Review of Saturnine by Dan Abnett

The assault on the Emperor's Palace is in full swing. Horus throws his forces, wave after wave, at the kilometer high walls, looking for a breakthrough. The forces of Chaos have been unleashed, and now attack the walls along with the traitor legions. In Dan Abnett's Saturnine (2020) something has to give. But where?

Assault after assault, bomb after bomb, death after death. Horus' attack on Terra is starting to have an effect. Endless supplies of munitions becoming finite, Rogal Dorne's storage facilities are starting to run dry. And with The Lion and Guillaume still nowhere to be found, the manpower the Emperor can throw at the traitor legions is starting to come up short. Dorne cannot keep up with Horus' volume of men and materiel. Hard decisions now sit in directly front of Rogal Dorne, no avoiding them. Horus is attacking at four critical junctures, but only three can be defended. Does Dorne have one last trick up his sleeve for his nemesis Peturabo at Saturnine Gate, or is the writing on the wall?

The first three books of The Siege of Terra featured major showdowns between well-known characters, even a couple key character deaths. Saturnine ups the ante on this three or four fold. Characters that readers have been with for books, some since Horus Rising, meet their end. Old feuds that have been boiling finally have fate come a' knockin'. The 100 pages is edge-of-your-seat reading. After dozens and dozens of books, the payoff arrives—at least for a few characters. There are still many whose fate hangs in the balance.

Out of all the Horus Heresy writers, Graham McNeill and Dan Abnett are the two writers whose works I look forward to the most. To be clear, all HH writers are competent. But McNeill and Abnett bring a little something extra to the page. This can be at the macro level—some particularly juicy use of metaphor or parallel to classic drama. But it can also be at the micro-level—unique perspective to a scene or character that adds rich flavor. I found little of this in Saturnine. If you removed the author name from the cover I might—might--have been able to tell it was Abnett based on a couple of scenes. But I wouldn't have been 100% confident. Saturnine feels very similar to the pair of Emperor's Palace assault novels which came before: The Lost & the Damned and The First Wall. I have been spoiled by Abnett, and thus expected something a little extra from him. I got that in the form of key plot points, but in terms of style or intangible something-somethings, not much.

One thematic note of interest to Saturnine is the echo of the earliest HH novels: the value of history. After a particularly dark scene atop the Palace's walls, Dorne reinstates the Remembrancers to ensure the Siege of Terra is recorded, regardless who wins. A pair of Remembrancers go on to become primary characters in the novel, one young and one old. As they confront space marines and laborers in battle, i.e. living purely in the moment, Abnett takes (selective) opportunity to use these characters to expound upon the long view to everyone's actions that day. A light not heavy touch, these scenes echo the act of storytelling HH history, as well.

In the end, Saturnine is another solid stepping stone in Horus' journey to the Emperor's throne. As always, Abnett handles the narrative in expert fashion, even if some of his signature flair is absent from this volume. And he keeps the excitement ratcheted up. There are Primarch showdowns, major character deaths, and above all, the Siege is taken to the next stage by the conclusion.