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The Gothic War #2
Shadow Point
Despatched to form an alliance with Dark Eldar, whose lieutenants represent the Gothic Sector's only hope against the evil Warmaster Abaddon the Despoiler, Captain Sempar of the Imperial warship Macharius seeks to stop the Chaos hordes.
320 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
About the author
Gordon Rennie
396 books34 followersFreelance writer for over 20 years – When he’s not being ungainfully employed as a BAFTA-nominated video games scriptwriter, he keeps himself busy writing comics, novels, screenplays and Doctor Who audio plays. Comics work includes Predator, Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Missionary Man, Necronauts, Caballistics Inc and Absalom, and Dept. of Monsterology for Renegade.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 3, 2015
When it comes to Black Library, there are a few key novels which are signified as being massive game changers for the franchise and fan favourites. Ian Watson’s Space Marine, Dan Abnett’s First and Only, and Graham McNeill’s Storm of Iron are the traditional ones, but the Gothic War duology is sadly forgotten these days. While likely down to a lack of reprints until recently, the sad truth is that it’s one of the best novels of its kind and covers a subject so often skipped by many authors: Naval life and battle. True, many books do feature this to a fair degree, but so few are exclusively set on warships, and both Execution Hour and Shadow Point are perfect examples of how to truly nail this.
Set during Abaddon’s Twelfth Black Crusade, the series follows the crew of the Lord Solar Macharius as they are deployed to help turn the tide in a slowly losing battle against the traitor fleets. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned on countless occasions, the vessel and her captain, Leoten Semper, keep winning battles time and time again. However, as the ever traitorous Eldar offer an alliance against Chaos and the Planet Killer continues on its ponderous course towards heavily inhabited worlds, can even the most staunch of Imperial commanders hope to turn the tide?
Usually when it comes to an omnibus this would be broken down into a novel by novel analysis, as with the Soul Drinkers saga, but both books share many of the same qualities. As such this is going to be a more general discussion of the series on the whole.
Now, being a classic Black Library story this is far more Trollslayer than it is The First Heretic. Everything present in here isn’t so much focused on characterisation as it is action and much of the story focuses far more upon the battles, running events and personal stories than it is about deep character examination or internal feuding. While many points in the story will stop to briefly examine the histories behind certain characters or even set up fights between one another, these are kept more to the background in favour of the combat. While this would usually be a detrimental failing of a book, it instead works in its favour, largely thanks to the style it is presented in. Being more famous for his writing on comics than novels to many, Rennie’s series here is heavily broken up into very loosely connected but largely independent tales. The first several parts of Execution Hour are effectively skirmishes, more isolated than part of some running story and you could easily see this as a part of some omnibus or running trilogy such as the early Constantine trade. It’s better suited to light or short bursts of reading to be sure, but it’s hardly a failing in of itself.
While the stories are much smaller in scale, they help to give a very quick impression of the crew, the combat and Rennie’s very visual forms of storytelling and punchy descriptions help to bring the story to real life. While it might lack the slow speeds or precision descriptions of ship to ship combat found in Ben Counter’s works, and often forgets the ranges which enemy ships engage one another in Warhammer, it retains the energy and speed to keep the reader engrossed. No one quite depicts a strike cruiser rushing an enemy formation or barrages of missiles striking their target quite like what’s found here.
In addition to this the setting is far grimier and willing to show a far less perfect Imperium than many later novels. While writers would later fully embrace the idea of biased storytelling influencing how the Imperium was shown, the technology here is far more run down and it reflects more of the idealised fascist society you’d expect in Starship Troopers than anything else. This actually makes the work seem all the more alive despite its occasionally cartoonish trappings, and while Chaos is still shown as the big enemy it’s far more villainous than you’d expect to find in later stories.
Perhaps the biggest thing of note however is the early appearance of Abaddon the Despoiler. While only briefly showing up in the book, Abaddon here is very much the classic villain in every sense but very intelligent and very powerful. Enigmatic to the last, he shows up here as more the dark lord than semi-reasonable hero of Dembski-Bowden’s works, and there is rarely a moment where he does not outshine the story. While very little of his background is gone into, what little we get is truly memorable.
