'The Emperor's Might' - Compiled by John Blanche (Black Library)

This could end up being one of my shorter reviews (if not the shortest) as 'The Emperor's Might' doesn't actually have a single word reviewable word to its name. Apart from some blurb and an author bio, what we're looking at here is a collction of images from Games Workshop's 'Warhammer 40,000' line; namely Space Marines, space craft and cityscapes. Just pictures then, no words at all...

Now don't get me wrong, 'The Emperor's Might' looks absolutely gorgeous. It is absolutely crammed full of stunning artwork that really captures the feel of the setting. Power armoured post-humans defending humanity against a backdrop of slavering demons and bombed out cities, that pretty much sums up the Warhammer 40K experience really :o) Unless you're a maasive fan though... Well, if you've seen one Space Marine then you've seen them all haven't you? I'm a fan and all the art still managed to blur into one 'uber marine' after a few pages. A little bit of information about each character, or event, would have perhaps made each piece stand out a little bit more (although I’d imagine that the fans this book is aimed at would probably know). If that wasn't possible then maybe some notes from each artist on the process of creating the artwork? Funnily enough, very few of these pieces are signed by the artists who created them (or if they were then it was lost in the detail). Langley’s work stood out for me but only for reasons that I will talk about in a minute; I couldn’t tell you who drew each of the others… The impression I was left with then was that while the artwork was very nice to look at, the same level of care hadn't gone into creating the book itself. Just throw some pictures together, slap a cover on them and let the book take care of itself after that...

It's also worth pointing out that a lot of these images already grace the covers of books, games and so on, that fans will own. If you're after the art, without a book title all over it, then you'll certainly get that here. If you want some nostalgia then there's plenty of that on offer too (I’ve got a soft spot for the original ‘Rogue Trader’ art). If you're after a collection of original artwork though, maybe think twice before picking this one up.

‘The Emperor’s Might’ is a bit of an odd book then. On the surface it looks like it does its job very well, showcasing humanity’s finest doing what they have been genetically engineered to do. The lack of any accompanying text (and the cynical feeling inclusion of artwork from recent publications) gives the book a really hollow feel though. Not the kind of feeling that you would want from a universal setting that promises such great depth…

Six out of Ten