Ciaphas Cain: The Greater Good & Old Soldiers Never Die by Sandy Mitchell

The Imperial planet of Quadravidia has come under attack by the Tau. Commissar Ciaphas Cain arrives to advise on the defence of the planet, after several previous encounters with the untrustworthy species. However, the Tau call an unexpected ceasefire in the face of a greater, mutual threat: an incoming Tyranid Hive Fleet. Cain's mission moves from combat to diplomacy as he has to broker a deal between the Tau and Imperium - the latter not known for its interstellar diplomacy - and then help defend the planet from the new alien menace.

We're back in the mayhem with the ninth novel of Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain series, in which the grim darkness of the far future is alleviated by the presence of the most self-preserving and undeserved glory-receiving specimen in the Imperium of Man.

The Greater Good puts Cain's reputation front and centre as he has to negotiate a peace deal between the Imperium - whose entire ideology is "shoot aliens in the face and never, ever talk to them," - and the Tau, a race dedicated to the somewhat nebulous concept of "the greater good." There's a degree of a comedy of manners here as the two species' highly incompatible ways of working clash with Cain trying to avoid war in the face of the greater Tyranid threat.

This stuff takes up a few chapters and then we're back to the battle front as bullets fly and large things explode spectacularly. Mitchell is accomplished at both the action and the black comedy sides of the setting (Cain sometimes feeling like the Only Sane Man in the entire barmy Warhammer 40,000 universe) and serves up both with aplomb here. Particularly entertaining are the deranged human scientists who think experimenting on live Tyranids is a good idea (spoiler: it isn't) and the Space Marines who worryingly agree with them.

There's a nice amount of variety to the story, as it moves from diplomacy to grim humour to action, although it does feel some ideas are left under-explored, such as the human inhabitants of the Tau Empire and how they regard the Imperium from a human, outsider perspective. There's also the usual advice that, although the omnibuses are most economical way to enjoy Cain's story, it's perhaps a good idea to read other things between the books, as Mitchell is perhaps less concerned than other authors in the setting with varying his prose style or characterisation between stories.

Still, this is an exciting action story with some laughs and some brief moments of thoughtful discussion. The Greater Good (****) is definitely one of the stronger entries to the series.

Also included in the Ciaphas Cain: Saviour of the Imperium omnibus is the long novella/short novel Old Soldiers Never Die (****), which is a fast-paced zombie story as Cain and his trusty Valhallan allies find themselves stuck on a planet beset by a particularly nasty Chaos curse. Ciaphas Cain vs. Zombies is just as good as it sounds on the tin, and the short format means the story doesn't outstay its welcome.

Ciaphas Cain Novel Timeline

919.M41 (40,919 CE): Fight or Flight (Novella). Cain meets Jurgen, deploys with the 12^th Valhallan Field Artillery to Desolatia IV.

924: Death or Glory (Book #4): Perlia campaign.

928: Echoes of the Tomb (Short Story): Adeptus Mechanicus mission, fights necrons.

928: The Emperor’s Finest (Book #7): Cain joins Reclaimer Space Marines, aids in Space Hulk retrieval mission.

931: For the Emperor (Book #1): Gravalax campaign, formation of the 597^th Valhallan Regiment.

932: Caves of Ice (Book #2): Simia Orichalcae campaign.

932: Duty Calls (Book #5): Periremunda campaign.

937: The Traitor’s Hand (Book #3): Adumbria campaign.

938: Old Soldiers Never Die (Novella): Lentonia campaign.

942: The Last Ditch (Book #8): Nusquam Fundumentibus campaign.

c. 951-954: Choose Your Enemies (Book #10): Ironfound campaign.

992: The Greater Good (Book #9): Siege of Quadravidia.

c. 993: Vainglorious (Book #11): Eucopia engagement.

999 (40,999 CE): Cain’s Last Stand (Book #6): Thirteenth Black Crusade. Chaos assault on Perlia, Cain comes out of retirement to lead defence.

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Ciaphas Cain: The Last Ditch by Sandy Mitchell

Commissar Ciaphas Cain and the Valhallan 597th are deployed to Nusquam Fundumentibus to deal with an incursion of orks. The campaign promises to be standard, although still dangerous, until Cain learns of a far greater threat lurking on the planet, one which sees both the humans and orks as enemies.

The redoubtable Ciaphas Cain - the science fantasy by-product of an unholy union between Flashman and BlackAdder - returns in his eighth novel. Once again, Cain is deployed to a trouble spot which seems a bit iffy, but practical to deal with. Also once again, complications ensure which gives Cain an enormous headache and results in a highly enjoyable adventure for the reader.

