XENOLOGY

Notes and dissections from the alien bestiary of Biegel, and studies
of its vile specimens, by those present at its destruction

Xenology is kind of hard to classify. It's a basically a book-length piece of flavor-fiction with innumerable illustrations. For a player of Warhammer 40K, this book is pure fluff... and what tasty fluff it is.

The premise is that the Conclave-Conservati of the Inquisition has just learned of the death of the radical Inquisitor Ralei. In hopes of bringing his suspected heresies to light before his allies in the Inquisition can cover them up, they have dispatched the thoroughly doctrinaire Inquisitor Brehm Sasham to one of Ralei's secret hideaways to see exactly what the late-but-unlamented Ralei was up to.

Brehm has ten days to complete his appraisal of Ralei's sanctuary on Biegel. He goes looking for evidence of heresy, but what he finds astounds even him... for the daring Ralei has assembled a virtual bestiary of captured aliens on Biegel, under the care of a Magos Biologis named Darvus. Considering that the general opinion of the Inquisition is that the only good alien is a dead alien, this is a very serious thing indeed.

Faced with Sasham's orders to break down the facility, Darvus convinces the Inquisitor to at least allow him to dissect the specimens and record his findings rather than destroying them outright. And so the bulk of the book begins, with notes, documents and illustrations recording the events of the next ten days as Darvus is forced to regretfully kill his prized specimens one at a time and cut them up for study... basically one creature per day.

But all is not quite as it appears, and there are other forces at work... forces which threaten Inquisitor Sasham and his entourage, not least of which is his own mounting fascination with the aliens being dissected in front of him.

As each one goes under the knife, we get a full-page medical diagram of the dissected creature and various organs of interest, followed by a full-page dissection report identifying areas of interest and noting Darvus's conclusions and speculations about their biology, origin and nature. After each one, Sasham then peruses Ralei's library for additional information about the creature, excerpts from which are added to the book along with personal diary entries from various characters.

There are a mix of full color and gray-scale illustrations as well (mostly gray-scale, though). These range from illustrations of the creatures to a propaganda poster from the war against the Thyrrus to computer readouts and diagrams illustrating important concepts (such as the way that Tyranids experiment with genetic traits taken from worlds that they have consumed) to "artist's interpretations" of various aliens. The illustrations are very nicely done, although most are strictly gray-scale (most are ostensibly images captured by an Arco-stylus) but they are still very impressive. I really liked the art in general, although some pieces are more impressive than others. There's no actual nudity or gore in them, either, despite the subject matter. Even references to the reproductive organs of various alien races are generally just brushed over as unimportant by Darvus.

The plotline ties the various entries together nicely as events progress. By the end, it's fairly clear what's really been going on and while some aspects of the plot might be a little bit of a stretch, they're still handled well. All of the major mysteries are revealed and the various dangling plot threads get resolved. In fact, the book even has some additional value on a second read, because there were little subtle hints about what was going on whose significance I totally missed the first time through. Inquisitor Sasham is depicted as a relatively nice guy for an Inquisitor (in that he has some natural curiosity, morals and personal compunctions, rather than being a "Burn 'em all and let the Emperor sort 'em out" type) so that helps make him an understandable if not necessarily admirable protagonist.

The book seems to mesh fairly well with what I know of the 40K cosmology. There are some interesting secrets hinted at as well, such as the secret origin of the Tau and the nature of the Greater Good. The source of the Kroot's Warsphere technology. The reason why the Thyrrus are considered an unpredictable enigma by their human foes. It looks to me like a couple of the races (the Thyrrus and the Q'Orl) may be completely new (I hadn't seen them before, but I'm not exactly a 40K expert). The Thyrrus are brightly colored aliens whose military tactics are known for being completely counter-intuitive but surprisingly effective nevertheless. The Q'orl are a (so far) non-Warp capable race of hive insects that have a surprising kinship to another race. Both are treated in a fairly nifty manner.

Overall, I really liked Xenology. I have a lot of affection for the 40K universe, even though I haven't played any of the games set there in years. I consider this a really entertaining and stylish read, much like the first book of Daemonifuge. Overall, I give it a 5 for both Substance and Style... but bear in mind that as far as game specific "substance" goes, there's nothing here at all besides inspiration. This is a collection of flavor text turned into an illustrated story, not a game supplement.

Here's a link to the version I recieved: http://www.blacklibrary.com/product.asp?prod=60040181005&type=Book

In closing, I'll just quote one of the cuter excerpts from Ralei's library:

'This is the End of Times, brothers. Death approaches, and it is not at the hands of a ravening horde nor an army of contemptible aliens. Our enemy is a single intellect. A single gestalt consciousness, more ancient than we can conceive, more massive than we can measure, a single mind that has not one body, but a trillion.
An all-seeing eye that has no shape and no form. How can we fight such a thing?

'I will tell you: Until the last breath.

'If we can but delay that great maw from closing around us, then we have achieved
what countless Empires, countless worlds, countless galaxies, have not.

'I say this not to terrify you. I say it simply so you understand,
simply so you do not waste your time with such luxuries as hope.

'There is no hope. The Great Devourer is upon us.

'Let us see how long we may restrain her jaw.'

--- Inquisitor Kryptman, addressing the
Congressium Xenos about the Tyranids