Flesh of Cretacia

Space Marine Battles #Novella

by Andy Smillie

A Space Marine Battles novella

Mere centuries after the end of the Horus Heresy, the newly-founded Flesh Tearers Chapter continues its bloody crusade against the xenos races that threaten Segmentum Pacificus.

READ IT BECAUSE
It's something we've never seen before: how a Space Marine Chapter found and tamed their Chapter planet. And this one has dinosaurs…

THE STORY
Mere centuries after the end of the Horus Heresy, the newly-founded Flesh Tearers Chapter continues its bloody crusade against the xenos races that threaten Segmentum Pacificus. Chapter Master Amit leads his warriors to a feral world in pursuit of orks, but discovers something far more ancient and deadly in the depths of the jungle. Already battle-weary, the Flesh Tearers must master the dark legacy of their primarch Sanguinius if they are to prevail... and perhaps find a world worthy of being called their home.

Genres: Science Fiction, 40k, Novella, Fantasy, Games, Military Fiction, Action

128 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2012

Reviews

[Bobby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Flesh of Cretacia is essentially a novella-sized adaptation of a White Dwarf magazine column written to explain the background of the Flesh Tearers, the most savage Chapter of the mighty Space Marines. The story is cool and it is not poorly written, but outside of introducing a few characters and some dinosaur battles, it is just not adding anything to the mythos that the few paragraphs it's drawing its inspiration from didn't already. Characters seem to invent nonsensical motivations to manufacture pathos while the story demands the next dinosaur horde battle that serves as the only events of the book. In some ways the higher word count detracts from the original synopsis by compressing epic events that intentionally leave room for the imagination with uninteresting specificity. Flesh of Cretacia is by no means bad, and I would recommend it to people that want to flavor their 40k knowledge with some caveman/dinosaur Death World goodness, but to almost no one else. There are Warhammer stories that are both good books and good fluff. This is closer to just being the latter. I couldn't shake the feeling that this story would've been better left alone or told as a pulpy graphic novel. As the Goodreads scale goes, I felt "it was okay".

[Abhinav · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can find the full review over at The Founding Fields:

http://thefoundingfields.com/2012/11/...

Shadowhawk reviews the latest premium edition publication from Black Library, the second in the Space Marines Battles series.

“Flesh of Cretacia may very well be the defining Flesh Tearers book, capturing the very essence of the cursed chapter against the backdrop of the Horus Heresy aftermath.” ~The Founding Fields

Andy Smillie is one of the newer authors writing for Black Library, and with that newness comes a marked difference in his approach to the Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy that many of the older, more experienced authors are greatly beginning to experiment with. This difference is that in the last two-three years (by my count) there has been a significant shift at Black Library in terms of how nuanced the stories have become. The days of Bill King’s Space Wolves novels, or Graham McNeill’s first Ultramarines trilogy, when the characters and settings were less complex and the authors’ interpretations of the source material were rather straightforward have given way to Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Night Lords novels, and Sarah Cawkwell’s various Silver Skulls stories. That comment is not meant to be seen as in any way derogatory of the former two authors though, since I’m a big fan of both those early bodies of works and they are what got me into the hobby and solidified my interest in it. Andy has the benefit of seeing that evolution come about and he makes full use of it. Yes, there have been a few publications in recent times that I’ve found to be quite below par, some of which I quite detest, but those have thankfully been very few and far in between.

I have some experience with Andy’s 40k work and before I read Flesh of Cretacia, that experience was about equal parts good and bad, although to be honest it was leaning towards the former. His short story The Torturer’s Thirst (Flesh Tearers) in the Treacheries of the Space Marines anthology was extremely good, as was the eShort Immortalis (Flesh Tearers), but his Space Wolves audio drama Deathwolf didn’t work for me at all. I approached Flesh of Cretacia with a bit of caution but was still pretty excited for it since one of the protagonists, Chapter Master Amit was a favourite character of mine from James Swallow’s Heresy novel Fear To Tread and because Clint Langley’s cover for the novella was just so darn good. Not to mention that I thought, at the time, that Andy had a fairly decent grasp on the Flesh Tearers. This novella proves that he has, in fact, a very good grasp on their ideology and culture, and that he really does understand what makes them tick. We saw overtures of this ideology in James Swallow’s third Blood Angels novel, Red Thirst, and Andy’s understanding of them builds on that portrayal, giving the chapter an even more feral and brutal outlook on life.

