On 25th February, 2003 Black Library released a rather innocuous-looking novel by author and game designer Gav Thorpe. Titled Angels of Darkness, it marked his first foray into the realm of the mysterious but valiant Space Marines and of all the ones he could have taken his pick of, he chose the deliberately obfuscative Dark Angels. Descendants of the First Legion, the Dark Angels harbour great and terrible secrets of their past, secrets that if they ever came to light would damn the chapter and all its successors. A rich ten-thousand year history erased in a heartbeat. Angels of Darkness proved to be a hit, so much so that it received a second printing only three years later and just three years past it received a fourth printing.
Angels of Darkness is the story of the traitor warrior Merir Astelan and the hero Boreas as their lives intersect and as years down the line Boreas reflects on that encounter. It is a well-woven tale of mystery and intrigue as we learn some of the secrets of the Dark Angels from the war-wracked Horus Heresy era and learn also the events that shaped Astelan into the traitor he became. Not to mention how Boreas has been shaped over those years and the final moments of his life of toiling in secret far from the eyes of his brothers.
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