Publisher: Black Library (Audiobook – 12 August 2023)

Series: Warhammer 40,000

Length: 10 hours and 28 minutes

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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Prepare to dive into one of the grittiest battles in Warhammer 40,000 fiction with the awesome and captivating novel, Longshot by Rob Young.

2023 has definitely been an outstanding year for Warhammer 40,000 fiction, and I have had a ton of fun reading several pretty amazing entries from this extended universe in recent months.  Examples of this include The Lion: Son of the Forest, Warboss, Shadowsun: The Patient Hunter, Leviathan and The King of the Spoil just to name a few.  However, the year is far from over and there are still several great-sounding Warhammer 40,000 novels coming out that I have my eyes on.  One of the more intriguing was the fantastic Longshot by new author Rob Young, which sounded extremely fun.  Longshot, which follows on from Young’s short stories, Transplants and Memories of Broken Glass, is the author’s debut Warhammer 40,000 novel, and it proved to be a very intense and action-packed novel with a great story.

Several years after the fall of Cadia, which saw the Imperium of Man split in two by a great rift in space, humanity is still attempting to recover as many lost planets and systems as possible.  The latest target of the relentless Indomitus Crusade sees the troops of the Cadian 217^th arrive at the former manufactorium world of Attruso, whose people have fallen under the sway of the seeming beatific alien t’au.

As the initial assault begins in the battered city of Miracil, the Cadian forces struggle to make progress against the determined t’au defenders and their human auxiliaries.  As the fighting gets even more desperate, the tides of war soon place the keys to victory into the hands of Sergeant Darya Nevic and her squad of snipers.  Nevic is a legendary figure within the 217^th, a transplant from a non-Cadian regiment renown for her abilities of infiltration, assassination and survival, Nevic excels at disrupting the enemy from the top down.  However, when the t’au unleash their own deadly sniper against the Cadians, Nevic is forced into a battle of wits with a killer just as skilled and ruthless as she is.  But has Nevic finally come across a foe even she can’t best, especially as she begins to doubt her mission in the face of her own infamy, the lies of her commanders and the t’au’s insidious promises?

Longshot is an awesome and fast-paced novel that perfectly showcases the horror of war in this grim universe through the lens of a skilled sniper.  Young did an outstanding job with his debut novel and I loved the intriguing and powerful narrative that placed great characters into a deadly setting.  I managed to knock this book off in a couple of days, and it is one of the most exciting and fun Warhammer 40,000 novels of 2023 so far.

I loved the complex and intense story that Young pulled together for Longshot, which perfectly presents a tale of the common soldier in the grim Warhammer 40,000 universe.  I have often said that some of the very best Warhammer 40,000 novels are those that focus on the common human soldier facing off against alien or inhuman forces (for example, Steel Tread, the Gaunt’s Ghosts books or Catachan Devil).  Longshot is a very good example of this as you follow a tired soldier as she faces internal and external threats on the frontline of a desperate conflict.  Thanks to its focus on snipers, city fighting, camaraderie and propaganda, Longshot is honestly the Warhammer 40,000 version of Enemy at the Gates, which I deeply enjoyed.  The reader really gets invested in the protagonist’s journey which follows her through some fantastic missions, battles and character growth in the first half of the novel.  This leads to a great second half, where Nevic becomes a victim of her own success and is forced to go up against a deadly enemy sniper.  Due to everything the protagonist experiences, there is some real tension leading into the final third of Longshot, especially after she experiences some terrible losses.  Thanks to the protagonists’ conflicted state, you honestly don’t know how the story is going to turn, and Young loads up some great twists and swerves.  While the ending was a tad predictable, I really enjoyed it and the author really pulled together a satisfying and exciting read that you can really power through.

This ended up being a pretty addictive standalone book, and it is one that would definitely serve as a great introductory novel to Warhammer 40,000 fiction for those readers unfamiliar with the franchise.  Young does a great job of expanding his previous short stories into his first full-length novel, and you really get to grips quickly with the situation, the characters, and the wider universe.  The sharp and intense character-driven story which primarily focuses on the protagonist, Darya Nevic, with a few chapters shown from other key character perspective, has a lot of great elements to it.  The focus on character motivation, the depravities of war, and the grim realities of the background universe really cut through the main story, and you understand the difficulties that many of the conflicted characters experience.  The subsequent focuses on morale in battle and the impacts of propaganda and manipulation also proves to be very fascinating and adds a great edge to Longshot.  I also deeply appreciated how well Young built up his main protagonist throughout the course of Longshot, diving into Nevic’s complex history and examining how she gained her legend.  You grow quite attached to Nevic as the book continues, especially she is forced to make several difficult decisions, and Young turns her into a relatable and understandable figure, especially when it comes to her conflicted feelings about her fame and leadership.  Nevic is well supported by other great characters, and Young was able to establish and utilise these figures in a short amount of time.

