Horus Rising by Dan Abnett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I always avoided reading the Warhammer books for some reason. Maybe it was because I just got a vibe of zealotry, guns, blood, guts, zealotry, guns, destroying humans who disagree, and meeting new alien races to murderize them.

To put it plainly, it's not my cup of tea.

But now that I've finally gotten around to picking this up, I'm really surprised at how philosophical and idealism-oriented it really is. And while most of the warriors are all rah rah for the Emperor, a surprising number of them enjoy a good solid THINK. I really loved the down-time in this a LOT more than the gore, but the action was pretty cool, too.

I think, if I had to choose from any war-type far-future SF, I think this is some of the smoothest I've read. It actually criticizes without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Very interesting.

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