The previous Cain novel, The Emperor's Finest, was solid but did not represent the series at its best, with too much of Cain and Jurgen running around in isolated corridors where the opportunities for Cain - and Mitchell - to show off their skills with entertaining dialogue and character observations were limited. Fortunately, The Last Ditch is a return to form. Whilst we once again get a lot of action sequences, we also get a lot more character development and even politics, as Cain has to balance the needs of the 597th in fighting the ork incursion with the civil administration of the planet, who are trying to hold things together in the face of collapse. Of course, Cain (and the aromatic Jurgen) ends up at the hot end of the fighting despite desperately trying to find reasons to stay behind the lines.

The timeline means we get to spend more time with the characters of the 597th, including the batty Sulla, whose insane hero worship of Cain (further enhanced by excerpts from her later-published, badly-overwritten memoirs) remains extremely amusing. However, by this time Cain has been fighting (successfully) alongside the 597th for so long that Colonel Kasteen and Major Broklaw just go along with anything he suggests, which means relatively little tension in that quarter.

Tension is restored by the difficult relationship between the 597th, Cain and the planetary governor, who for once is (relatively) immune to Cain's charms and tries to continue politicking even in the face of an overwhelming alien threat. This is promising, but Mitchell punts off this storyline for Kasteen and Broklaw to deal with off-page, meaning we only get edited highlights from the subplot whilst Cain is off elsewhere.

Another potential source of rich conflict is Cain encountering a younger, more gung-ho Commissar fresh out of the academy, all too eager to start executing Imperial troops the nanosecond they slack off. Cain's more pragmatic, cooperative approaching clashing with the raw orthodoxy of the Commissariat would again be an interesting storyline, but again it's cut short by Commissar Forres relatively quickly coming around to Cain's way of thinking and becoming a useful ally.

Still, if Mitchell dodges these potentially engaging storylines, what we have is fun enough. A relatively epic narrative featuring a raging war across an entire planet told in a commendably concise number of pages, with enough plots twists, reversals, action sequences and wry humour to satisfy fans of the series, The Last Ditch (****) is entertaining. The novel is available now as part of the Ciaphas Cain: Saviour of the Imperium omnibus, along with the preceding and succeeding novels and several short stories.

Ciaphas Cain Novel Timeline

919.M41 (40,919 CE): Fight or Flight (Novella #1). Cain meets Jurgen, deploys with the 12^th Valhallan Field Artillery to Desolatia IV.

924: Death or Glory (Book #4): Perlia campaign.

928: Echoes of the Tomb (Short Story): Adeptus Mechanicus mission, fights necrons.

928: The Emperor’s Finest (Book #7): Cain joins Reclaimer Space Marines, aids in Space Hulk retrieval mission.

931: For the Emperor (Book #1): Gravalax campaign, formation of the 597^th Valhallan Regiment.

932: Caves of Ice (Book #2): Simia Orichalcae campaign.

932: Duty Calls (Book #5): Periremunda campaign.

937: The Traitor’s Hand (Book #3): Adumbria campaign.

942: The Last Ditch (Book #8): Nusquam Fundumentibus campaign.

c. 951-954: Choose Your Enemies (Book #10): Ironfound campaign.

992: The Greater Good (Book #9): Siege of Quadravidia.

c. 993: Vainglorious (Book #11): Eucopia engagement.

999 (40,999 CE): Cain’s Last Stand (Book #6): Thirteenth Black Crusade. Chaos assault on Perlia, Cain comes out of retirement to lead defence.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

After 16 years, 63 books and 26,881 pages, THE HORUS HERESY is finally coming to an end

Black Library and Games Workshop have announced the actual, final novel in The Horus Heresy, their absolutely massive prequel series to their Warhammer 40,000 science fantasy setting. The series began in 2006 with Dan Abnett's Horus Rising, so it is only fitting that Abnett is bringing the saga to an end with The End and the Death. However, the story proved too titanic to fit into one volume, so will be published in (at least!) two books.

The Horus Heresy is the story that provides the mythic underpinning to the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Set ten thousand years before the "present" in the setting, the saga tells of the rebellion of the Warmaster Horus against his father, the immortal Emperor of Mankind. Horus believes his father has become a despot and a tyrant, wanting to be worshipped as a god. However, Horus has also been manipulated by the insidious forces of Chaos. Almost half the forces of the Imperium of Man join Horus in his rebellion, designed to overthrow the Emperor and "free" humanity. However, many legions remain loyal to the Emperor, leading to a desperate, seven-year war that will determine the fate of humanity and the galaxy.