The real highlight of Longshot is the awesome and well-written action sequences that dominate the book and constantly keep the reader on their toes.  Young paints an effective and dark picture of brutal city fighting, and you can tell he was using the battle of Stalingrad as inspiration.  The gritty battles that take place are very exciting and powerful, and you can really feel the desperation and weariness of the combatants.  The author proves particularly adept at writing high-quality sniper scenes, and the focus on shooting, infiltration and calculated strikes makes Longshot stand out from other battle-heavy Warhammer 40,000 novels.  This ended up being a very slick and addictive read and Young proved quite skilled at getting his fantastic story across to the reader in the most effective way.

Well-established fans of Warhammer 40,000 canon will really appreciate Young’s compelling and insightful look into two distinctive factions who provide a very interesting contrast to each other.  This includes the members of the Cadians, one of the most iconic Imperial Guard factions in the game.  While the Cadians are already pretty heavily featured in Warhammer 40,000 fiction, I felt that Young provided a particularly effective dive into their current problems, namely the gradual deaths of the natural-born members of the regiment and their replacement by transplants from other regiments.  Thanks to the focus on Nevic, herself a transplant from another regiment, you see the dire internal conflict this causes as the strongly traditional Cadian regiment begin to lose their identity after the loss of their planet.  Young does a wonderful job of expressing this throughout the course of Longshot and the resultant impacts this has on the characters makes for some interesting story moments.  I also quite enjoyed seeing several outsider perspectives of the Cadians that Young worked into the story, which often contrasts well with what the Cadian protagonists feel, and it makes for some fantastic story moments. The author also examines other fascinating elements of the Imperial war machine, such as the exhausting Indomitus Crusade, the current crumbling state of the Imperium, the way other supporting regiments are treated, and the internal propaganda and planning of the regiment.

While the Cadians do get most of the story focus in Longshot, Young does take the time to also dive into the alien t’au who serve as the main antagonists of the plot.  Most Warhammer 40,000 novels that have the t’au as antagonists often nerf or underutilise them to a degree (for example Kill Team or Deathwatch: Shadowbreaker), which is frustrating for fans of the faction.  However, Young effectively showcases the t’au as skilled and deadly enemies who are able to weather the Imperial forces and overwhelm them in several key theatres.  Young has fun bringing several key t’au units to life throughout the course of Longshot and you really start to appreciate them as effective opponents to the Cadians.  There is also an interesting examination of t’au motivations, philosophies and manipulations, specifically around their recruitment of human auxiliaries.  This compelling dive into the t’au muddies the moral waters around the protagonists and the Cadians, and you soon start to question who has the best interest of the people of Attruso at heart.  This, and other intriguing similarities to the human soldiers, adds an awesome edge of consideration and concern to the story that I quite enjoyed.  I really think that Young had some of the better portrayals of the Cadians and the t’au I have so far seen in Warhammer 40,000 fiction, and fans of the franchise are going to have a wonderful time diving into that in this book.

Unsurprisingly, I chose to check out Longshot on audiobook, which in my opinion the best way to enjoy a Warhammer 40,000 novel.  Longshot is a particularly good example of this, as the audiobook format really helped to move the already exciting novel along at a fast clip, especially when the action scenes are brought to life by the narrator.  Coming in at around 10 and a half hours, this is very easy audiobook to get through quickly, and I made sure to power through it in only a few days.  It helped that this book was narrated by the very talented Colleen Prendergast, who already has a bit of experience narrating Warhammer novels featuring the Cadians.  Prendergast did a wonderful job bringing all the major characters to life, especially the main protagonist of Darya Nevic, and I loved the elaborate and fitting voices that she gifted the cast which really helped to draw you into the story.  However, the real benefit of Prendergast’s narration is the way that she walks the listener through all the elaborate battle sequences, especially those that show the snipers facing off against each other.  I felt that this narration expertly captured all the inherent intensity and danger of these scenes and I got really invested into the book as a result.  Thanks to this amazing narration and story enhancement, I would strongly recommend checking out Longshot on audiobook and I know I had a lot more fun thanks to this amazing format.

Overall, Longshot is an awesome and compelling addition to the Warhammer 40,000 canon and one that I had a ton of fun with.  Young produced a powerful and intriguing character driven war story that will appeal to a wide audience of readers, especially with its fantastic focus on sniping and some of the more fascinating elements of Warhammer lore.  I deeply enjoyed this fantastic novel and Longshot comes highly recommended.

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