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.

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.

Salvation's Reach by Dan Abnett

The Tanith First and Only, the Ghosts, have been newly-reinforced by fresh troops from Belladon and Verghast and are preparing for their most audacious operation yet. Using intelligence gained at great cost from a Chaos prisoner, the Imperium has located Salvation Reach, a top-secret research facility for the Sons of Sek, their most tenacious foe in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. The Ghosts and several powerful allies having to mount a spaceborne assault on the facility, a single surgical strike which may decide the fate of the entire Crusade.

Salvation's Reach is the thirteenth novel in the Gaunt's Ghosts series (and the second in the "Victory" arc) and marks a new phase in the massive conflict known as the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. The Ghosts aren't taking on an enemy head-on, but are instead manufacturing division in the enemy's ranks, trying to turn the Blood Pact and the Sons of Sek against one another so the Crusade can take advantage of the division and secure victory. It's a difficult, ugly mission and one that most Imperium forces wouldn't be able to handle, but for the clandestine Ghosts it's a task more suited to their talents.

The previous book in the series, Blood Pact, was good but atypical for the series, focusing more on a much smaller-scale conflict. Salvation's Reach is a return to mass engagements, but in a different context, with the Ghosts have to take part in hostile boarding action on a space habitat hidden deep inside an asteroid. Along the way they have to take part in an absolutely massive space battle (which will have Battlefleet Gothic fans cheering), deal with a shapeshifting Chaos assassin and negotiate - delicately - with the three Space Marines assigned to help them with the mission.

The action side of things is, as usual, well-handled with the requisite fighting, brave last stands and tactical discussions all being quite good. However, the heart and soul of the series has been Abnett's handling of the characters, from Ibram Gaunt all the way down to the lowliest, greenest new recruit in the Ghosts' ranks. The character arcs are uniformly handled superbly, with several slow-burning story arcs extending across the series coming to startling climaxes in this book (with several callbacks to Necropolis, still arguably the best book in the series and certainly so far the most important). Several beloved characters bite the dust, but more impressive is the way character relationships are developed. The best scene in the book is where a stoic and merciless Space Marine solves one trooper's long-standing medical problem in one swift action and restores his life and military career (previously thought over) to him, without ever breaking character or the tone of the series.

On the negative side of things, there's a few cliches I could have done without (such as hitherto unknown family members showing up unexpectedly), but otherwise Salvation's Reach (****½) is a gripping, excellently-executed science fantasy war novel with a brilliant line in characterisation. It is available now (alongside Blood Pact) in The Victory: Part 1 omnibus (UK, 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.

Gaunt's Ghosts: Blood Pact by Dan Abnett

Two years have passed since the ferocious battle for Hinzerhaus Fortress on Jago. The Tanith First and Only won a famous victory, but only at a horrendous cost in lives. Battered and bleeding, the Tanith First finally won a respite, being rotated back to sector HQ on Balhaut for a well-earned rest after ten years on the front lines.

However, two years of inaction has led to problems with discipline, training and morale. In the midst of these problems, Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt is summoned to a clandestine meeting. An agent of the archenemy has been taken prisoner and wants to give up valuable intelligence...but the Blood Pact have been sent to silence him by any means necessary.


Blood Pact is the twelfth novel in the Gaunt's Ghosts series and marks the beginning of the fourth distinct story arc in the series, "The Victory". The opening of the book feels like Dan Abnett is taking a deep breath after the mayhem of the previous novels, which featured some of the bloodiest and most frenzied battles in the series to date, but it's not too long before the action kicks in again. Blood Pact is a short novel taking place over one single night and morning of carnage as the Blood Pact - the Ghosts' sworn rivals - arrive to carry out a suicide assassination task, succeed in splitting up the Ghosts and also take advantage of internal divisions as the Ghosts find themselves still under suspicion from the Inquisition about their mission to the Chaos-tainted world of Gereon years earlier.

As usual with a Gaunt's Ghosts novel, the pace is blistering, the action is superbly-handled and the characterisation shines. Gaunt's return to the world where he lost his former command but gained a new one adds new shades to his character. Background Ghosts nicely come to the fore, such as Maggs, whilst we touch base with a few key Ghosts who've been lower in profile in the preceding books. However, Blood Pact does feel like a lesser entry in the series. Perhaps it's due to the increasing frequency between novels (Blood Pact was released in 2009 and one more book, Salvation's Reach, in 2011 with nothing since), but Blood Pact feels a little like too much set-up at a moment in the series when it feels like it should be perhaps more decisively moving towards a conclusion. This can be seen in the fact that while a few key characters get a lot of time in the sun, numerous other Ghosts (including many who played key roles in the preceding few books) suddenly drop into the background. If Gaunt's Ghosts was a TV series (and we can but hope), this is the relatively low-key opening to a new season which is reacquainting you with all the characters before the big storylines kick in.

On that basis, Blood Pact (***½) does a good job of setting up its immediate sequel, Salvation Reach, and tells a rollicking good action story. Not one of the best books in the series, but still an effortlessly enjoyable slice of military SF from the best author in the subgenre. If you want to read the book, Blood Pact is currently only available as an ebook from the Black Library direct. However, the entire series is being rolled out in new editions, so it should be back in paperback in a few months.

Dan Abnett on future writing plans

With the thirteenth Gaunt's Ghosts novel out in a matter of weeks, Dan Abnett has been doing the interview rounds and has shed some light on his forthcoming projects.


In this print interview, Abnett confirms that Salvation Reach - due out next month - is the second in the fourth Gaunt's Ghosts arc, 'The Victory'. There will be two more books in this arc, followed by a fifth arc of either two or three books.

