Prospero Burns (Horus Heresy Series) Book

Unlike any other Warhammer 40k novel I've read, I'd recommend this to those who aren't familiar with the series, on the solitary premise that it is just a damned good story, once you get past the (possibly unfamiliar) terms, characters, and setting.

I've read a lot of Abnett's stuff, as you might be able to see on my bookshelf. Every time something new of his comes out that isn't "Inquisitorial", I wonder if it is going to be good or overhyped. I tend to lean towards overhyped simply because I figure that if I set a low standard (even though I know that Abnett is a good writer), I'll finish being amazed, shocked, and generally glad I read the book.

Did it change my life?

No.

Did it make me totally reevaluate my purpose in life and the meaning our our human existence, or ponder the vagaries of our collective species and eternal questions we grapple with in a pugilistic manner as a species such as "Why are we here?" or "Where are we going?"

No.

Did it make me look into myself and reconsider such things as the way I live, interact, or deal with my friends, family, or my reality, by forcing me to inquire and cross-section some dearly held belief that would turn things on their head only to come out of the reading tunnel a new, changed man?

Fuck no.

Was it a good story?

Yes.

Was it a good story that, at points, got very meta-, and explored the relationship between the tale and the teller, the audience and the performer, the reader and the writer, all simultaneously, while spinning an awesome yarn about one of the most possibly mis-understood Adeptus Astartes chapters during the Great Crusade of the Imperium of Man, led by the Immortal Emperor, Master of Mankind? .

Yes.

Was it a good use of my time to escape, to reflect on my own interest in stories and writing and literature and how we manage to keep stories with us over time, how we remember them, and how we tell them to our friends and family?

YES.

Did it remind me as to why books will never go away, even though they are being today crowded out by things such as the Kindle, Nook, other eReaders, including my own iPhone, and in turn give me a sense of reassurance that this medium will continue, even into the far-flung future of the 40th millenia, and about how our stories become a part of our cultural DNA, allowing us to remember our long lost friends and family, mark special events, and gather together as we did so many centuries ago around the literal (and now metaphorical) campfire, helping us maintain a link to our past while educating us about our futures and the choices we will have to make?

Oh, YES it did.

More than anything else, this story made me feel the sense of wonder I had when I was a child in elementary school. When I was in fourth grade, we had something called "International day", where each class we went to was a different nation (or states, like Hawa'ii) that was represented/taught by a teacher. There were exotic places like Japan, Germany, and Hungary... but the one that I will always remember was England.

It was Ms. Barnes' class. There were only a handful of us, less than ten total, perhaps.

We all assembled around one of those round tables with a well cut in one side for the teacher. Ms. Barnes' turned off all the lights, lit a candle, and began to tell us a story.

A story about a man, a man from a far and distant land, who goes to the aid of a king in need, a king who has reached glory in his time, has gained loyal and strong warriors as his subjects. He has a beautiful wife as his queen, and all is well and good until he is beset by a plague that knows no fear or mercy. An unnatural beast from hell that comes to slay his men out of anger, hatred, and jealousy.

This man comes not for gold, or favors, but out of a genuine desire to not only help but to make a name for himself. To exalt himself with deeds of glory and bravery, to have his story told and retold over and over again around the campfires.

Man and beast meet. They fight. For the first time, Man wins with the visitor grievously wounding the beast, so much that it runs away to hide and die in its den...

... and as we listened, for the first time in my life, I heard the story of Hrothgar, his Hall Heorot, the creature known as Grendel, and the man that would come to best him, known as Beowulf of the Geats.

I remember to this day the look and feel of the class, my teacher's face as she told the tale to us in the old ways, the way an olden bard would have, under the low firelight, surrounded by my companions in battle, after a long day. She moved her hands, showing the action of the story, and her voice told the story in a way I'd never heard a story told before to me.

The next thing I remember was the bell ringing, and walking out of that class utterly blown away by what had just happened.

Years later, when I was substitute teaching a classroom of fifth graders, and we had about twenty minutes before the bell to go home rang, I needed something to do with the kids. We'd finished all our classwork. We were done with the day's plans. The kids wanted to chill and goof off, but then suddenly I had an idea, and had them turn out the lights.

