What is your least favorite HH novel?

[Bobss]

I'm glad I wasn't back reading the forum a few months ago...

 

I'm stunned nobody said Prospero Burns.

 

Absolute trash entry, that wasn't even self contained, and it's flawed concepts spread throughout the series.

 

Worst part is that it soured me on everything else Abnett has written since.

 

Prospero Burns will never be a bad book in my opinion, simply because Abnett's prose is strong enough to keep it afloat. It's the 180 of Guy Haley where despite some brilliant ideas and perspectives in his books (looking at you, Dark Imperium), they will never rise above mediocre due to his high-school-tier writing. I know that's brutal, but there's a reason ADB doesn't release a new book every two months

 

But... even when I read it 9 years ago I knew something was off. It's written like Legion, and while that worked for the Alpha Legion, it didn't work for the Wolves (yes, I know you can make an argument that the outside-looking-in perspective was good, but the simple fact is that other, better Wolves portrayals have dug into their culture from within so it's moot). It also reminds me of The Buried Dagger in that it feels like an old, old Horus Heresy book. I know that comparing 2019 to 2011 is daft, but even in 2010/2011 Prospero Burns felt like it was written in 2006 or 2008 or something

 

The general reaction to Prospero Burns from what I've seen and heard both online and IRL has always been pretty negative, and while I don't have a clue what happens at Black Library Towers, I feel like this poor reception caused Abnett to write the more conventional Know No Fear

[Roomsky]

Just chiming in that I think Prospero Burns was Abnett's best (period) until Saturnine came out (Anarch dethroning it from 40k shortly before). I love the focus on legion culture, turning the Space Wolves into a tolerable faction, and a menace surrounding Horus that's lacking from too many Heresy books. It makes Chaos feel insidious vs the usually goofy over-the-top force many others fall on.

[Scribe]

My problem with it is not the focus. My problem with it is that even written from an external to the Legion perspective, it lacks any kind of reasonable grounding with the rest of the setting.

 

I've spilled too much ink over it though to really want to dig into it again, but I will forever blame it for many negative additions to other books. :p

[b1soul]

Prospero Burns is one of the best legion-building entries in the Heresy. It's kinda like a drawn out Brotherhood of the Storm (which I think is even better).

 

Really think PB is far above the HH trash heap. Wet leopard growls aside, Abnett's prose in PB is some of the absolute best in BL.

 

Not a fan of the Executioner idea at all, but PB itself does not go overboard with it. It's ambiguous whether the whole Executioner schtick is the legion's official role or simply a product of SW self-indoctrination.

 

Similar to how Abnett's Legion doesn't overdo the Alpha Legion like how later works do.

[Scribe]

Doesnt go overboard?!

 

lol

 

The book was arrogance and misrepresentation to comical degree.

[Tarvek Val]

 

The book was arrogance and misrepresentation to comical degree.

 

I think, to some extent, that portraying the Wolves from an outside perspective was meant to give the reader an insight as to how the Legion functioned (or failed to do so) internally. The Wolves allowed themselves to be manipulated into furthering Horus's designs, so I think that getting a good, outside look on how that happened makes some of the observed arrogance acceptable in the text. I personally think that the text ended up being more meaningful when told through an outsider's eyes than it would have had we been given the PoV of one of the Wolves. I'm not saying that I loved the portrayal of the Wolves in Prospero Burns, nor do I consider that text anywhere close to being one of Abnett's best works. However, I think that it gets a lot more flak than it has necessarily earned.

 

The biggest mistake regarding Prospero Burns, in my personal opinion, was the book's actual title. When you name a book Prospero Burns, one might reasonably assume that it would be primarily about the attack on Prospero and the destruction of the Sons' homeworld, yet we know that is hardly the case in reality. I believe many readers went into the text with false expectations (through no fault of their own) and were heartily disappointed with what they read on the basis that it wasn't what they were anticipating. 

[b1soul]

What do you mean by "the book was arrogance"?

[Tarvek Val]

I belive he means the portrayal of the Wolves and their actions leading up to / including the Burning of Prospero, as seen in Prospero Burns. 

