Sepulturum

Warhammer Horror

By: Nick Kyme

Narrated by: Antonia Beamish

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

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.

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.

Generic zombies in 40 k skin

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

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.

Spooky as heck

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