The First Wall

The best aspects of The First Wall are simply things taken from the previous novels in the Siege of Terra series so far. Abaddon and Layak’s interactions, the Primarchs being smart, that’s really all thats of note for good qualities the book shows, and even then they don’t meet the standards set by the last two novels. What brings down this book the most is the Imperial Militia story about Zenobi and her crew from Addaba. This plotline is such a waste and I feel no shame in spoiling it. The whole plotline, as explained in the afterword, existed as Thrope was mandated to show that there were traitors within the Imperial Army/Militia, which is a thing done in the last novel with the Alpa Legion agents. This is presumably meant to try to show it at a larger scale, with a whole regiment being traitors, but it’s conveyed so poorly. You don't even realise that they are traitors until the final paragraph of their last appearance in the book, the only ‘hints’ before are that they ‘for the cause’ instead of ‘for the emperor’. The characters themselves are basically nonexistent as well. There is nothing I can tell you about Zenobi or any of her faceless friends aside from ‘they are proud and secretly traitors’. In essentially their final chapter Zenobi meets a man from another regiment and falls in love with him immediately, which is a lovely way of trying to attach you to a character before they disappear forever. This is easily the biggest flaw in the book, maybe a third of it is this painfully draining plot line. Thats all I have to say, its hard for me to decide whether this should be a 1.5 or 2, but I suppose the decent plot lines being the majority of the book hold it up enough to barely be a 2. At least the next book is by Abnett.