In this video interview, Abnett confirms that he is returning to the Inquisition setting of the Eisenhorn and Ravenor books for a third and final trilogy, known as the Bequin series (with the unofficial subtitle 'Eisenhorn vs. Ravenor'). The first of these new books should be out late next year.

Meanwhile, the second Triumff novel, The Double Falsehood, appears to have been delayed until early 2012, though no firm release date has been set yet.

Warhammer 40,000 & Gaunt's Ghosts overview

Due to the interest engendered by my recent reviews of the Gaunt's Ghosts series of novels by Dan Abnett, I thought it might be valuable to provide an overview of the wider setting of the books and the context which they exist in.

Just another day in the 41st Millennium.

Overview of the Warhammer 40,000 universe

The Gaunt's Ghosts novels are set in the long-established Warhammer 40,000 universe, although they require no foreknowledge of the rest of the setting. Developed by a team at Games Workshop led by Rick Priestly, the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop wargame was launched in 1987 as a SF companion to the older Warhammer Fantasy Battle game. WH40K (as it is popularly known) was a major success, spawning a number of spin-off boardgames (the best-known of which are Space Crusade and Space Hulk) and a glut of computer game adaptations, the most popular of which is the Dawn of War real-time strategy game series from Relic and THQ. It also spawned a line of original fiction, initially edited by hard SF author Stephen Baxter and featuring work by 'proper' SF author Ian Watson, whilst noted SF critic David Langford worked on the related White Dwarf magazine for a time. The setting was heavily inspired by Frank Herbert's Dune universe and Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, with additional influences from the works of Michael Moorcock (the order/chaos conflict) and films such as Aliens (even if the Space Marines of WH40K are nothing like the marines of the Cameron movie), but is most notable for its almost nihilistic tone.

The WH40K setting is the Milky Way Galaxy, almost 39,000 years into the future (the 'current' year in the setting is AD 40,999). Humanity has expanded into space and colonised millions of planets across the Galaxy by travelling through the extradimensional Warp. At one time humanity achieved a state of monumental technological achievement, existing alongside powerful robots and AI (for undisclosed reasons AI was later outlawed and robots - 'iron men' - held to be anathema, possibly for religious reasons). Unfortunately, a sudden rise in Warp Storms saw many worlds, including Terra (Earth) cut off from the rest of the colonies. Many worlds, dependent on trade for food and supplies, starved to death. Others fell into anarchy and civil war. The Warp Storms were the result of the activities of a hubristic alien race known as the Eldar (space elves) who had become corrupted by the dark, extradimensional beings living within the Warp (known as the Chaos Gods). The Eldar all but destroyed themselves in a titanic eruption of Chaos, allowing the birth of a new Chaos God and tearing open a hole in the fabric of reality known as the Eye of Terror and allowing the forces of Chaos easier access to our universe. On the plus side (not much consolation to the trillions of humans and Eldar who had died during the preceding centuries of anarchy), the Warp Storms did now abate.

Contains 100% less sandworm than rival God-Emperors of Humanity.

The end of the Warp Storms allowed the human worlds (now much depleted) to reestablish contact with one another, but their weakened state made them easy prey for raids, invasions and attacks by other alien races, such as the Orks. On Terra, a local warlord had risen to take control of the entire planet, followed by the rest of the Solar system. Proclaimed the Emperor of Mankind, he launched a Great Crusade to reunite humanity under one flag. Over the course of two centuries the Emperor led this task, aided by the genetically-engineered, towering super-humans known as the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, whose twenty legions exterminated almost all resistance to the Emperor's will. At the moment of triumph, however, just as it appeared that the new Imperium of Mankind would regain the glories of earlier epochs, the Emperor's most valued servant fell to the forces of Chaos. Horus, the Primarch of the Luna Wolves legion, was corrupted and led almost half of the Marine legions in rebellion against the Emperor in a lengthy civil war known as the Horus Heresy.

Horus and the Emperor confront one another at the end of the Heresy. They sat down and over a cup of tea sorted the whole thing out peacefully.

At the end of the Heresy, Horus's forces launched a full-scale assault on Terra itself, but were defeated. The Emperor and Horus faced one another in combat and the Emperor prevailed, but only at the cost of many terrible wounds. To save his life, his servants installed him in a life-support machine to which he is now permanently bonded and cannot leave, and is now part of the Golden Throne itself. The Emperor, now often called the God-Emperor of Mankind, has spent ten millennia within the Golden Throne, his immense psychic powers being used to help protect the Imperium from the depredations of Chaos and maintain psychic beacons making travel through the Warp safer.

These events took place approximately ten thousand years before the 'present' of the WH40K setting. The Traitor Legions, also called the Chaos Space Marines, withdrew to the Eye of Terror and the surrounding regions, occasionally launching devastating counter-attacks against the Imperium. The Imperium developed a number of institutions (most notably the Inquisition and its own psykers) to guard against the corruptions of Chaos and prevent a repeat of the Heresy, as well as raising new Space Marine chapters and employing tens of billions of 'normal' humans in a military force known as the Imperial Guard. Unfortunately, the Imperium's desire to utterly annihilate the forces of Chaos was thwarted by a near-continuous series of wars with various alien races (including the Orks, the arrogant Eldar, the disturbing Necrons, the rapacious Tyranid swarms and the technologically-advanced Tau) and the sheer complexities of running and defending a empire consisting of millions of worlds and quadrillions of inhabitants.

