Saturday 5 October 2013

"Prospero Burns" by Dan Abnett

PROSPERO. BURNS. IS. FUCKING. AMAZING.

But is it a good Horus Heresy book? Not really.

But is it FUCKING DICKBREAKINGLY, CLITORIS-SLAPPINGLY amazing? Yes really.

Does that make sense? Not really.

Let me explain a little.
One of the more misleading covers in the series.
You see, this book pisses off people for a few reasons.

One, kind of like in 'A Thousand Sons', PROSPERO DON'T DO NO BURNIN' TIL DANG NEAR THE END OF THE BOOK!!! How yew gonna call your book that AND NOT HAVE IT BE 1000 PAGES OF CHAINSWORD-CLASHIN', PSYKER-SMASHIN' GREY-ON-RED VIOLENCE?!?! How you gonna have all this faggot CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT shit all in your book, yo, when we know we just want MARINES FIGHTING MARINES UNTIL BOTH ARMIES ARE OPENLY CRYING.

Two, this is NOT the Space Wolves we know and love. Sure they hang out with wolves (the four-legged kind); sure they chill on Fenris in The Fang like some $wagged out bosses; sure they wear grey armour and have a load of runes and talismans all up on their shoulderpads. But they're also extremely downbeat, laconic and, well, not the ale-swilling alpha males you'd expect. I'll admit, I could get no more than a few chapters into the Bill King 'Space Wolf' books which (to me) read like a shitty Japanese RPG about half-understood super-Vikings (lots of mead, references to sagas, characters earnestly pledging to meet again in Valhalla and shit like that). But none of that here. Just lots of phlegmatic, darkly humourous conversations and desperately violent, short battles. In probably the most controversial scene here, they even openly dismiss the name 'Space Wolves' - and you can see why. These are Serious Dudes, and that name is, well, faintly ridiculous. Obviously, this is the highest Heresy EVER to angry "current-40K" nerds who are all Team Jacob and shit. The implication that perhaps 10,000 years go, their legion of boisterous space barbarians were a little different from the WH40K status quo... motherfuckers damn near took contracts out on Abnett's life. And Lemam Russ turning up, but not eviscerating ANYONE or even roaring at anything? And, perhaps (as 'A Thousand Sons' hinted so well) being a thoughtful, well-balanced guy capable of civilised conversation and bearing no apparent malice towards the Crimson King, but who feels he has to play the role of a brash warlord to be a more effective/fearsome leader? Don't. Get. Me. Fucking. Started. Abnett. You. Monster.
Space Wolves in a happier, simpler time.
So, this is less like the romanticised vision of Space Vikings we have previously seen in fiction about the 6th Legion, and more like the people of Fenris probably would be. I mean, their world isn't just hostile, it's seemingly designed specifically to stamp out any human life on it. The tribes live in constant war and even if they continuously win, their prize is to live out a pretty joyless, awful existence. This makes the survivors a group of people who were killers through necessity, and good at it, but didn't particularly relish life and realised it could be taken away, horribly, at any time.

I am fucking sick, by this point, of moments in Horus Heresy books where the author says "All the legions were designed to deal death, but (insert name of Legion this book is about) were... like, really, really fucking good at it, y'know. They were all about killing. Not like those pussy-ass other 17." But... fuck. You know if Abnett pulled that shit, he was gonna back it up by taking it to some OTHER LEVEL of violence. The battle scenes in THIS are, well, brutal. I read this before I read 'A Thousand Sons', and by the end, I was going "Shit, man, if I was Magnus and the Emperor sicced these dogs on ME, I'd be pounding on Tzeentch's door before they even made planetfall, begging him to take my soul so he could super-Saiyan me the fuck up." And the Thousand Sons are my dudes, they like reading, daydreaming, listening to the Smiths and burning people alive with their minds... but the Rout win this one, bruh. It was never even a contest. Forget McNeill's Stalinist revisionism where the Sons lost just because of the flesh-change. Team Fenris got in the mud on Prospero. They might not be marching into battle singing 'Immigrant Song' but they still reach out & touch their enemies real good.
The goofy over-the-top 'space vikings' thing isn't all bad. This cover is pretty damn cool.
Oh yeah, another reason this SUCKS and Abnett should DIE: The main character isn't even a Space Wolf! See, Kasper Hawser AKA Ahmad Ibn Rusta AKA as Trashbat is this wussy academic type who gets seconded to the Wolves due to, erm, almost dying on Fenris, and learns some shit about their ways and traditions and what have you. It's interesting because - to my knowledge - there hadn't really been a HH book before this solely from the viewpoint of an outsider/non-combatant - for the sake of argument let's call him a Remembrancer. We've had some characters of that nature, but we've never stayed in their perspective for a whole book. Don't worry, there's still loads of killing... but there are also some super-homo bits where he thinks back to his life as a 31st milennium archaeologist-type and the debates he had with colleagues on the nature of the Crusade and Man's role in the universe. DON'T YOU HATE IT WHEN AUTHORS GIVE MORE DIMENSION TO THE WH40K UNIVERSE THAT'S NOT CHAINSWORDS SLICING OPEN BOLTGUNS? If so you probably shouldn't be reading a Dan Abnett book... even a Heresy one.

