“Fulgrim” By Graham Mc. Neil Summary 

The book starts out with a large battle on a planet as the Emperor’s Children fight the Laer. The fight goes a little off when some of the groups don’t arrive on time which inspires some curiosity and wonder being Emperor’s Children, yet this equates to seemingly nothing. The fight is fine overall, until after the Laer are defeated. Fulgrim and some of his officers move to the center of the cave on the planet and find a place of worship. Fulgrim then finds an odd sword there, and some of his officers are crippled from… something. After that, Fulgrim starts acting oddly, first lashing out against Ferrus Manus, then siding with Horus etc.

This is shown to the extreme when we come across the Eldar. Fulgrim tries to reason with the elder, yet he eventually lashes out, becomes extremely powerful from the sword he found at the Laer planet, or rather with the Amethyst embedded in it. Then he starts getting an evil voice in his head that slowly turns, with the help of the sing Bequa Kynska, and the artist Serena D’Angelus, the Emporer’s children into pawns of Slaanesh. It is proven to be Slaanesh when Fulgrim attacked the Eldar because Slaanesh’s name rang through his head, yet was proven late at the huge battle at Isstvan V. On Isstvan V, Fulgrim somehow leads the forces of the factions loyal to the emperor to Isstvan V. There, the “Horus Factions” fake retreat and the spies that they had in the other factions slaughter. Yet, against Horus’s orders, the Emperor’s children don’t retreat, most likely because of Slaanesh.

Then finally, Fulgrim is shown to be absolutely infested by Slaanesh as he kills Ferrus Manus, instantly feels terrible, and then his body becomes utterly taken over by Slaanesh. Through all of this, Apothecary Fabius is altering the gene-seed of Astartes and genetically altering them to be even more odd, more “perfect”, more like the Laer, and honestly, more suited to worship, work for, and exhibit Slaanesh. Fabius eventually creates a drug that Fulgrim advises for his Astartes, and when several captains ban these from their divisions, he kills them. At the very end of the book, “Fulgrim”, which even the book at this point is calling the “Fulgrim thing”, devotes himself to join Horus. Horus almost decides to try to kill him, but eventually decides against it.