Warhammer 40,000 is notable for its extreme bleakness and sense of inevitable doom, characterised by fans as being 'grimdark'. There are no real 'good guys', with all of the races (aside from the Tau, who like other races as long as they do what they are told) noted as being extremely xenophobic and living in a state of near-permanent warfare. Humanity is enthralled by a theocracy which commands insurmountable resources, with little chance of overthrowing the God-Emperor. Indeed, despite the appalling conditions much of humanity lives under in the 41st Millennium, the Imperium is nevertheless presented as being the best of several bad choices. Also, whilst conditions are pretty bad on the industrial hive worlds (where billions toil in city-sized factories to build weapons and vehicles for the Imperium's military), there are agrarian worlds where a slower, more peaceful form of life can be found (such as on Tanith). It's a dark universe where chaos and bloodshed are rife, and people survive the best they can.

Space Marines of the Ultramarines chapter. Stealth is not their speciality.

The Sabbat Worlds Crusade

In the 35th Millennium the forces of Chaos threatened a cluster of 100 inhabited worlds near the outskirts of Imperial space. A simple shepherd's daughter, Sabbat of Hagia, elected to join the fight against the forces of Chaos after experiencing a holy vision of the Emperor. Sabbat's vision and tactical abilities saw her rise to lead a huge offensive against the Chaos forces which eventually succeeded in driving them from the sector. Sabbat was killed in an epic battle on Harkalon at the end of the war, was beatified and the entire star cluster was named in her honour when it was integrated into the Imperium as a secure territory. Sabbat was held in particularly high honour by the White Scars Space Marine chapter, who gave her the unprecedented honour of forging a suit of Astartes power armour for her (almost unheard of for normal humans, let alone women, since the Astartes are all male).

Three thousand years later, the forces of Chaos began to infiltrate the Sabbat Worlds cluster to weaken it from within. A series of wars, civil wars and various conflicts began which the Imperium managed to restrain, but never entirely eliminate. By 740.M41 (the 740th year of the 41st Millennium, or 40,740 AD by the old Terran calendar) many of the Sabbat Worlds had been overrun by Chaos insurgents, bolstered by enemy forces arriving from outside the sector, and the Imperium of Mankind officially abandoned the cluster, withdrawing to more heavily-defended systems. The forces of Chaos had appeared to have triumphed.

Of course, the abandonment of over a hundred imperial worlds and trillions of imperial citizens to the Ruinous Powers could not be countenanced. An influential imperial general, Warmaster Slaydo, heavily campaigned for a military effort to be made to retake the sector in the name of Saint Sabbat and the God-Emperor. The High Lords of Terra, speaking for the Emperor, agreed that Chaos could not be allowed to take root in these worlds and authorised a massive counter-offensive known as the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, one of the largest military operations since the Horus Heresy.

Warmaster Slaydo assembled a force of approximately one billion Imperial Guard, consisting of around four hundred thousand regiments (of which the Tanith First and Only, Gaunt's Ghosts, is precisely one). Slaydo also received assistance from six Adeptus Astartes Chapters, including the White Scars, and a number of Imperial Titans (gargantuan Imperial war machines capable of levelling entire cities). In support was a significant detachment of the Imperial Navy, consisting of (at the very least) thousands of capital ships and millions of transports. Slaydo launched the Crusade on the 266th day of 755.M41 with a massive assault against outlying worlds in the cluster. The initial shock of the attack won the Crusade several worlds very quickly, but the forces of Chaos mounted a significant counter-offensive, reducing the Crusade to a hard grind over the next decade. Frustrated with the slower-than-anticipated progress, Slaydo sought to regain the initiative with a surprise attack on Balhaut, the sector headquarters for the Chaos Archon overseeing the war, Nadzybar. The attack was successful, with Balhaut falling in several weeks of exceptionally heavy fighting. Nadzybar was killed, but so was Slaydo. On his deathbed, he appointed a junior but extremely promising general, Macaroth, to take his place.

Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt, smiling and joking as always.

Enter the Ghosts

Following the devastating assault on Balhaut, there was an urgent need for reinforcements. The agricultural world of Tanith, located close to the Sabbat Worlds, was ordered to raise three regiments for the Imperial Guard, and Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt, who had distinguished himself on Balhaut, was dispatched to take command of them. Unfortunately, a small Chaos fleet escaping from the Balhaut system, burning everything in its path, attacked Tanith shortly after the Tanith 1st had begun embarking on its transports. Gaunt, realising the hopelessness of the tactical position, ordered the Tanith 1st to abandon the planet and flee, only hours ahead of the total destruction of the planet. The officers and soldiers of the 1st were divided by this move, some agreeing it to be tactically sound (whilst regretting they could not stand and protect their homeworld, even unto death) whilst others believed it to be cowardly and dishonourable. These latter troops took some considerable time to forgive Gaunt and fully accept his authority.

The Tanith 1st, now dubbed the Tanith First and Only, for there would never be another regiment raised from that world, was nicknamed the Ghosts, for being the last survivors of a dead world and people, and also for their elite camouflage abilities and camo-cloaks that rendered them almost invisible in the right lighting conditions. Over the course of the Crusade they would achieve many significant and impressive military victories. However, whilst the Tanith 1st's achievements are notable, they are not presented as being central to the Crusade, with the Ghosts often achieving victories on the flanks or sidelines whilst the central, major thrusts of the war take place elsewhere. Their defence of the Saint on Herodor in Sabbat Martyr is arguably their most notable victory (in tactical terms) to date, although their tenacious defence of Vervunhive in Necropolis is probably their largest single military achievement.


