The Imperial Fists space marines are recruiting. Instead of a major leafleting campaign and some adverts on the telly, the Imperial Fists land in a war zone and grab some likely lads, asking for volunteers before drugging them and taking them aboard ship. Three recruits, one from each side in the war, conveniently, end up being trained together and going off to guard a planet that has been attacked by the forces of Chaos. It all goes pear shaped of course, and the lads are thrown in at the deep end.

It’s competent enough, well written and very workman like. The characters are well formed and three dimensional, the plot all works and mostly makes sense. It’s good enough to take its place among others of its kind where it will fit in nicely.

Unfortunately it won’t stand out in any way. There’s no spark of originality here, no angle or spice to make you take notice. It’s just another Warhammer novel.

To sum up, and in my opinion, you won’t think you’ve wasted your money, if you’re a fan of the Black Library, but I challenge you to pick it out from a line up after about three months.

Sons of Dorn, Chris Roberson, The Black Library, £6.99.

Apostle Marduk of the Word Bearers finds a device in a necron tomb. To cut a long story short he switches it on while attacking a warp gate held by the Imperial forces. The gate closes and the planet and its surrounds are cut off from vital re-enforcements. The forces of Chaos then begin to slaughter the populace in order to take over the gate and penetrate all the way to Earth. Everything is going great until a third party arrives in the form of the necrons, undying metal men with some pretty nasty weapons. This is no surprise because it tells us on the back cover.

The book is well written, but the main protagonist is a Chaos warped creature bent on a-slaughterin’ and a-mutatin’ his way across the galaxy. There’s no identifying with such a character, and certainly no sympathy, so at least half of the book doesn’t work. The parts of the book told from the “good guys” perspective work a lot better and are well worth reading.

I can see what the author was trying to do, but a shift of emphasis would have made this an excellent read, instead of merely good.

Dark Creed, Anthony Reynolds, The Black Library, £6.99.

Another of those damned Horus Heresy books. Magnus the Red is loyal to the Emperor, but he and his legion, The Thousand Sons, are known to use witchcraft in their battles. The other legions distrust them for this of course, despite the fact that it’s Horus who’s gone loopy. Anyway, Magnus has a vision showing Horus’ treachery and warps over to Earth to snitch. Unfortunately, Magnus lands on an expensive and rare piece of kit the Emperor had been working on for ages and is displeased. In retaliation, the big cheese sends the Space Wolves to the Thousand Sons’ planet to break his tele and slaughter the population.

If we ignore the first third of the novel, which is unneeded, it’s actually not bad. It’s well written, has some good set pieces and is atmospheric. The battle at the end is huge and well told, and up to spec for this kind of novel. I’m not sure exactly where it fits with the other books in the series, we seem to have gone back a few decades. As I’ve said before, the HH series ran out of steam long ago. Although this one is probably more worth reading than most.

A Thousand Sons, Graham McNeill, The Black Library, £7.99.

We're pleased to announce our first open night – well afternoon – for 2010 taking place from 1pm until 5pm at the usual venue The George, 213 Strand, London, WC1R 2AP.

The guest speaker will be Lauren Beukes, a South African author, script writer and recovering journalist who occasionally falls off the wagon.


She is the author of Moxyland and Zoo City, published in the UK by those mechanical folks at Angry Robot.

We hope you'll join us in welcoming Lauren to our shores.

Through poisonous treachery Lord Godless has captured the Emperor of China. Unable to defeat the invincible atheist, the great generals of China incinerated, Wind and Cloud retreat to gather their strength. Wind walks Lord Wicked's path of evil, the dangers of which are shown by Wicked's decision to cut off his own arms, to limit his own evil-doing. Cloud takes on the powers of master Nameless, creating twenty-three new sword styles of "divine superiority" along the way, collectively known as "Ba!"

Time for a rematch!

The special effects in this film are often fantastic: it's a video game come to life. Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng return to the roles they originated in Andy Lau's 1998 film The Storm Riders (which I found a little underwhelming), and Wind and Cloud look like they've stepped out of a Squaresoft cut-scene. As in The Eye trilogy, and even their otherwise slightly disappointing American film The Messengers, the Pang Brothers make brilliant and often subtle use of digital effects. Much like 300, 95% of the film is computer generated, estimates Oxide Pang in the special features.

It's not a perfect film: its adoration of 300 is not restricted to technical issues, certain shots and costumes feeling more like imitations than homages. The female characters have little to do but look serious and pretty (and in many cases die) and the two heroes are a bit soppy and stiff. But in a film where the main draw is the fighting those flaws can be overlooked.

At worst reminiscent of clunky, melodramatic but fun Indian telefantasy, at best quite fantastic, this is one of the better movies of its type I've seen since Zu Warriors of the Mystic Mountain. If it had featured a character with extensible eyebrows, or even a scene where the heroes took on a decently-sized army or two, it might have beaten even Zu. I didn't always understand what was happening, but when it happened I was enthralled.

The DVD includes a commentary by Bey Logan and 80 minutes of interviews and special features.

The Storm Warriors, Pang Brothers (dir/wri), Cine Asia, 106mins.

Surprisingly, this is Vincent Chong’s first cover artwork for Postscripts in its six year run and happily the title story lives up to its promise – no easy task where Chong is concerned. It’s an alternative history steampunk tale, but not one that is played light and loose for the sake of frolicsome adventure. And the best compliment I can pass on Chris Robertson’s tale is that his seemingly dense evocation of alternate New York and the glimpses he affords of a whole other back history made me wish the story had not ended: there was enough here for a novel, although the story’s intro gives no hint that it is, or will be, part of a larger canvas.

What we have, then, is a tale of murder, and Thomas Edison… and of what he created in this world where electricity has been shunned and Edison fallen into obscurity. The anthology closes with Stephen Baxter returning to the timeline of his superb novel Anti-Ice and in between there are some two dozen excellent tales, among them “Catherine My Lionheart”, the best short story Allen Ashley has ever written.

Alas, at a hefty £30 (plus £2.49 P&P) for a 370 page book, Postscripts has now become an elite publication for wealthy readers immune to such trivial concerns as recessions and credit crunches. I, for one, can no longer renew my sub.

Edison’s Frankenstein (Postscripts 20/21), eds. Nick Gevers and Peter Crowther, PS Publishing 2009. £30 hb. £60 signed hb.