Battle for the Abyss: The Horus Heresy, Book 8

Cestus, Brynngar, Skraal, and Mhotep are terrific characters, and the Word Bearers contemptibly despicable villains. The space battles between the Furious Abyss and the Wrathful and its cohorts are extremely cool, as are Mhotep’s sorcerous powers and combat with the warp entity.

I disliked this book because as many others have pointed out it feels rather inconsequential to the series as a hole because the new big powerful ship gets destroyed in the same book and nothing changes.

I read this book in 2 days. Kind of shocked myself. I've been a fan of Warhammer 40,000 for over 20 years and I've been getting caught up on the Horus heresy series the last few years. This book didn't involve the factions I generally prefer, and isn't by one of my usual favorite authors of the Black Library and I still devoured the text. I look forward to reading more by Ben Counter.In hindsight I should have expected it to be good since Galaxy in Flames (Horus heresy book 3) was such a good read.

Honestly, the editorial note at the end of the book brought a few of the lingering thoughts of mine together. This is a book of its time, as in, a book before a plan for the Horus Heresy was really put together. There are moments in this book, that, with the aforementioned in mind, could be punched up. A fact that I'll admit that I did not consider on a first read. Yet I greatly enjoyed the characters and could view the main heroes so vividly, and certain moments I greatly enjoyed. Yet, many plot points are ludicrous when put in context of the wider universe of the Heresy, from terminology that doesn't fit to most glaringly, a time line that makes no sense...regardless, these are just spur of the moment post reading reactions. It was a decent read and a lot of fun moments...and a worthwhile blueprint to build upon...and I think that may be it's greatest impact... it's a great idea that readers can build upon and compare to the wider Hours Heresy.

This is the story of the Furious Abyss and the small group trying to prevent it reaching the rest of the Word Bearer fleet.I appreciated the look into the view of psykers during the Crusade era.It's a good example of the grim dark reality where you get a win, but probably no one ever knows about it.Complaints about the Word Bearers being inept in this, well, they do have merit. The Word Bearers do seem to be in this to be knocked down like ten pins....

I loved it....yup.....I need to order some new underwear from amazon. It was an amazing hot pursuit and I’m glad you know who got what was coming to him

Ultramarines, Space Wolves, World Eaters and did I say space battles?! Ben Counter creates some of the best characters in the series.

Excellent story of heresy and betrayal. One of my favorite of the Horus Heresy series so far!

Great read

After hearing how bad this book was, I am pleasantly surprised to tell you how brilliant it is, great characters, exciting build ups, graphic violence, gripping story, and the story is a classic race against time, good guys vs evil villain kind of lay out, yes it seems generic, but it plays out very well. The only bad point I can muster, is how some scenes drag on, book space that could of been used to bolster the final chapters, which I felt were way to short in retrospect of the overall book, but its a tiny fault.I think all book are needed to be read, if you want the whole picture of the horus heresy, which in turn has grounded the 40k universe, to what it is today, and this book, for all its bad rep, is a pivotal inclusion to the series! In my opinion anyway.

Good book

Punto focale della storia nella saga

A Thousand Son Psyker and a bunch of World Eaters foiling the plans of the Word Bearers. Who would have thunk it?