Black Tide

Blood Angels #4

by James Swallow

Having prevented the ferocious Bloodfiends from bringing disaster to their homeworld of Baal, the Blood Angles go in search of the renegade who almost destroyed them-Fabius Bile. Tracking the Chaos traitor down to his secret base on Dynikas V, a world beset by alien tyranids, the Blood Angels find horrors more terrible than even they can imagine. And with a sample of primarch's blood in his possession, the Blood Angels must discover what nefarious plot Fabius Bile is bent on.

Genres: Science Fiction, 40k, Fiction

416 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

James Swallow is a New York Times, Sunday Times and Amazon #1 bestselling author and scriptwriter, a BAFTA nominee, a former journalist and the award-winning writer of over sixty-five books, along with scripts for video games, comics, radio and television.

DARK HORIZON, his latest stand-alone thriller, is out now from Mountain Leopard Press, and OUTLAW, the 6th action-packed Marc Dane novel, is published by Bonnier.

Along with the Marc Dane thrillers, his writing includes, the Sundowners steampunk Westerns and fiction from the worlds of Star Trek, Tom Clancy, 24, Warhammer 40000, Doctor Who, Deus Ex, Stargate, 2000AD and many more.

For information on new releases & more, sign up to the Readers’ Club here: www.bit.ly/JamesSwallow

Visit James's website at http://www.jswallow.com/ for more, including ROUGH AIR, a free eBook novella in the Marc Dane series.

You can also follow James on Bluesky at @jmswallow.bsky.social, Twitter at @jmswallow, Mastodon at @jmswallow@mstdn.social and jmswallow.tumblr.com at Tumblr.

Reviews

[Alexander Draganov · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was too large and dragged in the middle, but it had space marines battling an insidious enemy in a lab fortress of horror and I Looove such plots.

[Jordan Brantley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bookworm Speaks!

Warhammer 40K

Blood Angels: Black Tide by James Swallow

The Story: Having prevented the ferocious Bloodfiends from bringing disaster to their homeworld of Baal, the Blood Angels go in search of the renegade who almost destroyed them - Fabius Bile. Tracking the Chaos traitor down to his secret base on Dynikas V, a world beset by alien tyranids, the Blood Angels find horrors more terrible than even they can imagine. And with a sample of primarch's blood in his possession, the Blood Angels must discover what nefarious plot Fabius Bile is bent on. (From amazon.com)

The Good: Once again we embark on another thrilling adventures of the Blood Angels Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. The last adventure was in the halls of the Blood Angels Fortress Monastery and now we head out into the blackness of space to take the fight to the Lords of Chaos. Already opportunities for world-building and action packed fight scenes present themselves and we are not disappointed. Rafen is an excellent character in how human he is and in his determination are very compelling. There are many similarities between him and the character of Uriel Ventris from the Ultramarines series by Graham McNeill.

The Adeptus Astartes are undoubtably one of the coolest parts of the Warhammer 40K Universe and we see another aspect of them which was what made the the previous book so enjoyable: Interactions between alternate Space Marine Chapters. The squad of Blood Angels is once again joined by a squad of Space Marines from the Flesh Tearer’s chapter, a successor of the Blood Angels Legion. We also meet other Space Marines who are prisoners of Fabius Bile and being used as fodder for his experiments. One in particular, Tarikus of the Doom Eagles, is an interesting character who gets his own short story later on.

But what really is a great character is Fabius Bile. He is a perfect villain due to the fact that he is so utterly despicable makes him a lot of fun. A rogue apothecary from the Thousand Sons, Traitor Legion, he is known for committing brutal biological experiments across the galaxy with the goal of creating the perfect warrior. A key to making a good villain is either to make him really human or go the opposite direction make him or her a monster that totally lacks sympathy. The latter is what the author does and he does it to great affect.

