This is the novel I have been waiting for since the Horus Heresy series began. What surprises me most, Dan Abnett is the author, and not Graham McNiell. I remember asking McNiell at a Gamesday, back when the Horus Heresy series was just starting if he planned to write the Battle of Calth, and he had said he had drawn a ring around it, and it was his. I guess time, or more pressing projects changed that. Know No Fear is a great novel in the best tradition of Abnett. It especially resonates with me as I'm a big Ultramarines fan, and the horror of the Word Bearers' betrayal and the subsequent carnage fleshed out in all its horrid detail helped this novel fly by. I pretty much read it in a twenty four hour period. The end is nothing but sublime. It's a great read, great buy. STop reading this blog, go get it and read it!
I guess everyone assumed the Ultramarines were McNiell's preserve. Part of the process of producing the HH series seems to have been to encourage a sense of distance from the more familiar 41st millennium.
ReplyDeleteLike when Abnett got hold of the Space Wolves, previously defined by Bill King's writing, maybe the Heresy-era Ultramarines needed a similar rethink?
Abnett, of course, didn't have an Astartes legion associated with him from his previous work for BL.
You could be right, ever since ADB started with the BL, there has been more diversifying. It could also be how polarizing McNiell is amongst Ultramarines fans, we either love him or hate him.
DeleteWithout revealing any plot points, I will say that there are elements in Know No Fear that build off of earlier Abnett HH books that may be why Abnett wrote this one. I guess time will tell.