Sunstone Imperative

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Book cover of Sunstone Imperative.
by Scott Warren
Book 6 of the War Horses series

Review

Sunstone Imperative, by Scott Warren, is the sixth book in the War Horses series. Returning to the action-packed roots of the earlier books, it drops the Chevaliers into the middle of a raid against a Wyking stronghold to open the gates for a full-scale invasion.

In Sunstone Imperative, the Wyking clans, which we first saw in Ymir, are locked in a bitter civil war. Sensing an opportunity, the Emirs of the West Gulf and the Archon de Catalan put aside their differences and assemble a joint task force to breach the Dwimor Gate, one of the few navigable routes into clan space. Blocking their path is a massive fortress-asteroid honeycombed with narrow passages and defended by Wyking warriors. Taking the stronghold is essential for the invasion’s success. Mechs are too large for most of the asteroid’s tunnels, but the Seraphs—human-sized power armor first seen in Dog Soldier—are just right.

The story is relatively simple, but I enjoyed it. The long-running gag about Vandal’s leadership training is great. Warren must have read some of the same terrible books I did when I was trying to be a better manager, because he lampoons their concepts perfectly. The Wykings are probably the best part of the book. Scott Warren makes them horrifying and evil, but with some humor, and it’s interesting to get a deeper look into their culture and how the hierarchy of the different clans works.

The initial assault on the asteroid reminded me of the American airborne assault during Operation Overlord, or at least how it’s described in Ambrose’s Band of Brothers. The Seraphs and marines teleport over to take out key objectives before the main assault, but they end up scattered and in the wrong drop zones, desperately trying to regroup rather than achieve their objectives.

Sunstone Imperative didn’t have the fun twists of Grand Melee, and it didn’t have the careful plotting and insight into the types of people you need during and after a revolution that made Serpent Valley and Dog Soldier so good, but it’s a solid action romp in the vein of Chevalier, and a perfect palate cleanser after the philosophical and long Endymion and The Rise of Endymion of the Hyperion Cantos.