Hello. Welcome to my book report.
I just finished the novel "Wolfblade" today. It was pretty good. Despite being a Space Wolf novel on paper; really, this was actually a Navigator book.
The plot synopsis: A young Ragnar Blackmane loses the Spear of Russ (the Dionysian Spear Russ used against Horus during their fight in the Heresy) when he used it to banish an invading Magnus back into the Warp. As punishment for losing the spear, he is sent to Terra to serve as a Wolfblade, a bodyguard and agent in the service of the Great Navigator House of Belisarius (no relation to Belisarius Cawl), which the Space Wolves have a long standing alliance with. The Wolfblades are seemingly made up of weirdo Spacewolves that don't fit in with the rest of the chapter. They are:
1.) Valkoth: Old and grumpy.
2.) Torin: Has a snarky attitude and a Terran-style pencil moustache. Is sissified from being on Terra too long, but otherwise competent.
3.) Haegr the Mountain: Enormous in size and appetite. He is the only fat Space Marine, due to a flaw in his genesseed that makes him always hungry. He is my favorite. He is always threatening to hand out beatings for the slightest disrespect and exagerates his own abilities. That being said, he is completely devoid of fear, is always the first to go into battle, and is surprisingly intelligent.
House Belisarius' main rival, Cezare Feracci of the Great House Feracci, has been secretly orchestrating the assassinations of the high ranking members of the other Navigator houses. He does this because the current Navigatorial Representative (a High Lord of Terra) is on his deathbed, and Cezare wants his son Mishra to be elected to fill that roll. The other Great houses would veto Mishra's appointment, so Cezare's plan is to weaken and destabilize them to the point that they no longer have the influence necessary to properly oppose House Feracci. To further this goal, Cezare has been secretly supplying an anti-mutant, fanatical militia called "the Brotherhood" that have been launching attacks on Belisarius and the other houses.
Eventually, the Brotherhood launches a full scale attack on house Bellisarius, lead by the assasssin Xenothon. Cezare hires Xenothon because Xenothon suppossedly has the skills and equipment necessary for killing Space Marines. Unknown to Cezare; however, is that Xenothon is a double-agent Callidus Assassin secretly working for an unknown High Lord of Terra that is planning on eventually killing all of the Navigators.
This culminates in an epic battle in the Belisarius vaults where Ragnar gets his ass whooped Xenothon but is ultimately able to to defeat the assassin by giving him a bear hug that immobilizes him long enough for the other Wolfblades to show up and fill him full of bolter shells.
I give it a solid 8/10, but it's entirely skippable if you don't care about Space Wolves or Navigators.
As a final note, I would like to mention some incongruities with modern lore that this book brings up.
Navigators apparently run their own trade empires and make trade deals about shipping cargo like Rouge Traders.
Navigators just walk around with their Pineal Eye exposed with no negative reprecussions.
Elder Navigators eventually devolve into intelligent Chaos Spawn that secretly pull the political strings of their houses.
The alliance between the Space Wolves and Belisarius has somehow existed since before the founding of the Imperium.
The Inquisition hates all mutants, even sanctioned ones like the Space Marines, Psykers and the Navigators and would kill them all if they could, despite the fact the Imperium could not exist without them and that most Inquisitors are themsleves Psykers.
This concludes my book report. Thanks for reading.