For starters, Flesh of Cretacia is not what I call a “safe” story. Amit, being the first Chapter Master and a character of some repute from the days of Horus Heresy, has a fair bit of plot armour as expected, but the novel does not focus exclusively on him, as do Bill’s Space Wolves novels on Ragnar Blackmane or Graham’s Ultramarines novels on Uriel Ventris. Andy has crafted a really rich cast of characters for this story, ranging from Chaplain Zophal who commands the Death Company (and is the Chapter’s leading Chaplain I believe), to newly-minted Sergeant Manakel, to Captain Barakiel and many others. Through their eyes, we see how the Flesh Tearers are beginning to define themselves amongst the successors of the former Ninth Legiones Astartes, the Blood Angels, how their experiences since the end of the Heresy, particularly the death of the Primarch and the sundering of his legion have changed them, as well as Amit’s own increasingly fatalistic command of the chapter.

Among all the successors of the Blood Angels, the Flesh Tearers have suffered the most from the twin curses of the Red Thirst and the Black Rage, and Andy does a great job of exploring that concept. The chapter, the warriors who take part in the mission to Cretacia of Orks at least, suffer great casualties, many from these twin curses, and the experience leaves many of them emotionally and psychologically changed. Some of them rise to a higher calling among their brethren, while others fall just as far into the madness that they bring. And in that respect, Amit and Zophal emerge as the most important characters in the novella. One is driven by the fatalistic realisation that he may one day fall to the genetic defects of Sanguinius’ bloodline, and the other is weighed down by his responsibilities as the commander of the warriors who have already fallen to one of those defects.

Its not an easy task to write about Space Marine characters that a reader can care for, since by their very nature such characters are quite inhuman and often unable to relate to the masses of humanity around them. But in Amit and Zophal challenge that perception as Bill’s Ragnar, or Graham’s Uriel, or Gav Thorpe’s Branne Nev, or Dan’s Garviel Loken have done for me. Amit is even more important in that regard since he’s a bridging character here: he served under the Primarch himself during the days of the Great Crusade, and the Heresy that followed, and he is now a relic of those times who is struggling to redefine himself. There is an especially poignant scene in the novella when he is talking to one of his ship captains and he compliments her on her decades of service to the chapter. Another when he is haunted by the worst atrocity he ever committed, his own personal shame that he is constantly atoning for (the atrocity is shown in Fear To Tread).

[Zaphied · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very angry, stubborn space marines team kill each other. They kill some other things(orks, indigenous wildlife, and some humans fallen to primitive spears technology.) At the end they make a volcano blow and conquer a death world. It should have been cooler. But it wasn't.

[Mario Polytaridis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well written and some interesting character interplay but a plot that's quite lacking which is disappointing of Andy. There's way better out there from him, so only 2 stars.

[Andrei88 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read it only if you are a fan of the chapter otherwise you won;t find much here, the way these guy act and behave, constanly wanting to spill blood, barely keeping themselves from attacking someone, I could swear I was reading a chaos novel.

Oh there is talk about controling the urge, mastering the blood and using it against the enemy however even the chapter master acts like a madman. They way these guys treat their weapons, armor and ships is bad, to say the least.

While there is talk about the burden the chapter carries, the inner darkness, sadly it;s not explored enough nor do the characters talk enough about it.

There is action, visceral scenes, the chapter as the name suggests prefers to go for melle and rip the flesh from the enemy so a number of scenes will have that however it's offset by poor character development, we get several POV's and I couldn't tell the difference between most of them.

[Blair · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bolter porn with dinosaurs, and some orks.

Well, can't say I was expecting much but I had hoped this little novella would bring at least some interesting and entertaining characters. The only character that you will remember by the end of it is Nassir Amit, and mostly because other than his great martial prowess and bloodlust, he's a very bad chapter master and pretty awful leader that wastes soldiers on every occasion. I guess that's the whole point of the Flesh Tearers.

The novella is written fast and is almost non-stop action from the get go, yet it becomes quite boring after a while and every battle feels the same.

At least it is short

[Alpharius(Possibly) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad but I do think that the writing here is somewhat lacking. I enjoyed Amit’s character and the human perspectives were quite interesting but I think that the book lacked a certain interest that would make it stand out. Definitely worth a read, especially for a flesh teasers fan, but there are a lot of better books. Also what happened to that Chaplain was kind of stupid I’m not gonna lie.

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an older story and, honestly, reading it has done nothing for me. The more recent Flesh Tearer shorts and novellas are better in almost every way. And that is good and right.

Read it if you really want to find out how the second sons came to call Cretacia home.

[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written with interesting characters, really puts you in the mind set of the Flesh Tearers. However, alot is left to be desired. Nothing is left to the imagination and against Warhammer norm, no mysterious plot point is left unanswered. Basically just an action novella.

[Finn Road · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved reading about Amit again, i remembered him from one of the Horus Heresy books.
Nice to see a nod to future Chapter Master Gabriel Seth in there.
Loved the ruthless world, great "origin" story.

