Battle for the Abyss

[Skirax]

Basically I'm up to Legion, and I'm a bit annoyed by GWs sidetracking of actual Horus-Heresy related books, and I am not certian as to whether I should buy Battle for the Abyss or not. Please help.

[Raven Angel]

I say get them all. You never know when you will run across that little peice of fluff that turns into the next huge army project. Beside knowlegde is power right.

[Vel'Cona]

If sidestories are not in your tastes, Battle for the Abyss (hereby BftA) will make you bash your head against a wall. Legion, while a side story, is very well written (Abnett ftw) and has a great inside look on the Alpha Legion. It's not totally relevant to Horus Heresy as a construct, but provides great insight about the motives of the last founding chapter.

 

BftA has a host of problems, in my humble opinion. First, it is quite long and plodding for what is basically a very simple story. I found myself actually bored while reading it, hoping for some sort of interesting HH tidbit or something relevant to the character of the many Astartes chapters represented. I found next to nothing, aside from the Thousand Sons character who probably could have warranted a main role in the upcoming Prospero book as opposed to this tripe.

 

Secondly, the characters are terrible. Emphasis on terrible. The Ultras are whiney and really very insulting to Roboute's chapter, the Space Wolves are actually more moronic berserkers than cunning wolves, and the Word Bearers are like bad Saturday morning cartoon villains (think Cobra Commander or Starscream). Overall I found that the Word Bearers in particular really stood out as one of the most poorly represented chapters in any HH novel thus far.

 

Finally, Counter seems to have fallen asleep at the keyboard or something on this one. His dark and vivid imagery, so powerful in the early Grey Knights and Souldrinkers novels, is utterly wasted on a pedantic, overblown sidestory. I get the feeling he was somehow sidelined after Galaxy in Flames, and they sort of said "oh crap Ben needs something to write, here bro you're not Mcneill or Abnett so you get this crap." The result speaks for itself.

 

YRMV

[Dràyhèn]

Yeah it was a bit lame, but I liked. Word Bearer's were like some semi-evils, but I really liked that Thousand Son and Berzerker. And the overall wasn't so bad either. Well, it was enjoyable anyways, worth money spent. Not awesome nor crap. Good.

[Bigger-than-Jesus]

It's passable, and then you realise that the WE captain's been doing some guerilla warfare on the Word Bearer's ship for months, and only gets killed when he joins up with the rest of them. Then it's better(IMHO)

[Skirax]

I'm gunna bypass it. It just seems like a book I couldn't get into.

[arbogast1]

Good idea. I did not enjoy this book at all. Firstly, the Word Bearers were insultingly stupid, as were all the characters. Furthermore, I had some issues with the fact that a melta bomb detonates a large pile of torpedoes and yet the main characters (who are basically right next to it) all manage to survive the event. There were other things I found just wrong with the book, but I shall not list them here.

[Commander Proteus]

Honestly, I enjoyed the book.

 

I didn't like how hollow some characters were. Cestus is a walking manual, and the Word Bearers were so arrogant, and so full of themseves, they just made me laugh. I thought Skrall (did I remember the name right?) had a cool trek through the Abyss.

 

I liked the cat and mouse kind of set up to the story, and ship to ship battles always get me excited.

 

-P

[dex_911]

Believe it or not, battle for the abyss is my fav after the first 3 books. It portrays the ultramarines as I always imagined them to be (everything has to go by the book). The thousand son and world eaters, especially skrall made this book awesome. If you want to read some good detail of world eaters causing havoc and the cool calm and collected yet powerful nature of the thousand sons, give this book a read!