Reading Order

There are currently twelve Gaunt's Ghosts novels in print, along with several spin-offs. A thirteenth book is due next year. For ease of collection, the first eleven books have been collected in three omnibus volumes, corresponding to the story arcs the series is divided into. The twelfth through fifteenth volumes will form a fourth omnibus and arc, and it is unknown if the series will continue beyond that point. I would hope not, however, as fifteen books is enough for any series, and beyond that Abnett could risk turning into Bernard Cornwell, churning out Sharpe books for the money despite increasingly ludicrous scenarios (so Sharpe was at Waterloo and Trafalgar? Really?).

Omnibus I: The Founding

1. First and Only
2. Ghostmaker
3. Necropolis

Omnibus II: The Saint

4. Honour Guard
5. The Guns of Tanith
6. Straight Silver
7. Sabbat Martyr

Omnibus III: The Lost

8. Traitor General
9. His Last Command
10. The Armour of Contempt
11. Only in Death

Omnibus IV: The Victory

12. Blood Pact
13. Salvation Reach (forthcoming)

Gaunt's Ghosts: Only in Death by Dan Abnett

The war in the Sabbat Worlds wages on. The Ghosts have been deployed to Jago with orders to hold the remote mountain fortress of Hinzerhaus against a possible enemy flanking maneuver. Arriving at the massive redoubt, the Ghosts find a vast house hiding ancient secrets and inhabited by some old friends. As the forces of Chaos mount an assault on Hinzerhaus, the Ghosts discover that a far greater threat than the exterior enemy may lurk in the bowels of the fortress.


Only in Death brings the 'Lost' arc of the Gaunt's Ghosts series to a conclusion, and the series almost up to date (one further novel, Blood Pact, beginning the 'Victory' arc, has since been published). Abnett's policy in the last few books in the series has been to shake up the format and introduce some weirder and more oddball elements, and this continues in Only in Death. In short, this book overlays a horror narrative over the more familiar scenes of military action, employing both supernatural and psychological elements to really get under the characters' skins.

At the same time Abnett continues his policy of using each book to flesh out characters, bringing new Junior Commissar Ludd and Commissar Hark under the spotlight and dropping Gaunt into the background. The novel's supernatural overtones also allow for some clever moments for character exploration and growth (Larkin hallucinating about the long-dead Bragg and Cuu battling over his soul features some nice call-backs to previous books and explores more of Larkin's post-Gereon personality).

Of course, the action is not neglected, but this time around it's a lot more brutal. Previous novels have seen the Ghosts achieve their objectives with minimal-to-acceptable losses, but Only in Death is nasty, wiping out entire platoons without breaking stride. The end of the novel is ambiguous, with the Ghosts surviving (probably not too devastating a spoiler) but badly broken and bloodied. How they recover from this devastating battle remains to be seen, and will hopefully be explored further in the succeeding 'Victory' arc.

Unfortunately, the book does suffer a little from cheesiness (this series, being military SF set in an ongoing franchise, does occasionally bump into the cheese but generally does a good job of steering around it) as two Ghosts go off on a badass solo mission where they eliminate vast swathes of the enemy single-handed. Abnett sells it as well as he can, but it's somewhat corny, especially when you realise he has retreated from the tantalising possibility of doing something truly shocking in the series.

That said, the novel's ending repairs some of the damage as we get a well-foreshadowed explanation for the weirdness (well, some of it, anyway) and a scene which is genuinely powerful, bringing the novel, the arc and the Lost omnibus to a fine conclusion.

Only in Death (****) is a dark, bloody, weird and satisfying entry to the series, despite the tonally dubious 'two soldiers against the world' subplot in its latter part. The novel is available now as part of The Lost omnibus in the UK and USA.

Gaunt's Ghosts: The Armour of Contempt by Dan Abnett

The Crusade armies have identified their next target: the Chaos-held world of Gereon. Ibram Gaunt and a dozen of his best troops spent a year and a half on Gereon fighting the archenemy, and the Ghosts are in the vanguard of the liberation effort. Unfortunately, as the battle for Gereon rages on an apocalyptic scale, Gaunt gradually learns there are extenuating reasons for this invasion, reasons that are related to his prior mission to the planet...


The Armour of Contempt is the tenth Gaunt's Ghosts novel (of the twelve currently available) and the third book in the 'Lost' arc. The novel initially appears to have been written as a fan-pleasing move: having been through hell and back during the previous small-scale, stealth mission to Gereon, Gaunt gets to return with several hundred thousand troops of the Imperial Guard, vast numbers of tanks and aircraft and several Titans (skyscraper-sized battlemechs with enough firepower to level a city with a single salvo) to dish out some much-needed retribution to the occupiers. Of course, that would be far too obvious and much too boring to make for an interesting book. Instead, the novel is divided into two mostly-separate narratives which have different objectives.

In the first, Dalin Criid undergoes Imperial Guard training. Rescued from Vervunhive as a ten-year-old back in the third novel, Necropolis, Dalin is now eighteen and spoiling to join the ranks of the Ghosts. Unfortunately, as a trainee he is serving as part of the military reserve and when the assault on Gereon begins, he finds his reserve status activated and himself fighting as part of an ad-hoc-assembled military unit stuffed full of rookies, rather than with the Ghosts. This gives Abnett a chance to show us what it's like as part of a full-scale, combined-arms offensive in the WH40K universe rather than the standard Gaunt's Ghosts narrative about smaller-scaled conflicts with stealth and infiltration elements, as well as a chance to dish out more information and background on Guard training. This narrative unfolds fairly concisely with a focus on how Dalin handles the ridiculous pressures put on his shoulders and those of his unit. It's entertaining, but perhaps a little too straightforward after some of the more intriguing curve-balls thrown our way in the last few novels.