[bluntblade]

I don't think Dark Mechanicum already going full on warp with daemon engines and stuff would have been well received at all back then.

This is part of why Mechanicum might be my less favourite. It's not the most egregious "(external factor happens) and then he was good again/evil" I can think of, but it ain't good.

 

I really fail to see what grounding is missing in Prospero Burns. If anything I think it does a brilliant job of contextualising the Wolves, especially by giving us a rare look to a Legion dealing with Army regiments who aren't simply assigned to support it.

 

Hawser being an outsider is the point of the whole thing. It's the Winston Zeddemore thing.

Edited May 7, 2020 by bluntblade

[Lord_Caerolion]

 

The book was arrogance and misrepresentation to comical degree.

 

 

I think, to some extent, that portraying the Wolves from an outside perspective was meant to give the reader an insight as to how the Legion functioned (or failed to do so) internally. The Wolves allowed themselves to be manipulated into furthering Horus's designs, so I think that getting a good, outside look on how that happened makes some of the observed arrogance acceptable in the text. I personally think that the text ended up being more meaningful when told through an outsider's eyes than it would have had we been given the PoV of one of the Wolves. I'm not saying that I loved the portrayal of the Wolves in Prospero Burns, nor do I consider that text anywhere close to being one of Abnett's best works. However, I think that it gets a lot more flak than it has necessarily earned.

The problem with that is that if the book was attempting to use an outside perspective to show the arrogance of the Space Wolves, that they’re buying into their own hype, then it fails dramatically. Kasper Hawser never challenges them on it, and every other external character we see is falling over themselves to rave about how gosh-darned scary the Space Wolves are, that no other Legion comes even close to being as dangerous as THESE bad boys, and aren’t they just so awesome and so darned cool?

 

Did it add a new aspect to the Legion? Sure. However, it did it in the most ham-fisted way possible, inventing from whole-cloth a new central aspect of the Legions personality. Legion may have introduced the whole twin Primarch thing, but didn’t go so far as to have it as a defining theme of the Legion, that every Legionnaire had a twin, or some other such nonsense.

Prospero Burns, though, had Abnett giving interviews about how the Space Wolves were just so scary and bad that they were only kept around in case another Legion needed killing. There’s absolutely nothing in it to suggest this isn’t the case, that it’s just how the Legion sees itself. Nobody external stops to ask “but what about the World Eaters/Dark Angels”, etc, it’s all presented at face value with nothing to suggest it isn’t true.

 

Scars did Legion-building right. It took what existed, and fleshed it out in new and interesting ways. Prospero Burns was just “well, the Space Wolves get sent to beat a Legion, so obviously they must be the most awesomest and dangerous Legion of ever, cuz they’re going to execute Magnus, and executioners are scary, so the Space Wolves have gotta be the scariest of all Space Marines! Wait, you want me to actually show any of this? Naw, I’ll just have them leopard-growl at each other, and have an Imperial Army guy all but wet himself in terror remembering the Wolves drop a moon on someone!”

 

When you’ve got basically the entire novel being nothing but every character saying how dangerous and scary the Wolves are, it doesn’t sound like I’m meant to interpret that to mean they might be all wrong. I interpret it as the book abysmally failing at showing not telling.

[bluntblade]

It was never that the Wolves are the deadliest. It's that they wouldn't hesitate to carry out that order.

 

Are we really rehashing this argument all over again?

[Lord_Caerolion]

Dan Abnett stated in his promo video that the only reason they were kept around was in case another Legion needed to be taken out, and the reason they would have been destroyed if that excuse didn’t exist was... they followed orders too well?

 

I know that’s how it’s been explained since, and that’s why the Wolves are the Executioners, and not the World Eaters, etc. the fact remains that that information isn’t in Prospero Burns. The entire book is nothing but hyping up how dangerous they are, not how good they are at following orders.

 

Edit: to clarify, not arguing about them being the Executioners, just saying that the way it was introduced into their repertoire was in a shockingly bad way.

Edited May 7, 2020 by Lord_Caerolion

[DukeLeto69]

Doesnt go overboard?!

