Vital Stats:
Page Count: 416
Era: Heresy (30,000)
Perspective: Ultramarines
Major Characters: [Inquisitor-text]Brother-Captain Cestus (Ultramarines), Admiral Zadkiel (Word Bearers), Wolf Guard Brynngar (Space Wolves), Mhotep (Thousand Sons), Skraal (World Eater),
Special Guest Stars: [Inquisitor-text]Kor Phareon (Word Bearers), Kelbor-Hal (Fabricator General of the Mechanicum)
Locations: [Inquisitor-text]Sol System, The Warp, Ultramar System
One Sentence Review: 30k meets the Hunt for Red October sans Primarchs.
A Few Musings: This is the first Horus Hersey book[Inquisitor-text] without a primarch in it. I want to start the review there because it is the books greatest strength and biggest weakness. The basic plot is[Inquisitor-text] that the Fabricator General of Mars has devised the largest warship ever created in secret. Granted to the Word Bearers, the ship The Furious Abyss leaves space dock around Jupiter to destroy the Ultramarines Legion. After the ship leaves dock it performs a shake down by annhilating an Ultramarines vessel. Brother-Captain Cestus, the protagonist, is waiting to return home with an honor guard retinue of Ultramarines on a nearby space station. When the aforementioned Ultramarine vessel does not arrive, Cestus deduces that something is afoot. This is confirmed to him in a vision and the death scream of the astropaths aboard the Ultramarine ship. Assembling other space marines on the station (World Eaters, Space Wolves and a lone and mysterious Thousand Son), Cestus pursues The Furious Abyss across the galaxy.
If this book had been set in the 40k era, it would have been better in my opinion. Unlike the recent Horus Heresy novels with dramatic reveals and very interesting characters, this novel felt a step backward for the series. It isn't a bad book, but just not up to the calibur of the others in the series. Counter is generally better with the "big concept" than the execution. His action is stronger than his characters. Also many of his characters fall into stereotypes with which we are very familiar.
