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The Horus Heresy Book 1: Horus Rising
By Dan Abnett
Published by Black Library
Published in 2006, Horus Rising would kick off The Horus Heresy, a fifty book series with dozens of accompanying novellas and audio productions, as well as its own dedicated gameline by Forge World. Set 10,000 years before the grimdark future of Warhammer 40,000, The Horus Heresy depicted the cataclysmic civil war that saw the mighty Space Marine legions clash, the Emperor reduced to a permanent near death state, and the Imperium set on a course towards certain destruction.
The conflict itself is one of the fundamental components of the setting, dating back to the earliest Warhammer 40K publications. Even with a slew of magazine articles, rulebook blurbs, and prose references, much of the Horus Heresy was still left shrouded in mystery.
With Horus Rising's release in 2006, the definitive tale of the Horus Heresy had arrived. There was no initial set number of books for the series. As releases came out and many ended up on The New York Times bestseller list, it ballooned in length, to the point that only just now are we getting the conclusion with the Siege of Terra novels, 15 years later.
Penned by Warhammer fiction heavy hitter Dan Abnett, Horus Rising gave a new, intimate look at the Heresy. The demigod-like Primarchs and their legions of superhuman Astartes, the Space Marines, were no longer indistinct mythological figures but concrete characters. This initial book takes place years before the Heresy's actual start. Horus, of the conflict's namesake, is not the thrice damned traitor and herald of Chaos but instead the Emperor's most trusted servant and closest friend.
Horus Rising follows his earliest actions as Warmaster, the leader of humanity's galaxy conquering Great Crusade, showing events that would lead him down a dark path. The story unfolds across three different planetary conquests. Each one poses a unique set of challenges, physical and otherwise. That's broken up with a few well crafted horror segments featuring
Chaos, the daemonic forces the Imperium has forgotten to fear thanks to the
Emperor's enforced faithlessness.
It's a decent mix of worldbuilding, character drama, and the combat heavy "Bolter Porn" most Black Library novels devolve into. At the very least, Horus Rising lends real narrative weight to its battle scenes. It likely has my favorite opening of any Black Library book, in which Horus' vicious Astartes descend on Terra, shatter the Imperium, and even mortally wound the Emperor.
Just not the Emperor, Terra, or even Horus you're thinking of, even if it does distill the Horus Heresy in a broad, ironic sense.
Abnett wisely doesn't tell Horus Rising from Horus' perspective, with most of the story told through the eyes of rapidly ascending Space Marine captain Garviel Loken. An uncomplicated, adventurous spirit, he finds himself thrust into the Warmaster's inner circle, the Mournival. A position that requires far more than just swinging a chainsword and one that exposes him to some difficult truths. The rest of the book takes on the point of view of the merely human entourage of the expedition fleets
I haven't loved every addition The Horus Heresy novels have made. In fact, a few of them soured me on the series as a whole. But the idea of Remembrancers, a collection of artists, writers, and other visionaries sent to record the Legiones Astartes "Great Deeds," as they carve a bloody path across creation, is just brilliant.
They're a strong assortment of characters, lending a more human vantage point to a narrative notably lacking one. The Horus Heresy was fine as the domain of great heroes when it was a distant, mythological event but a full length novel benefits from the likes of blundering poet Ignace Karkasy and adventurous photographer Euphrati Keeler. Abnett's writing certainly feels a lot more at home with these dreamers, who find their values tested and reshaped by their inhuman subjects. Just compare the surprisingly entertaining musings on Karkasy's notebooks with any of the fight scenes.
At Horus Rising's best points, the Remembrancers are used to question the heroic narrative that's sprung up around Space Marines, both in and out of universe.
Admittedly, Horus Rising doesn't neglect its Space Marine characters. While they're by far the most popular faction, supersoldiers that live only for war is a concept with very limited storytelling potential, something Abnett has admitted to struggling with in the past. Admittedly, the Heresy era gives him more to work with: though still single minded, the Astartes of the 31st millennium are more carefree and contemplative than their fanatical far future counterparts.
Horus Rising never adopts the titular Warmaster's point of view, leaving the reader to work mostly with other people's perspectives of him. This helps Horus retain a sense of mythos around him, while playing into his characterization. Though a more jubilant figure than one would expect, Horus is sorely alone in a galaxy that grows smaller by the day.
For all his grandiosity, he's a cypher to the reader as well as the other characters, not helped by how misdirection is his favorite tool. The starstruck Loken comes to realize this, most memorably noting that even Horus' accent is fake.
In addition to his duplicitous behavior, he's as violent and exacting as you'd expect from his reputation. That's balanced by Horus' surprising open mindedness and wisdom, things that his "sons" and other peers notably lack.
In Horus Rising, Abnett builds off of the established details of Horus feeling abandoned by the Emperor, extending it to a growing contempt for the increasingly pointless bloodshed he's been left to watch over.
That mirrors the overall theme of the book. Every principal character comes to realize they don't actually understand much less fully believe in their duty. Even if they're not quite yet ready to admit that. It's a much more compelling root for the Heresy than purely chalking it up to the interference of dark gods.
Even if it is the gateway to an entire subsection of the setting, Horus Rising isn't an ideal introduction to Warhammer 40K. It's a memorable book, surely some of Black Library's best, one that even rediscovers some of the series' long lost sense of humor. But many scenes rely on the reader's knowledge of what these characters and factions will go on to do. Usually it's very obvious, verging on being clumsy at points. A couple of clever scenes lose their staying power if you don't have that background.
More broadly, the dystopia glaring beneath the glamour of the Imperium's golden age works best when you know the absolute nightmare it leads to in 10,000 years. The same goes for the mood of the book as a whole.
At the time of Horus Rising’s release, there was a lot of grumbling about the very idea of a book Horus Heresy series. Even with all the prior material, much of the Horus Heresy was still left up to the players to define, the details lost to history. Many fans were concerned a novel series following the conflict could undermine its legendary status, pulling back the curtain too much.
The older I get, and the longer the series and its spinoffs drag out, the more I’m inclined to agree with that stance. The Horus Heresy no longer felt like a sort of militarized creation myth but just another story, with some bizarre changes and questionable additions to boot.
On the other hand, it did lead to some of my favorite Warhammer fiction and the fully developed ruleset for the era.
When I read Horus Rising this time around, I saw a parallel of the series "de-mything" with the book’s underlying sense of loss, that these half remembered better days will soon be replaced by tragedy. Less dramatically, I think Horus Rising proved that the sense of mystery didn't need to be sacrificed for a more nuanced, developed perspective.
A few of the later installments managed to achieve that too, even if many more Horus Heresy books presented the conflict like any other Black Library story.