In the second narrative, Gaunt has to reacquaint himself with the Gereon resistance and the troops he left behind last time around. This storyline is more of a gut-punch, as Gaunt discovers just how badly he's been used by both his supposed friends and by his enemies, with the people of Gereon left to pay the price. This is a pretty grim story which doesn't have much of a happy ending, especially as it emphasises Gaunt's flaws (an Imperial commissar really should have seen the ending coming) instead of his virtues, something that is always welcome as it would be extremely easy for Abnett to allow Gaunt to become a flawless hero.

The two narratives unfold reasonably well together, although the linking device is a little bit corny. This book features the death of another prominent Ghost, but it is foreshadowed so much that it lacks any kind of real impact, which is a shame given the story points Abnett had set up in previous novels to support it.

Despite this minor weakness, The Armour of Contempt (****) is another strong entry in the series, with an different (but effective) structure to the rest of the novels. The book is available now in the UK and USA as part of The Lost omnibus.

Gaunt's Ghosts: His Last Command by Dan Abnett

The Sabbat Worlds Crusade has moved on to the world of Ancreon Sextus, where Chaos forces have dug in and fortified the planet's vast, ancient steppe-cities. Returning from his horrific mission to Gereon, Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt discovers that his beloved regiment, the Tanith 1st, has been reassigned to another officer and he is to return to commissariat duties. However, Gaunt discovers his new task is especially difficult and thankless, not helped by zealous members of the Inquisition who believe that Gaunt may have been tainted during his time on Gereon...


His Last Command continues the 'Lost' arc of the Gaunt's Ghosts series and shows that Abnett is now paying greater attention to continuity than ever before. During the events of Traitor General Gaunt and his team were infiltrated onto a Chaos-held world and had to carry out a very difficult mission. Whilst that was accomplished, the hoped-for extraction never took place and Gaunt and his crew were abandoned on the planet for sixteen months before they could escape under their own power. The result is a rift sewn deep into the ranks of the Ghosts, with the Gereon survivors suffering from various post-traumatic battle stresses, not to mention a form of elitism that comes from their experience that their fellows haven't also shared in. This is an obvious, but still very effective, way of shaking up the Ghosts and severely denting the familial and sentimental feelings that have been building up over the previous eight books. Returning Gaunt to commissar duties and giving the regiment to another commander is also a solid way of introducing fresh conflict to the series, although Abnett carefully avoids cliche by ensuring the new commander is actually an effective and reasonable officer.

The result is a book seething with tension, as the Ghosts are divided by their differing experiences, as Gaunt is at odds with the Inquisition and superior officers over their lack of support during their previous mission, and as the various units differ on how to tackle the unique geography of the planet's steppe-cities. These cities are immense mesas divided into 'compartments' by vast walls, with each compartment featuring radically different terrain and weather to its neighbours. Because the steppe-cities were apparently raised as religious monuments to the God-Emperor of Mankind ten thousand years previously, the Crusade can't simply level them from orbit, meaning they have to be taken the old-fashioned way.

The steppe-cities are an interesting creation, as good a Big Dumb Object concept as anything in a Greg Bear novel, even if the revelation of their eventual purpose is a little ordinary (although the Imperial reaction to it is hilariously over-the-top). The battle scenes are still robustly-handled, but this novel continues the path from the previous one of focusing more on the internal tribulations of the Ghosts as a team and as individuals, and this added depth continues to be very welcome.

With His Last Command (****) Abnett continues to test and play with the limitations of what can be done with tie-in fiction in a manner that is both entertaining and refreshing. The novel lacks the compelling focus and weirdness of Traitor General, but is otherwise a fine addition to the series. It is available as part of The Lost omnibus in the UK and USA.

Gaunt's Ghosts: Traitor General by Dan Abnett

Gereon, a Chaos-held planet in the Sabbat Worlds that has been under total enemy occupation for years. The local resistance forces, their hopes for liberation ebbing, are overjoyed when Ibram Gaunt arrives on Gereon, but less so when it is revealed that he only has a dozen troopers with him, and their mission is not liberation, but the assassination of a traitor...


Over the course of the Gaunt's Ghosts series, Dan Abnett has toyed with and tested the limits of what he can do with these books several times, but has generally remained close to the core line that he must deliver a large-scale war story every time out. In Traitor General, the eighth book in the series and the opening of The Lost story arc (which spans four volumes), he goes for a somewhat different approach.

Gaunt and his team are deep undercover and must employ stealth, misdirection and hiding to achieve what they normally would using force. That wouldn't be so much of a problem except that the world they are operating on has been occupied by Chaos for years, with the result that the entire planet is tainted, a taint that starts seeping into Gaunt and his team. This causes increasingly odd behaviour as their perceptions of reality and what is right and wrong begin to change. This also means that the enemy forces on Gereon have some extremely powerful forces to call upon that normally would be not be able to manifest, such as the formidable and extremely weird wirehounds and glyfs, both concepts that feel like they've dropped out of a China Mieville novel. In short, Traitor General is where Abnett gets his weird freak on and pulls it off well.

Of course, Traitor General has its requisite amount of action, including a memorable sequence where the ten Guardsmen (and two Guardswomen) have to face off against five Chaos Space Marines in a swamp village (very long odds indeed), or a running battle between rebels and occupation forces in a town. Abnett also continues his welcome tendency of using each new book to highlight a hitherto under-developed Ghost and bring some development and focus to them. In this book it's Brostin, the team's resident flamethrower-operator and pyromaniac, who gets his turn in the spotlight, though Gaunt's nemesis Rawne also continues to develop away from the thinly-veiled antagonist of earlier books into a more rounded character in his own right.