The End and the Death is also the final book in the Siege of Terra sub-series. This eight (now nine+) volume series depicts Horus's final gambit, a breach of the defences around the Solar system and a full-scale assault on Holy Terra with almost his entire remaining army and fleet, relying on a Warp Storm to prevent reinforcements from reaching Sol before he can overthrow the Emperor. The previous seven books in the sub-series - The Solar War, The Lost and the Damned, The First Wall, Saturnine, Mortis, Warhawk and Echoes of Eternity - depicted the monstrous fight raging for the throne world, not to mention the culmination of many subplots as various enemies face off for the last time. The End and the Death sees the depiction of the most iconic event in Warhammer 40,000's lore, when the Emperor directly intervenes in the war and faces his son Horus for the final time. But that is only part of the story.

Abnett is the Black Library's most acclaimed and biggest-selling author (not to mention Britain's third-biggest selling science fiction author, behind only Peter F. Hamilton and Alastair Reynolds) and recently delivered a stunning two-part finale in his Gaunt's Ghosts series, with the brilliant duology of Warmaster and Anarch (not the final books in the Ghosts series, but the final for a while). Delivering the end of the series is a huge order, but Abnett will hopefully rise to it.

The stats for The Horus Heresy are mind-boggling. The series will now comprise 63 books in the core series (55 novels and 8 short story collections), 48 audio dramas, 2 art books, 2 script books and 1 graphic novel. The combined page count of the main series (not counting the last two) is 26,881 pages in paperback, or two Wheel of Times with an entire Song of Ice and Fire to follow up (though Horus Heresy books have fairly large print, so I suspect the word count is not quite so insane, with some estimates placing it around 7 million, which is about 1.6 Wheel of Times).

The End and the Death: Volume 1 is due for publication in 2023.

The Sabbat Worlds Crusade by Dan Abnett

On the 266th day of the 755th year of the 41st millennium, the Imperium of Man launched a full-scale invasion of the Sabbat Worlds: one hundred and sixty star systems with a combined a population of 17 trillion souls. Over the preceding two centuries, the region had fallen prey to the depredations of Chaos cultists and other followers of the Ruinous Powers. Over the course of the next thirty-seven years, the Sabbat Worlds Crusade would cost billions of lives but deliver trillions from the grip of the archenemy, through a combination of bold strategic ingenuity and desperate fighting on the ground, in the air and in space. A small but important role would be played by one company of the Imperial Guard in particular: the Tanith 1st, popularly known as "Gaunt's Ghosts." This is the story of the war on a grand scale.

For the past twenty years, Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series has been one of the most popular (and almost certainly the best) military SF series in the world. Its mix of effective characterisation and impressive military action has been highly compelling, effectively replicating the appeal of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels but in the future, and in the Cthulhu-meets-Aliens milieu of the Warhammer 40,000 space fantasy setting. The Sabbat Worlds Crusade is the sub-setting for these books, effectively a corner of the wider 40K setting which Abnett has made his own, depicting a vast war on a mind-boggling scale.

Despite the detail and attention poured into that war, it has remained firmly in the background. Abnett has instead correctly focused on the events and characters up-front in the novels, making them compelling reads with the background material interesting but not essential to enjoying each book in turn. Over the years the background has gotten fleshed out, via two short story anthologies and a previous companion book published when the series was barely half its current length. This book is a reprinting of the previous companion volume but on a much grander scale, with all-new material on the latter half of the war bringing the story up to date as of the fifteen book in the series (Anarch).

The first thing to note is that this book is a thing of beauty. It is hefty, published on high-quality paper and features a colossal amount of high-quality artwork from the talented art department at Games Workshop. Some of the artwork is reprinted from previous book covers, but a lot of it is new, most notably a handsome (if somewhat stylised) fold-out map of the entire Sabbat Worlds region. The book also features a ribbon book mark and the pages are edged in gold, making it a handsome volume for your shelf without completely destroying your wallet.

The text is mostly a linear account of the war, opening with the causes of the conflict and the deep-seated historical background before focusing on the politicking of Warmaster Slaydo to get the war approved and underway. The opening stages of the war to the decisive battle at Balhaut are recounted in detail, before Slaydo's death and the rise of the far more mercurial and temperamental Warmaster Macaroth to replace him, which coincides with the rise of Ibram Gaunt and the Tanith First and Only, as recounted in the novels. The book then continues to outline the course of the war, through events readers of the main novel series will be familiar with and other battles that have never been mentioned in the books.

