A Transition Point for Gregor Eisenhorn

The Magos & The Definitive Case Files of Gregor Eisenhorn was released last month, and I have just finished it. The first half of the book, the definitive case files part, is a collection of just about every short story written featuring Eisenhorn or his protege, Gideon Ravenor, with some that don't feature either, but end up relating to the new novel, The Magos, in a different way.

Of the collected stories, a few were new to me: Pestilence, The Curiosity, Gardens of Tycho, and The Curious Demise of Titus Endor. A couple of these introduce the new character of Magos Biologis Valentenin Drusher, who figures heavily into The Magos in the latter half of the volume. Not included, that I know of, is a short, very short, story called Born To Us, which features Eisenhorn and longtime associate Harlon Nayl stumbling upon a Necron king.

The Magos is the first Eisenhorn novel not written from his own first-person perspective, which is in interesting choice made necessary by how the story is told, and the nature of the story being told. From this point in Eisenhorn's career and on (and previously in Master Imus' Transgression and Thorn Wishes Talon), we only get him in the third-person. We're not privy to what's going on in his head, because he is very literally no longer the protagonist and figuratively may even be an antagonist, especially going forward after The Magos, in Pariah, and the other books in the Bequin trilogy to follow.

The Magos, in plot terms, is much more like one of Eisenhorn's short stories than one of his novels. It's set in one place as opposed to across many planets, and much more about one particular lead in the quest he has taken upon himself--to defeat and destroy the Cognitae order, who serve the Ruinous Powers against the Imperium. By the end of the new novel, we wonder if he still has that goal in mind, or if another has taken its place as his prime motive, and we also have reason to doubt his mental health. Has old Gregor finally crossed that line into becoming the radical he always denied he had become?

It's enough to make me want to go back and reread Pariah, but I think I'll wait until author Dan Abnett is at least done writing the next in the series.