Outside the Book Club – Shadow of the Eighth by Justin D. Hill

I’ve had the limited edition of Shadow of the Eighth by Justin D. Hill on my bedside table for, uh, at least a couple of years now. I finally picked it up to seriously read last week, and maybe I should have let it sit a bit longer. As much as I loved the first Minka Lesk trilogy, the start of the second makes me think maybe it should have stayed one trilogy. This was rough, to say the least.

All Over the Place

While this story starts on a completely different planet, appearing to fight completely different enemies, it all comes back to the same enemies from Cadian Honour, the Scourged. Which, okay, that’s fine. The leader either got away at the end of Traitor Rock or was chased down and killed by Lord Militant Warmund. He’s still being petty over Lord General Bendikt killing another general in an honor duel. He’s not going to let the Cadians get the final honor in the end. So I suppose, sure, let’s give these Cadians a chance to get that final bit of honor in taking out the Scourged and their leader once and for all.

However, the story of the Scourged gets shoehorned in more than anything. A lot of this book reads as though Hill had one idea for how this book should go, but then other ideas had to be shoved in. I think one of two things happened:

• To correspond with two other books about Cadia releasing that same year, Fall of Cadia and Creed: Ashes of Cadia, Hill was to write about how the search for Creed and the hope for Creed would affect Bendikt. However, he realized he couldn’t get a full book about this and added in the end of the Scourged as padding.
• Hill was already writing a book about the end of the Scourged, but he was tasked to bring Creed into it due to the aforementioned novels.

Either way, neither of his storylines were ever really given true justice. The Scourged story felt rushed and crammed in, and the Creed story left too many unanswered questions. Here’s what I mean.

Why Was the Commissar Stalking Lesk?

Early on in the novel, Minka Lesk finds a Traitor Marine with the Cadia Eighth banner, the Eighth being Ursakar Creed’s regiment. This leads Bendikt to believe that he can find out what happened to Creed, whether it’s a clue to where his body is or an insight as to where he went. Bendikt becomes obsessed over finding more clues. He orders Lesk be interrogated by the Commissars in her discovery. Then one of the commissars starts to follow Lesk.

But then as suddenly as Commissar Hontius started to follow Lesk, he stopped. No explanation. Lesk doesn’t even wonder why she doesn’t see him anymore. What was the point of it? Was that part of another plotline that was cut?

POVs Popping

I’m used to books with the Astra Militarum, especially the Minka Lesk novels, jumping around with POVs across characters. How the Shadow of the Eighth handled it was beyond abuse. POV would jump after one paragraph or one sentence. Sometimes we never solidified whose POV it was.

A few chapters contained a POV of an aeronautical pilot, up until he was shot down. An editor must have asked Hill whatever happened to that pilot, because there’s a throwaway line in the end that mentions him again. But that’s over 200 pages later. That’s 200 pages of me wondering what was the point of his story and his crash. Did it affect anything? Was there a reason?

Chekhov would be so disappointed with this book.

As we say often on the show, they can’t all be winners, right? I’m still looking forward to reading the fifth book, Hell’s Last, whenever that will be. Hopefully it doesn’t sit on my bedside table for nearly as long.