Something I was very impressed by is that Abnett doesn't fall into the common companion volume trap of making the book a redundant retelling of the events of the books. This is the very thing that Raymond E. Feist did in his Riftwar companion book, Midkemia: The Chronicles of Pug, neglecting previously unknown lore in favour of telling the reader a story they'd already read and making the entire project redundant. You've already read the novels, you don't need to read a summary of them again. Abnett instead focuses on other theatres of conflict and other battles, mentioning the Ghosts only in passing when their activities have a discernible impact on the overall course of the war, which is surprisingly limited. That's not to say the Ghosts are ignored though. Sidebars and chapters on weapons, vehicles and kit feature the Ghosts prominently, many of whom get their first official artistic depictions in this volume.

The writing is pretty solid, although your investment in it will depend on your enjoyment of detailed military accounts of completely fictional campaigns. There clearly isn't much character work going on here, Abnett relying on the reader's familiarity with the novels and a few sidebars fleshing out commanding figures in the campaign. There is some interesting stuff for future books though, with one account of a major aerial dogfight feeling like setup for Interceptor City (the much-delayed sequel to Double Eagle, Abnett's Battle of Britain-aping dogfight novel), and the final chapter setting up the next and final phase of the Crusade, the battles that will no doubt feature in the final arc of the Gaunt's Ghosts series, although that's still a few years off.

Amongst companion books, The Sabbat Worlds Crusade (****½) is very decent. It gives the reader lots of new information and puts the events they are familiar with in a new context. It provides setup for future books and features a lot of fantastic artwork. The production value of the book is exceptional and it certainly makes for a very impressive gift for a fan of the novels. Negatives are pretty minor: you're not going to get much out of this if you haven't read the novels (natch) and some may bemoan the lack of a further level of detail (like full orders of battle, although these can be found in the entries on the crusade in the various 40K wikis) or summaries of the novels (again, these can be found online). Some may also question the wisdom of publishing this volume now rather than when the series is fully complete, especially since only four to six novels appear to remain in Abnett's plan for the series.

The book is available now from the Black Library.

Franchise Familiariser: Warhammer 40,000

It’s quite likely you’ve heard the phrase "Warhammer 40,000" thrown around. Forty thousand what? It is it a board game, a novel series, a video game series? You may find this Franchise Familiariser course useful.

The Basics
Warhammer 40,000 is a science fantasy franchise created by the British game company and publisher Games Workshop. Set in the 41st Millennium (approximately 38,000 years in the future), it originated as a tabletop miniatures wargame called Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, published in 1987 but drawing on an earlier game called Laserburn (1980) for inspiration and ideas. The game was conceived as a science fiction equivalent of Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy Battle line (1983-2015), although the two settings are not directly related.

Rick Priestley is credited as the co-creator of both Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, with Andy Chambers listed as a key collaborator on the first edition of the game. Bryan Ansell, the creator of Laserburn who was working at Games Workshop at the time, was also a key creative figure. Many dozens of designers, novelists, artists and playtesters have contributed to the expansion of the setting since then.

Since its release in 1987, Warhammer 40,000 has gone through eight editions of the core wargame and spawned numerous spin-off board games, the best-known of which are arguably Space Hulk (1989) and Space Crusade (1990). The setting has also spawned a series of role-playing games and card games. The background setting has been fleshed out through a huge amount of fiction, which by August 2019 comprises some 382 novels, novellas, short stories, anthologies and audio dramas in the core Warhammer 40,000 line and 149 novels, novellas, short stories, anthologies and audio dramas in the spin-off Horus Heresy series.

Since 1990 no less than 49 video games have also been released in the Warhammer 40,000 setting, the best-known of which is the Dawn of War real-time strategy series (which is also credited with helping break the setting in the United States). However, Warhammer 40,000 may be considered even more influential as being the inspiration for the WarCraft and StarCraft video game series from Blizzard Entertainment, which reportedly started as failed attempts to develop officially-licenced Warhammer video games based directly on the wargames but then became their own, self-contained (but very similar) universe.

Warhammer 40,000 was popular from launch, with the setting’s unusual mix of magic, aliens, psi-powers and warfare being considered much more original and distinctive compared to Warhammer’s more standard epic fantasy (with elements of steampunk) setting. However, its popularity was dramatically increased by the board games Space Hulk (1989) and Space Crusade (1990); the former was a nerve-shredding game of tension against overwhelming odds and the latter was a more straightforward game aimed at children with highly detailed miniatures. The extremely detailed and well-designed miniatures for the game proved to be its biggest selling point, with both adults and children spending significant amounts of money to acquire a full army of miniatures with accompanying vehicles and scenery, not to mention painting them. By the late 1990s, sales of Warhammer 40,000 and its spin-offs were lucrative enough to allow Games Workshop to open a string of speciality shops across Britain, selling the games, figures and paints, and providing a meeting place for gamers.

