Book Review: Dawn of War III by Robbie MacNiven

This image of the cover was taken from Amazon.com for review purposes.

Spolier Free Summary: Dawn of War III by Robbie MacNiven is a novel from the Warhammer 40,000 series. A wandering planet approaches the normal universe. A prophecy of a great spear, which can be found on this planet, brings Space Marines, orks,  and eldar into an epic clash. Most want the spear, but a special few realize that spear can never fall into the wrong hands. Even they don’t know what the weapon truly represents. This was my May Book Cover of the Month winner.

Character:  I was at a severe disadvantage jumping in on this book. With so much going on, there wasn’t a lot of character in this book. Don’t get me wrong, there were a ton of characters, but there wasn’t much development. I don’t know how many I can name without help.  To me, this is a sign of a book with weak characters. While I assert any book should strive to help the readers connect with the characters, I do understand that these particular characters have probably already been established. I only finished reading this a few minutes ago as I type this, and I can only name Macha, the eldar. The Space Marine was a real bad ass, but all he did was pretty much Hulk smash through the whole book, which is cool if I’m watching a movie, but it’s not so great in written form. My instincts say 1) fans of the series are going to hate me, and 2) My opinion on this subject would be vastly different if I were to start at the first book in the series.

Exposition:  This was great. We got what we needed, and I’d argue that every single speck of exposition was carefully analyzed. What I remember reading couldn’t have been done another way in my opinion.

World building:  This had some of the same issues as the character had.  I’ll say I thought this was better, as MacNiven laces details about the world into every aspect of his writing. I’m not sure about most of it, but as I read, I know what I need to know. I’m not emotionally invested in the information, but I did gain a solid view on how the universe worked.

This image of MacNiven was take from his website forever purposes.

Dialogue: Neither disappointing nor impressive. It flows well. It’s a little limited for my taste, but I think I view novels differently than fans of this series.

Description: This was fantastic. Every action had a level of detail that added something to the scene. This is especially true during the (many, many) fight scenes. Still, I’d say this is MacNiven’s strongest skill.

Overall: This was pretty much non-stop action and mayhem from cover to cover. It didn’t have much in the way of character development, which means it’s probably a great part of the series, but it’s not a good book to start with. If this were Anime, I’d love it. The action and description is perfect for fans of the video games, so if you’re more interested in hack and slash, this is the book for you.

Thanks for reading,

Matt