Dead Sky, Black Sun

The Chronicles of Uriel Ventris: Warhammer 40,000, Book 3

By: Graham McNeill

Narrated by: Bruce Mackinnon

Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

A Uriel Ventris audiobook.

Exiled Ultramarines Uriel Ventris and Pasanius venture into the heart of the Iron Warriors’ fortress-world in search of atonement – but will they find anything but horror and death?

Listen to It Because

Explore the Iron Warriors' fortress world in the Eye of Terror through the eyes of exiled Ultramarines Uriel Ventris and Pasanius. Dark technology and even darker magic combine, and Ventris meets an enemy who'll haunt him for a long time to come.

The Story

Exiled from the Ultramarines Chapter by Marneus Calgar, Captain Uriel Ventris ventures deep into the dreaded Eye of Terror to atone for his disgrace. There, Uriel must unleash the Emperor's vengeance upon the followers of the Dark Gods and bring His divine light to this area of darkness. But a far more terrible foe dwells within these worlds of insanity: the ancient Chaos Space Marine Legions. With dishonour behind him and certain death ahead, Uriel must gather every ounce of courage if he is to survive and regain his honour!

Written by Graham McNeill. Narrated by Bruce Mackinnon.

©2021 Games Workshop Limited (P)2021 Games Workshop Limited

the YouTube videos of the daemonculaba was more gory than the actual story

the daemonculaba wasn't as gory as most nurgle books. only the knowledge of it happening to women and the horror of the flesh camps happening to people with just a sliver of sanity left after the ordeal.

despite knowing what the horror would be, the story was still good and the voice actor was good as well.
the build up of gradual disgust made it so that it was hard to point out which part was the goriest...
the characters in the book was great and that it follows what happened in the iron warriors book at the siege of hydracordatus(?) was just splendid :)
great book. give it a shot if you're going to read the Uriel Ventris books anyway.

Great performance, very weak dialogue

Almost every character is a 2d cutout. The villains are Snidely Whiplash and the heroes are Dudley Doright and Simple Jack. The dialogue is quite weak and hammy at best. The true brilliance of this work is the world building of Medrengard and the inner workings of a Chaos fortress on a daemonworld. There's some really slick and sick concepts in here. Graham McNeill seems to be a George Lucas type with weak dialogue and character logic but mind bending world building. This isn't Abnett but it has its moments.

Bruce Mackinnon does his best with what he's given here but it must have been challenging to voice without a laugh.

Audio

Sometime the audio would like it was being played from far away or down a tunnel. Everything else was great!

I enjoyed it.

That was fun. The ending was surprising and made me laugh. I look forward to seeing if Captain Ventris and his friends stay together.

Old w40k are great, but roughly wrotten

The Ventris books are all very entertaining, but this really does hearken from a time when little to no effort was put into the books. The writing is poor, bordering on laughable, at points. but it is really interesting to see how they used to think about the lore. there was a silliness and joy in these older books that is almost completely lacking from the grimdark that has in recent years.

Twists and turns

Packed with gore and action, just the way a Warhammer story should be. The emperor protects!

Pretty Pog.

Great voice acting and a pretty good story, this book really shows the better aspects of the 4th company captain.

I don’t regret it

It’s the best one in the series. Didn’t think I wanted to hear about the blueberry marines because they seemed so generic. But like all other factions I don’t have an interest in learning about, i end up falling in love with them when I do. Great story and darker then the others

Scratches the itch for Chaos but not much else.

While i did enjoy this book, it’s not what I would recommend to all but the most die hard Warhammer fans. It’s the tale of two SpaceMarines(tm), talking like SpaceMarines(tm), doing SpaceMarine(tm) things, and ending the book just as Space Marine(tm) as they were at the beginning. I understand that this is the third book in a series, but these characters are so one dimensional and boring and offer very little to the story. Even the villains are as flat as paper and by the end of the book you get the distinct feeling that the writer thinks they are much more interesting than they are.
Harsh words aside, there are some real highlights in this book and the writer gives you a delicious feast of the chaos world home of the fallen Primarch, Perterabo, and the infighting plot of the Iron Warriors is far more interesting than their Ultramarine counterpart. The setting is awesome and the body horror is divine.
On top of this, the voice acting is handled by a true master of the art: seriously one of THE best performances I have had the pleasure to enjoy in a hundred audiobooks. Its almost worth the listen for his voice alone.

Read Storm of Iron first!

Not a bad novel. It's not for the squeamish as there's some grotesque imagery. It's a good tale for those who are interested in a simple story of good vs. evil without too much complexity. I read Storm of Iron a long time ago but if you haven't DEFINITELY read it first, there's a fair bit of tie in to that book here.