 

lol

 

The book was arrogance and misrepresentation to comical degree.

Wow you REALLY don’t like Abnett based on this and many other posts/threads!

 

IMO Abnett was/is the best writer in BL stable. That doesn’t mean all his books are the best but his total body of work is awesome and features exponentially more hits than misses.

 

Heck even low point Abnett is better than the best of 90% of the other BL writers.

 

Prospero Burns is certainly not to everyone’s taste and is probably my least favourite of Abnett’s books but it is still pretty damn good. Great world building and an attempt to update the hackneyed space viking aspect of Wolves.

 

Opinions on the book are definitely skewed by wrong title and (at the time) marketing.

 

Also...

 

It got delayed. It was supposed to be released alongside Thousand Sons by McNeil (they were also originally writing the other book but swapped). However, as he wrote it Abnett started getting unwell and was eventually diagnosed with epilepsy. This impacted on the writing (and repetitive use of “wet leopard growl” etc).

 

So by the time it came out everyone was hyped for the Wolves view of Prospero battle and...! The battle was actually covered in TS and it would have worked fine read back-to-back.

 

@Bobss above mentions that due to reception Abnett went more conventional with Know No Fear. Sorry I totally disagree. KNF was a brilliantly executed experiment of writing present tense to reflect immediacy of the premise/plot. Nothing conventional whatsoever.

 

As for my least favourite - other than usual suspects which are just not great books, got to say Angel Exterminatus which was very disappointing. McNeill is very hit n miss for me. Loved False Gods, Fulgrim and TS and liked Mechanicum and Outcast Dead (even with timeline mistake) But I couldn’t even finish AE.

Edited May 7, 2020 by DukeLeto69

[bluntblade]

Well, going by Abnett's afterword KNF's events were more expected.

[DukeLeto69]

Well, going by Abnett's afterword KNF's events were more expected.

I only have paperbacks so not seen the afterwords. What does he say (in summary)?

[bluntblade]

He talks about cackling and saying "is this what you wanted?" whilst writing the big destruction sequences.

[Atlantic]

Hi Everyone - I've been reading through these responses and thought I would share my thoughts too:

 

The Furious Abyss is Hot Trash served with a side of crap

 

Damnation of Pythos was pointless and soul sucking

 

Deathfire and Vulkan Lives had good points and bad points - the last battle in Deathfire was silly - especially when the Death Guard Captain got caught monologuing

 

The Heresy Series is a tough one.  Every now and again they publish something truly amazing - then there is a lot of stuff you muddle through to keep up with the plot and then you run into something completely ridiculous

 

Right now I'm working through volume 40 - I've been reading them in order off and on for years.

 

In general this is what I've taken away from it:

 

1.  The Lion is a giant turd and anything with the Dark Angels tends to be painful to deal with

2.  Corax is lame and Gav Thorpe shouldn't be writing the Raven Guard anymore

3.  Mortarion is another giant turd and impossible to connect with as he has been written

4.  Chris Wraight should be banned from doing anything with the Space Wolves

5.  Chris Wraight did a pretty decent job fleshing out the White Scars, but he doesn't treat his creations well

6.  Graham McNeill and Nick Kyme are all over the place in terms of quality - 

7.  If I were to order the authors in terms of quality - 1.  Dan Abnett, 2. ADB, 3.  Guy Haley  

8.  ADB has an agenda - meaning he has a vision he is trying to push into the series and lore which makes his work untrustworthy even at it's most awesome

[DarkChaplain]

 

 

The book was arrogance and misrepresentation to comical degree.

 

I think, to some extent, that portraying the Wolves from an outside perspective was meant to give the reader an insight as to how the Legion functioned (or failed to do so) internally. The Wolves allowed themselves to be manipulated into furthering Horus's designs, so I think that getting a good, outside look on how that happened makes some of the observed arrogance acceptable in the text. I personally think that the text ended up being more meaningful when told through an outsider's eyes than it would have had we been given the PoV of one of the Wolves. I'm not saying that I loved the portrayal of the Wolves in Prospero Burns, nor do I consider that text anywhere close to being one of Abnett's best works. However, I think that it gets a lot more flak than it has necessarily earned.

