Bookworm Speaks!- Faith and Fire by James Swallow

Bookworm Speaks!

Faith and Fire (Sisters of Battle)

By James Swallow.

*****

The Story: The Adeptas Sororitas are the Sisters of Battle. The combat arm of the Ecclesiarchy, the ruling religious body of the Imperium of Man, they are warrior women who purge the darkness from the Emperor’s Light. When a rouge psyker named Torris Vaun escapes on a Imperial planet, the Sisters of Battle race to capture him and in turn uncover a plot that could threaten the very future of the Imperium.

The Good: The good is what the book is about. Warhammer 40k is dominated by the Space Marines and possibly the Imperial Guard close behind. The Adeptas Sororitas are a fascinating section of the Imperial War Machine and of the Imperial Faith.

While the baby of Warhammer 40k are the Adeptus Astartes or the Space Marines, it is nice to see some of myriad other aspects and organizations of Imperium. What makes the Space Marines so cool is how they are engineered for war using genetic technology. But the Sororitas are not, they are ordinary humans, faith is their enhancement.

The pacing of the story is great. There is a real sense of crisis in every chapter in that a huge disaster is brewing beyond the scope of the sororita’s original mission, and they will have to dig down deep in order to triumph. The character’s are very compelling if not so memorable. Their zeal and devotion to duty is extremely dramatic and helps drive the plot and the reader cannot help but become swept away in the sheer emotion of it all.

The Flaws: Bookworm could make some kind of statement about how women are not given a fair deal by Games Workshop and how the Sororitas are examples of the male chauvinism than still permeates gaming in general but to be perfectly honest that is not the purpose of this writing. Bookworm focuses on books, not politics. That is a writing for another time.

An any case, while the Sororitas are a very interesting part of Warhammer 40k lore, this is one of the weaker books of the Black Library. This took a long time for Bookworm to finish. Many of the older Warhammer books tend to fall into a blood and guts action novel. This is not entirely a bad thing but it does reinforce the grim darkness of the far future. The main characters of the book, mainly Seraphim Miriya are extremely violent and quite frankly cruel. This is nothing new but the wanton destruction exercised in this tome is not only boring, its very disheartening. One of the things that makes the Warhammer 40k so good is that even in the Grim Darkness of the Far Future at times there are still aspects of humanity that can be found. There is barely any of that sentiment in this text.

Final Verdict: Ultimately, in spite of its flaws, Faith and Fire is what Bookworm would call essential reading for any fan of Warhammer 40,000. It explores a very important element of the Imperium of Man. Although it is not the greatest tome in the Black Library. Perhaps there are other books that are better.

Three out of Five Stars.