The popularity of the setting expanded with the addition of novels in the setting, which began with Ian Watson’s Inquisition War trilogy (starting with Inquisitor in 1990). Watson’s Space Marine (1993) was also important in establishing some of the background for the series. Starting in 1999, Games Workshop decided to begin publishing a full line of novels, starting with Eye of Terror by Barrington Bayley, Space Wolf by William King and, most importantly, First and Only by Dan Abnett. The latter began a series called Gaunt’s Ghosts, about the adventures of the Tanith First-and-Only, a division of the Imperial Guard fighting in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. Loosely inspired by Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series of novels, Gaunt’s Ghosts is one of the most popular novel series in shared world history, help drive Abnett to sales of over 3 million (making him individually Britain’s third-biggest-selling living SF author).

More recently the novel series was boosted by the Horus Heresy spin-off series. Set ten thousand years before the rest of the setting, the Horus Heresy tells the story of the massive civil war that tore the Imperium apart and provides the backstory to the rest of the series. Beginning in 2006, this sub-series remains incomplete in 2019 with fifty-five main sequence novels and dozens of short stories, novellas and audio dramas, although it has entered its last phase with six more books projected to bring it to a conclusion.

The first video game in the setting was Space Crusade, a turn-based tactics game released in 1990 and based on the board game of the same name. It was followed by Space Hulk (1993), a real-time combat game which required the player to control four Terminator Marines in first-person simultaneously. It was infamous for its punishing difficulty. However, the setting did not really take off in video games until the release of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War in 2004, a real-time strategy game from Relic Entertainment. A massive success selling millions of copies, Dawn of War helped boost the success of the Warhammer 40,000 setting in the United States. Although Warhammer and 40K were known in the States and had enjoyed a cult following, it was only with the success of the novels and Dawn of War (and numerous sequels) that sales of the franchise started going stratospheric. More recent video games in the series include Dawn of War III (2017), Space Hulk: Tactics (2018) and Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II (2019).

Despite the setting’s immense popularity, it has only resulted in one feature film being made, the CG movie Ultramarines (2010). It was not a huge success, and was criticised for having a low budget and underwhelming visuals. However, in 2019 it was confirmed that Games Workshop were working with Hollywood producer Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files, The Man in the High Castle) to bring the Eisenhorn series of novels to live-action television.

A lot more after the break...

Anarch by Dan Abnett

Ibram Gaunt is now the First Lord Executor of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, the adjunct of Warmaster Macaroth. His unit, the Tanith First and Only, is now among the elite forces defending the forge world of Urdesh from the invading Chaos troops under the command of Anarch Anakwanar Sek. Urdesh has become the crucible for the entire war, with both Macaroth and Sek in-theatre and determined that only one will walk away. But the battle for Urdesh marks another flashpoint, the awakening of a threat that has been growing within Gaunt's own ranks for decades...

I imagine the pitch meeting for Anarch went a bit like this:

"You know the Red Wedding from Game of Thrones?"
"Indeed."
"How about that, but..." *leans forwards* "...as an entire novel?"
"Ooh."

Anarch is a book that takes absolutely no prisoners, preferring to slice them into a thousand pieces of screaming blade death instead. The fifteenth Gaunt's Ghosts novel and the concluding book in the "Victory" arc takes a whole host of character arcs, subplots and storylines that have been percolating across the entire series (a long time; the first novel, First and Only, was published twenty years ago) and sets about tying them off with utterly ruthless, remorseless efficiency.

The story unfolds on several fronts. In the first, one of the First's most veteran soldiers, Mkoll, has been taken prisoner by the Archenemy and subjected to interrogation. This storyline follows Mkoll as he endures the trials of captivity and tries to find a method of escape. In another, enemy troops who infiltrated the capital of Urdesh in the previous novel, The Warmaster (to which this is less of a successor and more of a direct continuation) set about attacking Imperial forces whilst a special, elite unit tries to steal back the vital artefacts seized in Salvation's Reach. Different companies of the First have to blunt both attacks, which is where we get a lot of "classic" Ghosts action: last-ditch plans with little chance of success, heroic holding actions, brave last stands, improvised defences etc. This is all stirring stuff, although the body count is higher than some may be expecting.

