Let's Read the Horus Heresy 18: Know No Fear

 Who are the first to die?

 - The Horus Heresy: Know No Fear, Dan Abnett

We're back to the Horus Heresy with Dan Abnett and the battle of Calth, between the Word Bearers and the Ultramarines, and after the disappointment of Deliverance Lost, this should be so much better.

**

I begin reading the book. The book is by Dan Abnett. Dan Abnett is good at writing books. But this book is different. The sentences are short. The sentences are simple. It is like the books I read as a child, when I was learning English. I did not speak it yet then. I do not know why the book is like this. It is strange, because Dan Abnett is good at writing books, but this book is not good.

I apologize for this, but honestly, starting Know No Fear is a truly bizarre experience. As the Battle of Calth starts and the action gets underway, the language loosens up a little, but it's still startlingly clunky for Abnett. Shockingly, it almost feels like reading Gav Thorpe again.

What the story reminds me of most is Battle for the Abyss. Once again, the Ultramarines are incredibly boring. I can't tell them apart, and since everyone's names seem to have come out of the Knights of the Old Republic name generator, they don't help, either. Guilliman is there and is also tremendously boring. It's appropriate that the quotations from his writings that start each section are such mind-numbing blather that I couldn't finish reading them.

Less than an hour after finishing the book, the only Smurf I can remember is the sergeant who was due to be disciplined, and therefore had his helmet painted red. Since he distinguished himself in battle, Rowrowrowyourboat ordered all the sergeants to mark their helmets red, and that's a nice backstory to why Smurf sergeants still wear red helmets in 40k.

The other main similarity to Battle for the Abyss is that the Word Bearers are, once again, just ridiculous mooks. Ultramarines always take them by surprise and slaughter them with ridiculous ease as if they were Star Wars storm troopers, not Space Marines. This makes the battle scenes quite boring toward the end of the book, as it's always the same story of the Ultramarine video game protagonist butchering a dozen Word Bearers without suffering so much as a scratch. The trouble with this is that it makes the Word Bearers not seem like space marines at all, so the general vibe of the book is much more 40k rather than Horus Heresy.

As for the plot, the scale of the destruction wrought by a single cargo ship ramming the Calth docks is frankly unbelievable. Or to put it another way, if you can do all this by accelerating a single fleet tender, why bother with battleships at all?

Also, if the Word Bearers' objective was to capture the Ultramarines' most powerful ships intact, why did they do such a terrible job of it? The plan to take over the flagship seems to have inexplicably failed, as the boarding troops apparently spent ages trying to cut through the hull. Did they forget their boarding torpedoes, teleporters and assault craft at home?

Also, if the planet's surface was going to be destroyed by whatever Erbs supposedly did to the star (we're going to ignore the idea that firing planetary defence systems at a star can make it go nova and decide that it was the ritual that did it), why did the Word Bearers fleet bother to bombard the southern hemisphere? Surely it would have been much more important to finish off the Smurf fleet. In fact, I'm not sure I understand why the Word Bearers bothered to fight on the surface of Calth at all.

So to be honest, most of the plot makes no sense. I did enjoy Kor Phaeron blasting Guilliman with force lightning like he was the Sith Emperor, but the scene actually ended up being far too Star Wars for comfort. Erbs again shows up to make some ritual gestures and sneer, and it's not clear if Lorgar was even really there.

I know I'm biased as a Word Bearers player, but it's such a disappointment to have them go back to being totally disposable, incompetent moustache-twirling bad guys again after how brilliant First Heretic was.

**

To sum up, after Abnett's previous efforts, Know No Fear is a huge disappointment. Once the action picks up, it's a smooth enough read, but the writing is hopelessly clunky throughout, the plot makes no real sense, and the characters are very forgettable. I can't really recommend it to anyone.