"Battle For The Abyss" by Ben Counter

For a long while, 'Battle For The Abyss' was not just my least favourite HH book, it was one I actively disliked. Fan reaction to this novel has stayed near-universally negative, so I'm not alone. But having enjoyed 'Galaxy In Flames' way more than I anticipated on my re-reading of it, I was interested to see whether 'BFTA' was still dreadful.

"You alright bro?" "Oh shit, I think I'm gonna hurl."

In terms of publication order, this novel is the introduction of the Ultramarines/Calth/Word Bearers arc. (In terms of reading order, as well as chronology, I don't think many would argue when I say 'The First Heretic' is a far more suitable intro.) Keep in mind, this book was the successor to 'Legion'. It's clear Black Library wanted to un-blow our minds and keep expectations low. This  book starts surprisingly close to Terra, and we're introduced quickly to Zadkiel, our primary Word Bearer antagonist. Zadkiel establishes himself right away as a zealous follower of Lorgar and the Word. In fact, all the character traits he'll display for the whole book are laid out on his first page. What, you were expecting a character who changes his behaviour or whose motivations can be questioned throughout the narrative? That was foolish of you. Here's a line I especially don't like: "His grey, turbulent eyes conveyed vehemence and surety." No Ben, the author is meant to 'convey' that. The beginning moments also set up the novel 'Mechanicum', introducing Kelbor-Hal as a character and showing that Mars is about to erupt in civil war, so pick up that book soon, kids. I do like this element of HH novels, even though it's kind of a gross shill... when you re-read them, you can always see a few strands included that you know are 'teasers' for novels that came later. I like Kelbor-Hal's ruthlessness here, though it kind of just makes me want to read 'Mechanicum' instead...

Zadkiel closed his eyes amidst the maelstrom of devotion and savoured, drank deep of the zealotry.

The stakes are high, and we know this before the Word Bearers' plan is even outlined. Zadkiel has 1000 Astartes at his command - a full Chapter (shh, I know the Chapter sizes have been flip-flopped a lot in this series, IT DOESN'T MATTER TO THE NARRATIVE, nerds). The warship, called the Furious Abyss, an Abyss-class ship (helpful) is also introduced right away in the narrative and described compellingly as a real nice piece of work. It doesn't take long before we find out what Zadkiel's cooking. He's gonna reach Macragge, bomb one of its moons into fragments and then virus-bomb whatever survives the catastrophic meteor shower. An impressively Dr. Evil-like plan. Along with the strike against the bulk of the Legion at Calth, this attack would (if successful) left the Ultramarines broken beyond repair.

We then move to some Ultramarine characters - this lets us know that the call for the Calth muster has already gone out, which should give you some big-time chills (especially when you think of how long it took BL to actually DO anything with that plot point). Almost instantly though, our blue-armoured heroes are killed by the Furious Abyss, a slightly hacky but very effective plot device which probably gave me one of the only moments of surprise in the whole book. Then we move to some piece of shit space station and get to meet Cestus, our actual Ultramarine hero, plus his life partner Antiges. They're something of a Loken/Abaddon pairing, with Cestus being thoughtful and sensitive (comparatively) while Antiges is brusque and forthright. Then there's Saphrax, who is a real tightass even for one of the XIII. We also meet Brynngar, a mead-swilling, void-barbarian type of Space Wolf. You know, the cliché Dan killed (or the lore he ruined, depending on who you ask) with 'Prospero Burns'? To be fair, we can't expect Ben to anticipate a book published over 2 years in the future. Brynngar is a walking archetype but in this book, that's kind of the entry criteria... borne out by our next entry into this genhanced Dirty Dozen, Mhotep, in one of the lamer intros of the book, well... see for yourself:

"Hooded eyes spoke of intelligence, and skin, so tan and smooth that it was utterly without imperfection, suggested the nature of his Legion: the Thousand Sons."

Huh?! What a confused mess. I know Counter's capable of writing with power and clarity, so why this bullshit? Well, the theory that's been passed around quite frequently is that this was a rush job, completed under pressure so that BL could keep to their release schedule (maybe 'Mechanicum' was delayed?). There's no proof for that though, so I guess we can theorise however we want. Anyway, Mhotep is a lot like the Thousand Sons marine from 'The Outcast Dead'. He's suave, mysterious, and makes HH-reading babies cry about how overpowered his psyker abilities are. While supposedly heading to Prospero, Mhotep decides to join up with the other Astartes on the station due to INSCRUTABLE THOUSAND SONS REASONS.