Unfortunately if there is a serious point to criticise, it’s that there isn’t enough of an impact when it comes to the villains. While Abaddon remains his perpetually awesome brooding self and the early battle against an old vessel once allied with the Macharius are both memorable, there’s no single antagonist to help keep the tale going. Even the traitor astartes planning to use a world’s destruction to his own ends and a manipulative Imperial servant don’t stand out, and the story feels a little more empty without that looming foe. Shadow Point is more ambitious, but this same flaw seems to largely apply, and it’s more a general war you’re invested in over any single antagonist. Atop of this, while the combat is frantic and remains furiously detailed, sometimes it can seem oddly short. Despite the scale of the vessels involved, too often even the vast capital ships seem like they’re written as frigates with their speed and style of combat. Those more used to what was shown in Dark Mechanicus or Xenos will definitely be thrown off by this.
At the end of the day, The Gothic War omnibus is different, a little more pulp than high literature in many respects, but far from bad in any way. If you’re after some bite-sized reading which is broken down into multiple running tales and desire some high grade bolter porn, this is definitely one well worth looking into. Despite the trade’s high price tag, it’s well worth a purchase.
Set during Abaddon’s Twelfth Black Crusade, the series follows the crew of the Lord Solar Macharius as they are deployed to help turn the tide in a slowly losing battle against the traitor fleets. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned on countless occasions, the vessel and her captain, Leoten Semper, keep winning battles time and time again. However, as the ever traitorous Eldar offer an alliance against Chaos and the Planet Killer continues on its ponderous course towards heavily inhabited worlds, can even the most staunch of Imperial commanders hope to turn the tide?
Usually when it comes to an omnibus this would be broken down into a novel by novel analysis, as with the Soul Drinkers saga, but both books share many of the same qualities. As such this is going to be a more general discussion of the series on the whole.
Now, being a classic Black Library story this is far more Trollslayer than it is The First Heretic. Everything present in here isn’t so much focused on characterisation as it is action and much of the story focuses far more upon the battles, running events and personal stories than it is about deep character examination or internal feuding. While many points in the story will stop to briefly examine the histories behind certain characters or even set up fights between one another, these are kept more to the background in favour of the combat. While this would usually be a detrimental failing of a book, it instead works in its favour, largely thanks to the style it is presented in. Being more famous for his writing on comics than novels to many, Rennie’s series here is heavily broken up into very loosely connected but largely independent tales. The first several parts of Execution Hour are effectively skirmishes, more isolated than part of some running story and you could easily see this as a part of some omnibus or running trilogy such as the early Constantine trade. It’s better suited to light or short bursts of reading to be sure, but it’s hardly a failing in of itself.
While the stories are much smaller in scale, they help to give a very quick impression of the crew, the combat and Rennie’s very visual forms of storytelling and punchy descriptions help to bring the story to real life. While it might lack the slow speeds or precision descriptions of ship to ship combat found in Ben Counter’s works, and often forgets the ranges which enemy ships engage one another in Warhammer, it retains the energy and speed to keep the reader engrossed. No one quite depicts a strike cruiser rushing an enemy formation or barrages of missiles striking their target quite like what’s found here.
In addition to this the setting is far grimier and willing to show a far less perfect Imperium than many later novels. While writers would later fully embrace the idea of biased storytelling influencing how the Imperium was shown, the technology here is far more run down and it reflects more of the idealised fascist society you’d expect in Starship Troopers than anything else. This actually makes the work seem all the more alive despite its occasionally cartoonish trappings, and while Chaos is still shown as the big enemy it’s far more villainous than you’d expect to find in later stories.
