Books like Blood Angels: The Second Omnibus

James Swallow's excursions into the 40k universe are always amongst the strangest - not for their content (which is typically macabre), but something about his writing style just feels out-of-step with his peers. He writes them as pretty straight forward action-adventure stuff, but if I could put my finger on why it feels a little different - I'd have to say there's a touch of anime in there. Not in the setting, obviously (which, being 40k, are decidedly European), but something about his characters, and his stories.It's hard to explain - something about the way that the Rafen (a divided hero, as all Blood Angels are - constantly at war with his bestial side) will confront and defeat the stories' main villains by directly tapping into cosmic power (in this case, of his progenitor) - a trope very common in a lot of heroic action anime's I've seen. The odd references to Neon Genesis Evangelion in the first volume also allude to the author's interest in that particular medium. This isn't a complaint, mind, just something that's struck me as I attempt to articulate what it is about Swallow's books that stick out for me.That said, this is pretty standard 40k affair - prose is serviceable, but unremarkable. Characters are largely pretty thin, existing to either move the plot or create conflict within it. That said, there is a certain simplistic enjoyment to be gained from this series if you aren't interested in anything beyond that - and the climax of this particular duology was pleasantly engaging, which surprised me, given the fact that, after the scale of the original pair of novels, these two are decidedly scaled-back. The stakes are much the same, but less immediate - indeed, after facing near extinction in the first duology, much of these books concern themselves with the consequences of that near-disaster, looking towards the chapter's long-term survival. All in all, for a time-waster, you could do worse, I suppose. The odd flavour of the story helps give a slight distinguishing mark to an otherwise standard Space Marine series. I kind of wish there was something about it that I could effectively damn, so I could say something more interesting about it - but there isn't. The book is just there. It is a story about Vampiric Genetically Engineered Super Soldiers fighting their own darker natures and the forces of hell. Take it or leave it.