Morvenn Vahl: Spear Of Faith cover art

Morvenn Vahl: Spear Of Faith

Warhammer 40,000

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About this listen

A Warhammer 40,000 Adepta Sororitas Audiobook

Morvenn Vahl is the Abbess Sanctorum and a High Lord of Terra, a warrior born and a faithful daughter of the Emperor. Yet she is only mortal, performing no miracles, untouched by divinity, and though she was chosen not by the Master of Mankind but by his living thralls, the faith is hers to command and to protect.

LISTEN TO IT BECAUSE

It’s a story of doubt and faith. It’s a story of the light of the God-Emperor against the darkness of the Night Lords. Can Morvenn Vahl lead the faithful to triumph, or will Ophelia VII fall to the traitors?

THE STORY

When a monster from myth threatens the cardinal world of Ophelia VII, Morvenn Vahl defies the Senatorum Imperialis and heads to the planet's defence. There, she finds a world in terror – the warlord Kol Rakhul, known as the Death of Saints, has come for the faithful and, with his Heldrake and a host of Night Lords at his back, plans to enshroud the world in flame and blood.

This is a reckoning. A holy world is being defiled, and in its defence, Morvenn Vahl must wield an army of Living Saints to stand a hope of survival, let alone victory.

©2024 Games Workshop Limited (P)2024 Games Workshop Limited Science Fiction
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the thing I dislike is that the leafy character lives too long in the story.

the main character is really well written

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my first sister's of battle audio book and I enjoyed the fact that faith was questioned and not just accepted.

thoroughly enjoyed

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It’s been a long while since we had a good Sororitas story and this one has the chief SoB fighting everyone including the high lords, excellent narration as well

Bloody Good

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It's seemingly hard to write the sisters of battle well. Too often they're all stern nobility and selfless sacrifice with none of the hateful zealotry, but the author does a decent job of bringing the latter to the table and meshing the two facets together. It never reached the sort of ghoulish weirdness I'd hoped for, but the sororitas feel like actual soldiers of the imperial creed rather than generic light-against-the-darkness cutouts.

Morvenn's character arc is what you might expect if you're familiar with her backstory; a warrior thrust into a position of leadership who refuses to be a compliant pawn for those who elevated her but one who has to learn to fill her new role all the same. Her supporting cast are mostly single note characters, though there's several enjoyable archetypes among them.

The main antagonists steal the show for me though. The Death of Saints is a great concept for a villain, a partially tragic figure driven by vengeance and somewhat a monster of the Imperium's own making. This is doubly true for Lethe, a prisoner and a victim of the casual and uncaring brutality of imperial dogma. It was her story that I was most invested in by the end. Sadly most of the other chaos aligned characters are less interesting; plenty of gibbering fanatics with no sense of self-preservation or self-interest. They might have landed better if they'd been paired with some unhinged, frothing devotion from the Imperial forces.

The action is frequent and usually entertainingly written; good quality bolter porn with plenty of carnage and cool fights between recognisable combatants, especially when it comes to the main character and her warsuit. The narration was mostly on point too, though there were a few cartoonishly high pitched voices. The voice used for Death of Saints starts off in that territory too, though the narrator quickly settles into one with more gravitas as the story progresses.

One final criticism worth mentioning is that the high lords of terra feel too uniform in their depiction as cowardly politicians, especially after their varying depictions in the Watchers of the Throne books.

Fun action with interesting antagonists

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I think that was the best Adepta Sororitas story I've read to date.

For me, the ‘Sisters’ always come off a bit shrill and shouty. Especially in the audiobooks. They sound like Joyce Grenfell after a 72 hour meth binge.

I’m seeing an old trope emerge. That was in Daemonbreaker as well. “Our protagonist is at the top of their game. Loved and hated in equal measure. Until their own hubris brings them low. Cue redemption arc.”

I’m sure that was the plot to Top Gun.

For all that it was a well paced story. With a few twist here and there.

Best in class?

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