I may be mistaken, but I recall an old acquaintance who wrote for Games Workshop’s Black Library deriding Abnett. It was probably professional jealousy, an easily forgiven sin, or might not have happened at all. But, due to that potentially misremembered memory, I entered the Horus Heresy with a minor bias against Abnett. That bias has since flipped to the positive, and Saturnine continues to prove that this author, out of all of those whose contributions I’ve consumed in this leviathan reading, stands far above the rest in terms of quality, characterization, and simple raw understanding of the tone of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
I wept a handful of times. This was such a good book, regardless of it being a part of the Heresy. I won’t hear from Abnett again until he closes out the series with his final three volumes, and I’m looking forward to finishing this gargantuan undertaking with a real bang.
2025.02.05 – 2025.02.13