# 9 Horus Heresy book reviews.



## raider1987 (Dec 3, 2010)

2 months ago I had not read a single warhammer book or anything like that, a friend of mine got me into them and now I am hooked, I am currently up to mechanicum but I have also read fallen angels as, believe it or not, I actually enjoyed Descent of angles. 

Rather than doing a whole bunch of review threads, I thought that I should just put it all in one thread rather than clogging up the forums. I have tried to be as spoiler free as I can. 

Anyway here we go:

Horus rising

This is the first warhammer book I have ever read, and it hooked me right from the go. The characters are incredible, and Loken gives any new reader to warhammer a good starting point, so everything is explained to a new reader. If you are considering a good book, this is an excellent series to start, and the opening trilogy is amazing.

9/10

False Gods

Again another excellent book, depicting the tragic fall of horus, and how it affects his legion. The battles are not quite as intense and epic as in horus rising, and horus does make a few decisions you would think he would be too smart to take. But the plot is so engrossing it didn't matter that much to me. 

8/10

Galaxy in Flames

This is one of the best books I have ever read. The story is amazing, the drama is incredible, and the battles are intense, where no character is safe. This conclusion of the opening trilogy is so incredible, it felt like I was watching the best film I have ever seen.

The first 3 books in the series have all followed the same band of characters, Loken, Saul Tarvitz, Etc, this book follows the same band. Many of their fates are decided in this book, many characters will depart from the series, although I am sure many will turn up in other books (as some have already).

This stunning conclusion to the opening trilogy simply can not be missed. An incredible read for anyone, fan of scifi or not.

10/10

The Flight of the Eisenstein 

I loved this book, the only issue is that it uses methods that are too familiar to the reader to introduce the characters that the opening really wasn't as exciting as it should have been.

The book opens with a legion, the death guard fighting some Xeno race. This is how every legion and character has been introduced so far, with the legion wiping out some xeno world, or non compliant world. It just didn't feel like an original way to open the book and introduce the characters, but its only a small complaint.

The characters introduced are excellent, Garro shines above all others. The book takes place around the time of the 3rd book, and even has a scene from garros perspective fighting in a temple alongside Saul Tarvitz. The same battle was in Galaxy in flames from Saul Tarvitz point of view, so the scene is a little odd as we know exactly what is going to happen, you just see it through another pare of eyes.

Garro is a brilliant character, he has even spawned his own series of audio novels, and the book follows his perspective, fighting xenos, then Issvan 3, and his escape with a few characters from the opening trilogy. Although many of the events, battles etc have been talked about or in some cases even scene through different eyes, it is still an incredible book with exciting battles, and a great twist. Unmissable.

8/10

Fulgrim

This book, as everyone who has read it will agree, is simply incredible. The characters are believable, and what happens, due to the nature of Slaanesh, is truly horrific. The character of fulgrim is brilliant and so tragic, its heartbreaking seeing his inevitable downfall. New characters introduced are also some of the best in the series, solomon, Marius are particular highlights.
However, this book may be over 500 pages long, but the time span covered is that of the first 3 books. The events kick off long before the emperors children meet with horus at murder, which happened in the first book. And the timeline stretches far past that of the drop-site massacre in the 3rd and 4th book.

This book simply covers too much, it is easy to see that Graham McNeill was clearly struggling against his word limit. This book could easily be expanded by another 300 pages. The dropsite masacre is covered too fast, great characters are killed in almost a rushed fashion. With events being told from memory rather that from the first hand point of view.

The Issvan V battle is also far too short, although it was more of a slaughter it still felt that such a massive event needed to be expanded upon. I am sure other books will give us another characters perspective eventually, but it just felt that it was squeezed in at the end.

But I am nitpicking. I may say that events needed expanding upon, but due to it being done this way, the book has an absolutely breathless pace that actually got my heart pumping on many occasions. This was an amazing book, 5* easily. However, it could have easily been a trilogy of books, and they would probably all be just as good.

10/10

Descent of Angles

I recently started reading the Horus heresy books and found them incredible, and insisted that I was going to read them all. After finishing fulgrim I had this book to read and I wasn't looking forward to it as it has receives less than favourable reviews from most readers.

However I loved it, the book is clearly just a small part of the dark angels story line and gives the reader an intense look on life on the undiscovered world of Caliban, where Lion el'johnson, one of the emperors primarchs has found himself.

99% of the book is from the same characters perspective, and this is refreshing for the series as the points of view tend to jump around way too much. The main character is Zahariel, a yound knight of the order on caliban, under the rule of Luther and the Lion. His story covers the great crusade on their planet to rid the world of the fearsome and deadly beasts that roam the land, then the conflicts with other knightly orders.

The imperium does not arrive until a few hundred pages into the book. Most of what happens could be seen as irrelevant, but in the next book in the dark angels saga, and book 11 of the HH series, all the events in the first half of the book will be revealed as being very important and determine the fate of the legion.

