Iron Hands

by Jonathan Green

Dedicated to serving the Imperium, the Iron Hands, the most powerful members of the Adeptus Astartes, will do anything to remove all weaknesses, even practicing bionic augmentation on their own bodies... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1844160947
• ISBN13: 9781844160945
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Black Library
• Length: 409 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.3" x 6.7"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Iron Hands

With war everywhere, everyone needs to stay alert. With their immense bodies and hi-tech gizmos, it will be an easy task for The Iron Hands. Their leader was once a human, but after many battles, his body was replaced with metal and he became a cyborg. And as for his brain, it is much stronger now for it is half computer. Iron Hands by Jonathan Green was a great read. With its vivid description and intense battles, all sci-fi readers will enjoy it. This book has many different races to help intrigue the readers. One such race is the Chaos, strong magical wielders. Their enemy, Iron Hands, have very powerful hi-tech cyborgs and weaponry that can blow apart anything. Their leader has lived for centuries because of their technical advancement allowing to increase his life span by millenniums. This book also has original names of characters races, and ranks in armies. The highest rank in the Iron Hands army is Carrion Lord of Imperium, but this rank is only achieved once you have killed the previous one. The throne he sits on is called the Golden Throne of Worlds. Though he is only one, many respect him and trust him with their lives. Adeptus Astartes is the class of many races. Each class has its own characteristics and traits that separate them from another. Iron Hands, for example, is the only race to solely focus on technology and fire-power using projectiles such as guns and rockets. Chaos on the other hand, has monsters that attack first and clear the way for them to advance. Iron Hands imagery was that of a masterpiece. Everything it described made the reader feel like he was looking at it right in front of him. It described the army of Iron Hands as immense soldiers suited in armor made of the toughest metal, only penetrable by the strongest of weapons such as blades as magic. Their guns were the size of a human body, and they wore helmets of gold and silver to keep them strong. Their ruby red eye holes so they may see had sensors in it so they may find out more information about their enemies. And they had a great insignia on the chest plate to proudly show who they were. This book would be great for all readers who enjoy wars and sci-fi/ fantasy reads. Though many would find it as a fantasy book, it is also a sci-fi due to its advanced technology and armor/weapons, as well as the cyborg armies. It is a little confusing, but once you get started around the fifth chapter, you get engrossed in it. Therefore, grabbing the reader and making him read the entire book and then the rest of the series with its story and characters. Once you read this story, you will continually want more, and the thing is, there are so many books in the entire series, that all of the books intertwine with each other and you have to pay close attention to understand it all. N. Koester

First Read

This book was my first exposure to Warhammer 40k. I didnt know it existed till I picked this book up from a pile in Iraq. I thougth it was great, kinda shallow and predictable, but what can you expect from books based off of a game? Anyhoo, I thought it was very entertaining.

mostly for the fans of...

to say the characters were one dimesional is a bit expected, they are Space Marines-however, in the 40k series of books, there are so many branches to loose ones self in, it is easy to forget the Space Marines are angry dudes who will do 1 or 3 things in all thier novel; 1 kill and pray 2 pray and kill 3 be angry while doing either I feel the worst books ever published by the black library was anything by Mat Farrer-or whatever his name is. For die hard Adeptes Astartes fans only

I dare you to read this sentence!

Here is a passage from Iron Hands sure to perplex: "In this way, he had seen the mesa quite clearly during the approach, the plateau's sheer sides rising from the flat plain of the desert wilderness as if it had grown up out of the surrounding sands, like one of the crystalline formations that were found buried beneath the shifting surface of this world and that were then employed in the manufacture of the standard issue Imperial Guard lasgun across this subsector." If awkwardness like this doesn't aggravate you, I strongly recommend this book. In it, the Iron Hands space marines are called upon by the adeptus mechanicus to investigate a mysterious warpstorm bordering the eye of terror. The story takes place during the harrowing time of Abaddon's thirteenth black crusade. Iron-father Gdolkin is the leader of the small band of marines dispatched for the mission, which turns into an epic quest whose outcome decides the fate of a million Imperial worlds. Johnathan Green makes excellent use of the warhammer lore and you get to see obliterators, dreadnoughts, defilers, raptors, plague marines, a battle aboard a mountain-sized ordinatus artillery cannon and a battle within a towering emperor titan. The chaos forces are well-represented; never before have they been described this relentlessly as corrupt, rotting pus-filled, diseased abominations. And that's a good thing. The character's in Iron Hands are well-imagined, but suffer a marked lack of depth. The story is vividly imagined in some parts, and half-baked in others. The writing is a bit clunky in comparison the wonderful 40k writings of Dan Abnett. Overall this is a truly epic story that makes great use of warhammer lore and depicts an interesting side story to the thirteenth black crusade.