REVIEW: Unremembered Empire by Dan Abnett
How is the newest book in the Horus Heresy series, Unremembered Empire? Well… it is a Dan Abnett Heresy Book. Do you really need more than that?
A guest review by Rabscutle
Well, you probably do since you are still reading. Here are the big headers:
Writing Style
The style is exactly what you expect from Dan Abnett and his Heresy books. His way with words makes for addictive reading and fits each character’s voice perfectly. Usually for me, reading a novel is a struggle. My ADD eventually gets the better of me and I have to come back to something unfinished. Not so here, or with most of Abnett’s work. I didn’t read The Unremembered Empire so much as I devoured it. His storytelling weaves the threads of plot brilliantly, keeping you interested and trying to unravel context clues as your mind tries to guess where things are going next. But then right as you figure it out, his characters do too. Plot threads that feel extraneous become clearly valuable right before they would become tedious. As he ratchets up the tension and excitement for the action sequences, the impact on each character drives home the gravity and brutality of each moment. This book takes place over a few days, and you feel each character’s struggle viscerally through tight storytelling.
Plot
Well, stuff happens and then more stuff happens and it is awesome and there are Space Marines and Primarchs and they do stuff that is awesome. Big Red might have edited what I put here originally because I gave away too many spoilers. Just know that this book is about Guilliman, Macragge, and the struggle of what to do when the center of your universe is cut off. What does a commander do when he has no idea if home is even still there? What does a leader of 500 worlds do?
Story Beats
Friends of mine who talk about story telling always talk about the big beats of the story. Do you get those moments that feel right and push the story forward? How do you get them? Do they resonate the way they need to in order to tell the full story without dragging it down at the same time? Abnett drives everything in Unremembered Empire thru the eyes of a few central characters, mainly Robute Guilliman. Guilliman is given a sense of humanity and nobility that was always lacking for me, even in the brilliant space opera that is Know No Fear. The Primarch of the Ultramarines is a being in crisis here. He is confident he knows the way forward, but is filled with doubt about how to execute it. That confidence and doubt lead to wonderful story beats that drive home who Guilliman is to himself, his legion and the 500 Worlds of Ultramar. The other featured Primarchs, -REDACTED-, -REDACTED– and Sanguinius are given their moments, but this is truly Guilliman’s book, and you see him realized as a character through those beats.
Another important set of beats is how, through the numerous refugees who have come to Macragge, Abnett shows the variety of each Legion and how their individual strengths/personality/culture are such an asset while being a tremendous barrier at the same time. Those traditional rivalries lead to conflict, and part of Guilliman’s task is finding his way through it to unite the Broken Legions into one fighting force.
Rating – 5 out of 5
So yeah… I really liked this book. 5 stars. If you have been reading the Heresy series, this a nexus of sorts for some of the various plot threads setup since the initial trilogy. Abnett handles this with great care and skill – he called this one of the most difficult books he’s ever written. This book pays off a lot of that continuity and it sets up the next Act in the play that is the Horus Heresy.
This the the “Payoff Book” we have all been waiting for – read it!
