Synopsis
An Astra Militarum Novel
Cadia. This proud world stood defiant for centuries – a bulwark against the forces of Chaos residing in the Eye of Terror. All of this would change when it was targeted for destruction by Abaddon the Despoiler as part of his Thirteenth Black Crusade.
READ IT BECAUSE
The Fall of Cadia is a touchstone moment of the Warhammer 40,000 timeline. This incredible battle led to the opening of the Great Rift and ushered in a grim new era in which even greater threats assailed the Imperium.
THE STORY
Cadia licks its wounds in the wake of the Thirteenth Black Crusade. The heretic forces retreat on all fronts. The day is won. But Lord Castellan Creed cannot rest easy. Something tells him the assault was a mere prelude to something greater, something more final. He is right. Out of the Eye of Terror comes Abaddon the Despoiler, at the head of a warhost unmatched in scale since the dread days of the Horus Heresy.
In the face of the looming apocalypse, Creed must weld the champions of Cadia into a bulwark capable of withstanding Abaddon’s fury. And in orbit, the Despoiler himself finds his own alliance teetering on a knife edge…
This is a tale told at epic scale, from the tables of high command to the slaughter of the pylon fields, and with a huge cast of characters from self-styled demigods to the rank-and-file foot soldiers of the Imperium.
This is the story of Abaddon’s greatest conquest. This is Cadia’s last stand.
Review
Robert Rath proves himself in one (admittedly, pretty thicc!) book that he is easily among the top tier echelon of 40K authors on the scene right now. Juggling many multiple POVs plus an extended cast, several plot threads introduced not just in this book but threads originating from campaign books, White Dwarf articles, and years worth of titbits of lore, whilst also telling one of the biggest stories in modern Warhammer 40,000 history, it’s really impressive to see that this book excels in telling such a gripping sci-fi epic.
So let’s get into why I think this is one of the best 40k books of the past 10 years.
The Fall of Cadia tells the story of, well, the fall of Cadia. For non-40k people, Cadia is a highly-militaristic planet that guards the Imperium against the demonic forces of Chaos that threaten to spill out of the Eye of Terror, a rent in the fabric of space & time. Cadia has been a staple of this vast setting for a good number of years now, and this very event is the catalyst for the direction in which the current narrative canon of Warhammer 40,00 has taken. It’s almost like a BC/AD type thing. In this grand sweeping story we follow not just the Imperial Guards (aka the boots on the ground soldiers), but also their Leaders; we follow fighter pilots, Space Marines, Battle Sisters of the Adepta Sororitas, even traitorous, demon-twisted members of the 13th Black Crusade. And Rath manages to handle this vast cast with aplomb. Every POV is unique from each other, every character with their own personalities, depth, and importance to the narrative. I think one the greatest things you could do with POV characters is make them so recognisable that if you were to hide any mention of their name, you’d still be able to tell who is who, and this is very much the case here. He also handles the reoccurring characters (like Abaddon the Despoiler & Ursarkar E. Creed) really well, knowing what makes them tick and who they are as characters deeply. His portrayal of Abaddon in particular was brilliant! Abbadon is a great antagonist and in this book he is a truly terrifying force of Chaos power.
With the character work being so well done, it’s also great to know that this is a well plotted, well paced, and cinematically written story. The entire time I was reading this, I had such a vivid image in my head of what was happening; the brutality of the 40K setting can very go understated, and this particular battle/war is viscerally depicted. Rath lets you feel the crack of lasfire, the crunch of tank tracks on destroyed ground, the chaotic nature of all-out violence. It reads like a high-budget epic TV series, the kind of thing that sells subscriptions and is appointment viewing. I was so invested in this book, despite the fact that I knew the ultimate outcome of it all, and yet found the final third to be harrowing, emotional, and rousing. Throughout The Fall of Cadia, you get moments of comradery between the Imperial Guard – TWENTY-FOUR, IN THE WAR – or the defiant chant of an entire planets population – CADIA STANDS! – it’s enough to feel you with the same sense of defiant resistance against impossible odds you experience with great movies like Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator etc. There is a poem that gets recited on a number of occasions throughout this book, but I think the opening sums up what I think this book is really showcasing:
This is not a foxhole.
This is the rich earth of my world.
Dirt I threw in handfuls on the coffins of troopers that came before me.
Those who stood in the ranks on the bastion wall, lasgun in hand, And told the Eye it would not have our future.
As much as I loved this book, however, I would say it is definitely boosted by my love of the setting in general. I knew a lot of lore surrounding this going into it, and how this event affected the broad setting as a whole in the future. It does sort of expect you to know a bit about what’s going on beforehand – so if you’re new to the setting, maybe do some homework first – but if I don’t think you’d miss out on much.
I must also give a shout out to the incredible audiobook narration by David Seddon, who manages to add another layer of drama by giving one of my favourite performances of an audiobook I’ve ever listened to. His range of accents (all the Cadians sound like they are from the North East of England, yet the differences are subtle and masterfully vocalised so as to suggest Teeside, Northumberland, Newcastle, as opposed to just a the broader “Gerodie” cadance), vocal effects, and passion for the material on offer really shines through.
So, anyway, as you can tell, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The Fall of Cadia is a must read for all Warhammer 40,000 fans, a book I think should be read by sci-fi enthusiasts in general, and it’s a book that has skyrocketed to becoming one of my favourite 40K books I’ve ever read!
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