The Unremembered Empire by Dan Abnett – A Review

I bought a few books on Games Day 2013, including Dan Abnett’s The Unremembered Empire!

This is an experiment in many ways, not least because I well and truly gave up reading the Horus Heresy series in order of its publication with this one.

I also got a rather strange signature from Dan Abnett (see above!). Anyhow… the book!

An absolutely fantastic read. A great page-turner. But not at all the book I thought it would be.

Far out on the Eastern Fringe, the realm of Ultramar stands alone. Having weathered the Word Bearers’ attack on Calth and the subsequent Shadow Crusade against the Five Hundred Worlds, the Ultramarines primarch Roboute Guilliman now draws all loyalist forces to Macragge as he contemplates a new future for mankind. With the arrival of more and more fugitives from the war that has engulfed the rest of the galaxy, all distinction between friend and foe is lost – isolated from Terra by fearsome warp storms, is Guilliman making a bid for power to rival even the renegade Warmaster Horus?

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#1 – The Heresy Out Of Order

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#2 – Plot & Story

The story is set on Maccragge, and revolves around Roboute Guilliman facing a twin-dilemma.

• First, he and his realm are cut off from the rest of the Imperium. For all he knows, he may well be the last Primarch and Terra already fallen.
• Second, morals in his realm are at an all-time low after the Battle of Calth.

As a consequence, Guilliman lights an impromptu astronomicon to guide ships lost in the Warp to Maccragge and, crucially, considers the declaration of a new regent, of an Imperium Secundus, to establish clarity and dependency in the “part of the Imperium that remains“. Yet Guilliman doesn’t want to declare himself a regent, thinking it smacks too much of Heresy.

Truth be told, the above takes up the first 50 pages at most. After that, more Primarchs – good, evil and insane – appear on Maccragge, as do a few other key players from the Heresy series and 40K, and the “political” puzzle raised in the first few chapters is overtaken by a few roaring Primarch-powered action-scenes and the broader “Galaxy vs. Chaos” plot of the series.

Sanguinius doesn’t truly feature in this book and shows up only on the last 10 pages or so.

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#3 – Imperium Secundus? Tell Me More!

The Unremembered Empire was a great book to read.

But….. (ya knew this was coming)

But….. I thought the book almost misled the reader with it’s title and premise!

I wanted to read about Roboute Guilliman, and perhaps a few of his Primarch brothers, calling for an Imperium Secundus from the ruins of the old Imperium, centered on Maccragge. The story had, I thought, a lot more potential for some shades of grey, to explore a few of the “rebellious” undertones of its premise. The emancipation of a Primarch from his father without all-out Heresy.

Dan Abnett doesn’t do any of that.

The Unremembered Empire – in essence – delivers a wicked mix of arcane-assassination-plot, court-drama and, above all, high-octane Primarch-action. It’s an awesome page-turner, no doubt.

The whole Imperium Secundus idea, however, is played at maximum safety.

Indeed, Dan Abnett seems intent to have Guilliman himself assure the reader again and again and again that he harbours not the slightest inkling of ambition… that he pursues an Imperium Secundus only, truly and absolutely selflessly out of necessity.

That, I thought, was a pity. A Guilliman with at least a little bit of imperial ambition, mixed with the tactical shrewdness of a Primarch who knows he cannot simply “crown” himself, would’ve made for an indefinitely more interesting political twist. And a more interesting Guilliman.

At the end of the book, the imperial declaration/coronation teased by the cover and the title is – very literally – a whisper nobody hears.

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#4 – Verdict?

I am still giving this book a solid 4-stars?

This may seem strange, since most of this “review” was me rambling about what I hoped this book would be, but wasn’t. Even so, The Unremembered Empire was a cracking read, mostly for the parts I didn’t talk about in this review (sorry).

• The action is some of the best I’ve read. Beautiful set-pieces, very thematic, always interesting and never falling to “bolter-and-chainsword” filler for the sake of it.

• The same goes for the “non-actions” scenes. All the statesmanship musings of Guilliman and his brother are done very well, I thought. After all, I did want more of those! (Dan Abnett has a curious obsession with regal furniture recently, both in Pariah and now in this one).

• His characters are great as always, and not just the Primarchs, but also the various Space Marines flocking to Maccragge and (not least) the human side-characters. All of them get their moment to shine, even while Primarchs clash.

Therefore, it wouldn’t be honest to give The Unremembered Empire any less stars.

I devoured the book in about two days, and loved every minute of it. It simply wasn’t the kind of story I was expecting, and it often felt as if Dan Abnett wanted stamp out all possible ambiguities of the Imperium Secundus idea early on, not run with them and make them the story.

Have you read The Unremembered Empire?

• Have you read the latest Horus Heresy novel from Dan Abnett? If so, what did you think of it? How did you expect the Imperius Secundus idea would play out?
• Have you ever read some of the Horus Heresy novels out of sequence? Did it work for you?
• Do you believe these books should be read in order, or is the Heresy “common knowledge” enough that you can simple “dip” into it at different points?

Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Z.