Draco is the first in Black Library’s Inquisition War Trilogy of
Warhammer 40,000 novels. This 234-page novel presents the first part of a story featuring an Inquisitor of the Imperium by the name of Jaq Draco. Jaq’s companions are few; he travels with a female assassin (Meh’Lindi), a young Squat (Grimm) and his Navigator (Googol). Together they travel throughout Imperial space weeding out blasphemy, corruption and other threats to the Imperium in the guise of a rogue trader and his boon companions. Jaq’s missions often involve issues of internal affairs, as he’s a part of the Inquisition—the Ordo Malleus--that investigates its own. Such is the premise under which this story begins.
As the story opens, our heroes are in a hotel on the planet Stalinvast. In most of the planet’s hive cities, a rebellion borne of Genestealer infestation threatens to destroy Imperial rule. Another inquistor—Harq Obispal—leads the planetary garrison against the rebels. Jaq’s assignment is to watch Obispal and see that he doesn’t half-ass the job; the story goes on from there to involve a galaxy-spanning conspiracy that involves treachery of the sort not seen since Horus betrayed the Emperor. Jaq leaves Stalinvast, visits a big ol’ space hulk, goes into the Eye of Terror and then to Earth before the story ends on an old-school cliffhanger. Jaq and his crew need to find an answer to the conspiracy put before them, one, which threatens to usurp the Emperor with a galactic hive-mind of all humanity, directed by a cabal of unknown masters with ties to the Ordo Malleus. This story has a plot as ambitious as its villains.
Within the setting, this story is said to be part of the controversial document known as the Book of Secrets; the prologue and epilogue of this story deal with this element of the story directly, and it appears that these ties at the edges are one of the means by which this book connects to the others in the series. The aforementioned book is believed to be heretical, blasphemous and dangerous; in the epilogue, the librarian investigating its claims dies under foul, treacherous circumstances that make it plain to me that the Book of Secrets is a meta-story MacGuffin. I expect that this will become more of an active issue in later books.
The story itself is a well-told space opera, bedecked with the techno-gothic styling that a reader ought to expect with any 40K product. The narrative goes fast enough—it only took me a day to get through it—but it could’ve gone much smoother. At points in the story the narrative dragged due to a spat of over-description, starting with the establishing shot and repeating when the backdrop changes dramatically. These bits are ostensibly meant to convey the vast, gothic and grim fatalism of the setting; these bits aren’t needed because the primary audience is already quite familiar with the setting, yet these asides read as if they’re meant for newbies that don’t know jack about 40K’s setting. It is very annoying because this story relies on its fast pace of development to maintain the reader’s attention, and every time I hit a spot that dragged like that the pace slowed and I put the book down.
There are other bits that didn’t do well with me, such as using the passive voice during action scenes—“Bob was shooting things.” is bad; “Bob shot things.” is good—and some of the character development scenes struck me as odd. (Most notable is the sexual encounter between Jaq and Meh’Lindi, which they did as a means of dealing with spiritual doubts; that seemed quite out of character for both of them.) What worked well worked very well; Mr. Watson’s descriptions, when kept within reason, evoked exactly the right look and feel. I saw the decaying structure of the Emperor’s palace in my mind as clearly as I heard the report of the Traitor Marines’ boltguns, and that is the sign of a writer that knows his craft. His actions scenes moved as fast as the fights did, taking no more space than necessary to get the point across. Barring the above-mentioned bumps, he kept the story moving along briskly from one point in the plot to the next; this isn’t a badly told story, but merely one with some noticeable imperfections. I expect most that read this book to not notice or not care overly much about what I point out, because the flaws don’t impair a reader’s ability to breeze through this story in the fast-paced way it’s written.
The writer is Mr. Ian Watson, who’s work includes working on the screenplay for A.I. with both the late Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielburg, is an established author and poet within and without the genre of science fiction. (His short bio, which lies between the end of the story and the sample chapter for Storm of Iron (which takes up the rest of the book’s space), explains that his works are widely published (if not read) in 13 languages.) I’m not sure what to make of this; Draco, on its own, is a competent piece of gamer fiction that’s a fast, enjoyable read despite its flaws but I’m inclined to expect better of a writer when he comes from outside the gamer fiction neighborhood of the genre fiction ghetto. Then I went to the front of the book and saw that this is a reprint; the first printing was in 1990, but that book didn't officially get the US until now. This revelation put everything into perspective; Draco isn't indicative of Mr. Watson's current skills, but rather is a record of what he could do over 10 years ago. In other words, this book IS written with the skills that I expect out of a writer writing gamer fiction--much like Salvatore's early D&D novels aren't like his recent works--and not those of a slacking veteran writer. I am at ease.
In conclusion, I recommend this only if you’re interested in Warhammer 40,000’s setting and you’re looking for some easy, breezy Sunday afternoon reading. (It probably would be better off as a comic book.) Otherwise you can safely skip it and get something else.
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