Book Review: Genefather by Guy Haley
I’ve never written one of these before so bear with me :)
Genefather by Guy Haley - Black Library Link
Genefather by Guy Haley is the latest book to feature everyones favourite Mechanicus character, Belasarius Cawl. The plot is fairly straightforwards, Cawl is trying to get support to do something about the Cicatrix Maledictum, and heads off to petition some Houses of Mars for support. Meanwhile Fabius Bile is on the prowl (as usual), and has his eyes on the artifact that that Guilliman gave to Cawl which contains essentially the blueprints for the creation of the Primarchs, the Sangprimus Portum. This sets up a nice little confrontation between the two characters at the end of the book where we get a bunch of lore reveals and some intruging threads to pull on for future stories.
One of the things I did enjoy is the consistency in Fabius Biles character despite this book, being it written by a different author to the Fabius Bile series of books (a review of which is in the works). He (Bile) is (in my opinion) one of the more interesting characters in the 40k universe, and we get to see that in this book. We don’t get quite the same amount of insight into his character and the goings on of his Consortium in this book, but this time Bile is here to be the antagonist so that can be forgiven.
Voice Acting
I listened to this book on Audible.
John Banks does a stellar job at voicing the main characters, he has done the previous three Fabius Bile books, so he’s got it down to a fine art now and the gritty tone he puts on for Bile really gives an impression of a grizzled old veteran. Oddly he uses a very similar voice for Cawl, and I felt that it was deliberate to highlight the similarities between the two characters, of which there are many, the main one being that both of them (Cawl and Bile) are considered radicals by a lot of their peers, and there is a lot of suspicion surrounding the pair and the sort of experiments that they get up to. It’s an interesting choice.
I love the voice John uses for Qvo-89 as well, he just sounds so defeated, constantly, and it really adds to the flavour of the character for me.
Top quality voice acting overall, if you’re like me struggle to find time to sit down and read, then the audiobook version is highly recommended.
Spoiler Warning
From this point on I will be spoiling parts of the story, so if you’ve not read it, and don’t want to be spoiled, then go read the book and come back later :D
Belasarius Cawl, Heretek
How this man is still alive in the 40k universe boggles the mind. There are numerous mentions of how if anyone finds out some of the things he’s done how he would be branded a Heretek, and in my opinion he’s already crossed that line and come back around the other side a few times. But that makes him a very interesting character, and I’m really curious where they take the character over the next few years.
This is my first experience with Cawl as a character, I’ve not read any of the other Cawl books, so it was quite interesting to see how he’s portrayed as this kind of flawed genius. He constantly congratulates himself on being a genius, and revels in his own intelligence, which does lead to some ammusing lines. And the way he wears different personalities like hats I found to be quite ammusing.
One of my favourite parts of the book, where we get some good dialouge and insights into Cawls character is the part where he plays increasingly more complex games of Regicide (40k Chess) with a Necron, which honestly had me giggling throughout the whole scene at the sheer absurdity of it.
Oh yeah, to add to our increasing pile of his crimes, Cawl has a pet Necron, which he apparently stole off an Inquisitor(???!!!). Again, how this man is still alive with the 40k Universe being what it is, is a source of constant intruige.
Overall Cawl is a very quirky character, and there is a lot more to him than just “maker of things”. I really hope that GW doesn’t start using him as a Deus Ex Machina device to inject random things into the lore, but that feels like the way they’re going with him, so we shall see. Look forwards to reading more from this lunatic.
The Inferiors
This is what makes Cawl a Heretek in my humble opinion. He has an AI of himself, or a copy of his mind that he can talk to?
We don’t get to find out exactly how The Cawl Inferior works, or what it is, but Cawl suggests that if anyone were to find out the inner workings of the device(s) then he would be in some serious trouble. And I believe him. Based on the vague descriptions we get, it very much sounds like it uses a LOT of Xenos tech to make it work, which is, to use some classic English understatement, a big no-no.
It’s also revealed that he would really prefer that Guilliman didn’t look into the workings of the Cawl Inferior which resides on the Primarchs flagship, for much the same reason as he would prefer nobody look into the one he’s made for himself. We are clearly talking about some fairly serious tech-heresy here, and Cawl doesn’t give a hoot.
After we’re introduced to the Cawl Inferior, Belasarius Cawl has a long conversation with what is essentially himself. And he loves every minute of it, even commenting that he would quite like to just stay and chat to himself because it’s quite pleasant to find someone that can match him intellectually. It’s quite easy to see how someone might be irritated by Cawl, I found it ammusing how much he adores himself, but I could see how it would grate on people.
Once Cawl is done fawning over his own genius, we get to the proper serious heresy (as if creating an AI wasn’t bad enough!)
We find out that Cawl has created an artificial copy of Robutte Guilliman (with the Anger setting turned down to 1 on the dial), and uses it to test how the Primarch will react to his responses to questions.
First off this is some S Tier, Grade A+, Any%, straight up Heresy.
The Guilliman Inferior tells him this plainly, that if the real Primarch knew that he’d done this he’d likely lose his mind out of sheer anger, and we see that Cawl has a hard enough job keeping his artificial version calm even with him turning the “anger levels” down a bit, I have a feeling if the real Guilliman found out he wouldn’t shout, he’d just impale Cawl with the Emperors sword instead.
The whole chapter featuring the Inferiors is great stuff, Guy Haley did an excellent job, it’s one of the best bits of the book.