Where the book goes cheerfully nuts is in the supposedly impregnable Imperial compound itself, when Abnett reveals a hitherto unknown talent for full-on, Event Horizon levels of body and existential horror. Not only is the battle in the undercroft of the palace utterly horrific and surprisingly visceral, but it's also ruthless on a scale we've not seen before in this series. Gaunt's Ghosts has occasionally played into the long-running military series cliche of killing off barely-named recruits and background soldiers whilst major players live to see another, lucrative day, with the occasional major death to keep things fresh. Anarch cheerfully says to hell with that and starts scything down major, long-running characters with at times almost wild abandon.

Killing characters for the sake of it can be rather pointless, but here Abnett gives almost each death meaning and resonance, concluding storylines stretching back as far as the first novel but particularly from the third, Necropolis (to the point where a re-read of Necropolis, or at least reading through a detailed plot summary, may be advisable to refresh the memory). Not only do some old favourites bite the bullet in this book, but some other characters, long missing on side-adventures, reappear and rejoin the team in this novel, which at least helps balance things out. Still, things will never be the same again for the Ghosts after this book, always a relief in a long-running series where the temptation to not shake things up and keep playing it safe must be strong.

Anarch (****½) is one of the finest novels in the entire Gaunt's Ghosts series, being atmospheric, foreboding, horrific and fantastically-written, as well as featuring Abnett's signature excellent action set-pieces and strong characterisation. It brings the entire series to a climax but not a conclusion; the Crusade is not yet victorious and more battles lie ahead. Abnett is busy helping finish off the Horus Heresy mega-series and then his own Bequin trilogy, so it may be a few years before we rejoin the Ghosts, but Anarch leaves the series on a fine - if bittersweet - note. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

The Warmaster by Dan Abnett

The Tanith First have completed a near-impossible strike mission to the remote enemy outpost of Salvation's Reach. As well as stealing a vast amount of intelligence material from the enemy, their attack has triggered an internal conflict within the Chaos armies between Sek and Gaur, allowing the Crusade to reach new levels of success. But a warp mistranslation on the way home throws the First into a dire new battle, as Gaunt and his team have to face a desperate Sek in battle on the forge world of Urdesh, and face a renewed threat from within the Crusade's own leadership.

The Warmaster is the fourteenth novel in the Gaunt's Ghosts series and the penultimate volume in the "Victory" arc. It was also released after an unprecedented five-year publishing gap in the series, the result of internal realignments within the Black Library and Games Workshop.

As a result, the book takes a little while to rev up to speed, with a somewhat disjointed narrative that attempts a lot of ideas - the Ghosts being shipwrecked in deep space, visited by Chaos horrors and suddenly in the thick of urban warfare and political intrigue on Urdesh - before the story comes together.

When it does, the results are impressive. We are fourteen books into this series now and we've never even met the guy in charge of the entire operation, and in fact (as Abnett's Sabbat Worlds Crusade companion book makes clear) the Ghosts have been operating on the fringes of the main war effort. Their actions have occasionally been decisive and even affected the main course of the war here and there, but only to a small degree. That revelation gives a real sense of scale to the war - in which tens of thousands of Imperial starships are carrying hundreds of millions of Imperial Guard troops, millions of support vehicles, thousands of Space Marines and hundreds, if not thousands, of skyscraper-sized Titans into battle across dozens of star systems simultaneously - which is remarkable. The Warmaster does a good job of pivoting the action, so suddenly the Ghosts and Gaunt are right in the middle of the key decisions being made for the entire war effort.

Abnett's key gifts are characterisation - finding ways of differentiating the two dozen or so characters of import within the Ghosts, plus various recurring side-characters - and action. He makes you care about the characters and their stakes. Like Bernard Cornwell before him (as tired as the "Sharpe/Uhtred in Space" comparisons are, they remain somewhat apt), he paints these soldiers as individuals with their own strengths, weaknesses and quirks, and makes you care about what happens to them (even the cowards and malcontents). That continues through The Warmaster, with an astonishing array of subplots being furthered in a remarkably constrained page count.

The Warmaster (****) does a good job of bringing together plot threads from the previous books in the series and making it feel like the war has reached a decisive turning point. The temptation to carry on this series forever must be strong, but in this book it does feel like the end of the Crusade is starting to lurch into view. On the minus side, aside from the slightly choppy opening, the ending to the book does feel a bit perfunctory for a Gaunt's Ghosts novel, although the reasons for this become clearer in the following book (Anarch), which is less of a successor and more of a direct continuation of this novel. No five-year wait this time for the next part of the story, fortunately. The book is available now in the UK and USA.

