# Prospero Burns by Dan Abnett – Book review [djinn24]



## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

Professional Modeler and avid bookworm djinn24 reviews Prospero Burns of the Horus Heresy series by Dan Abnett in this awesome series, published by The Black Library.

The history of the Space Wolves is uncovered in Prospero Burns ~ The Founding Fields

http://thefoundingfields.com/2011/12/prospero-burns-by-dan-abnett-book-review-djinn24/

A man terrorfied of wolves his entire life decides after a life of academia to travel to Feneris, a planet reportedly filled with them. Upon arriving Kasper Hawser is thought of as a bad star he was pursued by the indigenous people of the planet until one of the demon wolves of Feneris comes to his rescue. He awakens 19 great years later to find himself in the body of his 22 year old self, instead of the 70 year old body he originally arrived in. What was the reason for the rebuilt body and near 80 year slumber? In the book 'Prospero Burns' we follow Kasper as he become the skjald, or history keeper of the Third Company

In my short time of doing book reviews I have to say this is the hardest books I have come across to do a review on for various reason. On one side of the coin it was a really well written book, something you would expect Dan Abnett to put out. The character development was well done, you really got to know the narrator and some of the other people that were around him. You do get some insight into the strategic mind of the Wolf King and his sons; seeing them as the strategists that they are, instead of the mindless killers other see them as. The downside is the story focuses on Kasper too much, cluttering the overall plotline with flashback after flashback that repeat the same information. At the end of the book they are finally tied together and you do understand why they were put into the book. My honest feelings is they could have been cut down as they really do bog down the momentum of the story. Honestly you could probably cut away 10 to 15% of this book and not miss out on much, if any at all.

Now I know this contradicts what I said before, but let me explain. I got this book expecting a killer Horus Heresy novel, and while it was exceptionally well written, it had a much slower pace then your typical Horus Heresy novel, especially one with the Space Wolves, known as the Vlka Fenryka in Prospero Burns. I found the book too easy to wonder away from. The book does start off at a great pace, you do get a great feeling of how the Space Wolves started and developed in the beginning; including their traditions, strategies, and the way they conduct business. There are some action scenes before you get bogged down into the flashback hell that gets shoved into your face. The title in itself is very misleading as well as the cover-art as well. While the planet Prospero does in fact burn, it is only at the very end of the book and is finished in one or two chapters and the Wolf King only appears in the last 1/3rd of the book. The rest of the time you are learning about the Skjald Kasper.

In a nutshell as a non-Horus Hersey novel this would be an exceptional piece of literature, but after the hype, title, and cover art you are handed something that does not really feel like a Horus Heresy novel. Overall I would give this book a 7 out of 10, the three points lost solely on the overuse of flashbacks, and the title/art that makes you think you are getting one thing while you are handed another. I do have to say that you do need to get this book, it may not be required reading for the Horus Heresy series it does add some nice little details on why the Space Wolves were created.

One little pet peeve of mine as well about this book is overuse of the term 'wet-leopard snarl'. Every time I heard this I pictured Sylvester the Cat sitting in power armor, so I had a buddy of mine, Adam 'Serpion5' Flynn to do a piece of art for me:


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## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

Please excuse the title, copy and paste error. It has been reported to ask for a change. Thank you for understanding! Please remember reviewers like feedback, just as much as painters!


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

I do agree with you by and large. The main issue I had with this was the misleading title and the fact that overall it added basically nothing of real note to the Heresy series as a whole. The only real lesson I took away from this was that Russ was a far more cunning individual than Magnus gave him credit for, but this has been said already in other sources. 

When I read A Thousand Suns, I really felt for Magnus and his Legion and felt a good bit of ire for the SW. 

Reading Prospero Burns did nothing whatsoever to change that, if anything only making me feel the same even stronger.


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## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

djinn24 said:


>


LOL my friend, LOL


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## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

Ploss and I where about to die when we were discussing this cartoon, and Serpion did an awesome job putting it all together in picture form.


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## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

Still my favorite Heresy book... *cough*10/10*cough* :wink: 

But good review.


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

I completely agree with Doelago.... except for the 10/10 part. 9/10 for a BL book. 

