Anarch

This book is the fifteenth, and most recent instalment of Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series. I have read this one before since I started doing this blog so there is a post about it already, but I didn't really put much effort into overviewing the story there, and besides I promised that on this new read-through of the whole series the final post would give more of my honest personal reflections rather than mere summations and hints. So, I may have said that previous books in the series were the most harrowing or the most intense - and I stand by those assertions - but this one is the most truly traumatic. This one picks up mere moments after the last book closes: Gaunt is both in his element and floundering about trying to make his element work in his new role with the war council, and most of the Tanith First are still defending a hopeless scrap of almost-indefensible land of very little tactical value. Things are a mess: Rawne has abandoned post to go and defend the traitor Blood Pact general who, everyone's pretty sure, Sek is trying to have killed again; Major Pasha has been sent to defend a Mechanicum research outpost where a significant Chaos artefact is being held; scout-sergeant Mkoll is nowhere to be seen. What's worse, Yoncy keeps talking to her big brother Dalin about woe machines (remember them? from Verghast?) as they're hiding in the cellars of the city palaces where all Imperial command forces are currently stationed. What ensues in the rest of the book I will not say outright, except for that there are four main strands - 1. with Pasha's group, trying to defend (and then retrieve) the artefacts from Very-Hard-To-Kill daemon troops sent directly from Sek; 2. with Rawne's mob, trying to keep the traitor general safe from other Very-Hard-To-Kill daemon troops sent directly from Sek; 3. with Mkoll, who is off doing his own thing trying to infiltrate Sek's base of operations as best as he can; 4. with a bunch of civilians and a handful of Guard looking after them in the palace cellars (and trust me, this is the subplot that gets traumatic. I'm fucking thirty years old and I had to sleep with the lights on for two nights (of course it didn't help that there is building work going on next door and a lot of their tools sound like bonesaws)). There are a lot of major losses in this book, and all of them hurt. Except for one. I won't say anything about the context - but when Gaunt's daughter gets her first canonically-confirmed kill, I cheered. Also, it should be said - this is the first time in a Gaunt's Ghosts novel that an Inquisitor has been actually helpful and not just a deceptive political shithead. Made a nice change.

   Okay, so that's a summary of that one.

   But I said I'd give some reflections on the series as a whole. Well, I think what's so great about the Gaunt's Ghosts saga can be broken down into three primary factors:

1. Honouring the grimdark: Warhammer 40,000 is the franchise archetype of a 'grimdark' setting. That means there are not meant to be places in this fictional universe where you can go to find hope, or peace, or joy, or even rest. It is total horror and war and carnage. And I think Dan grasps that with both hands; by making the Crusade that is the backdrop of this whole series one against Chaos specifically, it means that there isn't some mindless alien threat of dumb orks or hungry tyranids, or mindful alien threat of hopeful t'au or hope-deprived eldar, or wherever on this spectrum necrons would go; it's Chaos, and they're primarily human. Though, rather than being recognisable as human, they have given themselves to dark daemonic powers - and so there is an uncanny horror to all the conflicts that our protagonists find themselves in. It's one thing to shoot a greenskin in the head because it was about to chop you to bits for nothing but fun; it's one thing to fire a plasma rifle at a kroot because it was about to dismember you for 'the greater good'; it's another thing entirely to have to defend yourself any way you can against a slavering, mutated beast that you know full well was less than a month ago a perfectly normal citizen of the neighbouring hive-city. Dan has stared into the grimdark and concluded that Chaos is the worst enemy, and the way he writes it, you have to agree.
2. Humanising the Imperium: in his prologue to the first omnibus collection of these novels, Dan stated that he didn't want to start with Space Marines, because they're so super-human he wouldn't know how to characterise them. So he started with the Guard; the humble, unaugmented grunts of all Imperial combat. And I wholeheartedly think this was the right choice. I mean, obviously since, he's written many of the stories in the Horus Heresy series, as well as several standalone books, about Space Marines - and he manages to characterise them while retaining their superhumanity - but as a starting point, the Guard is where you go. I mean, First and Only kickstarted the entire Black Library. It was his, and their, first novel. And the series remains going strong to this day nearly two-and-a-half decades later. Don't get me wrong - the dystopian horrors of the Imperium and its necessity of constant war still shine through in gut-wrenching ways. But despite it all, Dan's characters still manage to make each other - and you, the reader - smile, or even laugh, when there is a respite from the bullets and shells.
3. Taking liberties with both the above, and whatever the feth else Dan wants to: what kind of writer follows rules to a T exactly? No kind of writer, exactly. If he wants a story that's a bit safer and a bit sillier, while still being a grimdark war story, he'll give you Blood Pact. If he wants to include superhuman characters to show their contrast against the rank-and-file guardsmen, he dumps three Space Marines into Salvation's Reach, or five Chaos Marines into Traitor General, to show off the sheer disparities in capability of these kinds of being; or he'll give you a powerful psyker as in the Inquisitors from several different stories or the tragic [redacted] being from Only in Death. Warhammer 40,000 is a very big very messy universe lore-wise, and I am sure that if Dan wanted to finish the whole Sabbat Worlds Crusade on a triumphal note but then have the Tanith First go off and fight a wholly different enemy - he could pull that off as well.

