These days, I’m doing more Black Library books in audio form rather than print. This is in no small part due to the teeny tiny print runs most Warhammer books get, but the financial aspects of collecting a library also play an undeniable role. Most of the time, I still prefer physical copies, but audio comes with its benefits. For one, I can listen while pressure washing the sheds. For another, Black Library has some of the best narrators in the field. It’s probably because I’m British, but I’d rather hear regional British accents than an American monotone if I’m going to be listening for several hours on the trot. I expect most American listeners have the inverse reaction.

Coming off the back of Dawn of Fire and Dark Imperium, the partnership of Guy Haley at the pen and John Banks on vocals is a very familiar one. So too is the setting, the Era Indomitus, in which the Imperium reaches back into the stars in the wake of cosmic disaster. the two novels I’m talking about here are only the most recent in my listening experience. The Great Work takes place at the dawn of this new era, while the recently released Genefather brings us more up to date with the grim dark future.

The Great Work lives up to its name. It is an astoundingly ambitious novel, told on a scale rivalled only by Robert Rath’s The Infinite and the Divine. It also falls victim to one of my least favourite narrative tropes – the split timeline. In the present, we see Archmagos Belisarius Cawl investigating an ancient structure in search of powers to rival those of the Chaos forces currently besieging the Imperium. There is good material here, but much of it is the standard for Warhammer 40,000. Boltguns and blood galore, with the occasional hint of something deeper.

Deeper is the name of the game in the other strand, which skips around thousands of years of history, delving into the origins of Cawl and his plans for the future of humanity. The scattered nature of the book does leave me feeling it falls short, but there are some great insights as to the inner workings of the Mechanicum.

In contrast, Genefather is a much more straightforward novel. It takes Cawl and pits him against that other grand inventor of the grim dark future, Fabius Bile. Fabius Bile will be familiar to long-time readers thanks to his self-titled trilogy, but I daresay Haley’s version of the character is the best I’ve ever seen him. There’s so much more nuance than I was expecting from the character, and I hope to see more of Bile from Haley in the future.

Beyond that, we get an intimate look at the machinations of the Mechanicum. the thread of transhumanism running through the book is among the better takes I’ve seen on the topic, getting at both the horror and the possibilities of cybernetics. Even leaving that aside, this is probably the most scientifically interesting Warhammer book I’ve ever come across. Not bad for a book that also includes a space marine punching a minotaur.

Though the latter book is far stronger than the former, they are united by one common strength. Belisarius Cawl himself. It might be because I’m coming off the back of several epic, multi-POV series, but Cawl is an immediately memorable character. Banks’ performance is a great boon, of course, but even without the narration, Cawl’s enthusiasm bleeds out from the book. there are elements of the archetypal mad scientist to him, with a sheer love of discovery tempered by a darkness that threatens those around him. There has been a tendency in some books for the iconic characters of the setting to remain static and unchanging, but Cawl has noticeable arcs throughout these two books. the Cawl we leave at the end of Genefather is not the same one who began his Great Work. the fact that he’s a joy to listen to is an added bonus. Who doesn’t like a sassy cyborg from time to time?

Away from the broader narrative arcs of the setting, the saga of Belisarius Cawl is an entertaining story. Throw it into the full context of the era Indomitus, however, and you’ve got the makings of a truly phenomenal story.