Considering the book explains the events which lead to the sacking of prospero, I really don't think the title was misleading. Though I can understand why some people were expecting 100 pages of bolter-porn. Actually, I really can't. We should have expected that this book wouldn't focus heavily on the actual sacking of prospero considering a good part of A Thousand Sons was devoted to that. All in all, I think it was a brilliant contribution to the series.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

gen.ahab said:


> I completely agree with Doelago.... except for the 10/10 part. 9/10 for a BL book.
> 
> Considering the book explains the events which lead to the sacking of prospero, I really don't think the title was misleading. Though I can understand why some people were expecting 100 pages of bolter-porn. Actually, I really can't. We should have expected that this book wouldn't focus heavily on the actual sacking of prospero considering a good part of A Thousand Sons was devoted to that. All in all, I think it was a brilliant contribution to the series.


There was plenty of potential for expansion on the Wolves side of the Prospero incident, and it was this that I was expecting. It by no means had to be bolter porn, it just didn`t have to focus so much on Hawser. 

Unless Hawser is gonna do something really fucking epic at some point in the future of the Heresy, I just don`t see the point. If something comes of this, I will reconsider my stance on this book but for the moment it just seems irrelevant.


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

Serpion5 said:


> There was plenty of potential for expansion on the Wolves side of the Prospero incident, and it was this that I was expecting. It by no means had to be bolter porn, it just didn`t have to focus so much on Hawser.
> 
> Unless Hawser is gonna do something really fucking epic at some point in the future of the Heresy, I just don`t see the point. If something comes of this, I will reconsider my stance on this book but for the moment it just seems irrelevant.


Never said you did, but more than a few people have voiced that opinion. 

Hawser was just a tool that was used by chaos to further their plans, and that tool was at the very least partially responsible for the sacking of the planet. Personally, I think he was extremely important to the heresy as a whole. 

As far as the story telling is concerned, he also gave Abnett the opportunity to tell this story from a human perspective, which I thought was a nice touch and a welcome change from the typical marine point of view.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

I have nothing against having a human viewpoint. 

But again, he dominated the story completely. This is supposed to be a series about the Heresy, the greatest civil war the Imperium has known centred around primarchs and astartes. 

Other books have covered a human viewpoint without sacrificing the astartes story as well. 


Honestly, if I were to venture a guess, I`d almost say that Abnett found it harder to write about the wolves than other astartes, so instead he took the easy way out. I can`t think of any other reason for the change in style between his other books and this one. 

Horus Rising for instance, a brilliant beginning that focused on astartes and human viewpoints equally well. 

And then... this.


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## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

the human viewpoint was overdone in my opinion, and no, I don't want bolter porn
I want well written Astartes-centric viewpoints (like ADB) 

I really hope Know No Fear doesn't go this route...


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## increaso (Jun 5, 2010)

One of the best in my opinion (next to Horus Rising).



> title/art [and Blurb] that makes you think you are getting one thing while you are handed another


 is the only real problem with it.

We get enough of the sacking of Prospero in A Thousand Sons. 

What would an astartes POV story achieve that this doesn't and what would another side to the Prospero event itself give us?


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## Roninman (Jul 23, 2010)

increaso said:


> One of the best in my opinion (next to Horus Rising).
> 
> is the only real problem with it.
> 
> ...


Im with you. People want more more text of sacking of Prospero and then they hide behind silly excuses "i dont want bolter porn". Combat WAS done already at Thousand Sons, no need to do it again, if you dont get it first time... Burning of Prospero WAS THERE, this was the culmination of this book and described events from Wolves side which lead to that. Anyone who blindly follows book titles, or looks cover art and thinks this novel is 100% that, should stop posting here literally. 

Hawser was to us also just a usefull tool. We got to see "new" Wolves and who they are even better than writing from their point of view. Outsiders look of things are usually better when author if trying to describe new things. Works in movies, works in books.


