Hi all, feeding my addiction to the 40k audiobooks further. I have now heard the two-part audiobook of "The Dark King" by Graham McNeill and "The Lightning Tower" by Dan Abnett. The combined running time of the audiobook is 75 minutes and it is read by Danny Webb (remember him?). People may speculate that the books would be good due to the two authors involved and, in my opinion, they would be correct!
Part1 is The Dark King revolves around the Primarch of the Night Lords, Konrad Curze. The story focuses on the events that lead to the Primarch's transformation from a son of The Emperor to the Night Haunter. It would seem that every Primarch has a special enmity with another and in the case of Curze this happens to be Rogal Dorn, the Primarch of The Imperial Fists. Webb does a good job of portraying the strength and unquestionable loyalty of Dorn's character as well as the dark, brooding and somewhat sadistic nature of Curze. I felt that the two accents/voices were not different initially and become more individualistic as the audiobook progresses but that is a minor criticism of Webb's work. The story follows the two legions as they claim another planet in the name of the Emperor but there is not much detail on the battles that lead to the Imperial victory, which is fairly disappointing. Having said that, I think the main focus of both books is not on the warfare on the battlefield but on the mental war that each of the two Primarchs is fighting inside their heads. There is a section in the The Dark King where we hear about the escape of The Night Haunter from his "prison" and this is the closest that we get to hear about any real fighting. The reader gets to hear more about the visions of the Night Haunter, the reasons for his betrayal of his Father and the crimes that seal his Legion's fate forever. Overall, a very enjoyable book to listen but I suspect that the printed version of this part would be even better.
Part 2 is the Lightning Tower and we are thrown into the future from The Dark King and the Horus Heresy has become common knowledge. Dorn has been given the task of preparing the defenses for the Imperial Palace at Terra and he is not very happy about it. Here is where I am still unsure of the message that Abnett has tried to deliver to the listener/reader - he mentions that Dorn thinks that the defenses make the palace look ugly but I am still not sure what this refers to. It might come to me some time in the future but for now it remains an annoying question in my mind, which diminishes the enjoyment that I got from listening to this part. On the other hand, I did enjoy learning that Dorn is scared! Dorn ponders the question "What are you really afraid of?" a lot here and the final revelation of the reason made me smile. I have thought of Abnett as a master of the emotional/mental plot in a story and this is just another example of it. This tends make his stories longer (some say he "waffles") and I can see myself reading more audiobooks based on Abnett's stories compared to any other author. Unlike The Dark King, we get to hear from a few more Imperial personnae which includes The Emperor (!!!) and Malcador The Sigilite. Again Danny Webb's version of Malcador becomes better as the audiobook progresses and he does a good job of making him sound similar to the other audiobooks of the Horus Heresy that have been read by Toby Longworth. All in all, this was a very interesting look into Dorn's character but the lack of action, my unanswered question about the destruction of the palace's beauty and the general "slowness" of the story have made this my least favourite of all the audiobooks that I have heard so far. I wonder if the printed version would be any better....
As mentioned already, the combined running time of these books is nearly the same as the audiobooks based on a single story. I can't help but feel that the printed version would provide better enjoyment and value for money, although given Abnett's tendency to overdo certain things could be a concern too. This audiobbok is good but not great. Danny Webb's voice is very different to Toby Longowrth's but this is a good thing in terms of variety. Webb provides more of a futuristic voice compared to Longworth's classical voice but he is equally engaging. I definitely look forward to hear more readings by Danny Webb.
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