Review: Perfection / Author: Nick Kyme / Publisher: The Black Library / Release Date: September 25th
The various servants of Chaos are one of the more diverse and interesting elements of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Scenery chewing, space opera style bad guys tend to make for great characters, and Perfection is a tale about The Emperor’s Children, sense obsessed super-human warriors and servants of the dark god of sensation and decadence. The 70 minute long drama focuses mostly on the brutal and pretentious warrior Ardantes of the Flawless, a creature who is split between his brutish and warlike urges and his desire to be perfect in every possible way.
Perfection is set on the battlefield, where a war host of sybaritic barbarians and savages lay waste to a world. They are lead by Ardantes and his fellow thugs, and as the tale progresses, it becomes obvious that this is not a united force, and that something is picking off various allies one by one. We get a nice mix of heroes and monsters here, and though we are meant to be rooting for the villains in this particular tale, the alleged good guys are very well rendered and it’s almost a shame that Perfection is not told from their perspective.
This is a highly entertaining, violent and over-the-top tale of betrayal, arrogance and destruction. Kyme has a flair for utterly bizarre, and a talent for writing dialogue for maniacs. It’s the sort of treatment we expect of the darker elements of this franchise, and giving its growing popularity, I suspect we’ll see much more of this sort of thing very soon.
The production itself is the same high quality that we’ve come to expect from Black Library / Heavy Entertainment, and it’s something I’ve almost started to take for granted. Composer Simon Slater continues to add solid mood music to piece; the Warhammer 40,000 world is one filled with action and violence, and the incidental music is nicely action packed, though at the same time mournful and gothic. It would be nice to hear the various pieces used to evoke this universe on their own some day.
Perfection is a very entertaining distraction, and fans of vicious space fantasy may find this a useful way of making the time pass during a long car journey or similar activity.