Oh, the other reason this book pisses people off: Abnett references, many times, the wolves making a deep "wet leopard-growl" in their throats. I did see one dude sneering in his review "What this is I don't know; presumably the sound a leopard would make when it's wet." No brah, that would be a "wet-leopard growl". Check ya hyphenation son... you Gore Vidal-ass motherfucker. But I digress. As soon as I read this, I instantly 'felt' where Dan was comin' from. The wolves are so animalistic, don't you agree? And it's just a deep, gurgling, primal sound like a large cat would make. I do agree, though, that he overuses that particular phrase, by about 10 instances. But you know what? That's the ONE FLAW I feel this book has.
This would explain a lot (attribution)
If you loved 'Ravenor', or 'Eisenhorn', you will probably love Prospero Burns. It's colossal, history shaping events seen by a non-warlike, but intelligent, character who is often struggling to comprehend what he sees. In other words, he's us. See what I mean? Not necessarily a great Horus Heresy series book, but a superb WH40K book and a great dark sci-fi book full stop. 'Prospero Burns', I now reiterate, is probably my favourite Dan Abnett book so far and it's a masterpiece of 40K fiction. I give it an unreserved 10/10.

New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.
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2 comments:

  1. Unknown22 January 2015 at 03:13

    Puzzles me how anyone could think this book is anything other than awesome! Sits right at the top of the tree with Horus Rising for me. What an amazing writer Abnett is, tearing up the script and coming up with a fresh approach every time he works on the HH series. The others* seem formulaic, cliched and one-dimensional by comparison.

    Two minor gripes. One, what the fuck is going on with all the wet leopard-noises? Abnett is smarter than me, and I can't imagine he does anything by accident, so I guess I must be missing something. Two, I was pretty unconvinced by the passage (just after the rune priest gets possessed) in which Russ refuses to accept that the whole thing might be a plot. I can't remember the exact details, but his reasoning seemed quite flimsy to me.

    Still, that's me being picky. I wasn't too fussed about giving No Know Fear a go, but after reading this I'm going to have to.

    * Though I haven't read anything by ADB yet. First Heretic is next on my list.

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    1. IndieFaceKillah22 January 2015 at 12:04

      Really glad you liked it, man! The leopard-growls do certainly get annoying. I don't agree with the people who say it ruins the book, but after 20 or so uses, it's like, pick another metaphor. I guess maybe Abnett heard a leopard growling when he was writing the book and went "Fuck, that's what a VI Legion Astartes needs to sound like" but for whatever reason he never expanded on it. Editing is not BL's strong point, so the overuse may just have not been picked up on.

      It's OK to not like some of a great author's foibles, though. For example, ADB uses the word 'night' way too much in his fiction. (As in, every time you would say 'day', he says 'night'. Because in the far future, it's DARK. And in space it's ALWAYS NIGHT.) Gets on my nerves every time, but he's still a great writer (the bastard).

      As for Russ' flimsy reasoning for not believing Horus could have fallen - I'm with you there. Considering the message of the book is "Russ - nowhere near as dumb and straightforward as you might have previously believed", it seems out of character for him to willingly stick his head in the sand. I think it was probably meant to illustrate the high regard he had for Horus and the XVI Legion, but it came across as a bit stupid. That moment does pay off, though, later on down the line.

      Yeah, Abnett makes a lot of the other writers look like children scrawling in crayon. (No No No No No Fear will hopefully knock your socks off, though it's less complex than Prospero - it's a long, intense action sequence, like a really good martial arts movie or something.) Though I have to say I am a big fan of Chris Wraight. If you're going through the series in order, it will be a long time until you get to his book, but I think it's a rival to 'Prospero Burns' in a few ways.

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