and mingle. Before the tear, there was nothing but darkness or perhaps nothing but light, and from it was born reality itself.

The Old Ones told of a time after The Beginning when an Ancient Enemy emerged from the hearts of a thousand suns, feeding on light, drinking the very life of the galaxy. These glittering beings were born entirely into the material realm, and they were its undisputed lords – commanding the very stars themselves. But mastering the materium and conquering the galaxy were not the same thing, and the Old Ones confronted this Anicent Foe by surfing the tides of the immaterium, drawing ineffable power from realms incomprehensible to the star gods, realms swimming with the unformed and raw powers of daemons and gods.

I have heard legends that this was the time when Chaos daemons first dragged themselves into existence, clawing their way through the rift between realms, salivating at the scent of life on the other side. And I have also heard that eldar more ancient even than Asurmen himself were born into this time, fed by curdling eddies of power where the Old Ones stirred the material and immaterial together with a giant, warp-stone jewelled spear. Thus the Old Ones stood against them at the dawn of war itself. Despite the machinations of the Ancient Enemy, the tear in the galaxy was never sealed, and from it continues to pour the echoes and promises of our eternity From it seeps hope and damnation together.

Buried in the deepest vaults of the Black Library, hidden from the eyes of the young races and the foolish hearts of our time, lie the tomes of the most ancient of the eldar, the very first volumes to be taken into the care of the Harlequins, older than the mysterious library itself. There are rumours that these timeless texts may even bear the imprints of the Old Ones themselves. I have seen them, and they are exquisite.

The Black Library itself lies veiled in the lashes of the webways that riddle the great tear, surfing the empyrean tides as a glorious galleon in the light-streaked darkness. If the Ancient Enemy were to return to complete their Great Work, then the tear would be sown up, the Library would blink out of existence, and the sons of Asuryan would be cut off from their life source forever. We would cease to be; cease to ever have been as the universe was severed from its own memories. The Eye of Isha would dim, closing for all eternity. The legacy of the Old Ones would vanish.

For the Ancient Foe have no souls, and thus nothing to fear by severing reality in two – draining the life force from the substance of life.

For the Ancient Foe have only life, and an insatiable thirst for death.

For the Ancient Foe were turned back only by the blinding brilliance of Isha’s gaze, and, were that gaze ever to fade, there would be nothing to stand before them.

Thus the gaze of Isha is cast over the universe, sprinkling it with moments of light, ever vigilant for the first stirrings of ancient endings.

And it is to the farseer that we turn for visions of time beyond and around our own; it is they who pilot our craftworlds through the treacherous tides and webs of fate, casting their eternal souls to skim the fringes of the ineffable abyss. They are the navigators of our souls, seeing the past and future blended into our present, seeing ancient origins swimming into our destinies together with the daemons who continue to claw their way into our realm.

But I have seen the treachery of our ways: even the farseers cannot see everything or everywhen, and if they could it would drive them into madness. Visions of paradise and hell are inseparable: the great tear brings both glory and annihiliation – it is the birthplace of war and victory. With the eldar, our daemons were also born into reality, and even I cannot see whether it was wise to pay this price to arrest the advance of the Ancient Foe. Even the present is unclear – visions of elsewhen are doubly treacherous.

From: The Treachery of Vision – Eldrad Ulthran, Ulthwé

(copyright Games Workshop ltd, 2005 -- CS Goto)