   That's all you're getting for now. If I ever feel the urge to re-read these again, and I'm still running this ridiculous blog, they will probably be much shorter posts. Although, I don't know - Dan may well still have a dozen or more books in this series up his sleeve. And who knows where they will go. I mean, they still need to win the Crusade, right? Or then there was the Warmaster's promise that when the Tanith liberate a world and the moment is right, they could settle on it in exchange for their home planet, and that's gotta happen at some point, right? RIGHT?

The Warmaster

This book is the fourteenth in the Gaunt's Ghosts series by Dan Abnett - I have read this one since I started this blog, so there is a pre-existing post about it if you wanna check that out, but I probably have some new stuff to say since when I last read this one it had been nearly a decade since I'd read the previous instalment, whereas this time I've read the whole series (nearly, so far) in about a year. In this one, the Tanith First - though having been presumed long-dead by Imperial Command since their warp-drive went slightly skew-whiff and they lost ten years during retranslation into real-space - arrive on the forge-world of Urdesh, where both Saint Beatti herself and Anakwanar Sek himself are present, so you can imagine there's a fairly major number of intense skirmishes going on. While the Tanith First-and-Only (newly reinforced with an influx of volunteer troops from both Verghast and Belladon) are caught in the thick of the fighting, having been tasked with defending a wide-open area between a residential scrub and the docks, where their only support is artillery that's useless once the enemy gets too close - the chief driving conflicts of this book are political. Gaunt's old friend Lord General Van Voytz is pleased to see the Colonel-Commissar back from Salvation's Reach after a decade of doubt - but there are deeper machinations at play. The war council is growing tired of the unpredictability and reclusiveness of Warmaster Macaroth, the man who has been in charge of the whole Sabbat Worlds Crusade since (well, just) before the start of this series of novels. And they're hungry for a replacement. And they've nominated Gaunt, given his war record and reputation for no-nonsense behaviour. Without giving too much away about how it all goes down, Gaunt goes to find Macaroth to try and have a frank conversation, which is apparently quite successful* in achieving - something. The book ends on a cliff-hanger - well, two - with the First in a perilously pinned combat situation with Blood Pact forces in the south side of the city, and Gaunt in a curious new roles amongst the ever-political war council.

* Abnett's characterisation of Macaroth, even given just a scene-and-a-half in which to be actually present in the story, is masterful and hilarious and exhilarating and humbling, I have to say.