With nothing more than an overhead projector turned on, I carried on that thread, that tradition, and proceeded to hold an entire class of squirrelly fifth grade students enthralled, much the way a skald of the olden days would have. I told the story with detail and movement, embellishing points of interest (at that age, all kids love stuff like gore and violence if its obviously imaginary), and most important of all, making them join me in my story-telling by having them visualize it in their minds.

Much the same way my former teacher, Ms. Barnes, had done so with me more than a decade previously.

That day, I turned on a bunch of kids to a story that was more than a millennia old (one of them even went to look for it in the library later), yet I did so in a way that not only honored its origins but also retold it in the way it was told originally. I had, in effect, transmitted a small piece of culture and tradition to these kids that has been with us for all our existence as a race (meaning the human race).

... so, why this tangent about my past when reviewing a book?

When I was reading it, I was taken back to that time. Not only because of the book being a book and visualizing it in my head, but because that dynamic is present on so many levels in the story. The story in this book is as much about the events surrounding the never-ending blood-feud between the Space Wolves (or as they call themselves, the Vlka Fenryka) and the Thousand Sons legions as it is about stories and story-telling, about the preservation of our past as well as looking into our future (readers of the series will know that these events are just a small glimpse of all that is going on on a galaxy-wide scale at the time, and what is coming later). It is about the way we preserve our past, as well as what we do to remember it in order to not preserve it.

It did change me in one way - it made me realize and reflect on the utter criticality of our culture, and the currency we use to communicate our ideas, concepts, and histories. Be it movies, or music, or song and dance, or theater... not only the story itself, but how it is told, is what is so important. This is an idea that the main character in the story learns over time, and it becomes his calling, in a way.

Funny how it took a story, one that I place on my "utterly fluffy" bookshelf, to realize that how we tell a story is just as important as the story itself being told, and that the matter needs to fit the medium (how many movie adaptations have really, truly nailed it, and how many have been so-so, and all because we can go places in our minds that can't necessarily be reproduced in reality, or even in CG?)

With this one, I would have to say that Mr. Abnett has hit a new high. Yes, it's still a science-fiction novel, but a lot of what it covers are issues that we are facing today - our political and social discourse, how stories are "spun" in the media, and how sometimes people can be used without even knowing it, pawns in a much larger game (ooh, conspiracies!). How we remember our lost loved ones in the stories of theirs we choose to keep and how we keep them alive by retelling those stories. How we, as a species, use story-telling as a means of communication, cultural transmission, memory, and warning (among so many other things).

I won't go more into what the books is about other than to say the following points. Yes, the points of view shift and change, but what story doesn't have that from time to time? There is a lot of fighting and descriptions of it, but instead of just reading it, read it and then visualize it, much like you would if you were having the story told to you verbally. To his credit, Mr. Abnett keeps the "tech-talk" (terms and vocab that anyone familiar with the setting would know) pretty low, instead making up some terms on his own and then posing them as from the point of view of the characters, which is (at least for me) refreshing and clever.

Finally, I have to comment on how this book, this entire story of the blood-feud between these two legions has been done by the Black Library (the publisher). They've had two different authors write about the same account, from the opposing perspectives (the other book being A Thousand Sons, by Graham McNeill), and this is the first time that they've done it in this particular way. It has worked well this time, and more importantly, it was a good move as it does truly offer two different perspectives, as the story is being told by two different authors. It all becomes a story within a story, and getting the full weight of it needs one to read both sides to understand it all.

For the 40k fans:

- Yes, you do get to read/meet Russ, and he is a somewhat refreshing character capable of subtelty.

- Yes, you do get to see the Wolves in action, but more importantly, you get to learn about them as a legion. By this I mean more than the (to date) "Rawr! Let's kill and howl like crazy animals! Awoooo!"

- Other characters from before make appearances, as in Primarchs, Custodians, and the like.

- There is a bit of foreshadowing towards the end of things to come. Both on a large scale and more specific to the Space Wolves themselves. Hint: he makes a major appearance again in the future. You'll know who by the end of the book.

To close, and show how much more to it there is than just ultra-violence, I'll use this quote by the Jarl of Tra (from the book): "It takes a vast amount of self control to be this dangerous."