The Traitor's Hand by Sandy Mitchell

One of the things I’ve been indulging in this year is rekindling my love for Warhammer 40,000 novels. I used to be into the hobby back in my teens, but found the books easier to get in to. Mostly because money, but also because I suck at painting.

Outside of the Gaunt’s Ghost and Inquisitor novels, one of the most recommended series is the Ciaphas Cain novels, following one of the most vaunted Heroes of the Imperium who gets his reputation despite doing his hardest to stay out of harms ways as much as possible.

The first two books in the series, For The Emperor and Caves of Ice, were fantastic. Another two that were wildly helped with being audiobooks, with different cast members performing the footnotes and passages from other perspectives, both got a 9 out of 10 from me over the summer.

Which adds to my disappointment with Traitor’s Hand, because it just didn’t capture me in the same way.

To be perfectly fair, it could be the time of year. Winter has a significant affect on me, and I may just be hampered by my mood shifting and attention drifting. That said, there are a number of things that stand out.

For The Emperor had a degree of intrigue and mystery amidst the combat and politics. Plus it had the Tau (an enemy by way of being alien rather than being ‘evil’) and introduced Inquisitor Amberley Vail, both as a character and love interest for Cain. Caves of Ice had oodles of tension and drama, involving Orks and the deadly Necrons (Warhammer’s version of the Terminator), plus solid action scenes.

Traitor’s Hand seemed to include the same qualities, just not as much. The bad guys were Chaos, but the kind of Chaos that regular strength Imperial Guard can handle (the Guard are regular soldiers versus the superhuman Space Marines), and you don’t really see much of their activities. There’s killing and human sacrifices sure, but you don’t really see it so much as be told it had happened and the characters see the aftermath.

There was some mystery, sure. Cain and his retinue had to figure out where the final ritual site was going to be before it could be finished, but you didn’t really see that through the novel but towards the last act. Most of the combat was kind of forgettable, and the secondary antagonistic, a rival and lesser Commissar called Beige (which fits both as a character description and as meta criticism) had his moments but I never really believed he was going to do anything of consequence.

There is some redemption; the climactic scene between Cain and the daemon that got summoned, and the build up towards it. Cain as a character is also enjoyable, his status as a reluctant hero, more interested in self-preservation and keeping the appearance of being a great and active hero than in being one is fun to read (or listen to), whilst also being balanced out by his occasionally heroic and incredibly capable actions. Plus the Amberley interludes where she provides wider background knowledge to Cain’s POV narration is a highlight of the audiobooks.

I just wish the rest of the book was better. Still, on to the next one.

6/10

2025-12-15

Bad Reviews

Writing on the internet isn’t a new experience for me. I’ve had Bear blogs, Wordpress blogs, think I’ve had one or two Blogspots in the past. Most of those though were by me, for me, with no-one else working on them or editing them. All except for one.

I don’t remember the site name, we’re talking easily ten years ago now, but I do remember what it was. A review site I got introduced to through a friend, who also wrote for it. Every month I’d get a handful of DVDs - movies, TV shows, even WWE once or twice. There was no word limit, just a style guide and a deadline for each one. Some of it was fairly average, including an Alan Moore thing I barely remember except for a line or two. Some of it was really really good, and some of it was really, really bad. That‘s the bit that sticks with me the most.

There’s a scene in the Sorkin drama Newsroom where the guy who runs the digital news desk came back from being on the run after feeling the state to protect a source to find everything he’d worked for trashed by some dude who’d rather fill it with badly written listicles like ‘the most overrated movies of all time’ and fill it with the Matrix and Avatar. It’s great scene; Neal dresses him down thoroughly and calmly, before leading the way forward. Peak Sorkin, I watch it probably once a month on YouTube.

And then I realised I was that dude, and I relished in it. When I got the chance to write a bad review, I went full steam into it. There was one in particular, some little indie movie that I hated every second off. Typical British late night BBC3 style crap geared towards a certain crowd. I think I spent three or four hours making sure I could be as savage as I could be. It was the only that ever got heavily edited before it went live.

I don’t necessarily regret writing a bad review, and I wasn’t consistently as savage. There were movies that were just boring - I didn’t particularly enjoy Ben Stiller’s Walter Mitty for example, except for the last scene with Sean Penn. I also made a point to not just judge it on the movie. I’d look up what trivia I could find, any interviews, background on the cast and director etc.

What I do regret was being bad at it. I gave into tired edginess and let it sway me into just being downright terrible. I was a CinemaSins loving, mid-20s cynical sarcastic git, and I was more than happy to let that shine on the page while I ripped apart someone else’s work. What’s worse, I proud to do so.

As I write my reviews here, it’s something I’m trying to bear in mind. Smart Notes in particular was tough. Like I said in my opening sentence, I was all geared up to be harsh, which is fine if it’s deserved but not if I’m just doing it to feel good. It took me a good while to write, and few edits and proofreads to check over, just to make sure I was being fair and balanced and not giving into my worst impulses. Interestingly, I also ended up scoring it higher as a result, and was left wondering how many of my earlier scores could have benefitted from the same treatment. Would I have been so direct and brutal? Could I not have found something?

I’ve learned a lot from writing bad reviews badly, and hopefully I keep that lesson in the front of my mind.

2025-12-19