"The Unremembered Empire" by Dan Abnett

'The Unremembered Empire' is, on balance, probably the least impressive book Dan Abnett has contributed to the Horus Heresy series. It's arguably also an incredibly necessary one.

OMG SPOILERS.

Now, 'least impressive' seems like stark terms to describe a book by one of my favourite authors, but like my opinion of his short story 'Blood Games', just because I feel it's nowhere near as good as the others, doesn't make it bad, by any definition. Dan's the victim of his previous track record here. 'Horus Rising' started the ball rolling and we've probably all got very fond memories of it. 'Legion' is seen by many as the pinnacle of the entire series and I definitely agree that it's a masterpiece. 'Prospero Burns' is probably my favourite work of Space Marine fiction ever, in HH or outside of it. 'Know No Fear' is incredible and I doubt we'll see any subsequent book in the series able to sustain its intensity; even the Siege of Terra will probably be spread out across several books. In comparison, 'The Unremembered Empire' just doesn't stack up. Perhaps my expectations were too high but Dan was four-for-four until now, which might be why I pre-ordered this in hardback and finished reading it less than 24 hours after I ripped the cardboard packaging open.

Let me explain why I'm using the word 'necessary'. While many HH Abnett books (and also quite a few HH books from other authors) are better and more enjoyable than 'Unremembered Empire', they don't always give us this much narrative thrust. From 'Legion' and 'Prospero Rising' we got a shitload of incredibly interesting background, but in terms of plot points that were relevant to the larger series, only a few (OK, it was a BIG ONE for 'Legion'...). I know I've said in the past that people who want to shove the narrative forwards, and have no patience for 'world-building' interludes, are what is killing the Horus Heresy series. But sometimes it is a good thing for a book to be overcrowded with significant events - it won't necessarily be too great to read, but subsequent books will build on its revelations and, given more space, they'll be able to put more detail and art into what we first read. Like 'Galaxy In Flames'. I wouldn't say I enjoyed that book at all, but the events and characters have been used as a foundation for much more interesting stories by a lot of authors in HH series.

'The Unremembered Empire' is a follow-up to the events of 'Know No Fear', the 'Mark Of Calth' anthology, and 'Betrayer'. What transpired in those books shapes the story here, though don't expect to see a return of characters like Ventanus, Lorgar, Angron, Kharn, Kor Phaeron, Tetrarch Nicodemus, etc - it's more like, this centres on a Guilliman incredibly scarred by the monstrous events of Calth and the Shadow Crusade, and haunted by fears for the sons he left to fend for themselves in the Underworld War, which began over two years ago. However, in terms of stories and characters being picked up, 'Unremembered Empire' is a follow-up to... so many things. Most significantly, 'Vulkan Lives', but it also draws on 'The Lion', 'Rules Of Engagement', 'The Iron Within', 'Prince Of Crows', and 'The Crimson Fist'. And I'm not saying you get a brief glimpse of one character from each of these stories as 'fan service' and then they're never mentioned again. Dan does his best to integrate all these storylines naturally into his own. It's a massive task and he manages it very well; at no point was I thinking "You're here? But why?" A plot-heavy book, tying together a lot of the diverging storylines which have been left dangling or vanished in previous books, may well be exactly what the Horus Heresy series needs right now. However, the combination of all these different storylines comes at the expense of a lot of the things that made the previous Dan books so great: a clearly defined and fast-moving narrative, lashings of gallows humour, excellent dialogue, superb action sequences. All these things are THERE, certainly, but... less than I'd like. Power struggles and squabbling between Loyalist legions seems like a meaty topic Dan could really get his teeth into... so I'm not sure what happened.

My first, and most petty, complaint is that the cover of the book is misleading (this isn't exactly Dan's fault, I know). I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's Guilliman and Sanguinius, right? Yet Sanguinius makes no appearance until the end of the book, making this cover an actual spoiler (since it depicts an event which is literally a couple pages from the end of the book). DANG YOU BLACK LIBRARY! You made me think Sanguinius was going to be a major character here!

The lengthy introduction of this book is a bit of a slog, I won't dress it up. At first, I thought a novel entirely about Roboute Guilliman playing politician while slowly losing his mind would be a fun time. What can I say, sometimes I love it when series totally de-rail and also piss off their more inflexible fans. (For this reason, I also love the Star Wars Rogue Squadron book 'The Krytos Trap', which pauses a series about dramatic, high-stakes starfighter dogfights to... tell the story of a lengthy, politically motivated court case.) But this book drags a little. For a lot of the story setup, Guilliman and co. are just sitting around, going stir crazy, wondering what's going on at Terra, and arguing amongst themselves about the direction 'Imperium Secundus' will take. (The difficult second album, eh? It was doomed to be poorly received.) This is topped off by Guilliman seemingly having to convince himself constantly that he's not secretly hoping to usurp his Emprah, and thinking about the temptation to do that A LOT. This whole storyline does certainly shed light on his comments at the end of 'Rules Of Engagement' though. You can't accuse these HH dudes of not planning ahead!

While not every scene is gripping stuff, the actual writing is excellent; an early highlight is a brutal fight between Guilliman and a ten-strong kill squad of Astartes, one of the best action sequences in the series, outside, well, 'Know No Fear'. Guilliman's heightened reactions and superhuman ability to calculate the current 'practical' make this one of the best uses of on-page 'bullet time' (for want of a better phrase) I've ever read. But much of the first half of 'Unremembered Empire' is just... setup. Characters and events being manouvred into place, slightly clumsily, for when the plot can finally kick into gear. 'Vulkan Lives' felt like it followed the same school of thought - pages 0-200 set 'em up, pages 200-400 knock 'em down - and that wasn't my particular favourite book either. Having said that, around the time of the Lion's arrival, and the near-simultaneous arrival of John Grammaticus (and... some others) things do finally step up in pace. Sluggishly at first, but the feeling of quickly-increasing tension is very well done. It's just a shame we're nearly 200 pages in before the shit starts flyin'. And then, when the action starts, the problems don't exactly stop, though the book certainly becomes much more enjoyable.

