The House of Night and Chain cover art

The House of Night and Chain

Warhammer Horror

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The House of Night and Chain

By: David Annandale
Narrated by: Dugald Bruce-Lockhart
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About this listen

A Warhammer Horror novel.

An Astra Militarum colonel, broken by war and loss, returns to his childhood home to take up the mantle of Planetary Governor - but horrors await in the House of Malveil that will make his experiences of war seem like child's play....

Listen to it because: Haunted house stories are a staple of the horror genre. In a grim, dark future where much worse things than ghosts can anchor themselves to reality, a haunted house can do more than just scare you…

The story: In a bleak corner of the city of Valgaast, the House of Malveil awaits. A place of darkness, its halls throb with a sinister history. Its rooms are filled with malice. Its walls echo with pain. Now it stirs eagerly with the approach of an old heir - Colonel Maeson Strock of the Astra Militarum has returned home to his ancestral mansion. He is a man broken, both by the horrors of war and by personal loss, and he has come home to take up the mantle of Planetary Governor. He hopes he can purge his home world of political corruption and reforge connections with his estranged children. He hopes he can rebuild his life.

Malveil will feast on these dreams. Strock believes he has seen the worst of the galaxy’s horrors. Malveil will show him how wrong he is.

Written by David Annandale.

Running Time 7 hours 51 minutes.

Narrated by Dugald Bruce-Lockhart.

©2019 Games Workshop Limited (P)2019 Games Workshop Limited Fantasy Fiction Horror Scary Haunted

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All stars
Most relevant  
Book is solid but just nothing special, vocal range of the reader is too small

Not bad but not great

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Though well read and performed, the story was confusing (maybe a tad boring) , not really 40k flavoured and Henry James did it better I feel - slight spoiler there. I doff my cap to Mr Bruce-Lockart for his energetic performances though. Not a bad read but if you want to delve into the Imperium these are not the haunted, forsaken doors i would walk through to get there.

A turn of a screw too far.

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The story was fantastic but the performance from duglad bruce-lockhart was bland and drab in my opinion

Good story

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It’s a decent story but it is not exiting or scary. The book is too long and repetitive. In my opinion it should have been much more distilled.

The way it is read is often confusing, the narrator does not make any distinction when jumping from one plot line to the next so as a listener you often don’t know who’s perspective you are listening to.

Too long?

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When I write reviews, I try to give an impression of how the book affected me, or what notable perspectives the book provides. I don't know if I should be more harsh in future, even if I genuinely enjoy the book. This one plays the gradual build up of mystery and horror very well. I had the chill multiple times. It's written so well and the narrator does a brilliant job. I've given a good couple of 5 star reviews, so I don't know how I can make this work stand out even more. I'm very happy to have completed this as Halloween approaches.

Can I give 6 stars?

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TLDR: haunted house story in 40k universe has good narration, good atmosphere, lots of haunted house tropes and strong writing to carry it all.

Up front:
1) it's a haunted house story with lots of the regular features and tropes.
2) it's a 40k story so no prizes for guessing which evil forces are involved
3) it's still a haunted house story so the 40k theme is slightly pasted on and could easily be swapped out for any time, place or fictional universe.

All this said, I really enjoyed it. Some reviews have criticised the range or overlap of accents and lack of a female co-narrator - the delivery is actually very good, with lots of emotion at the right times and the lack of a female voice wasnt a distractionat all.

The writing is solid and consistent, the plot is good and even if it's not wholly original just remember that haunted house gonna do what haunted house gonna do, so settle in for the ride and enjoy it for what it is.

40k universe made scary!

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David Annandale brings a Lovecraftian vibe to the 40k universe with his tale of a descent into madness brought about by the machinations of a daemonic house.

Brilliantly narrated by Dugald Bruce-Lockhart who manages to capture the essence of each character perfectly.

Great horror story

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Well told and excellently narrated. Pacing suffers somewhat towards the middle and end but recovers itself. Characters lack a little depth but still very well described. overall a worth while read.

A decent entry into the 40k horror genre

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A pretty basic haunted-house story, but with some interesting elements. The last hour, though, is a chaotic mess of repetition and "dreams within dreams", "what is really true", etc. It's an attempt at portraying the loss of sanity and breaking of the protagonist, but the writing is sloppy, and most of what happens is at best thinly related to the main story.

It is most likely an excuse to pad the end of the book, and an easy (and lazy) way of getting to the ending. Before this, I had never really been bored or uninterested, but the last hour really felt like a drag, and I had to force myself not to skip forward to get to something worth listening to.

The narration was acceptable. One issue was the narrator's lack of differentiation between the voices of the characters. This made some situations (especially where things are happening quickly) confusing.

The narrator also tends to keep a certain quick tempo, or pace, even when it does not fit what is going on. This leads to moments, which are supposed to be slow and dreadful, instead feeling like snappy action scenes. Other places, the narrator does a good job on both these issues, so I suspect some blame has to be laid on the production/direction.

Somewhat interesting, but very inconsistent

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I enjoyed this but, at times, it was like wading through treacle. These sorts of stories should be audiodrama rather than audiobook, with multiple actors playing the multiple parts. Having the same person (sometimes badly) doing different accents for different characters is sometimes jarring and laughable and cringe-inducing and great all at the same time. Have females playing the female parts and males playing the male parts-even two actors would be able to do it, but having a man trying to portray a female's voice then suddenly cut to a male's voice then a different male's voice with a different accent then a different female with a different accent from any of the previous voices is very distracting.

The story itself drags on way too long and could very easily have been a short story or even novella. The characterization is excellent, though, and the slip into insanity is well written, though the ending is telegraphed long before it arrives-a bit like an episode of the 70s TV show Tales Of The Patently Obvious.

Overall it was good, but it would have been better with multiple voice actors, and shorter.

Too long

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