This book did take a while to get into, however once I was it hooked me. However, I would recommend reading Fallen angels straight away after this one, as it is clearly a direct sequel from this one.

I give this 8/10 if you read fallen angles after and almost consider this the same book. On its own a 7/10.

Fallen Angles

This is one of the best books in the series. Most people found descent of angles too slow and had little to do with the overall plot of the heresy, however in this book it unveils many hidden agendas from the first book. This is clearly a sequel from descent of angles, and I would recommend reading this right after descent of angels, as there is quite a few books in between.
The vast majority of the book takes place more than 50 years after the end of the first book, so the heresy has just begun. The two stories are with the cousins from the first book, each character has a fascinating and exciting story line filled with both intrigue and incredible action scenes.

The only issue with this book is that is clearly the middle part in a trilogy. It wont make much sense without reading the first, and if you are reading the heresy in order you might have to re read descent of angels again to get the full effect. Other than that is is an incredible book and one of the best in the series.

The ending is incredible, and I really can't wait for the next book with the dark angels story. But until then I still have a lot more HH books to read till I am up to date.

9/10

Legion

What can you say about a Dan Abnett book? If you have read anything else he has ever done you can expect a high level of quality, I mean on his poorest form he still writes excellent books.

This is not him on poor form, this is one hell of a read. I read it in 2 days and loved it. The nature of the book, due to the very nature and methods of the Aplha legion is confusing. Not to spoil what happens, but when it all comes together its truly incredible.

My only gripe with the book is that it is almost from to many different characters perspective so can become confusing.

The way the alpha legion operates is very different from any other legion, and this is made very clear. They very rarely fight in open warfare, they usually are pulling the strings though, controlling and manipulating the war to their benefit. They then strike from the shadows completely obliterating the enemy.
They even treat the imperial army like just another pawn, alpharius has such a mysterious nature that the alpha legion often identify themselves as alpharius so that most of the time, nobody knows who there primarch truly is.

This is an incredible book, filled with mystery and suspense. the alpha legion are truly unique in the ways that they operate, and the characters are brilliant, even though there are too many of them.

8/10

Battle for the Abyss

This book was not as bad as I was lead to believe that it was going to be.
The fact is that you could easily skip this book and miss nothing of the heresy. The story is great and some of the characters are also very cool. If you are reading the series in order this will be the first time you meet the thousand sons, ultramarines and space wolves. And a re introduction to the world eaters.

Some of the series more major characters and primarchs are mentioned, but they never appear in the story in any large capacity. The main characters in the story are highly unlikely to appear in the series again, so do feel a little underused. Some are killed rather pointlessly as they were great characters with a lot of potential.

Overall this is a fun book, the space battles are a little under whelming and not as good as the ones in fulgrim, and the combat scenes are done very well, with the warp powers of the thousand sons on full display alongside the ferocity of the world eaters and space wolves fighting together to achieve the same goal.

A great book I really enjoyed it but doesn't really add much to the overall plot to the heresy.

7/10


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Can't believe you only gave Legion an 8. For me personally its a full blown 10/10 and the best book in the series. 

As for BftA, i wouldn't give it more than 5, the traitor characters are so stereotypicaly evil and utterly lacking depth its untrue, and Cestus and the other UM have nothing to them either which was disappointing, hopefully when the UM get their own HH novel they will be better. The only things for me which keep it at 5 and not any lower are Mhotep and Skraal, they stole the book on any scene they were in, too se a loyalist World Eater as a main supporting character was refreshing and Mhotep was just as interesting. 

They seem to be dealing with Istvaan V by including it in several books in bits a pieces rather than one massive account of it, you will read more of it in The First Heretic. Still glad your enjoying the series.


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## raider1987 (Dec 3, 2010)

Yeah I did love Legion, but I had trouble getting to grips with the imperial guard as I have no experience outside the Horus Heresy. The friend who introduced me to the series liked it a lot more as he has read the gaunts ghost series. 

And as for Issvan V yeah I have come across only one expansion on it so far, Ravens flight, which was awesome


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## Cowlicker16 (Dec 7, 2010)

Can not agree more with Fulgrim getting a 10, this is my absolute favorite book of all time. Don't get me wrong all the other books are great in their own sense, thats the buety of multiple authors the style I think has been very suited for each legion they've been writing. But overall this the greatest series I have read can't wait for the new ones!


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## raider1987 (Dec 3, 2010)

Yeah it was one of the best. I have finished reading mechanicum and Tales of Heresy since doing this so Will update it soon.


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## Vulkan167 (Nov 24, 2010)

I can't believe Descent of Angles only got an 8, that was my favorite book


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## darkreever (Apr 3, 2008)

Vulkan167 said:


> I can't believe Descent of Angles only got an 8, that was my favorite book


Not sure I understand why you can't believe it. This is, after all, a person who is not you and may not get the same thing out of a book you both have ready.


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