"Know No Fear" by Dan Abnett

Know No Fear tells the story of The Battle of Calth. The Word Bearers mass (and plot) to crush the majority of the Ultramarines legion, getting vengance for their humiliating full-legion public spanking on Monarchia (see 'The First Heretic'). There's an ulterior motive aside from smashing one of the biggest, most Imperial-loyal (and therefore most dangerous to Horus) legions: Erebus, Lorgar and Kor Phaeron are cookin' up a big old UNHYGIENIC ACTIVITY which seems to feed on the colossal loss of life that hits both sides.

Fighting in space with no helmet is just another reason why Guilliman is better than you and me.

And boy is there a loss of life. At the outset, the Ultramarines have 200,000 troops massed (four-fifths of their entire strength). The Word Bearers only 50,000. Abnett doesn't specify how it stands at the end of the book, but fuck me, it's a meatgrinder. As you can see, the Ultramarines have the numbers, but the Word Bearers have surprise on their side. Actually, 'surprise' isn't really adequate to describe how the Ultramarines feel. They are probably the most practical chapter, but they just cannot conceive of the grim reality of their situation, even when faced with evidence; far too many stories end with Ultramarines staring blankly in horror and shock, while the Word Bearers gun them down, all the time singing creepy songs (quite possibly all from NIN's 'The Downward Spiral'). Not only are they betrayed and fighting their own kind - something they're not remotely prepared for - but they're fighting things which they haven't even really acknowledged the existence of - daemons, Chaos, religious people.

The format, in my opinion, is amazing - an ongoing chronological sequence of 'fragments', each time-stamped in relation to the 'mark' of Calth (the point at which Guilliman declared hostilities open). Primarily, the book focuses on a 50-hour period which changes things forever for the Ultramarines. There are exceptions to the 50-hour rule (including a FUCKING INCREDIBLE addendum which, by my - very likely wrong - calculations, is set about 25 years after the action of the book, and, yeah... dish best served cold...) but it's mainly about 2 days of carnage and daemon worship. (Insert sarcastic comment about Burning Man here.)

Radical!

The tone of the writing is often focused more on the 'practical' than the 'theoretical', to borrow from the Ultramarines cant. Brisk, declarative and wholly present-tense, it's very easy to get lost in. At times, it almost seems like another attempt at writing WH40K fiction as 'straight' historical record, as Abnett often seemed to be doing in his Gaunt's Ghosts book 'Necropolis'. While 'Necropolis' is a book I look back on more with admiration than fondness, the conceit works incredibly well here: it takes the 'hard facts' approach, frequently showing us the wider, horrific context of the ever-changing overall 'board' of Calth and juxtaposing it with stories of individuals caught up in the confusion. And boy, are the stories hard-hitting. Once we get past the initial stage of the outrage and the cussing of Lorgar's Chaos-ruled bones, we get to the Crunch: to borrow the slogan from 'Independence Day', we get The Day We Fight Back. While 'Know No Fear' is pretty amazing from the outset, the stories all gather in momentum as they reach the end, and the last third of the book reaches a frantic pace; your eyes will hurt from the QUICK EYES TRY READ FASTER WORDS, and I honestly found it incredibly hard to put this down at all. Even harder as I was reading it on the bus to and from work with no opportunities in-between bus journeys to read it; just imagine taking a 7-hour break from this book after reading the sentence "Kor Phaeron puts the athame to Guilliman's throat"!

One big criticism Abnett often gets is 'He can't write Astartes, he writes them the same as his Guardsmen characters'. Look, if you want to see Abnett write 'modern' Astartes read the omnibus about the Iron Snakes chapter. If you're a guy who thinks Astartes should never cuss, crack jokes, or show any kind of emotion, 'Know No Fear' isn't for you. If you want to read about Marines who are all blank verse, righteous indignation and periodically howling "FOR THE EMPEROR, BROTHERS!!!!!!" or "LAST ONE TO DIE IS AN ELDAR!" (actual canon Space Wolf quote), there are plenty other Heresy books for you. But you probably shouldn't read 'Legion' (Astartes: "I admire your balls"), 'Horus Rising' (Astartes: "Wipe your arse with the other hand for a while") or 'Prospero Burns' (Astartes: "Magnus? The fucking guy's a cunt"). Oh wait, you SHOULD read those because THEY ARE SOME OF THE BEST HH BOOKS.

