Horus Heresy: Battle for the Abyss by Ben Counter
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Book Reviews of Horus Heresy: Battle for the Abyss
Book Review: Disappointing as it should have been much better
Summary: 2 Stars
As an avid 40K gamer I have read all of the Horus Heresy Books & have enjoyed every one except "Decent of Angels" which in my opinion "lost the plot"!
I looked forward to this book as I have read Ben Counters Grey Knight's series & thought them very good.
I have read only half of this new offering & have found it very heavy going. There is an abundance of overly dramatic descriptive dialogue & the characters seem wooden & one dimensional compared to the great characters in the first few books. On the other hand the Space Wolf characters are almost a caricature & seems to be based on the Klingons from "Star Trek". I could not warm to the Ultramarine Heroes who seemed to lack any really appealing traits. One interesting person is the Thousand Sons Ships Captain, Mhotep. The chapter where the Loyalist Marines go to shut down the Reactor in the Vangelis Space Port is really unbelievable. Unfortunately I could only give this book 2 stars.
Book Review: A pointless book
Summary: 2 Stars
This book is perhaps the worst-written book that I have ever read. Granted, it is the Black Library which doesn't inspire much confidence in plot or storyline to begin with, but there is absolutely no reason this book should have been written other than the fact that Games Workshop wants more of your money with no regard for quality. There are so many grammatical mistakes and misspelled words in this book, that I have a very hard time believing that an editor even looked at this before it went to print, and with spell-checking it's even more confusing as to how this got to market.
That said, this book does nothing to advance the Horus Heresy at all.
It is pointless to spend any money on this book.
Book Review: Needs Improvement
Summary: 2 Stars
I really doubt that I'll read another book from this series. I appreciate that they (the authors) espire to prolong the story but I was ready for some type of conclusion several books ago. The latest book was a choir to finish. Note to publisher, move on!Book Review: Horrible
Summary: 1 Stars
This book is lacking in just about everything. There is ZERO character development. Astartes start dying left and right and you will feel absolutely nothing for them because they haven't been fleshed out at all. More effort was put into a character that dies 10 pages in to the story than any of the "main" characters throughout.Even the names of the characters are completely retarded.
Worse yet the plot is just lame. It's a lead up to a lead up to a fight thats a sideline to an actual battle. This book can safely be left behind, it's an abomination in the Horus Heresy series.
I was very excited to see the Ultramarines in the Horus Heresy but more time is spent on the other legions which seem to just be thrown in randomly to begin with. It just so happens the Thousand Sons and the World Eaters are on the same dock with the Ultramarines and Space Wolfs and they all go take off after a mystery ship by themselves without ever contacting anyone else. I mean the plot is a joke. It's so horribly unbelievable that half way through you'll be wondering why the hell you bought the book.
This book is a dud, like Descent of Angels. The Black Library better start putting out better books in this series before they kill it completely. This rubbish won't cut it by a long shot.
Book Review: Not Even Doom Music...
Summary: 1 Stars
I love the WH40K universe and the lore and fluff behind it. The Horus Heresy series has been really awesome overall -- I could even tolerate Descent of Angels (loved the part where the Mechanicum bulldozes their continent to make a stadium for the Emperor).
Despite the general quality of the HH books though, Battle for the Abyss is just bad. Ben Counter focuses far too much time on writing long-winded and flaccid "action" scenes , and lets character development twist in the wind. Even when he is describing fight scenes, the descriptions are repetitive, banal, and just... well, boring. Like some of the other reviewers here, I found myself skipping pages. At times it was like reading a power point slide describing a fight in bullet format. Yawn.
Reducing a potentially rich story arc behind the Horus Heresy down to a dry play-by-play tactical account spattered with cheesy and meaningless (albeit mercifully brief) chatter between paper doll-cutout characters really makes this novel fail it. Hard.
That being said...
This is standard-issue Ben Counter writing. It's my own fault for buying it in the first place. Buyer beware with this author.