The Unremembered Empire (The Horus Heresy Book 27)

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The more Horus Heresy books I read by Dan Abnett the less I love his work during the series. Perpetuals and the Cabal are two of the most uninteresting components of the 40k universe. On paper I love them both and think they're full of potential but every time they're in a story I just could not give less of a shit. I really enjoyed all of the parts with Guilliman and Imperium Secundus and I can't wait to see what happens with the Pharos Beacon, but it feels like half of this book was John Grammaticus running around being John Grammaticus. I just don't give a shit. I don't think anyone does.

After the battle, Guilliman and Lion El'Jonson almost came to blows over what to do about Konrad Curze, the Primarch of the Night Lords Traitor Legion, who was still loose on Sotha. Curze was believed to have been responsible for organising a series of suicide bombings and rebellions that targeted Guilliman's authority on Macragge, which resulted in Lion El'Jonson in his role as Lord Protector using the Dark Angels to put Macragge under martial law and deploying the Dreadwing, one of the Dark Angels' six specialised Hexagrammaton formations or "Wings," which made use of weapons of mass destruction like Phosphex and Vortex Weapons, to devastate the rebellious areas of the planet. Curze was ultimately captured by The Lion in the Illyrium region and forced to stand trial. As others have said: it feels like 'half of a book', and not just because of where things are at the end of the novel. Basically it's Five Go Mad In McGragge. Five primarchs turn up, and they have a big fight. At the end of which, nothing is resolved, and the story has barely moved on. And that's *it*.The problem is they're all mixed together along with at least a half dozen other elements, and the warping of characters to keep the story moving. Narek, a limited but motivating force, loses the motivating part. Vulkan is so different from the immediately prior Vulkan Lives that I refuse to believe Abnett had a chance to read it. Curze, a consistently psychopathic serial killer, is still somehow so tonally different here that it's jarring. Guilliman, Sanguinius, and Lion El'Jonson led the bulk of their respective Legions through the Ruinstorm in hopes of reaching Terra and aiding the Emperor in His final struggle against Horus, though ultimately only Sanguinius and the Blood Angels would make it through following the Second Battle of Davin to participate heroically in the Siege of Terra. Shed a tear for the Gallowdark ! We reach the final boxed expansion for this season of Kill Team in Gallowfall, in which a deep-space salvage team from the Leagues of Votann battle with a braying band of Beastmen for possession of long-lost Ironkin cognitive units. This boxed set contains parts and rules for both of these kill teams, as well as a set of Gallowdark terrain with exciting new bells and whistles to play nine new missions.* You need a PhD and extensive notes to be able to follow the Horus Heresy. And Games Workshop continue to parcel it out, meager plot development by meager plot development.

I had this gut feeling that it was either going to be the best 40k novel or just fall completely flat due to the overambitious nature of the endeavor. From my point of view, it is the latter and is such a disappointment. The problem is where this series is at as a whole. Dan Abnett himself references this in his note at the end, this book is trying to weave together characters and situations from at least a dozen previous novels in this series.Of all of them... Why did it have to be him who found a way through the storm?' Gulliman whispered. Heresy comes in many forms. It can be blatant, like the one which now tears down the stars, but it can be subtle too, accidental. To make example, the building of a new Imperium when the old one is not yet pronounced dead. -- I am not building my own Imperium, Gantulga. I am preserving what's left of the original." David Lammy MP played the clip in Unremembered, a 2019 TV documentary investigating the hundreds of thousands of missing war graves of soldiers from the British empire which helped spark the Commonwealth War Graves Commission investigation.

Mwamkono Mwavaka and his wife in their garden in Kenya. His grandfather, who died in the first world war, has no known grave. Photograph: Uplands TV/Channel 4

Contents

Unremembered Empire feels like a real progression in the overall narrative. It succeeds in threading together some of the impossibly vast strands of the series into one tome, while still being an exciting and cohesive standalone tale. Some of it falls flat, with John Grammaticus and the Cabal feeling like an unnecessary sidenote this time around, but it is still undoubtedly one of the best releases in the latter half of the series. For that reason, I'm giving it 4.5 test-tube demigods out of 5. And in the meantime, you can experience the rise and fall of Imperium Secundus for yourself in the snappily titled ‘ Imperium Secundus’, a digital collection of 4 novels, 11 short stories and 3 audio dramas that tells the whole tale outlined above in much more detail, as well as exploring more characters and events from the period. There are a number of elements that could have had a good story built around them. The aging Euten the chamberlain, giving her advice to a Primarch and the Adeptus Astartes as though she is their equal. The concept of Perpetuals. The dialogue between the Lion and Guilliman. Pollux finding his purpose.