Led by the skilled strategist Ursarkar E. Creed, the colonel of the 8th Cadian Regiment who was suddenly vaulted to the position of Lord Castellan, the Imperial forces were able to contain the initial Chaos assault and hunt down most of the occupying forces after the defeat of the initial Chaos armada in orbit. Summary: I will be frank, this book was a severe disappointment to me. Maybe I just came to it with the wrong expectations, maybe I am not really the target for this kind of book. Anyway, the fact remains that there is very little I find memorable in this book. There are no great descriptions, no great characters, no great dialogue, no great prose. The author just throws names and explosions and disjointed scenes with recurring characters that are minimally developed and calls the job done. It tries to paint the very grim picture of Cadia's fall, but somehow it manages to paint all the epic fighting and doomed resistance in an amazingly boring light.

The combat is solidly written across the board, but it avoids the out-and-out murderfest and meatgrinder that you might expect. It takes some time to get into an outright firefight, and the first segments with any action are an honour duel and then an accident. It helps to set the tone for the book and is closer, in many regards, to what you would get from a Ciaphas Cain story than a typical Imperial Guard book. This makes it all the more interesting when it shifts gears and gets into outright firefights, and Hill's manner of writing makes for excellent skirmishes. He has a talent for conveying an extremely vast amount of information with implication or cutting away at the "fat" of certain descriptions. This works in various fights, and squad level battles, in particular, are something that Hill handles well. Rumour has it that Justin has been hard at work on the third volume in his Cadian series, which will be coming your way later this year… TanksThe novel does have a strong core cast. It continues the stories of Bendikt and Lesk while introducing a refugee who loses his humanity trying to survive. Bendikt struggles with Cadia’s place in the Imperium after they lose their world and prestige. The concept is excellent and deserves a thorough examination, but is forgotten by the time lasguns started firing in the second act. It’s a bitter disappointment, as in the hands of a more talented author, Lesk’s promotion might have explored that conceit. Instead, her ineffective leadership proves that even Cadians require Commissars. Cadia was known to have at least three major landmasses, the continents of Cadia Primus, Cadia Secundus and Cadia Tertius. As noted, these continents possessed a wide variety of biomes and ecosystems, stretching from arctic tundra in the far north to boreal forests of the coniferous, pine-like axel-trees and temperate plains in the milder latitudes. The reading works well for describing Minka, an inept, childish soldier promoted beyond her ability, but fails to convey any authority to other characters. Cadia guarded the only known navigable route to and from the massive Warp rift known as the Eye of Terror, a passage called the Cadian Gate. The world's dangerous proximity to the Eye of Terror made it necessary for the people of Cadia to heavily fortify the planet.

Though their home planet was utterly sundered, the resolve of the Cadians has not been broken. Veteran survivors of the last battle for Cadia, along with regiments of their kin scattered throughout the galaxy, now fight even more doggedly against the Imperium's enemies. Basically, we jump from one group of characters to the other with no development whatsoever between battles. And there are a lot of battles. You’ll notice that I’ve also included a trio of Ursarkar E. Creed short stories on the timeline – more on those shortly. The worst part is that Cadian Honour has many interesting ideas that are woefully undeveloped. The struggle on Potence explores an esoteric bit of historical lore. Lesk is new to squad command and needs to find her place amongst fellow sergeants and the commissariat. Bendikt needs to inspire people who have lost their world. But it’s all reduced to a lengthy, mind-numbing set of uninspired fights where unnamed enemies magically appear wherever they’re needed. It’s entertaining enough, but there’s a hint of greatness that suggests the author’s best is still to come. The less you know about WH40K, the more you’ll enjoy Cadia Stands. Ostensibly a plot-centric novel, the author starts well with two diverse POVs: an officer and a grunt. Unfortunately, the author doesn’t provide them with character arcs and then introduces another ten viewpoints in hopes of painting a coherent picture of War Zone Cadia. Yet even armed with a literary montage, the result fails to enlighten anyone and is ultimately unsatisfying.When a section of a Cadian cemetery's grave markers were deemed illegible, those graves were exhumed and the bones were added to a communal pit. The Cadian belief was that once the names on a grave marker were illegible, the honours of those dead were forgotten. Had Cadia not been famous for holding so long against the odds, it is likely the other planets in the system would have capitulated or given up almost immediately. No normal world could stand in the face of the horrendous, sanity-devouring armies that descended upon the Cadian Gate in such terrifying measure. However, the wider systems of Cadia, Belis Corona, and Agripinaa stood fast.

Unfortunately, given how much praise is leveled at smaller scale combat, you can imagine what we're going to delve into with the next bit. Lesk knows she must excise this taint of Chaos, for it is not only her life and those of her company at stake but also the honour of Cadia itself. The monstrous kinetic strike wiped out most of Cadia's remaining defenders, destroyed the network of Cadian Pylons and tectonically destabilised the world. As the Warp and its foul denizens claimed the remains of the Fortress World, Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed arranged an evacuation of the planet that saved 3 million of its citizens before the planet finally ripped itself apart -- though not before Creed himself mysteriously disappeared.The latest book in the Primarchs series dives into the circumstances surrounding the Primarch’s discovery by the Emperor, in revelations that will shake your understanding of the Great Crusade to the core.

The broken hulk of Cadia itself was resettled by the forces of Chaos following its partial destruction. It soon became a Chaos stronghold at the heart of a burgeoning new Renegade empire.The one thing all investigators agreed upon was that the pylons were responsible for the stable Warp-corridor known as the Cadian Gate. Adepts conjectured that they emitted a becalming signal, taming the roiling energies of the Immaterium around the Cadian System. Cadia, officially known as Cadia Prime, was a terrestrial, Earth-like planet originally classified as the Imperium of Man's most important Fortress World by the Administratum before its destruction and consumption by the Immaterium in 999.M41. I haven’t actually read either of these, but as Darius points out in this interview Revenant Crusade is set post-Great Rift, after the events of The Devastation of Baal. Meanwhile the synopsis for City of Light specifies that it’s set “deep in Imperium Nihilus”. If you want to continue exploring the Blood Angels, these seem worth having on your list (see the Blood Angels list earlier for where they fit in the timeline). The decision was made to hold orbit over Cadia and for the 1301st Fleet's elements to make planetfall on the unknown world, designated as 1301-12. The landing force was comprised of Imperial Army, Word Bearers, Adeptus Custodes and Legiones Cybernetica elements. The landing party, led by Lorgar, was greeted by a large number of barbaric human tribes, tribes described as "dressed in rags and wielding spears tipped by flint blades...yet they showed little fear." Most notable were the barbarians' purple eyes, which reflected the colour of the Eye of Terror itself in the spectrum of visible light. Despite the Custodian Vendatha's protests and request to execute the heathens, the Word Bearers approached the natives. NOTE: until such time as BL produces an official resource, I’ll do my best to keep this reading list up to date with new releases as and when they’re published. This version of the article was created in January 2021, but I’ve added books in here and there along the way – the last minor update was in August 2022.