Horus, Not So Rising

Horus Rising by Dan Abnett

Summary: After thousands of years of expansion and conquest, the human Imperium is at its height. His dream for humanity accomplished, the Emperor hands over the reins of power to his Warmaster, Horus, and heads back to Terra. But is Horus strong enough to control his fellow commanders and continue the Emperor's grand design, or will such incredible power corrupt him?

Review: A disappointing and rather slow beginning to the Horus Heresy series.

I had always enjoyed Dan Abnett’s works and have never given him lower than three stars before (most of his work gets four stars from me) so I hate to give one of his novels two stars, but I didn’t enjoy Horus Rising. I had read the third book in the series without realizing I was reading a book in a series and I had enjoyed it. I noticed that the books are written by different authors so perhaps I will enjoy the rest of the books in the series more. I do plan on reading the rest since it a fascinating time period.

Perhaps Abnett’s work suffered from having to set up all the characters (and there were a lot of characters), the plot, and back story. There were too many characters and I had a hard time keeping up with them all. Perhaps if I knew more about Warhammer 40k, I might not have been so lost and possibly enjoyed this book more. I have enjoyed other 40k novels, but was not too knowledgeable about the official history found in the codices. Although this story has already been stretched over 18 novels, I am interested to see how it progresses.

Rating:

Recommendation: I would recommend this to fans of Warhammer 40k and military science fiction.