(also, I don't want to give spoilers for the next one yet, which I will have to do in the post for that one for the sake of catharsis, but - if you've not by the end of this book figured out that there is something Very Very Wrong with Yoncy - then your grasp of subtext is such that I'm amazed you bother to finish reading any fictional works at all.)

Salvation's Reach

This book is the thirteenth instalment of Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series. In this one, the Tanith First are tasked with a top-secret mission from Crusade Command itself - they are to infiltrate a place* and retrieve as much useful data as they can from it and destroy as much of the rest of it as they can. Obviously, this is an extremely hard mission, so the Tanith even have three Space Marines tagging along with them.** With no spoilers, the mission doesn't go to the exact plan, but it goes to plan well enough to be considered a success - even if a stow-away spy gave away their ship's location early on and there was a resultant space battle*** that could have risked the lives of many senior Imperial commanders - and they get away largely intact. There are a handful of upsetting character losses, but one of these was a long time coming and is couched by the fact that it's defended by a heroic sacrifice; and really the only major takeaway from Tanith losses in this one is "absolutely feth Meryn."

* I couldn't think of a better word and didn't want to fatten that sentence up too much by describing what it actually is. Salvation's Reach is an area of remote space where the wreckage and junk leftover from millennia-worth of void-battles has aggregated together under its own gravity, collided, fused, and become a misshapen small-planet-sized Thing floating about far away from anything else. The reason it's of interest is that Anakwanar Sek, the chief lieutenant to the Chaos commander Gaur, in this current Crusade, has been using the place as a secret lab and testing ground for all manner of warp-craft, war machines, and new terrible means of killing and traumatising Imperial forces. So there you go.

** It's a minor point, but one of my favourite things in this book is the fact that Nahum Ludd manages to assert authority over these three Space Marines even when they're in the thick of combat-readiness. Pretty badass for a junior commissar.

*** This is also one of my favourite bits - the Chaos ships that follow them out of the warp all shout their own names over and over through the vox, like giant metal evil Pokémon. The best of which has to be TORMAGEDDON MONSTRUM REX! - I mean, if that isn't one of the silliest most extreme names for an evil spaceship you've ever heard I don't know what to say to you.

Blood Pact

This book is the twelfth in Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series - and while still harrowing and full of threat in many places, I think this is probably one of the most entertaining of the bunch. It reads like a bloody Guy Ritchie film, with all the various players faffing about and colliding and trying to second-guess each other against a backdrop of apathetic violence. This story is, with very little stretch of exaggeration, Traitor General in reverse: that is to say, Imperial forces are holding a traitorous general from the Blood Pact (an elite Chaos force) prisoner - and a crack-team of Chaos infiltrators have come to Balhaut (where as it happens the Tanith First are on a well-earned break after the horrors of Jago) to come and assassinate him. I know I'd read this before but for some reason remembered hardly anything of what happens in it - sure, there are moments of extreme violence and horror - but it's also a very funny book. The meddling of the Inquisition again rears its head with interesting consequences, and the band of outlaw Tanith who contribute heavily to saving the day are probably my favourite subplot. I also really appreciate Gaunt's commandeering of an agoraphobic coroner to help them win out over the loyalist Blood Pact infiltrators. A lot of fun. And no serious losses on the Good Guy front! I know that's a spoiler but it's very rare to have a Ghosts novel where you can genuinely relax in knowledge of that. One final thing - I know in his Inquisitor novels (see Eisenhorn, Ravenor, Bequin etc) Abnett has shown us intriguing glimpses of the non-frontline "normal life" of Imperial worlds before, but it's cool to see how the Tanith First adapt (or in Rawne & co.'s case, refuse to) to life among such relatively safe normality.