 

Cheers,

dex

[Daren]

While Battle for the Abyss is far from the best of the series in my mind. It is a solid read. I'll admit it's got a few slow parts in it. But when the book gets good it's really good. Cetus ( Think thats his name ) Is the main ultramarine character and he seems to fit the follow the rule by the book type feel the ultramarines give off. Skrall the world eater was easily my favorite character in this book. His solo trek through the Abyss later in the book was one of it's high points for me. I also felt the Thousand sons character was really portrayed well. The biggest disappoint for me came from the space wolves. After reading the space wolves book series I felt the ones in BftA to be a let down. The word bears in this book did come off as arrogant and sometimes a little stupid. But they still filled the role of antagonists well in this book. Finally the few space battles this book had were great. Of course I'm really a junkie for that type of thing so I'm not sure thats not biased. Overall I'd also recommend consider your feelings on Ben Counter. If you don't like his writing style or haven't liked any of his previous books. You will probably find this one to be much the same. However if you enjoy his books as I do. It really won't factor in then. Anway Since I seem to have rambled on I bit I'll leave off by saying while the book might not have any big plot for the heresy in it, it's a nice little battle in the overall scheme of things to look at. Hope this helps.

[Astalon]

I really enjoyed it, mainly because of Skaarl made me laugh out loud at his actions and to understand his perceptions of the same events of 'normal' marines and how they differ, i enjoyed the exposition of honour for the world eaters.

[Pacific81]

Aside from most of what has been already written, BftA underlines some important aspects of the Heresy. It shows that, the treacherous actions of Horus aside, the link of 'brotherhood' between the various legions was quite tenuous and strained.

 

The Space Wolves and World Eaters were perhaps closest in character, and often took the same decisions, despite them ultimately ending up on different sides of the heresy. The Ultramarines and Cestus, who was the glue that held all of the disparate views of the Astartes together, was pragmatic enough to realise that they needed Mhotep, yet lost a friend and ally in the Space Wolves for this decision. For him, there was no simple 'right' answer to his pradicament and even an Ultramarine, regarded as the most steadfast of the loyalist legions, was left with lingering feelings and dreams of betrayal following his actions. If one could regard an Ultramarine as being unsure in his actions, then it certainly mitigates many of the other decisions made by Astartes in the heresy.

 

I suppose it portrays how the heresy could have developed in a very different way had events unfolded in a slighty different manner. Horus made use of the inherent distrust (bigotry?) of the Space Wolves in manouvering them into attacking Magnus. Overall, things were not as rosy between the legions as they might have been, and there were very large differences in character between them. I think in this regard BftA was a triumph in that it fleshed out some of the background to the Heresy, and made the occurance of the Heresy that much more plausible.

 

But yes, the Word Bearers were absolutely useless! :P Fortunately they have a short story in Tales of Heresy which is slightly more complementary, and would probably be a better source of inspiration for those considering collecting a force of them, than the Commando-esque ineptitude they display in this book!

[greatcrusade08]

Hey skirax, the only advice i can give you is try it for yourself.

Opinions only really count when they belong to you ;), everyone here is a different individual and it shows from the differing responses.

Get it from a library or borrow it from a mate if your nervous about buying it!

Mumma used to say try evrything once!

 

GC08

[TheDarkApostle]

The Word Bearers are horribly portrayed IMO and as a Word Bearer fan I was really disappointed.

 

Not at all like the extremely disciplined force without bickering and the whole "fight til the Dark Apostle say stop or they're all dead" force they're said to be in their IA.

 

TDA

[Lord Tharand]

I'll echo basically what everyone else has said about this book. I felt that this was the worst of all the HH novels so far and even though I own it I'll never pick it up for another read. I felt like most of the dialogue was childish and it was setup like a D&D adventure with the main character meeting all his adventuring mates in various bars around the "starting city". Easily the two highlights for me where the fairly entertaining space battles and the WE Captain.

 

I found Tales of Heresy to be a much stronger book even though it's just a collection of short stories that don't really advance the timeline much.

[The lord cypher]

i would say read the book i found it a good read trust me any one who gasn't read inquisitor war cannot say a book is poor untill they have read this and all G.S.Gotto books its odd and i think most people dont like the book because it's ultramarines book and they are starch arses but it is them having to think out of there box. the book is good trus me i have around 60+ BL novles this i would say ranks highly within that collection

[andyundivided]

Legion, while a side story, is very well written (Abnett ftw) and has a great inside look on the Alpha Legion.