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## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

I'd have to disagree
if, say, 50% of _Prospero Burns_ were about, y'know, the burning of Prospero, it still wouldn't be pointless

only small portions of the siege were covered in _A Thousand Sons_ (mainly concentrating on several of the Thousand Son captains), there was a lot of room for expansion from the Wolves' point of view 

most of _A Thousand Sons_ was not about the actual siege...Prospero Burns could focus on the military actions of the siege (from the Wolves' POV) without being redundant

A book focusing on the actual burning of Prospero could work very well, and wouldn't have to be bolter porn (ADB's _Helsreach_ was entirely about the siege of Armageddon and it worked well)


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

MontytheMighty said:


> I'd have to disagree
> if, say, 50% of _Prospero Burns_ were about, y'know, the burning of Prospero, it still wouldn't be pointless
> 
> only small portions of the siege were covered in _A Thousand Sons_ (mainly concentrating on several of the Thousand Son captains), there was a lot of room for expansion from the Wolves' point of view
> ...


The entire book was about how Prospero came to being burned, therefore the tittle still works. 

A Thousand Sons covered ALL that was needed to be covered about that actual assault of the planet. What you are asking for IS 150-250 pages of battle scenes. This is a *Horus Heresy* novel. Not a space marine battles book. 

Really, an entire book devoted to the battle, and just the battle, would be completely pointless and would probably add fuck all nothing to the HH series. This revealed a substantial amount of information to the heresy. This book gave us the important answers of who caused the burning of Prospero, and why it was done.

Again, a HH novel focused on what was *already covered by another book*, would be completely pointless.


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## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

gen.ahab said:


> a HH novel focused on what was *already covered would by another book*, would be completely pointless.


OK..._Prospero Burns_ could've devoted as much space to the actual battle as _A Thousand Sons_ did (I'm pretty sure less than 20% of the novel was about the battle) 

giving us a good view from the other side wouldn't have been pointless, _A Thousand Sons_ only covered fragments of the battle on the ground, _Prospero Burns_ could've fleshed it out a lot more, granted us a grand panoramic view, or at least it could've completed our view by providing the other half 

instead, we got _almost nothing_ on the battle


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

Wow...... grammar fail on my part. Anyway, no, we didn't need any more on the battle than was already covered by A Thousand Sons. By that I mean that the Prospero Burns covered as much as was needed when it came to the actual fighting. The battle wasn't the main focus of the book, but rather how that battle came to be.


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

I'm generally with Ahab and Doelago here. One of the most cerebral HH books so far, and welcome in that. A bit misleadingly marketed, like the trailers for _Inglourious Basterds_ showing pretty much all the action shots in the fairly slow-moving film, but still an excellent book.


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## Xisor (Oct 1, 2011)

gen.ahab, move aside, make way. There'd better be room on that bandwagon for me. I adore the book. But the first 50 pages make me reduce it to 8.5/10. It's an amazing book, but it took a lot of effort to even begin to forgive the...'waste' of that first fifty pages. The best of that 50 pages could be contained in half the space, easily and possibly without much loss. 

I'm rereading it now; finally getting somewhere with it too. Good riddance, first fifty!


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

Xisor said:


> gen.ahab, move aside, make way. There'd better be room on that bandwagon for me. I adore the book. But the first 50 pages make me reduce it to 8.5/10. It's an amazing book, but it took a lot of effort to even begin to forgive the...'waste' of that first fifty pages. The best of that 50 pages could be contained in half the space, easily and possibly without much loss.
> 
> I'm rereading it now; finally getting somewhere with it too. Good riddance, first fifty!


Considering there is all of maybe 5 people on said wagon, there happens to be more than enough room. :biggrin: Also, 8.5 actually sounds about right to me.


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## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

I think most people that dislike the novel, (though they wont admit it), because it shows that the Thousand Sons weren't as innocent as they we were led to be in Graham McNeill's novel. But even if you read his novel, there are points in there that point out at Magnus being a fricken asshole before the rubric. 

As a further note, I think that the novel did extremely well in preserving the mystery of the Wolves of Fenris, by giving an outside perspective. I think they purposely did that, in a way to show, that there was no real way to understand how the Wolves worked. 

I don't think it would have been possible to write how one of the wovles would be thinking during a battle scene.


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

ckcrawford said:


> I don't think it would have been possible to write how one of the wovles would be thinking during a battle scene.


Incorrect. Observe. 

"I've got the ball. I've got the ball. I've got the ball. SQUIRL!"

