Salamanders: Tome of Fire

About the Salamanders: Tome of Fire series

The Tome of Fire trilogy is Nick Kyme's flagship contribution to Warhammer 40,000: a character-driven look at the Salamanders, the Space Marine Chapter built around loyalty, craftsmanship and a near-total absence of the superstition and religious fervour that defines so much of the setting. Kyme centres the story on two rival battle-brothers of 3rd Company, Tsu'gan and Dak'ir, whose mutual distrust becomes the trilogy's real engine: Dak'ir is haunted by a psychic connection to Nocturne's volcanic core and a growing suspicion that he is more than an ordinary Astartes, while the hard-line Tsu'gan sees only a brother flirting with the kind of deviation the Chapter cannot forgive.

Salamander (2009) sends 3rd Company into a warzone that exposes the crack between the two brothers; Firedrake (2010) escalates the mystery of Dak'ir's condition against a fresh invasion; Nocturne (2011) brings the story home to the Salamanders' volcanic homeworld for a climax that resolves both the Tsu'gan/Dak'ir rivalry and the trilogy's central question about what the Salamanders' famous discipline is actually protecting them from. It's a tighter, more psychological entry point into 40K fiction than the war-spanning Horus Heresy work Kyme is also known for, built around a single Chapter's culture and two brothers pulling against it from opposite directions.