We also get a deeper look inside the Chaos camp as well. For many of the preceding volumes Chaos has been equated with pure evil and its ranks shown to consist almost solely of crazed cultists and suicidal warriors, though there have been hints here and there of other things going on (particularly with the Blood Pact, the enemy army's elite troops). In this book we get a much better look at how the Archenemy of Mankind operates and discover some amusing parallels to the Crusade's own political machinations and in-fighting. Abnett also starts embracing the more whimsical and surreal nature of Warhammer 40,000 humour, something he'd previously steered clear of (presumably for tonal reasons), and marries it to the more traditional dark humour of the books very well. I'm hoping Humiliti and his unnecessarily pedantic transcribing ways return in future books.

Traitor General (****½) sees Abnett doing something new, weirder and more interesting with the Gaunt's Ghosts series and pulling it off admirably, resulting in one of the very best books in the series so far. The novel is available now as part of The Lost omnibus in the UK and USA.

Gaunt's Ghosts: Sabbat Martyr by Dan Abnett

AD 40,773. The Crusade hangs by a thread. Warmaster Macaroth's main forces are bogged down in a devastating conflict on the fortress world of Morlond, exposing the Khan system on his flank to a decisive Chaos counter-offensive. If successful, this offensive will destroy Macaroth's line of supply and surround him. Gaunt and the Tanith First and Only are hastily redeployed to Herodor, second world of the Khan system, to meet the renewed Chaos thrust. On Herodor Gaunt is confronted by nothing less than a miracle, a turn of fate which could save the Crusade from disaster: the apparent reincarnation of Saint Sabbat herself. But this turn of events is timely and convenient, maybe too convenient...


In Sabbat Martyr a number of storylines that Abnett set in motion as far back as Honour Guard climax. In that earlier novel we learned a lot more about the religious basis of the Crusade and Gaunt's own spirituality and religious conviction, something that comes full circle here when Gaunt's faith is by turns battered and reinforced. That book also marked the beginning of various sub-plots involving Ghosts such as Larkin, Cuu, Milo, Kolea and Soric which reach their conclusions in this volume, giving the book a more epic and decisive feel than some of the more recent volumes. If Gaunt's Ghosts ever became a TV series, this would be the big season finale.

Abnett mostly does a good job of juggling various long-standing plotlines with the book's own internal story, the battle for the city of Civitas Beati. In keeping with the recent trend to give each battle its own distinctive shape and atmosphere, Abnett deliberately makes Civitas Beati a wide-open, near-indefensible position to contrast to the earlier city fighting in Necropolis, which took place in a formidable and near-impregnable fortress-city. Here the fighting is believably chaotic and confused.


This book is also notable for giving us a deeper look at the inner ranks of the enemy. Whilst previous books have briefly featured the various Chaos warlords, their minions and their reactions to the Ghosts' activities, this is the first one where they have a reasonable amount of page-time, with particular attention focused on the nine assassins and their various battles with members of the Ghosts. Whilst a nice idea, it is a little bit undersold in this book. There's simply way too much going on to properly introduce nine badass assassins, give them all a decent level of description and background and then set them against the Ghosts in various engagements in the 250-odd page count. As such this storyline is unfortunately rushed.

More satisfying are the resolutions to long-standing storylines. The enemy within the Ghosts is finally flushed out, other characters reach their destinies and we have the biggest and most shocking death in the series to date. This book feels like the end of an era in the series, with the book's ending setting up an apparent new and bloodier phase of the war.

Sabbat Martyr (****) brings the 'Saint' arc to an enjoyable conclusion and ensures that things will never be the same again for Gaunt and his troops. The book is available now as part of The Saint omnibus in both the UK and USA.

Gaunt's Ghosts: Straight Silver by Dan Abnett

Decades ago the forces of Chaos overran and conquered the Sabbat Worlds, a star cluster of over one hundred inhabited planets which had been won for the Imperium six millennia previously by Saint Sabbat, a formidable general. One of the few worlds not to fall outright was Aexe Cardinal, too marginal for even the endless legions of the Warp to waste time attacking. Instead, a local, ambitious nation was reinforced and induced to attack its neighbours, unleashing a horrendous trench war the likes of which humanity has not seen in thousands of years.


With the Crusade forces now trying to push back a determined Chaos counter-assault, several detachments of Imperial Guard have been dispatched to secure Aexe Cardinal and its resources. Gaunt and the Tanith 1st are sent in to break the stalemate. Unfortunately for Gaunt, he remains unaware that his unit is harbouring a traitor and murderer...

The Gaunt's Ghosts series reaches its sixth volume and shows little sign of running out of speed. Just as we were getting used to the 'rules' of this series, Abnett decided to shake them up in the last two books by introducing some bad apples to the Ghosts and killing off one reasonably major character, as well as varying the war scenes by switching to an airborne drop in The Guns of Tanith and a running road battle in Honour Guard. In Straight Silver he switches to a gruelling trench war reminiscent of WWI with the two sides happy to lob shells at one another and occasionally try a futile trench-rush. By invoking images of the Somme and Passchendaele Abnett does a good job of getting across the horrendous futility of pointless war, with even the battle-weary Ghosts shocked by the state of the conflict and determined to help break the deadlock.

