Horus Rising by Dan Abnett: Book Review

Horus Rising by Dan Abnett

Dan Abnett is by far my favourite author in the warhammer cannon, His lively and descriptive prose really bring his characters to life in ways that other books in this setting don't.
His depiction's of combat lively and engaging, his reflections true and deeply touching. I must confess to being deeply enraptured while I read "Horus Rising", as the pure skill of the narrative shone through.
Those with only a passing familiarity to the war hammer 40k universe will enjoy this book a great deal, but the more you know about the history of the Imperium the more you will enjoy this book.

This is the first book in what has become the phenomenally successful Horus Heresy series, a series written by the greatest writers in the Black Library's arsenal, and, as such you can expect a great deal of depth and characterisation that goes beyond what you may expect from a "war" book.

Don't misunderstand, it is still a book about conquest and battle, with plenty of graphic and pulse pounding action to keep you reading until the conclusion, but as a singular work of science fiction it also stands on its own merits.

The book does however suffer from genre awareness, and it often feels that it needs to conform to the lowest common denominator. fortunately these moments are few and far between and overall they don't detract from the story.

Overall I would Heartily recommend this book.

David

 

This book is available from Bournemouth Library, you can reserve the book online using our catalogue, you will be charged 90p to do this - Darren