Teaser

Ursula Creed has never sought the prestige associated with her father’s name. The Imperium, however, needs every victory it can achieve. So it is that Ursula and a handpicked group of Cadians are sent in search of her father’s final legacy. To the place where he fell. To the ruins of Cadia . . .

Review

Having enjoyed Jude Reid’s short stories for Black Library, I was excited to see her first novel hitting shelves. Even more exciting to see that it dealt with my favourite factions, the Cadians. Readers have been spoiled for choice when it comes to Cadian fiction in the past few years, and the existing books have set a high bar for follow-ups. Throughout these novels, one question has been raised time and again: What does it mean to be a Cadian when there is no Cadia? This is a question that Creed: Ashes of Cadia, tackles head-on, and with devastating success.

Clearly, Ursula Creed has a closer tie to the Cadian mythos than most, and I love the way that Reid contrasts the personal legacy of the Creed family with that of Cadia as a whole. Most Cadians are proud of their legacy, to the extent that they exclude troopers transplanted from other worlds, and treat second-generation Cadians as somehow lesser than those born on the homeworld itself. Ursula, however, has no interest in living up to her father’s legend, despite also carrying the title of Lord Castellan. In a way, she’s more forward looking than her history-focused peers, as shown by her treatment of penal legionnaire Ossian.

Though the Warhammer timeline is a little hazy, and that’s putting it mildly, Creed: Ashes of Cadia is set several decades after Cadia’s fall, giving it a slightly different feel to other recent Cadian novels. While some issues have fallen by the wayside, others have become more deeply entrenched. The most interesting aspect of this period is that we now have Cadians born who have never known Cadia before the Fall. The jump forwards in time also allows for some fun connections with previous books. Justin Hill’s Isaiah Benedikt gets a throwaway mention, while the legacy of Robert Rath’s Marta Hellsker plays a more important role. The story is perfectly understandable without knowing these connections, but the intertextuality adds an extra layer to the story of the Cadians, and I’m glad I chose to read my recent Cadian double bill in this order.

I can’t go into this for spoilerific reasons, but I’d also like to say that the ending teases a very interesting future for the Cadians as a whole, and I hope it gets picked up on sooner rather than later.

All of these are things I hoped to find in Creed: Ashes of Cadia, but there was one big surprise as well. This novel is not part of the Warhammer Horror range, but it still provides on of the best zombie apocalypse stories I’ve come across in science fiction. Reid isn’t afraid to kill off or mutilate characters, and the threat of being bitten by a zombie – sorry, a poxwalker – adds a visceral and easy to visualise form of corruption by Chaos. There’s also the inevitable yet inevitably entertaining backstabbing as traitors are unmasked and we realise not everyone is on the side we assumed they were. Add in an extra dash of the creepy with unexplained radio message, an inhuman huntsman stalking its prey, and some particularly grisly scenes in a family chapel, and you’ve got the makings of one horrifically grim book.

For fans of the Warhammer storyline at large, there are also some cameo appearances from major players like Guilliman himself. Serving as a reminder that even the major events of a novel like this are but a sideshow to the galaxy at large. For the Cadians, this is a mission rife with symbolism and deep cultural significance. For the Imperium, it’s a clear-cut opportunity for some good old-fashioned propaganda. I may not be up-to-date on the Era Indomitus, but books like this and similar scenes in Marc Collins’ Void King help keep everything in perspective. It is, after all, a large galaxy out there.

For Warhammer readers, this is a phenomenal read and I recommend it most highly. For Cadian fans, it’s almost an essential read.

Book Stats

• A Standalone Novel
• First published in 2023
• Published by Black Library
• Grimdark SF
• 400 Pages