SHIT JUST GOT REAL (pg. 200)

There were a few odd choices made in the writing of this book. In place of Abnett's trademark biting down-to-earth wit, the dialogue seems oddly stilted and... Shakespearean. Weirdly, it works very well. I wonder if it's because some people felt 'Know No Fear' showed the Ultramarines being too 'normal' in their speech? I'd much rather have that style as Dan is superb at it, but I can't deny that the more ornate language fits in with the 'family tragedy' theme the book has. Another strange thing is that Abnett sometimes refers to single Astartes as plural ("the Ultramarines sat with his feet up, eating an ice-cream sandwich" "the Dark Angels was an expert at karaoke"). Is this how they're meant to be referred to? Or a search-and-replace spellcheck gone wrong?

Also, there's a chronology issue I'm hella confused by. 'Vulkan Lives' ends with Vulkan escaping Kurze and teleporting to Macragge. This teleportation happens very near the beginning of 'Unremembered Empire'. 'Prince Of Crows' begins with Kurze in a coma after being badly wounded by the Lion; he's in a coma for most of the story, which ends with him teleporting onto the Lion's flagship. We're told in 'Unremembered Empire' that he ran amok on the flagship for around three months and is still loose down there when the Lion comes to Macragge. So... 'Vulkan Lives' takes us right up to the beginning of 'Unremembered Empire' in terms of Kurze's actions. And 'Prince Of Crows' and the Lion's exposition do the same... but the two timelines don't reconcile in my head. The only way I can understand it is if the entirety of 'Prince Of Crows' plus another 3 months transpired in the apparently split-second gap between Vulkan thumbing Dawnbringer's teleportation switch and Vulkan appearing in Macragge's atmosphere. I suppose that's not impossible, with the nature of time being famously fluid in the 40K universe... but I'd like a little bit more explanation on this... I'm sure they'll clear it up eventually (or maybe they'll just say "Ahriman is responsible"). Just like the timeline fuckery in 'The Outcast Dead', this didn't have any impact in my actual enjoyment of the story; in fact I only realised the weirdness after I'd finished the book. But you know, that's gonna make SOMEONE pretty angry... someone out there. 40K nerds seem VERY hot on this shit.

HH chronology confusion? The chickens are coming home to roost, y'all.

So the 'day-to-day running of a new Empire' aspect of the book is something of a non-starter. It sort of feels like Abnett could have dealt interestingly with the plot of the first third or so of this book as a novella, and then the high-octane action stuff could have been handed off to a Gav Thorpe or a James Swallow. However, that would cut out perhaps the most interesting plot point here: the troubled relationship between Guilliman and Lion El'Johnson. A Primarch groupie such as myself is always on the lookout for expansion of these characters and Abnett certainly delivers in that regard. Their rivalry is presented in a way that makes it easy to be sympathetic to both sides. Part of Guilliman's great unease at the Lion's presence is not knowing how his brother will react to the overturning of the edict of Nikaea. Yet we already know from the novella 'The Lion' that Johnson has gone far further in acting against their father's anti-psyker rule than Roboute had even dreamed of. This is just one of many plot points that reinforce the fact these two brothers just can't talk to each other maaaan. The increasingly tense confrontations that they have in this book make you wish that any other Loyalist Primarch had been the first to answer Macragge's call.

Does 'Unremembered Empire' feature the tragic infamy and mind-breakingly huge battles of 'Betrayer'? Is it a fast-paced page-turner like 'Angel Exterminatus'? Is it an edge-of-your-seat masterwork of storytelling like 'Know No Fear'? Is it an uncomplicated, ceramite-splintering romp that requires almost no effort to enjoy like 'Fear To Tread'? No fucking way. But it does seem a hell of a setup. With Kurze still at large on Macragge, with Vulkan... possibly... not being dead, with the three loyalist brothers here consolidating their power, and with John Grammaticus' story taking a new and strange turn, it definitely sets things up nicely for the next few books. But I'm hoping that for his next chapter in the HH saga, Abnett doesn't bite off more than he can chew.

In my ideal world, he'd return to writing about the Sons Of Horus ('Little Horus' really piqued my interest in Abnett writing about those dudes again) but if this book tells me anything, it's that it might be a good idea for Dan to be given a new Legion to write about every time he does a book, as this is the first time he's 'returned' to a Legion he's already written about and it sometimes seems like he's a little... bored. So... remnant Iron Hands, or perhaps the Death Guard, could be a nice idea... but hell, it's probably a little early for all this - I'm sure we've got several more volumes to come before we get another Dan HH novel. Since Gaunt's Ghosts and the Eisenhorn/Ravenor sagas are getting better and better, maybe he should focus on those for a while... and considering how good 'Embedded' was, non-Black Library fiction by him would be just as interesting to me.

I will give 'Unremembered Empire' 7/10 for now. 8/10 is a strong possibility the more I think about it, but we'll see. Depending on how the setup in this book is actually utilised, perhaps I'll look back on this as the foundation for something great. Or perhaps as another slightly disappointing HH book, from an author who can do much better.

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