What do you write when you hate a beloved classic? Not just hate, but fail to finish.
I recently read the first book in the Warhammer 40,000 series The Horus Heresy – Horus Rising by Dan Abnett. This is my first foray into Warhammer 40,000, and also the first book from Dan Abnet that I have read. Talking to friends who are fans of Abnett, I would often hear adjectives such as ‘gritty’ and ‘raw’ associated with his writing style. Two-thirds through Horus Rising and I think ‘boring’, ‘clichéd’, and ‘immature’ are more accurate. To be fair to Abnett, I think the issue is with the source material more than the writing quality.
Horus Rising is set 10,000 years prior to the events of the popular game and follows the exploits of the emperor’s favoured son and Astarte – Horus. The empire itself is inter-galactic and attempts to unite the scattered populations of humanity under a single banner. To enforce the emperors will are the Astarte’s – a genetically engineered ‘perfect’ soldier. As far as I can tell, the Astarte’s look like a giant WWF wrestler crossed with a baby. I’m not sure why they would look this way but it’s supposedly terrifying.
The belief system that the empire seeks to impose on humanity is one of fascist atheism – and compliance. The empire’s propaganda machine is constantly working to enforce the truth that life has no special meaning to it other than accepting and complying with the emperor. When the empire finds a human civilisation, the Astartes destroy its defences. Following quickly on the armies heels, the artists and diplomats then convert the population to full 'compliance'. If the civilisation is non-human, the empire destroys it completely.
The novel starts with the Astarte’s conquering a planet with ease – I think the planet is supposed to be the original Earth. Anyway, except for a few special guards that can turn invisible, the Astarte’s have no problem dispatching their enemies. The problems don’t begin until empire is fighting the last bunch of insurgents. It’s from here that empire faces its first existential threat. I won’t say any more to avoid spoilers.
What I liked
Despite hating the book, there are still aspects of it that I enjoyed. Abnett clearly knows how to write a good action sequence, and the few times our glorious Astarte friends faced an equal foe was actually gripping. Unfortunately, that’s where my praise ends. The book is loaded with bits of lore that I think would be fascinating to someone who is a fan of the Warhammer 40,000 series, but as a newcomer just made me groan. The book is obsessed with honour and obedience, which the main characters are constantly questioning and challenged by. It’s the sort of stuff I would have eaten with gusto when I was a young teen, but as an adult, it was too much to swallow.
Despite the setting being an intergalactic empire, the book is more of a fantasy novel than science fiction. None of the technology is really explained. This isn’t a problem for me, but I did find it ironic that despite bashing the reader with how atheist the society is, the few explanations offered for the technology rely on magic and mysticism quite a bit.
I’ve never reviewed a book that I failed to finish before. So there is, of course, a risk that the ending explains and redeems these flaws. If you think I’ve got it wrong, then drop a note and let me know.
Having crawled my way through this book for far too long, my backlog of books to read is starting to get a bit long. For those of you out there that have requested me to review your work, please be patient, I plan to spend as much time as possible reading this weekend.
My next read is another Sci-Fi classic – Red Mars by KsR.
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