The problem with that is that if the book was attempting to use an outside perspective to show the arrogance of the Space Wolves, that they’re buying into their own hype, then it fails dramatically. Kasper Hawser never challenges them on it, and every other external character we see is falling over themselves to rave about how gosh-darned scary the Space Wolves are, that no other Legion comes even close to being as dangerous as THESE bad boys, and aren’t they just so awesome and so darned cool?

 

Did it add a new aspect to the Legion? Sure. However, it did it in the most ham-fisted way possible, inventing from whole-cloth a new central aspect of the Legions personality. Legion may have introduced the whole twin Primarch thing, but didn’t go so far as to have it as a defining theme of the Legion, that every Legionnaire had a twin, or some other such nonsense.

Prospero Burns, though, had Abnett giving interviews about how the Space Wolves were just so scary and bad that they were only kept around in case another Legion needed killing. There’s absolutely nothing in it to suggest this isn’t the case, that it’s just how the Legion sees itself. Nobody external stops to ask “but what about the World Eaters/Dark Angels”, etc, it’s all presented at face value with nothing to suggest it isn’t true.

 

Scars did Legion-building right. It took what existed, and fleshed it out in new and interesting ways. Prospero Burns was just “well, the Space Wolves get sent to beat a Legion, so obviously they must be the most awesomest and dangerous Legion of ever, cuz they’re going to execute Magnus, and executioners are scary, so the Space Wolves have gotta be the scariest of all Space Marines! Wait, you want me to actually show any of this? Naw, I’ll just have them leopard-growl at each other, and have an Imperial Army guy all but wet himself in terror remembering the Wolves drop a moon on someone!”

 

When you’ve got basically the entire novel being nothing but every character saying how dangerous and scary the Wolves are, it doesn’t sound like I’m meant to interpret that to mean they might be all wrong. I interpret it as the book abysmally failing at showing not telling.

 

 

I think you might have summarised what I've never been able to really wrap my head around regarding my feelings on Prospero Burns. I've read the book multiple times and enjoyed it well enough, misconceptions related to marketing choices and some bugbears aside. But you nailed that one point that made me hesitate lauding it as much as some others:

 

The Wolves' views, the impression Hawser got of them, was never really challenged. The only ones who do try are the Thousand Sons - and they're presented as the antagonists, the "bad" guys, who may not have acted out of malice, but were still wrong and had a bone to pick with the Wolves. We see the deception at Nikaea with fake Amon(?) and all, but really, we're not given much if any reason to earnestly consider the Wolves being wrong until :cuss hits the fan - but when it does, we're presented with tangible evidence of Chaos interference and the TS going all out with their powers, which leaves no room for reconciliation.

 

Hawser, as the external view of the Legion, is impressed with them from early on, and dismisses or doesn't even conceive of real doubts in the Wolves. He may be manipulated and act as some sort of recon puppet, but he's an observer who goes along with things instead of really being critical of what's happening. He's great for getting a feel of the Wolves as they see themselves, but he's not unbiased in his retelling - which is kind of the point, but it lacks the measured approach you might see elsewhere, especially where the Wolves' arrogance and reputation is concerned.

 

A lot of what Prospero Burns peddled, for better or worse, had to be addressed, relativized and recontextualized by other authors in short stories, novellas and novels. From watch packs over the executioner idea, to actions on Prospero and Nikaea, and even the Rune Priest stuff, the critique of their methods generally came after PB, and put it into a better, more fitting place for the series and setting. Just thinking on Nikaea, the book could have addressed their seer issue right there, even if it was just Mortarion remarking on their hypocrisy, rather than just Magnus and his Sons. But it was really just them that stood opposed to the Wolves and their notions, and thus Hawser's.

