'Warhammer 40K' Book Review: 'The Lion: Son Of The Forest'

Books & Comics

Feb 12

A recent novel to Warhammer 40,000 that dropped at the start of 2024, The Lion: Son of the Forest is one of the more important installments in the ongoing franchise. Serving as the explanation for the return of a lost Primarch and loosely tying into the Arks of Omen campaign, Son of the Forest is an interesting character-focused story with plenty of new information for its main character. As a result, Lion El’Johnson is a great stand-in for any new readers or fans of 40K to get introduced to the setting, though the novel does suffer somewhat from its brisk pace.

Summary

Lion Model — Image Source: WarhammerCommunity.com

One of Warhammer 40,000’s biggest conflicts was the events of The Horus Heresy, now a sub-brand under the 40K banner. Of the 20 Legions of Space Marines, nine turned traitor against the Emperor and Imperium of Man, and 9 remained loyal (the 2 remaining Legions were lost by this time). Each Legion was led by a Primarch, superhuman “gene-fathers” to their Legion, who had a wide range of characteristics and ideals due to being scattered across the galaxy decades before the Great Crusade that set out into the stars from Earth (called Terra in 40K) to both find them and reunite humanity.

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Lion El’Johnson is the Primarch of the 1st Legion, the Dark Angels, and he was raised on a Chaos-touched world called Caliban. Coming to rule over the planet, the arrival of the Emperor and the Imperium drew the Lion away from his adopted homeworld. Later, a large part of the Legion was sent there in a sort of exile to train recruits and hold the territory. This "exile" remained throughout the Heresy, as the Lion was cut off from his homeworld, but this separation bred resentment and allowed Chaos to infest some of the leadership of Caliban. After the Heresy was over and the Lion returned with the forces he had with him, events dramatically unfolded. The world appeared to turn against their leader, and the Lion made planetfall to defeat his oldest friend and second-in-command, Luther (now corrupted by Chaos), even as the world began to break apart around him.

The Lion vanished in the wake of these events, with a Warp Rift sucking up the shattered remains of Caliban. Before this novel, he was widely rumored to have survived in slumber in a hidden chamber on The Rock, the only remaining fragment of Caliban, which was turned into a space station by the Loyalist Dark Angels. These Loyalists began to obsessively hide the truth of the event, worried about what would happen to them if other surviving Primarchs or human officials learned what had happened. For 10,000 years, the Dark Angels have hunted the Fallen, as they call all of those who were stationed on Caliban during its fall. Now, the Great Rift stretches across the galaxy, plunging half the Imperium of Man into darkness, and it is into this world that the Lion suddenly awakens.

The Lion: Son of the Forest is a fascinating reexamination of a very stern, blunt, and demanding figure whose arrival into a world 10,000 years removed from his past actions has seen far-reaching consequences he never imagined or intended. The Lion spends much of the book meditating on the past, considering how he acted, and coming to make a change in himself while remaining the same character fans of the recently concluded Horus Heresy series of novels are likely familiar with.

The introspection of the Lion in his POV chapters is matched by the narrative given to other characters. From his first ally to the villains, each is characterized well and fits into the story, while we also get plenty of side characters, each with intriguing quirks. We can’t say much more since this would immediately reveal information about the nature of the story, but we will comment on a broader positive trait that also impacts the story.

Son of the Forest is an intriguing novel for just how much Arthurian mythology it injects all at once into the world of Warhammer. 40K has always had Arthurian lore inspirations, its lore is so vast that it almost couldn’t avoid that, especially since Games Workshop is a British company. But this book includes an incredible amount of it, from names to symbols to even some plot details, all delivered at once. It gives a specific theming to the Lion that wasn’t present before and makes him stand out anew in the new era of the galaxy he has reawoken to.

If there is one major drawback to the novel, it would be its length. While its pacing is great, many key events are glossed over quickly without any scale of time offered or details provided on how things happened or progressed. While this helps the story to keep moving forward, and some mysteries exist on purpose, others feel like more could have been added to provide greater context or depth to certain events or characters. At the same time, this novel exists as a sort of tie-in, and being part of Warhammer, those gaps probably exist to allow for future stories to develop, especially with something so new. Even so, it is a point against the novel.

In summary, The Lion: Son of the Forest is an interesting addition to the world of 40K, helping herald the return of a Primarch to the setting, which also helps to move the world’s ongoing narrative forward. It has many strong characters and an interesting reframing of prior lore that works well from what this reviewer understands and also sets up a large amount of new lore that will no doubt impact the setting in the future. We look forward to seeing the further storyline of the Lion and his eventual meeting with his only other living, not-lost, Loyalist Primarch sibling, Roboute Guilliman.

Rating: 8/10

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