Henry Zou

Henry Zou is an Australian Black Library author, apparently of Chinese descent. Intuitively, we can assume this makes him one of the space communists, though the only one with a bad accent. Also note that he is certainly not Chris Wraight.

The Books

Emperor's Mercy is about an inquisitor running around the sector, followed by his two henchman and a sexy French inqisitrix, trying to keep a step ahead of Chaos-worshiping space pirates trying to seek out a mythical superweapon that turns out not to be as mythical as it was first thought. Also, a general of the Imperial Guard with a Napolean complex tries to upstage and outdick an Inquisitor Lord, so you know how this will end for the general. Rather than handling the way any inquisitor in any other novel would have, the =][= guy tries to play it cool (we're saying the outcome you guessed at is takes a while rather than done immediately). The Blood Gorgons Chaos Space Marines also make a small appearance. While not the best portrait of the inquisition the novel is still fun to read, if at least for the battle scenes and trying to figure out what the Old King of Medina is.

Flesh and Iron has an Imperial force trying to put down a Chaos insurgency that calls itself the "carnibales", on a backwater swamp world. The force is composed of a regiment of space Cajuns, a combined heavy armor/mechanized infantry regiment, a ye olde maritime naval force; and it's all headed by an evil Ecclesiarchal cardinal, backed by his personal force of Sisters of Battle. Through the book, the space Cajuns roam through the jungles heroically getting shot to death by both sides, the mechanized infantry and cavalry sat around doing fuck-all, the navy managed to get a few ships just close enough to the shore to get blown to shit, all under the cardinal's trollfaced orders. The evil cardinal spends time abusing his minions, and presumably looking in the mirror to twirl his mustache and work on his evil laugh when he's offscreen (no, seriously, the guy is a complete asshole, it quite represents all that is wrong in the Imperium, think of a petty version of Goge Vandire mixed with Tomas Beije); while his SoB are probably having orgies, because he told them that not doing so is heresy. In the end the evil cardinal turns out (SPOILERS) to be evil, and then the Blood Gorgons show up and wreck his shit. Not as planned. There is an extra surprise which connects this novel with Emperor's Mercy and gives a whole new significance to the tittle "Flesh and Iron".

Blood Gorgons is about the Blood Gorgons. Go figure. Also, there are Dark Eldar poking around, too. The books goes to lengths to show that Chaos Space Marines, badassitude aside, can come surprisingly close to bro-tier with how well they don't mistreat their slaves and put a value on things like camaraderie and honor. Despite that, their chief sorcerer (who is a dirty double-non-heretic) betrays the Chapter Master in the book's prologue, to take his place as the start of the wider scheme to betray the Blood Gorgons for his own gain. (Yet another piece of evidence that psykers shouldn't be allowed to be chapter masters.) The story then takes them to one of the Blood Gorgons' recruiting worlds, which is under attack by Nurglites. It then follows the a Blood Gorgons chaos marine with his Dark Eldar on a leash, which turns out to be disappointingly devoid of homoerotic tension. Then the thing that happens to the Cardinal in Flesh and Iron, happens to the sorcerer and his buddies: Blood Gorgons make a come back and wreck shit, 2 out of 3 victories, not bad when compared with some other chaos forces.

On a side note both carnibales (the insurgent force in F&I) and the Ironclad along with the Blood Gorgons bring great opportunities for modeling traitor IG and CSM respectively.

Aaron Dembski-Bowden is the new golden boy, although Mr. Zou pops up from time to time (he has a short story in Mark of Calth, for instance).