Sepulturum

Warhammer Horror

By: Nick Kyme

Narrated by: Antonia Beamish

Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

A Warhammer Horror novel.

Take a nightmare journey into a plague-wracked city where monsters stalk the streets and nothing can be trusted...including the memories of the protagonist.

Morgravia Sanctus is being hunted; why or by whom she doesn't know. Something terrible has happened to her, a profound trauma that has left behind ‘red dreams’ and a physical agony that can strike at any moment. Her life in danger and her memory fragmented, she arrives in the low-hive of Blackgheist to escape her pursuers and search for ‘the Broker’ – a trafficker in memories and psychic mind manipulation. Soon after, a plague sweeps the city, turning its citizens into blood-hungry monsters. Order collapses, death and slaughter are rampant. Caught up in the carnage, Morgravia must flee once more. But as the ravening spreads, is there any hope of stopping this contagion?

©2019 Games Workshop Limited (P)2019 Games Workshop Limited

Generic zombies in 40 k skin

Long winded start, decent ending, a few times I debating if it was worth finishing.

Wanted to like it

Narration was clear, pretty good most of the time but wasn't given much to work with. If I had to come up with a negative it would be Antonia Beamish does the "whisper scream" thing to convey yelling.

The setting felt right for a WH40K story. No super likable characters, grim locations, nasty cultists. The pallid could have used more development, but what there was of them was enjoyable.

My real issue was the writing. The inquisitor came off as middle schooler edgy. The loss of her team didn't land because we didn't know who they were, I just did not feel the emotion. The "twists" didn't feel nearly as weighty as they should looking back. Many portions of the book felt rushed, including the climax. (Why would that plan have worked???)

In all I just can't help but feel like this book had so much potential, and it got so much right. Some editing or maybe a couple more drafts to flesh out the story and this would have been a MUST read, as of now it's really only a reccomend if your niche interest is the Curse of Unbelief.

Solid horror story

Great as a zombie novel. I’ll admit though, I was a little confused as to how long the period of time was from the outbreak to beginning to its end. I thought it was a couple of days, but a hardcore cult had developed, no way that happened in 2 days. Also, the main plot point about the missing memories seemed bolted on to an otherwise great read.

Purple Prose, lazy plot, good characters, great narrator

Sepulturum has some excellent action and the characters are generally likable. The narration and performance is excellent and each character is given their own feel by the reader. The action flows nicely at times but can get bogged down in the verbose description and paid-by-the-word feel. Sometimes the plot progression will miss a beat and you might become disinterested in the story. Beamish’s reading will pull you back in however.

Mild Spoilers:
The characters are likable, until they reveal their “secret” motivations and kill each other or die for no reason other than to kill a plot point. Because of this, it is difficult to appreciate the story and the relationships of the people in it. Sometimes the characters feel real, and you start to root for them, then the “plot” resumes and they feel like wooden set pieces again.

The ending is one of those “so it didn’t matter anyway,” kinds and instead of leaving you with questions about what might happen next you will probably be a little annoyed.

For the 40k fan:
You won’t learn much about the wider universe of 40k, and the story feels like it could be set in any other dystopian sci-fi future. Even when the Dark Mechanicum or the Adepta Sororitas make an appearance it doesn’t feel like the 40k versions.

What was best: the scenes of zombies devouring people.

Overall, I look forward to Nick Kyme’s next story, which will hopefully be unconstrained by adhered g to a boilerplate plot.

Spooky as heck

It’s really really really way way way way way too spooky for for for me

surprisingly good

the best way I have to describe this book is that it starts like resident evil raccoon city and as the story evolves turns into more of a silent Hill kind of horror. honestly I wish they would do a few more books like this.

Edgy Zombie Story With A Fun Ending

This one was a bit rough to get into. The mc Morgravia curses like an edgy teen- “nice to meet you.” “Morgravia didn’t give a single sh$t.” This is actually said lol.

The second mc, Christo is also a bit of a Gary Stu. He really should’ve died a bunch of times but every time he just gets back up and keeps moving. He’s just a regular human but he sure doesn’t behave like one.