Slogging through the daemonic horde... he felt the pressure on his sanity increase.

So, after that ship in the first chapter of the book realised it was getting killed, it sent a distress signal to the shitstation; due to his proximity to a malfunctioning reactor, or due to GHOST RAYS (pick one), Cestus is the only one to see the 'missing piece' of the message which states that Macragge is in danger (but wait, how could the dying ship know that? Did Zadkiel tell them his evil plan 'offscreen' before he killed them?). Cestus therefore has some important information but because it got to him through suspicious means he doesn't want to tell anyone due to his ULTRAMARINE ultrastraightness. It's some real soap opera "I was hiding in Rodney's closet stealing his coke stash, and I saw Tarquin fingering Annalise - what a dilemma! I'm in trouble either way" shit. Understandable I guess, but it becomes annoying and contrived quite quickly. Luckily, he doesn't take TOO long to confide in his homies. After the initial shocking development of the named, good-guy Ultramarine character being introduced and then almost instantly dying, Counter unfortunately makes it apparent that of the 50 or so Loyalists who flock to stop the Word Bearers, only a few will live long enough to develop anything that might be called 'a character'. I mean, only around 10 of them - if that - are given names or dialogue that doesn't go like this: "One marine with him, not mentioned before, was called Plasticfish. Plasticfish reloaded his bolter and said maaaan these Word Bearers don't like these explosive rounds. (Five pages pass.) The volley of bolts knocked Plasticfish's head clean off. I DON'T LIKE IT EITHER were his last words as his head flew down the corridor."

For all its faults, 'BFTA' has some pretty great moments. Unlike so many HH writers, Ben Counter can write a compelling void war sequence, arguably almost as good as Abnett (nowhere near ADB though). Also, the pace is good (this is the problem that ruins 'Fulgrim' and probably 'A Thousand Sons' for me). It's in ceramite-crunching action scenes that Ben excels, explaining the somewhat exhausting 'action sequence after action sequence' pace of the book. We're less than 100 pages in before the Word Bearers reveal their treachery and, though their motives are sooo mysterious at this point, it clearly sets up the situation. The baddies will race to the finish line, and the goodies will stop at nothing to thwart their evil plan, for the rest of the book. Standard action movie stuff. With this in mind, 'BFTA' does its job pretty well. It's kind of like 'Speed' with the desperately increasing tension, or perhaps 'Die Hard' in space. Of course, it has the common 'dumb action movie' problem of all the characters being fairly one-dimensional, the villains most of all. The Word Bearers have no characteristics aside from loving Lorgar and hating the Emperor (and Guilliman, kind of as an afterthought). Compared to 'The First Heretic' and its nuanced characterisation of the XVII Legion and their rivalry with the Ultramarines, it's laughable, but that's a pretty unfair comparison. The nature of that entire book was exploring the Word Bearers. This is all about CRASH BASH NAGASH. In fairness I should say that the relationship between Zadkiel and Ultis, an ambitious young Word Bearer line soldier, is kind of interesting. But only interesting by comparison with the rest of the relationships in the book (and it has zero payoff).

Oh yeah, here's a great moment. The Furious Abyss has a giant book on its prow. Makes sense, what with the Word Bearers' iconography, right? Now, considering the size of the ship, this book is probably the size of a fairly large high school. At one point, the book slowly slides open to reveal A MASSIVE GUN. Probably the dumbest Wacky Races-type bullshit I've ever read but it's played 100% serious. I just pictured Cestus on the bridge throwing his helmet on the floor and jumping on it going "OHHH THOSE DAMN WORD BEARERS HAVE GONE TOO FAR THIS TIME!!"

Confusingly, a lot of characters refer to the Warp as 'the abyss', which isn't much help when one of the main ships is an Abyss-class cruiser called the Furious Abyss. Also, sorry, but Furious Abyss sounds like something a livejournal poet would use as a euphemism for a vagina. (Just me?)