Reasonably applicable for most scenarios.


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

Heheh, very nice. If a little trite, but I can bear it for the sake of humor.


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## Xisor (Oct 1, 2011)

ckcrawford said:


> I think most people that dislike the novel, (though they wont admit it), because it shows that the Thousand Sons weren't as innocent as they we were led to be in Graham McNeill's novel. But even if you read his novel, there are points in there that point out at Magnus being a fricken asshole before the rubric.


Disagreed. I think the likely reason for most people not liking it would be because their expectations hadn't been met. The blurb, the pre-book chit-chat does not lead you to think you're in for a sedate, cerebral mystery. Even a very well written, interesting one is going to be a bit of a let-down, to say the least, if you're coming for an action-adventure about destroying the planet of sorcerers whom the protaganists were finally being vindicated against...but all is not what it seems (but it's still an action-adventure).

Hell, I'm pretty certain it wasn't people crying about their precious Thousand Sons being beaten up by nasty Wolves.




ckcrawford said:


> As a further note, I think that the novel did extremely well in preserving the mystery of the Wolves of Fenris, by giving an outside perspective. I think they purposely did that, in a way to show, that there was no real way to understand how the Wolves worked.


I think they certainly did cultivate the Fenrisian mystery very well here. Though I disagree on the second point: I felt Wraight did this exceptionally well in _Battle of the Fang_ which makes a fine 'third book in the trilogy' combined with PB & ATS.



ckcrawford said:


> I don't think it would have been possible to write how one of the wovles would be thinking during a battle scene.


Again, I felt BotF did it rather well (without being 'too far' from the Heresy-era, indeed, many of the themes were precisely the same ones that could be carried over from PB/ATS, albeit separated by a while and with much 'left for other stories').


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## Roninman (Jul 23, 2010)

ckcrawford said:


> I think most people that dislike the novel, (though they wont admit it), because it shows that the Thousand Sons weren't as innocent as they we were led to be in Graham McNeill's novel. But even if you read his novel, there are points in there that point out at Magnus being a fricken asshole before the rubric.


Many also dislike novel simply cause there wasnt huge battlescene described again from other side. What couldnt it affect the outcome? Prospero would have still burned. This novel also was one of more literature type of novels from BL that ive seen in last few years and people dont seem to get it.


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## Stephen74 (Oct 1, 2010)

I've not read the book, I listened to the audio version instead and I have to agree in many ways with the OP's review. I felt that too much time was spent on the main characters journey for want of a better term to become a skaald. It felt far more a story about the Space Wolves than a book about the burning of Propsero. 

I like Dan Abnett on the whole, and from what I can recall he doesn't make use of stupid made up terms like many of the other 40k writers do and therefore, unlike many of the heresy books, held my attention pretty well. However, 'wet leopard growl' is a term that seriously made me cringe. What the hell is a wet leopard growl? 

I was dissapointed with the destruction of Prospero descriptions, especially in comparison to the battles described in Thousand Sons. It's interesting to see people discuss the two different viewpoints of the two books and it makes you wonder whether its just a case of two sides of the same story, or a case of two writers working very seperatley and too hell with what each other wrote. It can be very contradictory at times and that boths adds and detracts from the series overall. 

A lot of the HH books can be trimmed back a good 100 pages of filler and whilst Dan is deffinately not the worst offender, the flashbacks and the no wolves on Fenris (a confusng issue again thanks to what was written in Thousand sons) just felt like filler. When we do find out the reason for the flash backs, honestly, I felt it could have been done a lot better. 

A reasoanble book, but not one of Dan's or the series best.


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## Xarlan (May 2, 2013)

I've read "A Thousand Sons" and "Prospero Burns" back to back and of the 2 I found the first to be far better. I did enjoy Prospero Burns and if I would rate it I would give it like a 6/10. 

I think the second book just didn't add much to the story already told in the first. What was so done well in A Thousand Sons is that you would sympathize with the Thousand Sons legion and it's Primarch, the writer did an excellent job putting them into a victim role and you couldn't help rooting for them.

I was hoping that reading this book it would change and it would give me a different perspective, but it really didn't. In hindsight I wished I've read "The Outcast Dead" in between the 2 and would recommend it.


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