[Ulzeta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite fun.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was ok, mostly battles - but you do learn a bit about the Blood Angels. Much closer to the World Eaters than I had realized.

[Paulo "paper books only" · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the most interesting novels (novellas) that I read in a long time.

Flesh Tearers are a particular interesting chapter of space marines. Most Space Marines are unique in some way but they are still "normal". Most of the time we learn that Space Marines are almost inhuman but almost every story written by space marines we get the exact opposite. They are humans, with feelings (even if hardened by all they have to pass) and moral situations that, well make them human.

With the Flesh Tearers we get something more interesting than that. This tale begins right after the end of Horus Heresy and the separation of the Blood Angels and creation of new chapters. In here we follow Amit, a previous captain of the IX company of Blood Angels that was granted the honour of founding a new chapter. This chapter has a anusual amount of marines succumbing to the Black Rage which makes them the more interesting.

This tale begins as they engage the orks in a primeval world. But even before the deploynment begins things start to wrong but Amit, the chapter master, says that they must kill every Ork and overcome that obstacle. With his forces depleting after the crusdade they were dealing they had no homeworld to draw new recruits. Instead they recruited from worlds they save from the clutches of Imperial enemies.

In this tale we follow a couple of characters as they deal with their own moralities and problems. We follow Amit, the chapter master, Zophal the Chaplain of the Black Company, Barakiel, Scout Cassiel, Mamied, Manakel and other space Marines but also Tamir one of the leaders of Cretacia many tribes or even the Shipmaster Neta.

Very interesting book where you can learn a bit about this space marines. I should read Fear to Tread because for what I read, Amit's shame is told there.

"Even we have our limits, brother. Through as with all truths, there are those who would cry this false. The ignorant of humanity believe us to be gods, worshipping us as divine beigns of impossible power, who bring hope and terror in equal measure. but there is no mercy in our hearts, brother. Salvation does not run in our veins.
But the Rage, the Rage knows no limit. Some think we clad the damned in black to mourn their passing. But that is to misunderstand our purpose. We are angels of fury and violence. We are wrath and we are death, and nothing more. In the last moments of life we embrace the darkness, for there is no light after death, no forgiveness, only the blackness of rage and the absolution of death.
For only in death does duty end."

[Mhoram · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Flesh of Cretacia" was my first experience with the writings of Andy Smillie. He's not by any means a bad author, and as far as novellas go, Flesh of Cretacia is alright.

The story, in brief, covers the Flesh Tearers chapter of the Adeptus Astartes who, in pursuit of an Ork warfleet, find themselves drawn to battle upon a planet every bit as fierce as themselves. This planet is Cretacia, and the novella tells the tale of their conquering the rage of that ferocious death world.

Unfortunately, the novella's setting in the timeline causes it to suffer in two ways. First, being set so soon after the Horus Heresy, Chapter Master Amit's character is already well-established by the novel "Fear to Tread", and there's little character development to be done there. And Second, being so far from the "modern times" of M41, developing the other characters achieves little, since all of them are long dead and as yet not mentioned outside the novella itself.

I would like to see some kind of sequel to Flesh of Cretacia, to continue the story of the characters, because one or two of them genuinely did seize my interest. But I doubt this will ever happen.

Finally, a note on Mr Smillie's prose. As I said, he's by no means a bad writer. But I don't think I'd rate him above "good". He's good, but not great. He doesn't compare to the Black Library hard-hitters of Dan Abnett and Aaron Dembski-Bowden, and his prose fails to seize my attention in the way that a novella-sized story really should. In truth, I can't quite name why this is, I don't know what - if anything - he does that puts me off. But as this is a review, it'd be dishonest for me not to mention it.

With all that said, I do recommend this novella to all fans of Andy Smillie, the Flesh Tearers, and the Blood Angels. It's an enjoyable read.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read! I've thoroughly enjoyed Smillie's work about the Flesh Tearers. They are favorite of the space marine chapters and perhaps one of the most tragic. Be sure to read the author's other works on the Flesh Tearers!

[Yohann · Rating 3 out of 5]

J'ai trouvé la nouvelle bien écrite mais assez courte, en revanche l'esprit guerrier des Flesh Tearers est assez atypique et je ne m'attendais pas à ça de la part d'un des chapitre successeur des Blood Angels, en particulier de guerrier ayant connu l'époque des 20 légions.

[Anthony Giordano · Rating 3 out of 5]

My review of Flesh of Cretacia here:
http://hachisnaxreads.blogspot.com/20...

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

The character of Amit is explored more here, he's still just as confrontational as in Fear To Tread, but now with more of a sense of purpose. A great little back story for the Flesh Tearers.