This leads to a two-pronged storyline, as one detachment of Ghosts scouts a forest for signs of enemy infiltration and ends up besieged in a farmhouse whilst another goes on a Dirty Dozen-style trip behind enemy lines to locate and destroy an artillery detachment. It has to be said that compared to the epic, conflict-ending struggles the Tanith has been involved with previously, these feel like sideshows, but this is deliberate. The Tanith aren't always the unit that turns the tide of a war, and after forty years of conflict such an outcome would have been particularly unrealistic here. Instead, Abnett focuses on the characterisation, particularly of the increasingly loathsome Cuu and his feud with the Ghosts' ace sniper Larkin. Whilst also developing the newer Varghast troops he also switches the spotlight on some older Ghosts who have not featured centrally in the past, such as Feygor and Mkvenner, to good effect.

The end of the book is a surprise. The Ghosts are abruptly summoned on a new mission and we are left on a minor cliffhanger, for the first time in the series. The Ghosts have a new mission, one potentially that could win them the entire Crusade, on Herodor...

Straight Silver (****) is another solidly entertaining instalment in a reliably entertaining series. It is available now in the UK and USA as part of The Saint omnibus.

Gaunt's Ghosts: The Guns of Tanith by Dan Abnett

The Sabbat Worlds Crusade's proud advance into enemy territory has overreached itself and is now under a vicious and determined counter-offensive. Gaunt and his troops are redeployed to the industrial world of Phantine, where the surface has been lost under a seething fog of chemical poison, leaving the remaining cities and vapour mills clinging to the tops of tall mesas and mountains. The survival of the Crusade now depends on Phantine and several other fuelling worlds being liberated to open new supply lines to the fleet.


The lack of usable surface area on the planet rules out a conventional mechanised assault, leaving only one option to take the vital settlements of Cirenholm and Ouranberg: a massive airborne assault, something the Ghosts have never done before. As they prepare for battle, the murder of a civilian, apparently by a Ghost, unleashes a storm of suspicion and dissent within their ranks which Gaunt must quickly resolve before it damages their morale.

The Guns of Tanith is where the Gaunt's Ghosts series takes a much darker turn. Whilst we've lost a few minor characters along the way, this is where major, fan-favourite characters start biting the dust and an insidious presence makes itself known amongst their ranks. The Ghosts now have an enemy within and the twists and turns the plot goes through before revealing who it is are impressive. The final few pages of the book are a truly heinous gut-punch of a twist that will leave the reader fuming and shocked.


However, that is the subplot. The main story is about the two airborne assaults. The first is a full-on, all-out attack whilst the second is an infiltration making use of the Tanith's specialised stealth capabilities (the first time they've actually been used properly). Whilst Abnett makes a good job of differentiating the two battles as much as possible, there remains a feeling of repetitiveness. The secondary guest characters are less memorable this time around as well, with the sole exception of the eccentric Van Voytz, Gaunt's new commanding officer who manages to be an effective general and appreciates the Ghosts' abilities despite being also somewhat bonkers.

The book's weaknesses are more than made up for by the excellent twist that the new internal threat to the unit presents and also some crowd-pleasing moments in the book's finale (such as one where a character is invited to look under a table).

The Guns of Tanith (****) is where we start to say goodbye to some of the series' longest-established characters and where events take a darker and more interesting turn. The book is available now as part of The Saint omnibus in the UK and USA.

Gaunt's Ghosts: Honour Guard by Dan Abnett

Following the epic Battle of Vervunhive and his impressive achievements during it, Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt's star has risen and he and his unit, the Tanith First and Only, are tasked with a glorious mission, liberating the shrineworld of Haiga, homeworld of the Saint Sabbat in whose name the entire Sabbat Worlds Crusade is being fought. Unfortunately, the final assault on the planet's major city goes awry and Gaunt finds himself disgraced and out of favour once more.


Gaunt now has only one chance to redeem himself: to travel through enemy-infested countryside and mountains to the Shrinehold of Saint Sabbat and evacuate her relics and remains safely from the planet. For the Ghosts and their allies, the Pardu tank regiment, this will turn out to be one of their most dangerous and desperate missions...

Honour Guard is the fourth novel in the Gaunt's Ghosts series and the first in its second 'story arc'. The action picks up a few months after Necropolis and sees the Tanith First and Only bolstered by new recruits from the scratch companies who defended Vervunhive so bravely during the battle there. This leads to a minor storyline where the fresh Vervunhive troops find themselves trying to integrate with the older, more established Tanith troops with mixed results. The main focus is on the road trip mission, however, with Abnett deciding to base each novel in this arc around a different kind of military mission (the book following this one, The Guns of Tanith, is an airborne drop, for example) to keep things fresh. Another of Abnett's decisions is to focus on large-scaled armoured action, with massive tank battles the order of the day here, although the Ghosts are still right in the thick of the action.


What sets the Gaunt's Ghosts books apart from most military SF is the characterisation, with a number of well-drawn central characters and many supporting ones whom Abnett is only able to paint briefly, but still come across as fully-rounded figures. With this fourth book Abnett is also showing increasing proficiency at inverting or dismissing cliches, with Commissar Hark a notable new character whose motivations and goals are not quite as clear-cut as they first appear. Most startling, however, is this book's focus on spirituality. The Warhammer 40,000 setting's religion - which sees the immortal Emperor venerated as a god and his greatest generals and tacticians as saints - is pretty ludicrous, but here Abnett makes it work. For the first time the reasons for the colossal scale of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade become clear, and we get a better appreciation of Gaunt and his own sense of faith.

