Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Pandorax (A Warhammer 40,000 Novel)

Top positive review

so close to being awesome it hurts

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2015

Characters are likable but really needed more development. Actually that could be said of the whole book each moment in this book is so close to being awesome it hurts. The writer just needed to expand on his great ideas more. Maybe this should have been a three book trilogy instead of a one shot in the Space Marine Battle series. It is still a fun read though

2 people found this helpful

Top critical review

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Brandie Bellamy

Eh.

Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2015

I was kind of excited to read this novel since its been some time since i picked up a space marine battle novel. The book was ok and i have mixed emotions about it. Don't get me wrong it had its moments. Anytime the grey knights, abaddon and huron the blackheart are thrown into the mix i get excited. Had a pretty awesome fleet engagement which are a little few and far between these days (i mean theres only so many boarding torpedoes and broadsides one person can take). With that said i just feel like there were way to many characters that you just didn't care about. I had to go back at one point and say to myself "wait who was that again? Oh yeah the navy pilot that spent 40 pages dogfighting with a gaint
demon ugh!". When i want a deep enthralling story with strong characters i read the horus heresy, ravenor or gaunts ghosts. When i just want my hardcore action i read a space marine battle novel like helsreach. Giving it 3 stars because it wasn't terrible but it definitely didn't stand out either.

space marine
demon ugh"

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From the United States

Brandie Bellamy

Eh.

Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2015

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3 people found this helpful

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Erock

This author is not meant to write these types of novels

Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2015

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I've never read anything from CZ Dunn before, and now I know why. There are typos even in the first few pages of the book, and the rest of the book is riddled with run-on sentences filled with unnecessary clauses aimed to provide a better description, but only worked to convolute everything. Because of this, half the time, I found myself unable to understand the setting of where they were fighting, and failed to imagine how everything was happening. The descriptions were so bad, I couldn't even grasp how many characters or people were even in the scene.

Here is an example of a run-on that was completely overdone: "Such a waste really, to spend ten thousand years waiting for something only to find that the something you were waiting for was your own death." This is said during a fight, the longest most unnecessarily-worded sentence anyone could utter and undoubtedly ruined the momentum.

If not for the story which involves Grey Knights and a crusade by Abaddon, I would not even bother reading this book. At the end of almost every section, just before he moves on to talk about another scenario taking place, he ends with an overly dramatic clause meant to sound heroic or cool, but because this happens so often as in every other page, it starts to sound overdone and corny.

The author does a thorough job explaining the culture of the Catachans, undoubtedly. In fact, most of the writing for the first hundred pages or so manages to include a detail about the Catachans.

From the writing alone, I feel CZ Dunn is meant to write a different style of novel. It feels as though he wants to be more expressive, and free flowing, and appeal more to his own creativity, but is restricted by the formal writing style required of Black Library novels. Which is why there are overly descriptive and personal sentences, abruptly disengaged by formal, distant prose.

8 people found this helpful

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Shon M.

so close to being awesome it hurts

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2015

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2 people found this helpful

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Edward Denison

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2018

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Another Great Warhammer Book

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Raphel L. Stonesypher

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2016

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I absolutely LOVE this book!

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Maus

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2015

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I enjoy space marine novels!

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Charles Cutsinger

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2015

another good read.

Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2015

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Great book,

One person found this helpful

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JPS

Mostly bland and sometimes unbelievable

Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2014

This is mostly a bland Space Marine Battles title. Although not exactly a “bad” one, the author attempts to bring in too many types of characters, the plots had holes in it and the story is, as a result, not as convincing and compelling as it could have been.
One interesting feature is that the story takes place in the Pandorax system and, mostly, on Pythos even if the – very useful - map provided calls it “Pandorax world for some unknown reason. The story takes place at the very end of the 41st millennium, some ten thousand years after the Damnation of Pythos.

This could have provided for some interesting (and original) story-telling showing, in particular, how this death world had evolved and how, in particular, the Daemon Prince that was triumphant at the end of the Horus Heresy novel had been neutralised. Unfortunately, there is very little of that. All you get are a few hints here and there, with the main (smallish) hive built on top of where most of the action took place. Even this, however, goes unexplained. Also unexplained is the very name of the hive – Attika – named after the Iron Hands captain of the Horus Heresy title - or the value that the planet has for the Imperium and the exact use of the “red rubies” that are mined from its depths.

The beginning of the novel, with a regiment of Catachans stranded on the planet, leads to some interesting encounters with the local fauna except that, here again, it is somewhat unclear and unexplained as to why they would have been “dumped” on such a backwater while “en route” to the front lines.

Then the “arch-enemy” fleet – or rather three fleets - arrive and invade and the Catachans barely manage to send out a call for help. This is where the book reaches one of its best parts with an imperial battle fleet arriving on scene and a protracted space battle taking place complete with fighter wings, destroyers, cruisers and ships of the line. It even gets better as a second fleet of Imperial Space Marines (Dark Angels and Grey Knights, no less!) arrives – somewhat implausibly – just in the nick of time to save the day before landing on the planet to fight it out against a wide range of Warp monsters and Chaos Marines, including Abbadon and his Black Legion.

One of the problems I had here, however, was that the author seems to have “pilled it on a bit thick”. The only missing characters are those of the Mechanicum. Even a few Titan Warlords make an appearance, although it is no more than that. With regards to characters, you get the whole Dark Angel Chapter, including their Grand Master the haughty Azrael and all his top officers, who manage to board and conquer a Chaos Marine battleship with virtually no casualties at all, a whole Chapter of Grey Knights with the Supreme Grand Master.

On the “baddies” side, and in addition to Abbadon the Despoiler who seems to be becoming a popular figure now that Demski-Bowden has started a trilogy on him, you get Huron Blackheart, suitably treacherous of course. There are also a couple of other Chaos Marine Lords. There is one Lord Irongrasp and his fleet who at one point just disappears from the book after having been abandoned by Huron when the battle is lost. There is also one Lord Corpulax, a Plague Marine that Abbadon is trying to enlist on his side and who seeks to enlist the hidden evil power that lurks in the depths of the planet.

Then there is the “deus ex machina” – a mysterious Grey Knight who is ten thousand years old and was left as a guardian on the planet. Here again, the story felt a bit contrived, with heavy hints about his importance and the fact that he was one of the Grey Knights “founding fathers”, but no real disclosure about the need for his presence, the exact nature of the “colossal” threat he was supposed to protect against and which could, of course, threaten the whole Imperium or his real identity. Both Abbadon and Supreme Grand Master Draigo of the Grey Knights get to know who he is but, unfortunately, neither of them has the courtesy to share this information with the reader.

Finally, there are also some scenes which are almost ridiculous when showing the mutual lack of trust and rivalry between Grand Master Azrael and Supreme (he very much insists on it!) Grand Master Draigo. Both are, of course, supreme warriors. However, both very implausibly behave as spoilt little brats with one even going so far as to punch the other in the nose! At this point, I confess that I burst out laughing. Three stars.

6 people found this helpful

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Matthew

Didn't like the end

Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2015

Didn't like the end. I mean who just throws away the most interesting character at the end of a book anyway?

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