Paperback, 416 pages
Published March 25, 2013 by Games Workshop.
In the jungles of the Dolorosa Coil, a coalition of alien tau and human deserters have waged war upon the Imperium for countless years. Fresh Imperial Guard forces from the Arkhan Confederates are sent in to break the stalemate and annihilate the xenos. But greater forces are at work, and the Confederates soon find themselves broken and scattered. As they fight a desperate guerrilla war, their only hope may lie in the hands of a disgraced commissar, hell-bent on revenge.
My first read by Fehervari and I'm pleasantly surprised. This book was well written and filled with creepy and very grim dark stuff. It's definitely a universe that no one would want to live in.
Strong memorable characters. I love the title of the book.
Fire Caste isn’t really about the Tau Fire Caste that much. The novel focuses mainly on the Colonel Cutler and Commissar Iverson. Both of these characters have similar journeys of having dissatisfaction with the Imperiums war on Phaedra, but they get to the end in different ways that are both interesting. I definitely preferred Iversons storyline of trying to find Cutler, and figure out if he compainion Reve is on his side or not. Its got a lot of very good moments in it, but thats not to say that Cutlers story is bad. His story mainly focuses on how he tries to overthrow the Skymarshal in charge of the war for secretly working with the Tau. For the most part I do like how the Tau are represented in this book. They have a nice diversity of races present with Kroot, Vespid, and Human auxiliaries. The character Seishin is …
Fire Caste isn’t really about the Tau Fire Caste that much. The novel focuses mainly on the Colonel Cutler and Commissar Iverson. Both of these characters have similar journeys of having dissatisfaction with the Imperiums war on Phaedra, but they get to the end in different ways that are both interesting. I definitely preferred Iversons storyline of trying to find Cutler, and figure out if he compainion Reve is on his side or not. Its got a lot of very good moments in it, but thats not to say that Cutlers story is bad. His story mainly focuses on how he tries to overthrow the Skymarshal in charge of the war for secretly working with the Tau. For the most part I do like how the Tau are represented in this book. They have a nice diversity of races present with Kroot, Vespid, and Human auxiliaries. The character Seishin is a water caste ambassador and I think he acts as a pretty decent character, representing the diplomatic characteristics of the Tau Empire. He even starts convincing some characters that maybe the Tau Empire isn’t that bad and might be worth joining. With the characters doubt of the Imperium they actually consider it which is great, even when they decide they want because “better my evil empire than theirs”. Despite all this, at the very end of the book, it is basically said that the Tau are the same as the Imperium and are also evil and can’t function without the ruling Ethereal Caste, which the existence of the Farsight Enclaves seemingly disputes, but you cant win everything. On the whole, a very good book, a very good read for any Imperial Guard and possibly Tau fans. Will definitely read it again some time.