 

Contrasting PB to Legion, on that point, is interesting, too. Legion presents a specific view of the Alpha Legion and their customs, but it had multiple viewpoints, from Bronzi to Grammaticus. We had those that ate into the whole thing, and those that did not. It managed to deal with the Alpha Legion in a somewhat different way and even took their arrogance in some situations to turn it into a potential vulnerability while their activity was also presented more in the grey areas. With Prospero Burns, knowing what happened in A Thousand Sons and what resulted from Magnus' actions both at Terra and how he failed to save Horus on Davin, and knowing Horus manipulated the Wolves into shedding blood on Prospero, but also thanks to the Emperor's sanction via Sisterhood and Custodes, it was basically a given that the reader would see the Wolves as the justified heroes of the battle. Russ' regrets are apparent in later works, but none by Abnett. Bjorn's views are more nuanced in Wraight's stories, too.

 

The novel was consistent with itself, but it wasn't particularly concerned with being ambiguous or qualifying what it presented by pitching it against "neutral" opposing views from characters, Legions or Primarchs outside of the protagonists and antagonist. Had we seen Horus, for example, interfering with the commands regarding Prospero, on-page, that'd have helped. Had Mortarion made snide remarks, that'd have reinforced that the Wolves aren't playing things right, either, and their self-justifications are kinda silly - especially since both the Scars and the Wolves source their psykers' powers from their homeworlds, somehow, yet the Scars had their Librarius outlawed just the same. Had we seen, say, Sanguinius or the Lion in communion with Russ, maybe even alongside Horus before Prospero, that could have helped; have Sanguinius reach out to call for a measured approach to the situation while the Lion looks at them with disdain. Horus politicking his way into getting Russ to go nuclear before sending bleeding heart Sanguinius to the Signus Cluster, and riling up El'Johnson into supporting his manipulative schemes (while giving him more fuel to rage against Horus' betrayal of the Emperor and himself later, which could've also informed why the Lion didn't side with the Warmaster) could've been a simple scene towards the end that added context and made the whole quest less cut and dry.

 

In hindsight, despite featuring a look at Nikaea, I feel like Prospero Burns is too insular with how it handles the Wolves. It stands too isolated from the other Legions to pull their antics into question. It's no wonder that there was a war of opinions on the executioner stuff at the time, considering how the novel itself presented it - biased by design, but the bias wasn't acknowledged much, and instead even confirmed through Hawser.

[mc warhammer]

Hi Everyone - I've been reading through these responses and thought I would share my thoughts too:

 

The Furious Abyss is Hot Trash served with a side of crap

 

Damnation of Pythos was pointless and soul sucking

 

Deathfire and Vulkan Lives had good points and bad points - the last battle in Deathfire was silly - especially when the Death Guard Captain got caught monologuing

 

The Heresy Series is a tough one. Every now and again they publish something truly amazing - then there is a lot of stuff you muddle through to keep up with the plot and then you run into something completely ridiculous

 

Right now I'm working through volume 40 - I've been reading them in order off and on for years.

 

In general this is what I've taken away from it:

 

1. The Lion is a giant turd and anything with the Dark Angels tends to be painful to deal with

2. Corax is lame and Gav Thorpe shouldn't be writing the Raven Guard anymore

3. Mortarion is another giant turd and impossible to connect with as he has been written

4. Chris Wraight should be banned from doing anything with the Space Wolves

5. Chris Wraight did a pretty decent job fleshing out the White Scars, but he doesn't treat his creations well

6. Graham McNeill and Nick Kyme are all over the place in terms of quality -

7. If I were to order the authors in terms of quality - 1. Dan Abnett, 2. ADB, 3. Guy Haley

8. ADB has an agenda - meaning he has a vision he is trying to push into the series and lore which makes his work untrustworthy even at it's most awesome

ok

[Marshal Loss]

8.  ADB has an agenda - meaning he has a vision he is trying to push into the series and lore which makes his work untrustworthy even at it's most awesome

All authors have a vision that shapes how they portray the setting. Characterizing that as an agenda is ridiculous; declaring his work to be untrustworthy even more so. These are works of fiction.

[Scribe]

The only agenda ADB has is putting in as clear a way as possible, truth's of the setting that have existed for decades.

 

Full stop.

