The Silent King: Volume 9 (Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of Fire)

Well written ending to a great series of books. Not quite as classic as the original Horus heresy books but getting there.

Good read and I like guy as an author. More downs than ups but it keeps you reading rite the way thrhough

It is a good read

I'm a huge Necron fan, but often find them being watered down in most 40k fiction, not so in this book. The Necron's in this story are a near unstoppable force, one that even Rob Gill adults is unlike any enemy he has ever faced. There are even hits that even Chaos may have cause to fear a fully awaken Necron race, highly recommend.

Good story

I’ll keep this review short to minimise spoilers. The title makes it clear that this episode of Dawn of War is all about Necrons and has little connection to the main story arc, which was about Chaos. It does not in any way resolve the DoW story arc…to a degree, okay a small degree, Hand of Abaddon did that. Silent King seems to be just bolted on as a sort of link in the chain between DoW and the earlier novels of Dark Imperium, given that GW have been shuffling around the time line. It isn’t a satisfying close to DoW and it doesn’t work as a stand-alone novel. The plot is weak and doesn’t go anywhere. The writing is fine so I suspect the author was heavily constrained by GW’s marketing desire to ‘advance the story’.

Not much action,more waffle than anything.I am up to page 150 and to be honest i am finding this book boring,its about as exciting as watching paint dry,stay away you have been warned.

Filler content. The entire book is just so mid.

This book has everything, it’s fantastic from cover to cover. It’s so good I wish they could just keep going with this series. The characters, the plots and subplots are all interesting. There are breadcrumbs and a few loose ends to be picked up later I’m sure. You’re going to love this book.

The series started on a high note and ended with a resigned whimper that is this book. On its own, the The Silent King is okay-ish; as the culmination of the Dawn of Fire series, it fails. Haley simply ignores the pig's breakfast his co-authors have made of the series. I can't say I blame him for that. He started DoF on a high note, with lots of potential and with a monumental narrative of Guilliman's first grand action, but it went downhill very fast thanks to his co-authors and did not recover. More than anything, this book reads like Haley's attempt to extricate himself from a failed series. Haley simply takes this as an opportunity to draw a line behind the previous entries and instead of writing a finale, he writes an intro to the Plaguewars and especially to the two books about Cawl (and Bile). To be honest, Necrons are a good tool to ignore the crass and too often nonsensical content introduced in previous books and to just wrap things up without anything previously written mattering one tiny bit. Here is a quick summary of the book: all the interesting background and context characters from the first books? Never heard of them. Guilliman's historitors? Never existed. Chaos machinations? Don't be silly, it never happened. All the promising characters from the early books? Butchered by Kyme's girlboss fetish and disturbing personal agenda in book 5 and later. A promising series that ended before it had time to soar. Pity. With a small wayback machine I would have skipped this whole series just because of how flat and weak it all turned out to be.

very nice work from Guy Haley once again! a nice way of tidying up a few of the recents storyline together in an interesting way!

I understand some of the criticism that fellow readers commented in the review section. I ask you to read this book not as the penultimate book in a 9 book series but as a thing of its own. The book entails the first true major all out space engagement between the Necron and the Imperium. Many of the characters who were built up in the previous books will make a return. Without spoiling anything, I can definitively say that I thoroughly enjoyed the book and its lore implications.

End of the dawn of fire series - overall I enjoyed it but very uneven as a series. This was one of the better books but a little frustrating that it doesn’t advance the timeline, in fact it reveals the whole series took place before the dark imperium series.