 

I honestly could not get through Legion. I loved Gaunts Ghosts, it was well written, well thought out, it had definitive characters, great plots, awesome battles, everything I love about 40K novels. Legion just did not hook me like Abnett's other works. Yes, I understood the concept that The Alpha Legion and Alpharius considered themselves one and the same, but after the third (I think) Marine said "I am Alpharius" I was done. It offered little, if any, of the insight into the Imperial Army which Abnett promised there would be. All in all, I just really could not finish this book.

[Vel'Cona]

Well, to be fair I would say Abnett is hit or miss with Space Marines. He does a great job writing the 40k universe overall, and this went a long way toward me considering Horus Rising the masterwork of Black Library, but his portrayal of the Astartes often ranges from sardonic (Legion) to emotional (Brotherhood of the Snake). This is often at odds with the noble, intractable nature most people prefer to see in the Astartes. Counter seems to prefer his Marines complex and individual, which I feel tends to polarize readers even more in regard to his work.

 

I believe McNeill overall has the best "mainstream" vision of the Astartes: gods amongst men, human but generally physically infallible, with his primary focus of character being pride. This is, in my opinion, the most true to background image of the Astartes in modern literature; his books appeal to so many simply because he writes Space Marines as the action hero type tough guys most young people want to see.

[Novak]

I just finished reading it. It isn't as well-written as some of the other Horus Heresy books, but I really enjoyed the World Eaters in the story, and some of the battle scenes were pretty awesome. I suggest getting it and reading it.

[Damael]

It was too drawn out, parts of it got boring but it was still a worthwhile read. Takes a while to get past the fact that the antagonist is a complete idiot. It's good seeing marines from a couple of legions fight together though.

[Muzza]

I personally have enjoyed all of the HH books so far (I haven't read the latest one-the 2nd DA one). I am glad that they've done what some people call these little side stories. They all took part durin the heresy or added to the background of the heresy. If they focused on the main part of the heresy it would be a very short series of books.

 

BftA was a little drawn out and like many others I found the WE character to be the best (his time on the ship is a great example of space marine resiliance). The WB however weren't well portrayed but that could just be because i've read the first 2 WB novels by Anthoney Rynolds which are amazing.

 

Overall it's worth a read, there are some background hints that add to the fluff and this was a fairly important event in the HH.

[Valinov]

I feel that 'Battle for the Abyss' was a decent book. I started looking into Warhammer 40.000 lore perhaps a year ago and I am therefore not a veteran of any kind. The book itself was far from the best of the now eleven books but it is still worth a read, I liked the Thousand Son and Skraal and it provided the reader with the ever hopeless aura of the Horus Heresy which I have grown so fond of. The book contributes to the overall feel of the series and I wouldn't recommend skipping it.

[randian]

1) I hated that the Word Bearers acted like buffoons. Why should the Imperium be scared of them?

2) There was no attempt to explain the Word of Lorgar, though it was referenced many times. What strange things does Lorgar actually teach? Why does a Word Bearer willingly embrace his own degradation? This was a prime opportunity to explain what worship of Chaos really means to a Word Bearer.

3) How the Mechanicum could have kept secret the construction of a ship like this isn't explained. Some Mechanicum flunky surely would have noticed all the bizarre Chaos markings on the interior and exterior of the ship, for example. In Mechanicum, the corruption of the Fabricator-General was basically coincident with the civil war on Mars, but that war clearly hasn't happened yet in BftA.

4) The destruction of a capital ship that big was too easy.

5) Ship appears. Ship destroyed before it can do anything. If the events in the book hadn't happened at all, there would be no change to the overall Heresy. How pointless.

[Amit]

To be honest, a weak story that IMHO has no relevance in the HH collection so far. You could read all the other HH novels, miss this one out - and you will not miss a thing. I thought it would highlight the Battle for Calth (UMs vs Word Bearers - in your face action). Instead it turned out to be a Poseidon-adventure-esque story with hollow plot and characters. I keep it only because it completes my HH novel collection...

 

UM fans must have had nightmares

[scarified]

I've enjoyed all the books so far, way i look at if you get annoyed with it all is you don't know what other impact that story has on another story that may come out.