Honour Guard (****) is well-written, briskly-paced, well-characterised and brings some new tricks to the Gaunt's Ghosts series, showing that Abnett is not resting on his laurels. The book is perhaps not quite as gripping as Necropolis, but is still a solidly entertaining slice of military SF. The book is available as part of The Saint omnibus, in the UK and USA.

Gaunt's Ghosts: Necropolis by Dan Abnett

Supplying the vast armies of the Imperium with their weapons of war are the hive worlds, industrialised planets consisting of huge city-states called hives which churn out the hundreds of thousands of vehicles, millions of weapons and billions of munitions required for the Imperium to wage war on its foes. The individual hives on any one world are very competitive with one another, sometimes even to the point of open conflict.


On Verghast, the hive-states of Vervunhive and Ferrazoica, vital supply posts for the Sabbat Worlds Liberation Crusade forces, have long been bitter rivals, fighting a brief but bloody conflict called the Trade War ninety years earlier before settling down into an uneasy peace. When the Zoicans launch a surprise assault on Vervunhive, destroying its offensive army in the field and besieging the city, the hive's proud leaders are forced to call for aid from the Crusade fleet. As elements of the Imperial Guard arrive to reinforce the city, it becomes clear that this is more than just a small-scale planetary feud, and the Siege of Vervunhive will become one of the greatest and most legendary battles of the entire Crusade, especially for the Tanith First-and-Only and their commander, Gaunt.

Necropolis is the third novel in the Gaunt's Ghost sequence and, according to Abnett's introduction to the omnibus edition, is where he 'got it' in terms of what he could do with the Warhammer 40,000 universe and his characters. He's not kidding. The book opens in a rather unusual manner, with the first 50 pages (almost a full sixth of the book) taking place in Vervunhive as the war begins. We meet numerous characters, from city administrators to nobles to industry-workers to gang members, and see how their lives are thrown into tumult by the attack, and how the outnumbered defenders manage to hold off the enemy long enough for a few Imperial Guard regiments to reach them. This gives us a battery of different POV characters, including children, women and civilians (people not well-catered for by the first two books), who give us a very different viewpoint on the setting and world to that of the Guard or Space Marines who are the normal focus for WH40K fiction.

Needless to say, things kick off big time and Abnett unleashes what can only be called the closest science fiction has ever come to its own version of the Battle of Stalingrad. Vast armoured engagements and ferocious artillery bombardments precede a desperate battle for the city and its millions of inhabitants, with Gaunt and his Ghosts, but also numerous other, new characters, in the thick of the action.


Necropolis is, hands down, one of the best purely military SF novels I've ever read. Between the moments of carnage Abnett also delivers some solid character development for the likes of Gaunt, Rawne, Milo, Bragg and erstwhile antagonists like Gilbear and the other Bluebloods. The battles are violent and vivid, and those who have studied Stalingrad will find some interesting points of comparison in the desperate battles between men armed with just grenades and mines and heavily-armoured main battle tanks in industrial wastelands, tightly-packed streets and bombed-out commercial buildings. Abnett also makes some interesting points here about the sheer wastefulness of war, particularly in the maudlin ending, which is unusual in a military SF novel. The book manages to be based around an epic and violent battle without glorifying it, which is an impressive balancing act to achieve.

Necropolis (****½) is a thunderously readable, page-turning and smart military SF novel, available now in the UK and USA as part of the omnibus volume, The Founding.

Gaunt's Ghosts: Ghostmaker by Dan Abnett

The Liberation Crusade continues its push into the Sabbat Worlds, pushing the forces of Chaos back on every front. The Tanith First-and-Only are deployed to Monthax, a jungle world which reminds the Tanith forces of their lost homeworld. As the battles there degenerate into a long, drawn-out stalemate the troopers known as Gaunt's Ghosts find themselves recalling the battles of the past even as a mysterious presence in the deep jungles decides to use the human forces for their own ends...


Ghostmaker, the second novel in the Gaunt's Ghosts series, is an interesting book with a slightly odd structure. The first two-thirds or so of the book consist of short stories flashing back to key moments in the histories of individual soldiers within the Tanith First and also the unit as a whole, from Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt downwards in the rank structure. These short stories are varied in nature and tone, but are all pretty good in quality, mixing humour, tragedy and action with some interesting character-development. Several key Ghost characters were developed in the first book but here Abnett is able to portray several more in detail, explaining some interesting backstory moments which illuminate their action in this and the subsequent book. Abnett also makes greater use of the greater Warhammer 40,000 universe (again, no foreknowledge of the setting is required to enjoy this novel), throwing in some appearances by the orks and eldar to spice things up a bit.

The final third is a more traditional war story as the Tanith First engages the forces of Chaos in earnest on Monthax. It's a solid story with some good writing, but the book's odd structure does mean Abnett struggles a little here and there. In particular, he chooses to have the Imperial Guard join forces with an alien battle group to fend off a greater foe, a trope which various Warhammer 40,000 fiction writers tend to use when needed (rather a lot in the Dawn of War computer games) despite the fact that consorting with any aliens in the WH40K universe is pretty much considered a heresy under any circumstances in the game material. Abnett tries to justify it with the use of a new Inquisitor character trained for this very circumstance, but it's a little bit thin as a piece of story rationale.


Whilst not as strong as First and Only or its much more engrossing successor, the thunderous Necropolis (which is basically the Battle of Stalingrad of WH40K engagements), Ghostmaker (***½) shows ambition with the author trying something new rather than just another adventure for Gaunt and the boys, and for the most part pulls it off. The novel is out of print as a solo title, but is available as part of the first Gaunt's Ghosts omnibus, The Founding, in the UK and USA.