Bloody Books Review - The Beast Arises Book Eight: The Beast Must Die by Gav Thorpe

Gav Thorpe gets a second book for the eighth entry into The Beast Arises, and with Thorpe comes multiple hammer blows of action scenes as Vulkan and Koorland enter the fray proper by landing and launching an attack on Ullanor to attempt to bring The Beast out into battle whilst Vangorich plots his own wheels within wheels to dispatch the Ork warlord.

Vulkan stands out again here, his musings on the universe at large, and this conflict in general are an ode to despair and futility, but he will not allow any hope, no matter how faint, to go out. As the book progresses, that flickering hope is beaten again and again as Vulkan refuses to lead, but instead imparts his knowledge. We never truly see anything from Vulkan's point of view, instead seeing this demigod of a personality though the eyes of the Marines, which smartly keeps the tension ramped up.

Once again, we get very little of Terra, and the various High Lords scheming away in the shadow of the Ork Moon. It's a very different book for that, feeling more like what you may expect from a "modern" 40k book rather than the slightly older, odder feel it's had up to this point. The action is impressive however, and seeing Vulkan and his nihilistic state of mind translated by the Astartes is no less readable. It may seem somewhat disappointing to not have a lot of the elements that has made the series visible in this entry, being as it is mostly one long inventive multi-staged set piece, but it sets up what I assume will be the final act of four books well.