Customer Reviews
Fulgrim - By: Colin Keogh, 23 Oct 2008 
I disagree with the other reviewers I didnt enjoy this book at all & unlike most of the booksin this series I quickly got bored of it. I like the battles butin this they were quite boring & not described very well.
I like Luius alot butin this we didnt get to hear any of his remarkable
swordsmanship.
The best in the series so far - By: Douglas Wright, 19 Sep 2008 
This whole series is excellent, but this one has been my favorite so far. The author was not afraid to delve into the kind of depravity & excess that Slaanesh is all about & really got across the seductive technique that was used to turn one of the emperors own sons against him, & without giving it away, the final damnation of Fugrim to Slaaneshin the battle was breathtaking. I reviewed Horus Rising too & commented on the depth that these books add to an already great story, & its the clever details of the corruption, the subtle manipulation & coersion of the chaos gods chaos that really adds to it all.
Best of the bunch so far - By: J. Duducu, 14 Jan 2008 
If you've read any of my other reviews you will see my biggest issue with this series is how rambling & poorly edited they are. Indeed the promised show down mentioned at the end of book 3 finally happens here at the end of book 5. But finally the promise of book 1 is realised 4 books later.
So here we have the fall from grace of Fulgrim. Now of all the Chaos Gods Slaanesh is always the most intriguing. It is the god of lust & decadence & while you can see marines falling for the bloodlust of Khorne (less so for the decay of Nurgle) the idea of a decadent fall sounds very human. After all how many warriors have been suckered by feminine charms & a comfy sofa rather than years on horseback fighting through the mud?
It's all done very well & very convincingly. With tiny hints & quirks at the start of the book being full blown perversions by the end. It also drives the story along (a bit) & has a satisfying ending (first one to do so). Definitely the high point.
The epic finale of the battle of Isstavan V is very well described & turns it into a real page turner. However the one thing that made me smirk is that while the blood & guts is all very explicit it suddenly gets rather coy when it comes to the matters of sex.
This is a shame if you're going to do a book about Slaanesh then I'm afraid you're going to have to talk as much about genitals as you are about guns but whether this is style was done not to scare younger readers (although apparently skinning people & using their skin as decoration on your armour won't given them nightmares) or whether the worries would be that it would lurch into the area of erotica- which would not be inappropriate considering the subject matter I don't know.
Overall the best written the most gripping & the most ambitious book so far.
Pleasure for pleasure's sake. - By: Mr. M. R. Churchill, 16 Jul 2007 When I reviewed Graham McNeill's "False Gods", his previous bookin the Horus Heresy series, I accused him of wasting the Primarch Fulgrim. Fulgrim only featuredin one scenein "False Gods", but now McNeill has rewarded him with the longest single novel the Black Library has ever printed. Indeed, the scene that featured Fulgrimin "False Gods" is representedin this novel, with subtle differences as the story is explored from Fulgrim's perspective.
"Fulgrim" is magnificent. As a dedicated follower of Slaanesh, I feared that the depiction of Fulgrim's perfect space marine chapter & its descent into the worship of the chaos god of licentious excess could easily be bungled. Games Workshop has shied away from Slaanesh of late - for whilst bloody violence is accepted by society, sex is still taboo. McNeill, however. handles Fulgrim's fall from grace extremely well. Crowley, Wilde, & Blake all appear to be reference points for this highly literate Warhammer novel,in particular Blake who is presentin paraphrase & also quoted directly at one point (suffice to say I will not bother to make myself explicit for the idiot). The whole vista of Slaanesh's depradations are on displayin the form of one character or another, & there are some extremely impressive & wonderfully ornate set-pieces. This book has everything you'd hope for from a Horus Heresy novel, & is probably the best volume to date.
Since this novel extensively expands the character of Fulgrim from his depictionin "False Gods", I am hopeful that the previous book's two other Primarch cameos - Magnus the Red & Angron - will one day be gifted with a novel of their own by McNeill. And I hope they will be as good as this volume. McNeill strives for perfectionin his writing as much as the eponymous Fulgrim doesin his labours, & the results are worthy of much praise. Praise for the Prince of Pleasure! Pleasure for pleasure's sake!
There's a picture in the attic. - By: David, 11 Jul 2007 The longestin the series so far, & the best as well, chronicling Fulgrim's tragic fall from grace. It is action packed, well written & exhaustingly detailed.
Strikingly it seem's to draw heavily on influences from "The Picture of Dorian Gray," from the descent into grotesque hedonism, the influence of a piece of controversial literature (although not the same piece), murders disguised by dissolving the bodiesin acid & a picture, that has disturbing qualities.
It inevitably suffersin comparison with Wilde although it is by itself excellently written. It also suffers, unfairly,in that many will already know the end of the story (although this is by no means the fault of the author).
It is however, a gripping read, smooth, fantastically detailed & at times genuinely moving. If you are a regular visitor to the hall's of the Black Library then this is a must, & if you aren't familiar then this is as good an introduction as any.
My only real criticism is that the end feels a bit rushed (or perhaps compressed). The first half is given over to a meticulous account of the corruption, whilst the second half (in the same amount of pages) deals with a vast amount more. The result is a book feeling slightly lopsided.
This is a minor failing though & overall the book is excellent.