The Flaws: The main flaw of this book is that it ends on something of a cliff hanger and in order to truly see the story to its very end, one has to purchase or otherwise acquire a copy of the Redeemed e-story from the Black Library website. Not that Bookworm is against ebooks but it can seem like a bit of a money grab to nickel and dime readers so they can see the end of their favorite stories. You should definitely buy a copy of said stories but still…

As Bookworm’s Warhammer Library increases, a flaw within the franchise tends to show up a lot more frequently and that is the homogenization of the antagonists. As stated in another Warhammer 40K review about the Necrons, the forces of chaos can become kind of dull after reading several stories about them. All the forces of Chaos in many books are almost exactly the same, that being: blood, guts, human skin, horned monsters, twisted parodies of life. Very gruesome and indeed an affront to all that is ordered but it never seems to change. Chaos is more than just carnage, it is also confusion and discord. We just need a little more variety in the enemies of mankind, more than just introducing a new one with the new codex. Diversity is what is needed.

While Rafen is a good character, he does come off as a bit of Gary Stu. He is a little too Clark Kent-like at some parts and that can turn off readers looking for more complex protagonists. The same goes for the other characters, such as Turcio and the Flesh Tearers. They are one dimensional and as Bookworm finds while writing this review, not very memorable.

In the end…the main problem with this book was that the other books in the series felt unique whereas this book feels like rather generic.

Final Verdict: A good way to wrap up the Blood Angels series but it is not quite as memorable as the other volumes. Bookworm genuinely hopes that we see more of the Blood Angel Rafen in future adventures of the Imperium of Man.

Three out of Five Stars

thecultureworm.blogspot.com

[Andreas Foteas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started this book with high hopes, both because of the reviews and the hunt for Fabious Bile. However it fell far shorter than my expectations. In a lot of scenes the writer make the Space Marines act a little more than grunts or mortals, the Sergeants talk to them like they are Neophytes and he disregards the lore whenever it is convenient for him to "develop" an event. For example, he doesn't consider that the armour is enclosed and a random Space Marine dies from exposing to vaccuum, however this works fine when the plot needs it to be enclosed. In one point the Space Marines do not follow a proposed plan because they don't have magboots (Space Marine armour has standar maglocks & magboots) but after some pages, when it is convinient for them to exit a sub and walk along its outer hull, they magically have them on their armour. But the worst parts was the random happenings he put on the book just to fill pages, events that have nothing to do with the story or the development of the characters and make the reading dragging, bogged down and tiring. I recommend this book only if you want to learn more about the depraved Fabious Bile and only if you find it in a flea market, discounted or take the Blood Angels omnibus. It is the second worst 40k story I have read, along with the "The Killing Ground".

[Krissy Pilkington · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've been a 40k fan since 1st edition, so have read most all of the fiction over the years, so I can say with complete certainty that this is one of the worse 40k books I have ever had the misfortune to read. Filled with lazy writing and well worn tropes. Bile's portrayal as this very much cartoonish villain is bordering on the ridiculous. I almost gave up on the book halfway through it was so bad, but I soldiered on to the end and was just glad it was over. The 3 Blood Angel books that preceeded it, while not perfect by any means were pretty ok stories, but it seems the author had run out of steam by writing this one and it really shows. I'd give it zero stars if that were possible.

[Christopher Dodds · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really good. It had a bit of a revenge plot to it, the hunt for Fabius Bile is very much like Moby Dick with the blood angel's going after the villain with a vigour, it also had a nod to 2,000 leagues under the sea. The book was full of action and some very tense moments featuring one of the main characters, some gory moments that is natural of a Warhammer 40K novel.

[Carl Grider · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite of the series. I like the interaction with members of other chapters.

[Ulzeta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite fun.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the very end of Red Fury, Rafen is told that Bile stole some of the blood of the Primarch and that he is to track him down and punish this blasphemy, and retrieve the blood. Black Tide starts with his squad on a tau (alien) colony and the discovery that Bile is gone and knew they would follow them. And this was their last lead.

Rafen is Not Pleased.

But Seth sends word to the Blood Angels that the Flesh-Tearers have a lead, and want to be part of avenging the insult. Dante agrees and sends word to Rafen to cooperate. They join forces with a Flesh-Tearer squad, led by Noxx (featured in the last book, too), and together they track down an Adept of the Adeptus Mechanicus, take over his ship, and force him to bring them to the planet where he dealt with Fabius Bile. They discover it's infested with tyranids -- which is to say, horrific all-devouring hordes of alien monsters. Bile has his lab in the middle of this.

By sacrificing a space ship, they manage to launch a submarine into a sea infested with tyranid kraken, and set out to attack a heavily defended post. Adventure, danger, death ensue.

