Just finished the book, and it left me feeling distinctly unfulfilled, as if I missed a book between Damnation of Pythos and Pandorax, or maybe there's another book after Pandorax.
So, as always: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS****************************************** ************************************************** **************************
There is NO mention of the broken Salamander/Raven Guard/Iron Hands that landed on Pythos, and in, essence were defeated to the last man, or the Obelisk the cult on Pythos was looking for, or the subterranean Pyramids the Iron hands found. Instead, they invent new McGuffins called the Damnation Cache and the Prisoner of the Emerald Cave. One would think the Iron hands would have discovered and/or tried to destroy the damantion cache, and would have been the ones responsible for imprisoning the Prisoner, or at least discovered both prior to the Pandorax book. So there is a huge disconnect between the books. Also, at some point, Pythos has been settled by miners, but the Damnation book made it abundantly clear that the planet was uninhabitable, and that was from the perspective of Legionaries!
Also, in Damantion, the Grey Kngihts didn't even exist, so how in the world is there an 'original' Grey Knight standing guard for 10K years outside of stasis bubble that has 10K subjective year old psykers in it. WTF.
On page 255: it states that Malcador brought 12 men and women before the Emp to form the Inquisition. I thought it was people, and almost all were space marines?
Page 392: Abaddon captures Epimetheus, which I guess is *******ized classic Greek for the occlusion of knowledge (PROmetheus being the titan who gave man fire, a symbol of knowledge). There's a couple allusions to it, and Abaddon asks if he is the former Ultramarine, and even mentions that he killed one of Malcador's space marines. Who did Abaddon kill? And finally, he mentions on page 393: "Oh the irony.... the brother of ten who became the brother of eight. Azrael would tear this planet apart if he knew who you were." So who the heck is Epimethius?
What is the fate of Caldor Draigo that Corpulax speaks of?
On page 406: Caldor Draigo accuses Azrael of capturing and imprisoning Epimethius, and then references the other secrets of the Dark Angels, and the last sentence of the paragraph makes it seem like Azrael did take Epimethius prisoner, which turns out to be false in the epilogue.Previously, Caldor hinted that he knows what Azrael has locked away in the dungeons of the Rock. Is he referencing Luther? Is Luther even still around???
The very last sentence of the epilogue indicates that Epimetheus was one of the founders of the Grey Knights, but it's still vague (very frustrating), and Abaddon has him prisoner and gave Epimetheus's progenoids to Fabius Bile. What does Fabius do with these progenoids, and what happens to Epimethius?
All and all, I feel like this book was written for the sole purpose of NOT filling in any gaps, but creating more mystery.