One group of Marines that also cusses a lot are the Angry Marines. Those guys HATE Ultramarines, though.

So as a counterpoint, a lot of people have a different view of Abnett's cursemarines: as weird and semi-aspergic as they are, Astartes are human (on some level), and they are soldiers. They probably would react like human soldiers to some things, and occasionally use inappropriate language, and bleak humour, and show disrespect to their more stick-in-the-mud commanders. Abnett is a hit with this crowd, quite rightly. HAVING SAID THAT, my personal image of the 13th Legion does not really feature them being this (prim face all the way on) potty-mouthed. We can forgive the constant "YOUUUU BASTARRRRDS!" screams, since, well, the Word Bearers are bastarrrrrrrrrds of the highest order. But... dude, do they need to use so many cuss words? (Ventanus, as played by Jeff Bridges: "Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?" *exhales gigantic cloud of lho-smoke*) Actually, I honestly don't have a problem with the harsh language; I guess I just always figured the 13th were a bit more unflinchingly respectful of the chain of command, and emotionless, and robotic. Or Roboutic. In a way, writing down this whiny complaint I have has made me realise it was actually one of the best things about the book. It humanised the Ultramarines in ways I hadn't thought possible.

One of the best things about this book is that it tears at your loyalties. Let's face it, many of us who are fans of the HH series come to it as Chaos or Imperial cheerleaders. I was a HUGE Chaos fan when I played 40K and 'The First Heretic' really made me feel like the Word Bearers (frankly never my favourite Chaos chapter) could perhaps be MY dog in the HH fight. As for the Ultramarines, well, I was put off by seemingly 50% of the Space Marine players I encountered fielding an Ultramarines army, plus they always seemed like the most flavourless chapter. This does the impossible: makes me actually like Guilliman's legion and root for their victory. A nice way that Abnett accomplishes this is focusing on the most EEEEVIL aspects of the Word Bearers: of course, Kor Phaeron is the primary Word Bearers character, probably the most irredeemably evil dick in the whole HH dramatis personae (well, Erebus is probably more evil, but Phaeron is more of a dick). Though I felt oddly fond of KP at times in The First Heretic, here he just gets to dance around flitting between creepily placid serial-killer calm and furious gloating. Clearly, in the inevitable HBO miniseries, he needs to be portrayed by Kevin Spacey.

"So what does this 'athame' actually do?" "Oh, you'll see, John Cusack. You'll see."

Also, the 'mud-slinging' holo-chat between Lorgar and Guilliman is, well, hilarious, but will probably cause more straight-laced BL readers to hurl the book into the furious abyss. Frankly, there's no better way Guilliman can respond to Lorgar's oblique burnout ramblings than "Lorgar, you SHIT. Are you DRUGGED?" but him calling his brother Primarch a 'worm' and 'maggot' while Lorgar responds with 'you cheap Irish faggot', err, sorry, I mean 'arsehole', seems a bit juvenile. I hear that BL cut out the extended scene where Rob yells "You know what you are, Lorgar? A dickstrangling bitch" and Lorgar proceeds to say "Thirteenth Primarch? more like the Thirteenth crymarch, you baby" since it would, you know, hurt kids.

Barely any Word Bearers get moments of dialogue or character development, but that's OK. This is the Ultramarines' book, and boy was it overdue. Perhaps out of respect to AD-B, Argel Tal is mentioned, and glimpsed briefly, but we don't smell what he's cooking. I didn't even mind. Wait, wanting the Ultramarines to win and not wanting more time with Lorgar and Argel Tal? I suppose next you'll be telling me Abnett is making me actually like the Space Wolves... oh wait... There are some nice callbacks, also, to details in HH books past, like the scrapcode (presumably passed on from those scrubs in 'Mechanicum') being an integral part of the 17th's assault. Or John Grammaticus (that fucking smooth bastard) showing up again. Or Tarik Torgaddon's geneseed being used in an eldritch ritual to appease unknowable gods (not so funny now, is it Tarik?). I could have done without Tarik being reborn as a daemon called 'Tormageddon' though... smh.

Do I even got to say my rating? 10/10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is that shit which made me hella wet for Unremembered Empire (and my review of that will follow... soon). I know I sound like a fucking Abnett groupie once again, but the guy can do no wrong...

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