As I was reading this one, I was thinking this is a tie-in, and Fabius Bile is a character in the game. There is no way that Rafen's going to be allowed to thwack him over the head and put an end to him. So -- how can this book resolve? And I will say that he managed to pull off an ending despite that.

[Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the following Red Fury. In it Rafen goes in search of the traitor Fabius bile with a bunch of battle brothers and a few flesh tearers. They finally find the traitor on the planet Dynikas 5.

Rafen is captured by fabius bile himself and he gets imprisoned in fabius´s base. Were the traitor conducts weird experiments trying to create a new emperor with the space marines primarchs´ blood sampless.
Rafen then brings hope to the other space marines emprisoned and accomplishes in escaping.

I thought this was a great book to read even better than the first one because Fabius bile´s plans were revealed. And I also liked the idea of Rafen being emprisoned on Dynikas 5 with other space marines from different chapters. This book I recommend to people who like warhammer or science fiction. Overall, A great book

[Dylan Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book honestly too me a little longer to get into than usual, but I was also rather busy, and as such didn't sit down and read as much of it as I normally would have.
Saying that: The book got better and better with each passing page, and my infatuation with the Flesh Tearers and the Mad Scientist of 40K was ALMOST appeased.

My favourite part of this book(besides how terrifyingly awesome said mad scientist is) is that the author wrote some really, really different stuff.
His take on the Tyranids was awesome, I really loved it. The situations the joint-operation between the Flesh Tearers and the Blood Angels were thrown in, as well as how they responded to each was awesome as well.

And the mad scientist. I don't want to say anything for fear of making it any more obvious. But I LOVED everything about him in this novel, and he really made it for me.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

These novels are dark, very dark, simply because of the nature of the setting itself. There is no hope in the Warhammer 40,000 universe - as the tagline goes, in the dark future there is only war.

Despite this grim setting, or in fact because of it, the stories told are about incredibly heroic figures. People whose only destiny is a violent, bloody death on a foreign planet, people who -know- this is their only destiny, yet despite this they are determined to die with a snarl on their face spitting in death's eye. They are inspiring figures and the strength of this alone lends the weight of the ancient heroic sagas to these stories.

[Andrew Ziegler · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Swallow restored a lot of my hope in his ownership of the Blood Angels with this book. In a LOOOOOOONG line of 40K novels that I have read, and I primarily only read about the IG or the Space Marines, totally around 40+ read now, THIS book happens to stand out as a little original. It has a nice change of location and story that was much more akin to Abnett's Gaunt's novels, as opposed to another Space Marine book. Swallow has impressed me with his HH work, but never his Blood Angels stuff. This was different, I actually found myself as connected to it as I am to one of his Heresy books. Well done.

[Michael Da Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very fun romp in the 41st millennium.

I have to confess I wasn't expecting this story to take the turns that it did. I was expecting a pretty standard hack and slash as the Space Marines track down their foe and fight hordes of mutating monstrosities.

Instead, the novel had a more endearing sense of adventure, harkening back to the early days of 40k. From memorable and interesting characters like a xenos-obsessed archeologist, to underwater battles upon an archeotech submarine, Black Tide has a lot to enjoy.

While it was by no means profound, a decent hook supported by strong characters and a great villain kept me enjoying this until the end.

[Oliver Eike · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a let down compared to the rest of the Blood Angel books. It felt as if the authors heart just wasnt in it. Which made it a slow read.

But this time Rafen and the gang go to a planet where Fabius Bile has a prison/experimentation center on various Astartes and Tyranids.

The persona of Rafen felt a bit more shallow this time around and the ending? Eh.

While its not a bad book by itself, it just dosnt hold the same quality that i came to expect from the author. Which saddens me.

[Marc · Rating 2 out of 5]

The meta-plot was a great idea that I'd like to see developed. The Blood Angels seemed more like vanilla marines though, rather than rage-a-holics fighting against their nature. The writing (or perhaps more accurately, the editing) was technically better than many of Black Library's works which is nice to see.

[Jon Mcnabb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good novel fills in some gaps.

[Christian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aw shit, this book ended without wrapping all the threads? There 's gonna be another...? Muthah fu...

[Ahzek Ahriman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was a good ending to the blood angel Story. Not the best book but ist worth the time if you like 40 k and the angels