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hey all,

first off im gonna say sorry if this was already posted.

i was at my local Borders today and found the latest Horus Heresy Novel (Battle for the Abyss) on the shelves and was ECSTATIC. i havent gotten to sit down and read any of it yet, i just wanted to let everyone know who didnt already

peace out!
BLARGAG!!!

It isn't getting a lot of positive reviews.

Really, most are saying that, at best, it is merely OK.

There's a discussion going on about it in the 40K Fluff section...

I've read through the first few pages and BLEH, just bleh. Maybe it's because this one comes after Legion, or because I dislike Ben Counter's way of writing. Reading through this one will be a tough feat to pull off.

I thought the series was great until "Decent of Angles". I guess they made a sequel (non-Horus Heresy) to redeem it.

I really have no interest in the Ultra Marines. Although, Ultra Marines vs. Word Bearers might be cool.

The next book in the series focuses on the Adeptus Mechanicus. I think there is a lot of potential there. I'd love to see some hints at the Void Dragon being the Machine God!

~Logic

Yeah, sure that's going to happen..

I'm more interested in mentions of the Kaban Machine mentioned in the Collected Visions book as being a machine with real AI and thus, an abomination to the machine cult.

I'm almost done with the book, and it is indeed about 90% crap. It's about 85% fight scenes, 5% allies snarling at each other, and 10% interesting stuff.

There are actually several Chapters represented. The World Eaters and Thousand Sons are more interesting than the supposed protagonist and antagonist chapters, the Ultramarines and Word Bearers.

Ben Counter's command of the Queen's English is less than impressive. Mr. Counter, if you're reading this, a stench can never be said to be "actinic." C'mon, man, don't use words that you don't know the definition of!

I finished it a few weeks ago and

Just posting again to block out the spoiler from being in the post preview popup. Ignore this post and read the one above!

Have to say it was readable, would have to be really bad to be worse than Descent of Angels. Hopefully they will get back on track with later releases.

I started it a few weeks ago and finished it the other day.

Only Descent of Angels is worse in the series (still by a long, long way).

It really was a bad read. I am one of the few Ben Counter fans here on Dakka. This novel really shook my faith in him.

well i guess that its been out for a little while then. im gonna read it anyway (cuz come on its a HH book), tho you guys have given it a pretty harsh review already.

Funny. I liked it, mostly because it was an interesting perspective on the World Eaters and Thousand Sons marines in the book.

On its own I didn't think it was too bad in the end, a bit slow moving I'll admit that-but interesting to see how the Word Bearers conducted themselves against a brother legion.

I bought this last week but still haven't cracked it open. I guess I'll just read it while really drunk out on my porch.

Storm Lord wrote:On its own I didn't think it was too bad in the end, a bit slow moving I'll admit that-but interesting to see how the Word Bearers conducted themselves against a brother legion. (spoiler added)

Thanks for the spoiler alert.....

It's not as bad as some. Portrays the Thousand sons well and gives more insight to the Word Bearers. Portrays the Space Wolves as a bunch of goof balls who are always howling at everything thru out the book. I get that thier wannabe werewolves already sheeesh. The silliest part is were they bite thier opponents throats out. Yeah right. Lets pause the action so we can bend over and bite someones throat out. They do that and probaly get a bolter shell up the arse.

To me the overall quality of BL writing is declining steadily. They take in bad authors like Goto and Soulban who can't write for crap or even spin a good tale without being overly predictable and the better authors are not doing so well either any more. Gaunt's Ghosts has been steadily declining into a whining game of introducing new characters only to have them killed in the same novel and two of the better story franchises (Gotrek & Felix and Ragnar Blackmane) have been passed over to horrible writers who go a long way into ruining everything thus far.

I'm still holding hope for Mechanicum, Adeptus Titanicus and the sequel to Scourge the Heretic, but the rest seems stale and mediocre. Even the mighty fun Cain novels are getting old by now due to their stupid format written scenarios of one enemy in the open, one hidden behind the scenes and some jokes about jacking off and bad smells sprinkled on top.

BL was never great. The Ciaphas Cane novels I read were great pulp, and very entertaining. The first Gaunts Ghost novel is a great read, and a very good introduction into 40K.
Horus Rising was fantastic (that was the first Horus Heresy book?) but then they handed it over to less talented writers and it became a dissapointment.
There's a lot of potential for writing really good stories in the 40K universe (less so the Fantasy one), but they tend to be let down.

Well, it is BL warporn not The Brothers Karamazov. Regardless, I've seen better fan fiction than Descent of Angels....truly horrible writing. Most of the novels remind one of a DBZ episode, with various characters grunting, fighting and yelling at one another with homoerotic undertones.

Logic wrote:I thought the series was great until "Decent of Angles". I guess they made a sequel (non-Horus Heresy) to redeem it.

I really have no interest in the Ultra Marines. Although, Ultra Marines vs. Word Bearers might be cool.

The next book in the series focuses on the Adeptus Mechanicus. I think there is a lot of potential there. I'd love to see some hints at the Void Dragon being the Machine God!

~Logic

The sequel to "Decent of Angles" isn't a sequel to it. Actually "Angels of Darkness" is a rewrite of an older copy. This time it includes another section I believe.

"Decent of Angles" kind of made me sad for the series. It honestly just... blew. I highly doubt I'll ever read another novel by the author

i will hold my breath but long battle scenes are what ben does best.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:i will hold my breath but long battle scenes are what ben does best.

G

Well, if you like long Ben Counter battle scene, then you'll love Battle for the Abyss. :S

Ugh, I tried to read on but I couldn't. I'll just hold out for someone on Wikipedia to post a synopsis of it in due time. Congrats Ben and BL, another series of novels I won't be finishing the old fashioned way.

Legion was the bomb - really really good - they should emphasize quality over quantity at this point.

Descent of Angels was total crap, I must agree...

I have to say, all in all the novel wasn't that bad. It detailed the points in the heresy that hadn't been covered yet while presenting sympathetic loyalist characters. Each of the four loyalist chapters were presented in a positive light while setting up the eventual fall of half of those legions. The distrust and bickering was spot on I think for 'brotherly' love.

Yes it wasn't great fiction, but it wasn't aiming to be. It hit its target, imho, of a delightful fast paced weekend read.

i finished reading the novel in a couple of days and thought it was pretty good. I did think that the thousand son and world eaters kinda outshine ultramarine chare\acter, but i liked all the word bearer stuff, it really gives more death to the whole assualt on macgrage thing as well as thier chapter in general