Review:
Deliverance Lost

War! The Heresy has been declared – following the massacre at Istvaan, the Primarch Corax and his space marine legion, the Raven Guard, try to rebuild their strength. To do so, Corax heads to Terra, to entreat the Emperor of Humanity to allow him access to the technology that birthed the space marines...

Deliverance Lost was the last Horus Heresy novel released in 2011, and deals with the Raven Guard’s attempts at rebuilding and the Alpha Legion seeking to prevent them re-entering the war. So far there have been no stories fully focusing on these legions and the way they wage war (Legion was more about the Imperial Army and the human infiltrators the Alpha Legion used) so the novel has been widely well received by critics and fans of the series.

Like all the best stories in the Horus Heresy series, the book focuses on a primarch and their legion, revolving around the relationship between the two. These stories are the finest in the series (including the books Fulgrim and The First Heretic) due to showing us not only the character of the primarchs, famed heroes and villains that fans of Warhammer 40,000 know well by name, but also the way in which they saw their legions – armies made up of their sons, their responsibility and pride.  Whilst being so far removed from humans as possible, this link of emotion the primarchs share with their forces gives the readers an insight into an impossibly complex mind, but one that is ultimately human, despite all the modifications performed upon the genes of the primarchs, such as Corax.

Also, the novel follows the attempts of the Raven Guard to accelerate their recruitment program (requiring serious surgery and genetic manipulation of children) through the use of ancient technology, and the resultant difficulties and failures. This tale is well known to fans of Warhemmer 40,000 lore, like the fall of Lorgar in The First Heretic or the daemonic influence in Fulgrim. Yet it remains interesting  and engaging through not only just expanding upon the information we already knew, but adding small details the readers would not have expected – in the case of Deliverance Lost, it is the attempts of Corax and the Istvaan veterans to find the laboratory which created all the primarchs on earth.