Audio Review // Massacre by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Massacre
Author: Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Next up on my Eye of Terra listening list is Massacre, a short audio drama by Aaron Dembski-Bowden that brings back some of the most iconic villains of the 40k era back into the chaos of the 30k setting. With Night Lords and the Dropsite Massacre. That alone should tell you how this is going to go.
Blurb
The Night Lords of First Claw fight their way through the horrors of the Dropsite Massacre in a series of vignettes, leading them inexorably toward the darkness of heresy…
If you’ve read Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Night Lords trilogy, you already know these characters — and possibly even love them. Here, we get to see Talos and First Claw long before they become legends of terror.
Review
I love a Night Lords story. I really love a Night Lords story when Aaron Dembski-Bowden is writing it. This is a very quick listen, almost too quick. And that’s really the only downside. It deserves more time to breathe.
The story follows Bowden’s now-iconic cast during the Horus Heresy: Talos, Xarl, Cyrion, and the Exalted, as they fight their way through events before, during, and after the Dropsite Massacre. Everything is told through Talos’ perspective, placing us right inside the mind of the First Claw’s Apothecary.
And they are absolutely in their prime here. Fully functioning armour. Plenty of ammunition. Enemies everywhere. These are Night Lords at their most effective, cruel, calculating, and brutally efficient. The dark humour lands perfectly, the cynicism is razor sharp, and the violence is unapologetically callous.
In short, this is exactly what you want from a Night Lords story. It captures the Legion perfectly, but it ends just as you’re getting comfortable. Personally, I would have loved to see this expanded into a full novel. First Claw at the Dropsite Massacre deserves far more page time than this short piece allows. Still, as a snapshot of the Night Lords at their peak, Massacre delivers, fast, vicious, and dripping with heresy.
