Battle for the Abyss

Battle for the Abyss by Ben Counter is the eighth installment in the Horus Heresy series. It follows a rag-tag group of loyalist Space Marines as they attempt to destroy a gigantic Word Bearers battleship, the Furious Abyss, before it can launch a fatal assault on the Ultramarines homeworld Macragge.

Battle for the Abyss is consistently cited as one of the worst if not the worst book in the Heresy series, but the reason why is not readily apparent. There is no one, glaring flaw that lets Battle for the Abyss down, but rather it suffers from a multiple issues that combine to make it a sub-par book. On paper the book sounds fine, exciting even, but when read and compared with other books in the series it comes up noticeably short. The most obvious issue is the sheer simplicity of the character types. Cestus, the main protagonist, is an Ultramarine captain, so therefore he is the stereotypical blond-haired hero who never wavers in his duty and whose only flaw is occasionally forgetting the full scope of the Emperor's benevolence. Zadkiel, the Word Bearer commander of the Furious Abyss, is an antagonist straight out of classic villain school who spends most of his time being mean to his subordinates and monologuing about the righteousness of his cause. Brynngar, the leader of the Space Wolves that join the Ultramarines in their quest, plays into every Viking stereotype by drinking, arguing, wanting to fight everyone and using a lot of violent hunting metaphors. Mhotep, the lone Thousand Son who joins the group, is as cryptic and mysterious as a classic sorcerer can be. Together, this fellowship of stereotypes lower the tone of the book and make parts of it feel more like fan-fiction than the work of a professional author, which is surprising considering the quality of Counter's first contribution to the series, Galaxy in Flames.

The plot itself is simplistic and straightforward, but it moves at a good pace and is easy to read. The tactics employed by the loyalists to bring down the Furious Abyss seem questionable at times, like assaulting a warship full of Word Bearers with twenty marines, but the battle scenes are better-written than anything else in the book and keep the pages turning. The climax is exciting if somewhat predictable, and with all of the characters dead by the end none of them will be returning to trouble the rest of the series. Brynngar's moment of sacrifice in order to destroy the ship is the only part of the novel that evoked my emotions.

Battle for the Abyss is without a doubt a bad book. The author's handling of the characters, as well as being highly stereotypical, doesn't seem to fit with their Legions as portrayed in the rest of the series. To be fair there had yet to be much of a series when this book was published, but that doesn't make reading something that could have come from the imagination of any fourteen year-old reading their first Codex any more enjoyable. Whether or not the book's reception had anything to do with Ben Counter dropping off the face of the Heresy series never to be seen again is impossible to tell, but what is certain is that Battle for the Abyss deserves its reputation as one of the worst books in the series.