Calgar's Fury by Paul Kearney

A massive space hulk, an accumulation of thousands of vessels long lost to the warp, has emerged in the Realm of Ultramar, close to the agricultural world of Iax. The Ultramarines land on the hulk in force, planning a thorough reconnaissance before destroying it. They find signs of the taint of heresy, but also incredibly technological resources which could reinforce their battle against the enemies of mankind. Reluctantly, Chapter Master Marneus Calgar allies with both the Inquisition and the Adeptus Mechanicus to explore the hulk and seize its secrets in the name of the Emperor.

Calgar's Fury is the second book in a trilogy which explores the history and backstory of Marneus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines and one of the most famous warriors in the Warhammer 40,000 setting. The first book, Calgar's Siege, depicted how Calgar stood fast against the orks at the gates of Zalathras in a massive siege involving tens of thousands of troops.

The scale of Calgar's Fury is smaller, with a hundred or so Space Marines and allies dropped onto the space hulk Fury to delve into its secrets. This makes for an immediately much more claustrophobic and tense story. Exploring a space hulk has been a cornerstone of the Warhammer 40K setting ever since the release of the Space Hulk board game in 1989, followed by the Space Crusade game of a year later. Drawing influences from the likes of Aliens and Starship Troopers, the trope pits well-trained and well-armoured troops against overwhelming odds in tight corridors on an ancient spacecraft that could collapse at any time.

Kearney enjoys himself to the full here, painting the various characters in great depth and taking advantage of the competing interests (the Ultramarines, Inquisitions and Adeptus Mechanicus each have their own agenda) to create drama among the human characters. There's also a refreshing approach to the cliches of 40K here. Most space hulk stories pit humans against genestealers (an offshoot of the tyranids) or Chaos, but Calgar's Fury blurs the lines between the factions and makes for a more morally murky and uncertain story, an area where he thrives.

There is indeed a lot of action and fighting in the book, but it takes a surprising amount of time to arrive. The opening section of the book is a masterclass in slowly building, mounting dread as the Imperial characters investigate the mystery of the hulk and only gradually become aware of what it is they are dealing with. There are also several splendid plot twists and reversals that keep the reader guessing at what is going to happen next. The pacing is excellent, with Kearney letting the story last as long as it needs to and then clearing out without much fuss.

Calgar's Fury (****½) is a spendidly superior slice of science fantasy, tense and atmospheric building anticipation where the action, when it arrives, does not disappoint. It is available now in the UK and USA.

Dan Abnett's THE WARMASTER confirmed for December release

The Warmaster by Dan Abnett, the fifteenth novel in the highly popular Gaunt's Ghosts series, has been finally scheduled by Black Library for release in December this year.

The book is the third of four novels in the Victory sub-arc (to be followed by a novel provisionally entitled Anarch), itself apparently the penultimate series in the much larger Gaunt's Ghosts series, with possibly two novels in the final series (subtitled Archon) to wrap up the saga. However, these plans may have changed.

The Warmaster was originally scheduled for release in 2013. The reasons for the lengthy delays are unclear: Abnett was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2009 which delayed his work on the Horus Heresy series as he adjusted to medical treatment, but apparently the problems caused by this are years in the past. Abnett has also been working for Marvel Comics, his work in demand since he created the modern iteration of the Guardians of the Galaxy series (which the two movies are based on). However, Abnett has always produced a prolific amount of comics work alongside his novels without issue in the past.

More likely is the fact that Black Library and its parent company, Games Workshop, have been going through numerous convulsions and changes in the last few years. They have nuked their classic Warhammer fantasy setting, lost several high-profile authors and, bizarrely, deleted the omnibus editions of their novels and reprinted the individual books for a higher cost than the omnibuses, which has gone down like a lead balloon with fans and has put off potential new readers. Games Workshop's release schedule has slowed to a crawl recently with very few novels put out, the Horus Heresy series still nowhere near a conclusion after eleven years and forty-one books and the company seemingly focused on finding ways of selling existing material rather than producing new work.

Anyway, the good news is that The Warmaster is coming out and hopefully we will see the remaining books in the Gaunt's Ghosts series quite quickly afterwards. Abnett is also working on Penitent, the second novel in the Bequin trilogy (ending the storylines begun in the excellent Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies), which is likewise eagerly awaited by fans.

