The Inquisition War Review
12/14/2021
Book: The Inquisition War.
Author: Ian Watson
Pages: 762
Hard Core Scale: 1/4
Normal Scale: 4/10
Publish Date: 2009 (1990 )
About: Draco is an inquisitor sent by his masters to spy on another inquisitor?
To what avail and heresy’s now internally impact the inquisition when aliens, demons, and
heretics stock the imperium.
The Real Plot: NOTHING. Jaq runs around like an idiot with his motley crew in a
scoobey doo chase scene as plots drift apart.
Review: Inquisitor the first 40k book written. This combines it and its two
sequels into a single volume: Draco, Harlequin, and Chaos Child. Fun to see
what was there in those early days and what was not. Squats were still a race, primarchs
were still a thing but less emphasized, elder still had lasguns, a mention of
tau way before they were an army, and space marines had their stranger parts to
the forefront. Let us get that out of the way. Ian Watson is considered a mad
writer. In certain ways I dig that, one of my mentors of great influence is
one, I am a bit of one too. There is a madness here which I respect. The writing
is great for the most part. Some interruptive flow tell and a weird flow question
possibilities of his style. Watson is a reward winning author of some clout.
The issue here is not the writing, but the story. An interesting observation coming
from the middle of his career. Some evidence of a sequel planned, but changes
in GW and hardback covers fixed books. Yet, such a screwy plot saved by a sequel
would take immense work.
A rare invert where the
writing is fine, but story is not. There is 4/4 material here, but the odd, the
stupendous, and the convenience hurt it. More than anything, the ending
destroys it completely. It teetered wondering if it could resolve itself to a
two before that abysmal finally making everything pointless sequels or not. First title is deceiving, the depth of inquisitional
conflict seems forgotten as a backdrop item. The plot is so oddly separate of
40k flow. When we get 40k Ian captures that feeling of a immense maddened
universe teaming with strife. His space marines and aliens fantastic. It all falls down to plot majorus that is the
issue. Draco and company were so worthless bumbling I could not care. Ridiculous
even by 40k standards they go to some extreme places: the Eye of Terror, the
imperial palace, the inner reaches of the Eldar webway. It is a series of he and his crew following along
Dracos extreme hunches guided by Deus ex machinia, one stacked on another
resulting in nothing. The faith in the empire so strong coming multiple times
so easily, if so the entire galaxy would be doing it.
The treatment of life: A
catch-22, the 40k universe sucks. At the same time Draco inquisitor or not mistreats
human life, almost pointlessly at times.
The book fails the Bechel
test pretty hard. Terrible things are done in concern of the character Meh’
Lindi and Rakel. Half the time nothing more than the female elephant in the
room even becoming a brazenly awful plot point.
Pretty much the work is
stabled together thriving on almost nonexistent plot of conveniences resulting in
nothing. So it can be read more as a curio with some great 40k fiction or
depictions thrown in. Expect nothing of the inquisitorial plot as there is
nothing really therein.