So, after the void battle, the Word Bearers flee into the abyss in the Abyss, the Abyss (see what I mean?) and fuck about with the Warp to make pursuit extra difficult, as Lorgar and his sons are wont to do. The Loyalists follow anyway, and struggle to make headway; tempers are frayed, as are the Gellar fields, leading to daemons manifesting on the ships and running amok. One of the ships is ripped open and killed by the Empyrean, described as a sea of deadly emotions which feed on the crew (OK, I know it's established fluff that this is the nature of the Warp, but when it was put in those terms, I could not help but think of this song when reading this scene, and just about wet myself as a result):

Anyway, Mhotep banishses a big scary-shit daemon by yelling and cutting the shit out of it with his special custodes spear that totally isn't a custodes spear. Dude is pretty overpowered, I guess I can see why some people whined about this but it's kind of tempting to overlook his Draigo Junior antics as he's really one of the only memorable characters (apart from the awfulness of Zadkiel). Skraal the World Eater is less forgiveable, I guess because while Mhotep is kind of every generic son of Magnus in the whole HH series, Skraal can't be reconciled so easily with the World Eaters stuff post-'Tales Of Heresy'. The Butchers' Nails aren't mentioned, just generic battle-rage; mind you, it is possible to assume dude has the Nails (as he is pretty much out of control and hulking out for most of the book, and when not in battle he's hostile and twitchy).

Following Mhotep's daemon fight, the brotherhood splits regarding his POSSIBLE HERESY (they even call it 'heresy', even though the Imperium is atheist as fuck at this point) with Space Wolf and Thousand Son taking harsh stands against each other. Dialogue is particularly poor in this section, there's a point where two Astartes say to each other in a very overblown way "You're a stanky liar!" "Well, he who smelt it dealt it!" "NO, YOU!!" I kind of wish this conflict subplot wasn't in here as it just seems too 'on the nose', accentuating the Russ vs Magnus faction-grudge and Nikaea ramifications that were dealt with in the Prospero 'duology'.

Skraal kept watching with abhorred fascination

Hey, Kor Phaeron shows up as well! He's... a sinister asshole dripping with arrogance. Whew! No fluffbreaking here. Actually, the information on Kor Phaeron is a little inconsistent. He's travelling to Calth with a bunch of powerful Chapter Masters, who aren't given any character development (well, not a surprise by this point) but are also, as far as I know, not mentioned again in the whole series. I guess they weren't so all-fired important after all. Or they were Foedral Fell and Morpal Cxir and co. travelling under pseudonyms...? I guess the Word Bearers would have a LOT of Chapter Masters, since their chapters can be as small as 300, but... I'll admit, one of my pet hates is inconsistency like this. "This character is super important and involved in making plans with another major character. You will never see a trace of them again." Also in these sections, mention is made briefly of that dude Sor Talgron, the boring not-Argel Tal from 'Scions Of The Storm'. (I had to look him up later though.) Anyhow, apparently he's close to Terra and keeping up the pretense of loyalty to get closer to the Throneworld and not provoke suspicion. Sounds like grounds for a pretty interesting story. Shame they appear not to have done anything with this one... yet.

Over halfway through this book, important characters start to die. The Loyalists make a bold attempt to board the Furry Abyss (...well, it made me laugh...) while it's docked for repairs. Surprisingly, using stealth as your weapon when you command Space Wolves and World Eaters doesn't work out!! This leads to a pretty great, yet predictable, battle scene - suddenly generic Marines are getting named, in a frantic effort to give their almost instant deaths some emotional weight... it doesn't really work, but great sequence. I was kind of surprised Antiges went out so quick, but at least Cestus didn't drop to his knees and go NOOOOOOOOOOOO...!!! That's reserved for McNeill books I guess. As this thread resolves in ignominious defeat for the Good Guys, with Skraal marooned on the Abyss all on his lonely. I really like the sequence where Zadkiel messes with Skraal's head, telling him the truth about his Primarch's allegiances. Skraal's response is predictable - "FAGOT LIES! I KILL U WITH BAER FISTS!" - but I like that they tried to mess with the guy's mind. Such as it is. Skraal actually goes to some pretty dark places on his Rambo-style journey through the Abyss; there's a part where he sees some 'From Hell' type shit going on to Antiges' corpse as the Word Bearers try to discern the future in his innards.

"They tail us ever doggedly, my lord" uttered Reskiel as he considered the reports of Navigator Esthemya clutched in his gauntlet.

Once a second daemon invasion happens to the Blue Team's ship, it really feels like Ben's out of ideas and blatantly padding the book - this sequence adds little (though it's a little better written and engaging than the first one, certainly ONE of them could be cut). The same kind of stuff happens again, and the only difference is that they actually see Mhotep breaking a daemon's asshole open, rather than just surmising that's what he did... but we're not given time to concern ourselves with that - as almost right away, Cestus and Brynngar are dueling to decide Mhotep's fate. The Brynngar strand kind of fucking loses it at the end, also dude says at one point "You're a sore sight for my eyes." HOW CAN YOU FUCK UP THAT PHRASE? Also, Cestus' hallucination/'spirit journey' into the mythic Hells of Macragge myth is... a bit much, but well-written - I like the conflict between the Ultramarine's cast-iron faith in rationality and his belief those old myths are bullshit, coupled with his old pre-Legion folk beliefs which have been reawakened by a load of crazy shit that he thought was impossible. I also like that in Ultramar, apparently rebels and non-conformists are consigned to one of the inner circles of hell, dying horribly as part of a giant machine that crushes them. Marx would probably have some shit to say about that...