There will also be a companion novel to The Warmaster. Matthew Farrer has written a stand-alone Space Marines Battles novel called Urdesh which will take place simultaneously with The Warmaster, but it will not be necessary to read both to enjoy either novel.

Meanwhile, there is no word on Paul Kearney's Warhammer 40,000 novel Umbra Sumus. The book was pulled from release in 2015 when its series title, Dark Hunters, was ruled as infringing the copyright of Sherrilyn Kenyon's urban fantasy series Dark-Hunters. GW has yet to announce if the book is going to be renamed and reissued. Kearney has recently released a new Warhammer 40,000 novel in the Space Marine Battles line, Calgar's Siege, however.

New Paul Kearney novel confirmed for 2017

Black Library have confirmed that they will be publishing a new Paul Kearney novel set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe in 2017. 

Kearney's first novel for Black Libray, Dark Hunters: Umbra Sumus, was put on indefinite hold due to a copyright issue over the title (which clashes with Sherrilyn Kenyon's extremely popular Dark-Hunter series of vampire novels). Black Library have apparently been trying to resolve the legal issue for a year, but it's unclear if the novel will see the light of day without at least a title change and potentially a partial rewrite.

The new book is called Calgar's Siege and is a stand-alone novel in the Space Marine Battles line:

Marneus Augustus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, must survive the siege of Zalathras if he is to defeat the greenskin hordes of Warlord Brug.

Marneus Augustus Calgar is the Lord of Ultramar, one of the greatest realms of the Imperium. As Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, he leads one of the most prestigious and powerful Space Marine Chapters devoted to the defence of Mankind. In him, the blood of the Primarch Guilliman runs still. When Calgar receives a summons to the world of Zalidar he is unaware, as are the world's inhabitants, that it is under attack by the Ork Warlord Brug. When his vessel is shot down, Calgar and his Honour Guard must trek across Zalidar's jungle through ork-held territory to reach the city of Zalathras. A terrible siege ensues against a vast greenskin horde. Only Calgar can hope to prevail against such odds in a brutal conflict that gives rise to a legend that will last for eternity...

Kearney's most recent novel is the completely different (and excellent) Wolf in the Attic for Solaris, which he hopes to write a sequel to if sales prove good.

Calgar's Siege will be published on 7 February 2017.

Paul Kearney's UMBRA SUMUS delayed due to title clash

Paul Kearney's first Warhammer 40,000 novel, Dark Hunters: Umbra Sumus, was originally announced for publication by the Black Library for May of this year. It was then sneakily brought forward to the start of this month, meaning that it should have been out already. Unfortunately the book was pulled at the last moment due to a problem with its name.

Not Umbra Sumus, which is fine, but the series title, Dark Hunters. In WH40K lore, the Dark Hunters are a Space Marine chapter tasked with tracking down and destroying a Chaos Marine chapter known as the Punishers. Even by the grim standards of the setting, the Hunters are noted for being resolute and not much fun at parties.

The problem with this is that there is a quite well-known series by American  urban fantasy superstar Sherrilyn Kenyon, also known as Dark-Hunter (I'm assuming the hyphen and singular title is what BL missed when seeing if the term was already copyrighted). It began in 2002 and now comprises 26 novels, accounting for the majority of Kenyon's 30 million+ sales. Although not often discussed on genre websites, it's one of the biggest series in the genre with sales far outstripping that of the likes of The Dresden Files.

Even the mighty Games Workshop knows better than to take on the legal forces of an author so popular she can make a logo out of her initials.

Umbra Sumus and the previous Dark Hunters WH40K material has been withdrawn and will be reissued after a title change, hopefully later this year. It's unclear at the moment if the BL will have to completely rename the Dark Hunters chapter in all of the lore as well.

Paul is also working on a new novel for Solaris, The Wolf in the Attic, which is now looking like an early 2016 release.

Release date for Paul Kearney's next novel

Dark Hunters: Umbra Sumus is the title of Paul Kearney's next novel. Set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, the novel expands on elements in Kearney's previous short story in the setting, The Last Detail.

The sigil of the Dark Hunters, for in the grim darkness of the far future, where a technologically-advanced humanity fights on a thousand fronts against aliens, heretics, mutants and demons, everyone still thinks axes are cool.

The novel focuses on the battle between the Dark Hunters, a chapter of genetically-engineered Space Marines, and their deadly rivals, the Punishers. Unusually for a debut novelist in the setting, the Black Library will be publishing the novel in hardcover, presumably out of recognition for the quality of Kearney's former work. The title of the novel suggests that sequels are hoped for.

The novel will be published on 7 May 2015.