Perhaps the biggest thing of note however is the early appearance of Abaddon the Despoiler. While only briefly showing up in the book, Abaddon here is very much the classic villain in every sense but very intelligent and very powerful. Enigmatic to the last, he shows up here as more the dark lord than semi-reasonable hero of Dembski-Bowden’s works, and there is rarely a moment where he does not outshine the story. While very little of his background is gone into, what little we get is truly memorable.
Unfortunately if there is a serious point to criticise, it’s that there isn’t enough of an impact when it comes to the villains. While Abaddon remains his perpetually awesome brooding self and the early battle against an old vessel once allied with the Macharius are both memorable, there’s no single antagonist to help keep the tale going. Even the traitor astartes planning to use a world’s destruction to his own ends and a manipulative Imperial servant don’t stand out, and the story feels a little more empty without that looming foe. Shadow Point is more ambitious, but this same flaw seems to largely apply, and it’s more a general war you’re invested in over any single antagonist. Atop of this, while the combat is frantic and remains furiously detailed, sometimes it can seem oddly short. Despite the scale of the vessels involved, too often even the vast capital ships seem like they’re written as frigates with their speed and style of combat. Those more used to what was shown in Dark Mechanicus or Xenos will definitely be thrown off by this.
At the end of the day, The Gothic War omnibus is different, a little more pulp than high literature in many respects, but far from bad in any way. If you’re after some bite-sized reading which is broken down into multiple running tales and desire some high grade bolter porn, this is definitely one well worth looking into. Despite the trade’s high price tag, it’s well worth a purchase.
May 19, 2020
I'm glad I dug out this old classic. I can't recall if I've ever read book one in the series, Execution Hour, but it didn't matter for this story.
First published in 2003, it's funny to see how the WH40K lore has changed in those seventeen years. At one point in the story, the captain of Lord Solar Marcharius sits down for a drink with his navigator. He gets his navigator to look into warp for him and scry the future. The navigator pulls down his bandana, revealing his third eye, and opening it. The captain mentions staring into it and recalling the strange things he sees, without his mind turning to jelly. Oh, how things have changed.
Back to the main plot, there's a lot going on. The forces involved are Imperial Navy, Chaos, Craftworld Eldar and Druchii. So there are many threads to follow. The one thread I did like was that of the Craftworld Avatar. Even though he seemed to 'spawn' himself manually, without the sacrifice of an Exarch. I really liked the way this molten monster stomps his way through the webway.
Overall, an enjoyable read with a good final space battle.
First published in 2003, it's funny to see how the WH40K lore has changed in those seventeen years. At one point in the story, the captain of Lord Solar Marcharius sits down for a drink with his navigator. He gets his navigator to look into warp for him and scry the future. The navigator pulls down his bandana, revealing his third eye, and opening it. The captain mentions staring into it and recalling the strange things he sees, without his mind turning to jelly. Oh, how things have changed.
Back to the main plot, there's a lot going on. The forces involved are Imperial Navy, Chaos, Craftworld Eldar and Druchii. So there are many threads to follow. The one thread I did like was that of the Craftworld Avatar. Even though he seemed to 'spawn' himself manually, without the sacrifice of an Exarch. I really liked the way this molten monster stomps his way through the webway.
Overall, an enjoyable read with a good final space battle.
January 27, 2025
Finished the second part of this series, it was a pleasant re-visit of the characters we already knew from the previous episode and the new additions were fresh, from them I really liked Inquisitor Horst, and for this reason I am not going to continue with the Gothic War, but I'll switch over to the Eisenhorn trilogy, because it's been a long time coming.
March 28, 2018
Seemed very similar in feel to a rush job to close out all the holes in a canceled story on a manga magazine. It brings in all these factions together, shakes in an actual deity, and ends on a cliffhanger after pretty much saying many beings died and here's the check off list.
May 24, 2020
Eldar and the Imperium versus Chaos and the Dark Eldar, quite a fight.
February 11, 2021
Good imperial Navy book
November 5, 2021
It was a good book, that started a little slow but picked up in the end. I enjoyed it but Execution Hour (the 1st in the series) was better.
