~Part Sink the Bismark, part The Guns of Navarone, and all schlock...
Ben Counter has brought us the latest installment in Black Library's hit-Horus Heresy novel series. Battle for the Abyss tells the tale of the Word Bearers ruthless plan to ambush the Ultramarines as one of the Heresy's opening gambits.
What could have been an instrumental connecting novel, opening up the Battle of Calth has here been rendered stillborn in novel form. I won't get into any specific plot points, but there are many issues with Counter's latest work.
First is the style. Rarely has a book been more "put-downable" that this one. The prose is dry, and drags on unnecessarily for long stretches. As we have seen before in the Horus Heresy series, where Abnett shows us the 40k universe and challenges us as readers to enter this foreign world, Counter tells us about it as dryly as a grammar teacher. Where Abnett, McNeil, and Swallow have given us multi-faceted characters with conflicted spirits, Battle for the the Abyss give us cookie-cutter marines all around. Horus Rising is such an intrigueing novel because Horus is a real individual, and a force of good. You sympathise with him and struggle to see how this mighty warrior could possibly become the diabolical Warmaster. Battle for the Abyss offers the reader no such challenges.
We see Ultramarines who are painfully noble, (while fumbling through dozens of blatant logical errors) Space Wolves who are one step away from being literal wolves in power armor, and most shocking, Word Bearers reduced to bumbling, back-stabbing, b-movie villians.
Is it all bad? No. Counter has passages (in particular anytime he deals with the Warp as experienced by various characters ) that are outstanding, and he gives us a tiny number of standout characters. We are gifted with the first detailed rendering of what a loyalist World Eater and Thousand Son look like.
Taken as a whole however it just does not stand up. The entire novel is essentially an aside to the Horus Heresy, that is so seemingly self-encaplulated that the entire adventure could have not happened at all in the greater timeline. If you are a die-hard Horus Heresy fiend (like me) go ahead and pick it up. If you are looking for an exhilarating page-turner that you just can't put down that will expand the 40k universe in fundamental ways (Legion, Fulgrim, Flight of the Eisenstein) you might be better served by giving this one a pass.
The Guns of Navarone is always available for viewing and Gregory Peck and David Niven turn in quite a performance!
One Star (out of five)
