Gift of the Gods

Call of Chaos #5

by Ben Counter

Lord Antonidas Hajos, the leader of a banished faction of Dire Claws Chaos Space Marines, looks to spread the worship of the Dark Gods to the people of a backwater feral world.

Read it because
It's a look at how the acolytes of Chaos spread the worship of their dark masters, and what that means for those who fall under their sway.

Genres: 40k, Short Stories, Science Fiction

19 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 5, 2015

About the author

Ben Counter, as well as making several contributions to Inferno magazine, has written the Soul Drinkers and Grey Knights series and two Horus Heresy novels for the Black Library. He is an ancient history graduate and avid miniature painter with a bronze demon under his belt.

Reviews

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad at all and thw ending rised final vote for good, but storyline was really in desperate need of some pages more to fully develope.

[DarkChaplain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story was built around a few very interesting ideas and concepts, but to be really successful with them, Ben Counter would have needed to tell it in a longer format. The tale is hamstrung by the limitations the short story format presents, and as a result, a fair bit of vagueness and a few too many scene skips came with it.

That is not to say Gift of the Gods wasn't enjoyable - it very much was - but it definitely suffered from not being elaborate enough when it came to the trials of Serpentias, the tribes of Jaeglor and the motivations of Koridis. A real pity, as this could have been an excellent little story in its own right.

[Dylan Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, Gift of the Gods was a pretty good story following some exiled Dire Claws. I don't really recap reading any previous fiction about them, but they're a renegade chaos warband, and we don't really get to see much of who they are as a chapter. The dialogue wasn't very inspiring, as it sounded pretty much like Chaos Space Marines and doesn't go too much farther than that. I did really like the twist, and the whole "process" of instilling Chaos on a feral world was pretty fun.

[Michael Dodd · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fifth 2015 Advent Calendar story from Black Library, Ben Counter’s Gift of the Gods features the disgraced, exiled Chaos Lord Antonidas Hajos of the Dire Claws, abandoned on feudal jungle world after leading a failed coup within this chapter. Accompanied by a handful of his warriors and driven on by anger and pride, he sets out to turn the locals to the worship of the chaos gods, undertaking a series of tasks to prove his worth. The question remains though, will this be enough to set him on the path to revenge and glory?

Read the rest of the review at https://trackofwords.wordpress.com/20...