August 3, 2022
Mediocre novel consisting of space battle scenes with muddled plot dumps in between the battles. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/200...
December 3, 2025
Not worth to read it. The first book is just great, this one really lacks. Kept waiting for it to get better until it was over... Hard to believe the same person wrote it actually.
December 18, 2014
I'm of two minds about this book. On one hand, I really, really enjoyed this, especially in comparison with the first half of this duology, which I thought worked well UNTIL it became a unified story. This is obviously a novel, not a novella & some short stories put together, and that's a good thing. On the other hand, what I enjoyed MOST about this book was the first half, the kind of "setting all the pieces in order" and the tension and the character buildup. The second half, the huge four-sided, ever-changing battle, was far less interesting, and since it's HALF THE BOOK, it just kind of ... keeps going until it ends (and what the hell; I feel I missed the climax).
Ostensibly this follows another outing of the Lord Solar Macharius during the Gothic War. We've got human Imperial Navy folk upholding a shaky truce with a group of eldar against some Chaos baddies, but unbeknownst to them, there are some dark eldar lurking in the wings trying to make things go pear-shaped. Captain Semper, Horst - all your favorites are back! Plus approximately 7,000 new characters, from both the Imperial and the Chaos side of the fence.
I think the bit that was most shocking to me is this whole section that's very "feel-good," where Semper kind of shows up to the eldar & is like, 'We don't know enough about each other. Let's not fight!' and you think, oh, this is 40K; this won't end well. But then it DOES. In a damn-near "Lion's paw"-esque ending, the eldar come back in Semper's time of need & help him out of a bind. This is balanced with some of Maxim's horrific actions during the book, but still, it's quite shocking to see a 40K book with even that much sort of 'things work out in the end' to it.
Despite a third act that takes up over half the book, the climax is rushed & ... kind of confusing, but still I did enjoy it. I think Rennie is a good author, and I wish he'd done more 40K stuff. I think he improved at least threefold between the first book & this one. Oh well. Maybe one day.
Ostensibly this follows another outing of the Lord Solar Macharius during the Gothic War. We've got human Imperial Navy folk upholding a shaky truce with a group of eldar against some Chaos baddies, but unbeknownst to them, there are some dark eldar lurking in the wings trying to make things go pear-shaped. Captain Semper, Horst - all your favorites are back! Plus approximately 7,000 new characters, from both the Imperial and the Chaos side of the fence.
I think the bit that was most shocking to me is this whole section that's very "feel-good," where Semper kind of shows up to the eldar & is like, 'We don't know enough about each other. Let's not fight!' and you think, oh, this is 40K; this won't end well. But then it DOES. In a damn-near "Lion's paw"-esque ending, the eldar come back in Semper's time of need & help him out of a bind. This is balanced with some of Maxim's horrific actions during the book, but still, it's quite shocking to see a 40K book with even that much sort of 'things work out in the end' to it.
Despite a third act that takes up over half the book, the climax is rushed & ... kind of confusing, but still I did enjoy it. I think Rennie is a good author, and I wish he'd done more 40K stuff. I think he improved at least threefold between the first book & this one. Oh well. Maybe one day.
April 3, 2013
Well this was somewhat disappointing. As the sequel to the previous book I sort of hoped it would answer some of the outstanding questions, but it didn't touch on anything from the previous book at all. Instead posing a bunch of new questions, most of which it didn't really answer either.
And the fundemental plot didn't really make much sense either.
All in all, a disappointment. Though the space battle scenes were good, which gets it the second star.
And the fundemental plot didn't really make much sense either.
All in all, a disappointment. Though the space battle scenes were good, which gets it the second star.
September 3, 2013
Роман оставляет больше вопросов чем ответов. Для фанатов космобоев неплохо, но интриги особенно нет.
March 25, 2016
You know, I know I read it. I know I didn't hate it. But thats about it. An unremarkable WH40k yarn, though I do have a soft-spot for the "navy" part of that universe.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews