Ravenor by Dan Abnett

Ravenor was once a fine and handsome young man of the Inquisition, but an attack at a parade for the God-Emperor took care of that. Ravenor was badly burned, becoming little more than a sack of meat, unable to speak, walk or use his hands. But his mind was unaffected, and because he had strong psychic powers, he could still serve the Office of the Inquisition. But he was forever cut off from most normal human contact, imprisoned in a floating pod, his voice reduced to an electronically produced one.

Luckily Ravenor, like most inquisitors, works as part of a team, and they have become his hands, legs and eyes... sometimes quite literally, as he can possess them, taking over their bodies (with their permission) and using them for his own, for a brief time, at least.

He and his team are on the world of Eustis Majoris, tracking down a group of drug smugglers, which are common in the Imperium. But in addition to the more or less normal drugs that every smuggler carries, these people are running a new kind of drug, called Flects- small bits of crystal wrapped up in red paper. It is these that Ravenor is interested in, but he wants more than the low-level dealers, he wants the people behind the operation and their distribution network.

Zael knows a lot about flects. He's been using them for years, trying to escape the drudgery of life in Stack J. His father died after being rendered jobless when the manufactory closed down. His mother died afterwards of despair, and his sister, who had also worked in the manufactory, became a whore to get money. But then she got hooked on drugs, and died after falling from or being thrown through or throwing herself through a balcony twenty stories up. All Zael had then was his grandmother, but she was also hooked on a drug... drinking. And too soon Zael became a flect user and his life became a big blur. His grandmother died and was only discovered because her body had begun to stink. Now he works only to get paid in flects, and can't even remember how old he is anymore.

But all that changes when one of Ravenor's team catches him and makes him take the man to the nearest Flect dealer. Zael doesn't want to rat out his supplier, but the dealer he does take the man, Harlon Nayl, to is named Genny X. But her people don't want to let him in, and Nayl must take them out. By the time they get to Genny, she's dead, and the lead is cold. But Ravenor realizes that, somehow, Zael is hearing his mental voice, so he has Nayl bring Zael back to the ship so Ravenor can watch over him.

Ravenor's other agents investigate other areas in town, and eventually track down one high-level dealer to a circus named Carnivora, which will eventually lead them on to a area called Lucky Space... because you're lucky if you survive five minutes there. But with so many gunning for Ravenor and his team, can they survive Lucky Space long enough to find out who is trading Flects and where they come from? Because Flects aren't really a manufactured drug, but something else entirely. Something alien and interdicted. But can Ravenor and his team discover what they are and survive the attack of the people who want to protect their running business? Or will Ravenor's career end here?

I bought this series because I had enjoyed Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn series, also about an Inquisitor. But while Eisenhorn takes on all manner of grand and alien evil. here Ravenor takes on a smaller, more subtle evil... which, of course, doesn't make it any less evil. Smaller, more subtle evils are less spectacular but also more numerous, and perhaps their smaller nature makes it easier for people to succumb to them.

But while I really enjoyed the Eisenhorn Trilogy, I didn't find myself getting into this one as quickly. Perhaps that's because Ravenor is so damaged physically that you don't get as much insight into his character as you would if he was out there doing things himself. Even when he takes over other people and rides their bodies, he just doesn't seem as interesting or intriguing as Eisenhorn or Dan Abnett's other hero character from the Warhammer 40K universe, Gaunt.

I enjoyed the book, but it was more an okay read than a really exciting, intriguing, enthralling one that I usually enjoy from Dan Abnett. The entire universe of the Warhammer 40K game and books is appallingly dark, with agents of corruption and change festering everywhere like boils. The only way to deal with the corruption is to cut it away completely. But for every corruptor you catch, there are two, or three, or more, ready to take his or her place. And the universe here is a place so dark, grim and usually hopeless, that the citizens turn to the corrupting effects of the dark merely to escape it. It's not always a fun place to read about, but it's very different from most game worlds and universes.

Beware before reading. The books won't turn your stomach or make you sick, but you definitely get the feeling to seize victories where you find them, because they will invariably be tarnished somewhere down the road. Not a universe everyone will enjoy reading, and this series seems to have more of that than most.