Fabius Bile, Most Dangerous Man in 40k
One part of the book that I found equal parts hilarious and frustrating was people not giving Bile the respect he deserved as an adversary. Bile is an Astartes of the First Founding, he fought alongside his Primarch, he fought the Loyalists on Terra, he’s been knocking around now for 10,000+ years, and you don’t get to live that long by being a moron. Cawl eventually clocks onto his schemes, but only when it’s fairly obvious what the scheme is, and at that point it’s far too late to do anything about it.
This book also added fuel to a particular question that’s been gnawing at the back of my head for a while: Is Fabius Bile a Chaos Space Marine, or is he simply a Renegade?
Bile himself would tell you that he is nothing like the Chaos Space Marines he constorts with, and looks upon them as degenerates that gave in to their baser instincts. And the more I read of Bile the more I’m inclined to think that he is a Renegade. The facts speak fairly loudly as well; Bile has repeatedly declared his disdain for Chaos and the powers of the Warp, even going so far as to call a Keeper of Secrets a “Figment” to it’s face. He can also be quite merciful, and he doesn’t kill for the sake of killing as so many of his former bretheren, he detests waste, and the gleeful slaughter they engage in during combat just looks to him to be a waste of potentially valuable material for his research and experiments.
We see the “mercy” he shows in the final confrontation with Cawl, he could quite easily have murdered Cawl (or rather Porta could have) but he doesn’t because he seems to actually respect Cawl, especially the work he has done with Alpha Primaris. It’s a level of humanity we rarely see from Space Marines, let alone one from the Heretic Legions.
Cawl and Bile, Kindred Spirits
So I’ve mentioned that John Banks did a great job on the voice acting, but I also mentioned that he gave Cawl a very similar voice to Bile (Bile’s voice already being established by this particular VA), and I feel like that was deliberate to accentuate the similarities between the two. It’s interesting to put them next to each other and compare them as men, not as representatives of a faction or ideal, just as men, and they do stack up against each other quite well in that respect.
They both have the same nebulous overall goal of “Saving Humanity”, through their two approaches couldn’t be more different. They both appreciate that feelings like love, kindness, compassion, etc. are not inherent weaknesses and can be used as a strength, though I’m not sure you’d ever get Bile to admit a feeling of love or compassion, but he still shows it while also being utterly merciless.
Both Cawl and Bile are mistrusted by their peers, Bile in particular has an ongoing “beef” with Ezekyle Abaddon, aka Abaddon the Despoiler, and he makes a few mentions of “getting Ezekyle off my back” in this book, we’ve also seen in the other Bile books that he has far more enemies than friends. Cawl has enemies as well, the Inquisitor he stole the Necron off (still can’t believe he’s alive after doing that) is out for his blood, and there is a general level of mistrust of him within the Mechanicus.
Again, we find similarities between the two here, while both are generally mistrusted, they have their loyal allies. Allies that know them, and trust them, worship them in some instances.
It’s fascinating to compare the two and see the similarities start to appear, even if their characters are opposites in a lot of ways.
Qvo-88/89
I found the bits with Qvo-88/89 fascinating. Cawl clearly has a lot of affection for his old friend, but there is a certain maliciousness involved in refusing to let the man die, and it creates a very interesting dynamic between the two. Cawl constantly refers to Qvo-88/89 as Fredish, which seems to annoy the Qvo’s who typically respond “but I am not Fredish”, to which Cawl replies “not yet”. The Qvo situation draws on the similarities between Cawl and Bile even further, as they both attempt to create their own “new men” and find themselves increasingly emotionally attached to their creations.
Alpha Primarus
OK, so at no point in the story do any of the characters blatantly say it, but it’s heavily implied that Cawl has created his own Primarch in Alpha Primaris, or at least gotten very close to creating one, with Cawl referring to him as “my son” during a conversation with Bile. Or at least that was my takeaway from that exchange.
This has some serious implications if it’s accurate. Does this open the door to new Primarchs being created? Cawl still has access to the Sangprimus Portum, but it sounds like it took him a LONG time to make Alpha Primaris, so maybe not something we’re likely to see any time soon? Very interesting to see where this story thread leads, which is a theme with this book unfortunately, that for every question it answers it raises two more.
Biles “New Men”
As this isn’t a “Bile” book, we don’t get to hear much about the Gland Hounds aside from Porta. Which is a shame as they are a very interesting side-story, they have their own culture, which is one of violence and dominance. They are “new men (and women)” in that they are so much stronger than a regular human, way more aggressive, and more subservient. If you don’t know what they are, they are a creation of Fabius Bile designed to hunt Space Marines in packs, outnumbering them, bringing them down, then forcibly extracting the Space Marines’ “Progenoid Gland” (hence Gland Hound).
Porta sounds like an absolute beast though, she manages to give a good account of herself in a fight with Alpha Primaris, who is shown to just plough through entire squads without even bothering to draw a weapon. He is an absolute unit, and she gives him a decent scrap, even managing to peel his helmet off to get at his face. The fact that she can even engage with a being on the level of Alpha Primaris just shows how advanced the Glandhounds are compared to a stock-standard human.
Final Conclusion
I’m a Bile simp, so I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even though the protagnonist was Cawl so we see a lot less of Bile than we did in the Bile series (which makes perfect sense and isn’t a real complaint). Again, I was really impressed with the consistency of the Bile character given that this book is by a different author.
Cawl is fun and quite interesting, overall though I’m not sure how I really feel about him, I need to go back and read the other books that feature him and see if that changes my view in one direction or another, but in this book he’s quite funny (sometimes unintentionally)
In terms of lore reveals we get quite a few in this book, but as I’ve mentioned, for every reveal additional questions are raised. Alpha Primaris being the prime example.
TL;DR, Bile is based, Cawl is a Heretek.
I give this book an arbitrary grading of 8 Servo Skulls. Look forwards to more featuring these two!