[bluntblade]

 

 

8. ADB has an agenda - meaning he has a vision he is trying to push into the series and lore which makes his work untrustworthy even at it's most awesome

All authors have a vision that shapes how they portray the setting. Characterizing that as an agenda is ridiculous; declaring his work to be untrustworthy even more so. These are works of fiction.

The only time I've seen any such "agenda" come up is when he's talked about "casting". The whole "most Terrans are gonna be brown-skinned in 30K", making it less of a sausage-fest... which I don't object too, in all honesty.

 

At risk of getting political and real-world, I should stress that I'm the kind of guy who, to gesture towards some survival-horror war movies, wasn't bothered by a lack of minorities in Dunkirk but had no objections to the Sikh soldiers being in 1917 either.

 

And if we're talking solely in terms of how character and theme are treating, "preserve it the way it always was" is clearly an "agenda" as well. As is "chart a middle course, keeping what works and adding things to improve it".

Edited May 7, 2020 by bluntblade

[Scribe]

Good points bluntblade.

 

I maintain ADB does nothing but lay out plainly and well, things which are consistent with the existing lore, and demonstrate facts which are uncomfortable for some, but facts that have existed for decades all the same.

[b1soul]

There is no immutable fact in a fictional setting, not even stuff in the "history" of that setting. The future is even less clear.

 

At one point, people would have said a dead Guilliman in stasis is absolute fact and he'll never come back.

[Atlantic]

I understand this can be a very divisive opinion - it's not meant to be disrespectful or to cause drama - with that said, I'm going to try and explain a little further as to what I see as problematic in ADB's work.

 

1.  Before I go there - I'm working through this critique and my thoughts aren't fully formed.

 

2.  ADB is clearly a very talented writer.  Every time I see his name on something - I know it's going to be good.  Better than 99% of everything else out there.  If he wrote the entire series himself it would be immensely successful and a heck of a read.  I just think from a critical perspective there would be some problems that are indicative of what I'm going to lay out here.

 

Now these are what I see as the perils of ADB and how he depicts characters and lore.  ( I haven't read everything he's written  yet - but I've read alot)

 

1.  Of all the authors in the setting, he really does the most to present the dark side of characters and their motivations.  Post Modernism can be fun, but absent the existence of some kind of objective truth or goodness in the setting - everyone just becomes a self interested individual muddling around in the weeds.   This is fine for 90% of the cast and situation, but absent some sort of truth or goodness or evil - things get watered down after a while.   After awhile things get stale when it is all just half truths, half evils, half goods, and false motivations.

 

2.  By watering down everything with impurities you lose the possibility for a truly grand dichotomy between good and evil.  Whether you like this concept or not - works like the Bible, The Lord of the Rings, have a certain height and staying power to them because they have this grand ideological struggle.  If rethought of just a little bit - 40k and the HH could be easily presented as the most epic story of good and evil across the biggest time scale with a whole lot of confused people working through it.  As it is set up now it's a big muddy mess that becomes lost in a swamp of gray.

 

3.  By making so many of the characters sort of grayish in regard to their morality the way that many of them stand out is by their force of personality and unfortunately that force tends to be kinda juvenile.  I'm the maddest.  I'm the snarkiest.  I'm the meanest.  I'm the toughest and I do it with a certain style.  It prevents them from truly standing on their own as many of them are just being dicks to other dicks and what makes them stick out is how they out dick the others.  Because they are measured by their peers in this way they aren't truly developed.

 

4.  If you limit how good someone can be you also limit how evil something else can be.  By diminishing the Emperor you also diminish the powers of chaos.  They might have cosmic level abilities but they don't have that kind of personality so they stop being so truly monstrous because their motivations become more relatable.  

 

5.  More than any author - ADB has pushed the Emperor as being a negative force.  It's not quite but almost a bit like that show Ancient Aliens.  All this stuff happened - must be because the Emperor is a dick

 

6.  The agenda is that I think it's pretty clear he knowingly does this stuff on purpose.  I think other authors don't quite do that.  His voice is so powerful that he drowns out the rest.  The lore and stories have changed alot from before he came on the scene.  Has he made dramatic improvements in some ways - absolutely.  

I think what I've laid out is a reasonable critique.