This next bit is just gonna be a 'cleanup' scattering of tiny complaints that didn't actually bother me that much...

• Some misspellings I'm not 100% sure are misspellings: 'reclusium' (Abnett says 'reclusiam'), a tech-adept called 'Magos Epsolon'... hmmmmm. 
• A few times characters warn against "sacrificing (x) on the altar of (y)", a phrase I don't love and one that doesn't gain anything with repetition. 
• Too often here, the Ultramarines just act like 'modern' 40K Space Marines - just brainwashed Ecclesiarchy "Put your trust in the Emprah!!" dogma. So the book does compare poorly to writers who've tried to show the nuances of the 30K setting's attitudes to the Emperor and how the Legions are very different to the Chapters of 'today'. 
• Still, I'll give Counter some credit. His daemonic creatures are creatively done, unlike with so many HH writers, who seem to be happy to just describe the daemon models Now Available From Your Local GW. Counter actually puts effort into making some freaky-ass warp entities. 
• Unfortunately, most of them tend to get fucked up by Mhotep before they get a chance to really DO anything. 
• The ending here is in keeping with the rest of the book - cool/dumb action sequence where BIG SHIP GO CRASH. But DID MHOTEP DIE? Probably. But don't rule out an audio drama soon where Malcador sends Varren to Formaska ONLY TO FIND that dude is still alive and has been eating space-rats for years to stay alive.

Having re-read 'Know No Fear' again as well, Kor Phaeron's plan seems reeeeeal sloppy. So he was gonna trust one ship (a giant one, to be fair) to kill Formaska and Macragge all by itself? In that case, why would a load of other Word Bearers show up at Macragge and observe from a distance? Cause when they see the suicide mission FAIL BADLY, and then all go "Wellllll... we best get to Calth in time for 'Know No Fear' to start I guess... no loose ends here. Certainly none of US have the technology or armaments to destroy that moon ourselves with cyclonic torpedoes or concentrated fire or anything like that." I mean, the assault on Calth itself was meticulously planned, but it seems... LUCKY that in the day or so of build-up after Kor Phaeron arrives in the Calth system in the Infidus Imperator, no ship shows up from Macragge going "Yo, some giant Word Bearers cruiser appeared in system and acted suspiciously, then blew up, we went inside and there was all kinds of wacky Chaos shit in there, so I sez to myself Guilliman will want to know about this, that's what I sez." Yeah OK, the explanation barely needed to be included - the Word Bearers fucked around withe the Warp to stop any information reaching Roboute, like they do so many times in the series. But it would have been nice if 'Know No Fear' had addressed this. I mean, 'Betrayer' managed to acknowledge 'Battle For The Abyss'... no matter what their opinions on the material, I prefer it when the authors don't retcon previous plots out of existence.

Last of all... Counter kind of goes nuts here trying to avoid use of the word 'said'. People are bellowing, hissing or intoning instead (often their voices are choked with awe or thick with rage, too). I don't subscribe to the Elmore Leonard view that authors should only ever use 'said', on pain of death but I mean damn, you can say it SOMETIMES.

'Battle For The Abyss' is too entertaining for me to keep hatin' on. But there's too many dumb turns of phrase, and thesaurus-abusing word choices, for me to give it a high score. I give it 6/10 (though I did enjoy it much more than 'False Gods', that book is, well, better written than this one, and has more important scenes). I also give Ben Counter an apology for the stuff I said about him being the WORST GUY EVER. I'd not object at all to Ben coming back to the series, just give him enough time to write the novel and give him a good editor, after all, 'Galaxy In Flames' was pretty great. Mind you, most of the good ideas/enjoyable parts in this novel were re-done elsewhere much better, not least the 'mismatched Marines try to halt great evil against the odds' plot reuse in 'The Outcast Dead'. But then again, that was widely hated as well... except by me...

I'll leave you with the dream casting for Cestus, captured here facing the prospect of assaulting the Word Bearers' kingship.

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