I also had issues with characters acting on thoughts or info they have that the reader isn’t privy to. I kept thinking I missed something because a character acted in a way I didn’t understand, only for the motivation of the action to be explained a few pages later. It’s pretty wonky.

But I still gave it a 3? Yeah, I got pretty attached to the characters and despite the rough around the edges writing, this is a story with a lot of heart and a really fun ending I won’t spoil here. I still enjoyed it and I’d recommend it if you want a 40k zombie story.

Flashes of brilliance in a disjointed story

Parts of this, I really loved. But most of the time I was confused as to what the hell was going on, why were we following this group now or that person then and so on. There are plot lines that have nothing to do with each other than just give you more flavor for the world, and all I can’t say with was more confusion. The ending was a let down. The secret plot point was really burying the lead and then underdeveloped. I was constantly pausing and trying to Google things to try and connect chapters that have nothing to do with each other.

Great idea. Good start. Mediocre climax. Lousy end

interesting questions are raised, disappointing answers are given.

This was incredibly disappointing because while the story started off so strongly it wound up fizzling out. There are three separate storylines in play, or more accurately, there are two separate story lines in play only one of which actually matters.

first off, the positives. the World building is quite good. seeing average life in a hive is always a delight in a Warhammer novel, especially when shown to be mostly people just trying to live their lives in the Grim darkness of the 41st millennium. a lot of thought is put into just daily life in a city the size of a continent. in addition, most of the characters give you a very good first impression that leaves you wanting to know more about them. the idea of a zombie apocalypse inside of a city too big to escape is a good one, and when the author isn't tapping into their adolescent idea that Gore equals scary, they do a very good job covering the initial panic and breakdown of the complex social structure needed in a hive.

and so much for the positives...

The story about an Inquisitor trapped in a hive during a zombie apocalypse, a father desperately trying to protect his daughter from both the zombies and the inherent cruelty of the world, and a cowardly man proving himself when push comes to shove should be a page Turner from beginning to end, but instead despite starting on a high note, it's all downhill once the zombies are established as a threat.

The Inquisitor is surrounded by a colorful and interesting cast of characters, so it's a shame she's the one we're stuck with all the way through. The build up to her Amnesia is much more interesting than the actual payoff. the people she's surrounded by are whittled down as The Story Goes On, and you realize just how weak she is as a character when she has to stand on her own.

the bartender seems to be the only character who behaves as if they're actually in the middle of a zombie story, and thus is easily the best part. unfortunately despite being one of the three major POV characters he's essentially just one of the side characters Around The Inquisitor.

the factory workers story also starts strong but ends on such a wet fart that the only emotion the end of his story provokes is aggravation that you wasted your time on this. he's believable as a father who just wants to get his daughter to safety, which are points in the book's favor, but where his story goes with it makes you feel like his entire sub lot could have been cut and you'd have lost nothing.

the zombies also start strong and then just sort of fizzle out. the reveal of what's actually behind the zombies will have you slapping your face in frustration, and the "final boss" is so bizarrely out of place you have to wonder whether or not the author had a deadline they needed to hit and just rushed some half-assed explanation at the end.

there are two cults, one of which comes across as an opportunity for the author to say that Cults are bad, without actually taking any time to show why Cults are bad. they don't even have anything to do with the zombies, it's like the bad guys from a completely different book show up to threaten the cast. The other cult only appears at the end, so they can be excused for having less personality than the villains in a breakfast cereal commercial.

speaking of villains better suited for Saturday morning cartoons: since this is a zombie story, you're given your obligatory jerk who'd sell out the group to save his own skin, except he's not hateable enough that we're cheering when he ultimately gets his comeuppance, we just feel like we're in the room with an unhelpful asshole. his right-hand goon is slightly more interesting, and the author really could have just combined both of them into one, more interesting, antagonist.

none of this is the fault of the narrator, who put an awful lot of work into her performance, although her odd pronunciation of words like 'skeletal' May throw you off, she's putting in the effort to give each character their own, unique voice.

all in all, the last quarter of the book really does take away any Goodwill that had been earned during the first half of the story, but I do commend the World building and the setup. two out of five