Only in Death

This book is the eleventh in Dan Abnett's increasingly-stomach-wrenching Gaunt's Ghosts series, and in my opinion it's probably the best of the lot. I mean, it's so intense, that I started it out of why-not-ness immediately after finishing the previous instalment - and then, feth sleep, I read the whole damn thing in one sitting, only getting up to pee or refill my canteen.* Sent to the arse-end of the dusty planet Jago, the First end up tasked with guarding a mountain fortress called Hinzerhaus - which deserves special mention, as it's No Joke the main character in this book. Hinzerhaus is creepy as all fuck**. This book is incredibly atmospheric and 97% of that comes from Hinzerhaus. (Well, okay, quite a lot of it comes from an old friend who has been sent off to become incorporated into the Imperial psyker forces as well, but I won't spoil that.***) It may feel like something of a slow-burn, this one - but when things get going, they Get Going, and I genuinely felt "they all might actually die" with a seriousness I'd not felt since Vervunhive in book three. Anyway, I'll stop rambling here for want of not giving spoilers - except to say 1. I hope Maggs got therapy, 2. Baskevyl was the MVP of this book by a long shot and everyone would've died if it wasn't for him, love it (one of my favourite characters), and 3. the chapters with Mkoll and Ezsrah on their little quests is just - ah, chef's kiss. Yes, this is the best Gaunt's Ghosts novel. So far, anyway.

* Which I only did once. Having drank half a litre of water over about two hours, I then spent the next eight hours carefully rationing my next half a litre, out of solidarity with the regiment. If you know, you know. I did get a little dehydrated but I think it added to the experience.

** An atmosphere intensified perfectly straight from the opening line of the book - "There was a rumour circulating through the troops, nobody knew who had started it - that scouts from another force had discovered a huge valley full to the brim of dry and dusty human skulls, all with their tops sawn off." (slight paraphrase there, I've already reshelved the book and can't be bothered to get it back off just to ensure accurate wording. that's the vibe)

*** Although I wish I could. You deserve a warning. The fate of that character made me openly weep it was so sad and touching and just fethed-up in the way only something in 40k could be.

The Armour of Contempt

This book is the tenth Gaunt's Ghosts instalment from Dan Abnett, and it's probably the most horrific - not the most upsetting, merely totally grim & dark in its portrayal of war in the grim darkness of the far future. Here we get to see the Tanith First-and-Only (with newly-incorporated Belladon troops) return to Gereon to finally liberate it from Chaos forces. The narrative is kind of split in two - one stream follows the main regiment as they try to make contact with whatever remains of the resistance, so they can help them overthrow the incumbent Chaos leadership; the second (and far more intense) follows those members of the regiment who have been on RIP (retraining, indoctrination and punishment) protocols and are therefore assigned to be - eh, yeh, essentially cannon fodder in the worst front of the whole planetary assault. This book more than any other Ghosts novel is full of sucker-punches: you'll think something awful is about to happen and then it hasn't, or you'll think safety has been achieved and then BAM-feth. Witnessing what has become of Gereon after so many years of Chaos occupation is tremendously disturbing. And again there is another heart-breaking loss at the end which I won't spoil. One uplifting thing I will say about this book is the reintroduction of Merrt as a major character - he quickly went on to become one of my favourites. Oh, and there's meddling by the Inquisition, which Gaunt's lot haven't had to deal with for a while, but it's entertaining to see how they handle it.

His Last Command

This book, number nine in Dan Abnett's increasingly-upsetting Gaunt's Ghosts series, takes place about a year-and-a-half after the Gereon mission. Despite an extremely rocky path getting back into Imperial safe-space, Gaunt and his team find yet another major problem to deal with: in their commander's absence, the Tanith First-and-Only have been subsumed into a Belladon regiment under the control of one Colonel Wilder. Which would be enough to contend with, if it weren't also for the fact that the Sparshad Mons antique "city" thing the Guard are trying to clear Chaos forces out of is a completely insane place, and terrifying monsters keep appearing out of nowhere. Gaunt and his team's reappearance disturbs things not only for Wilder and the Belladon but also for the Tanith and Verghastite troops who had assumed them all long-dead. This vein of doubt and discomfort runs throughout the book, as does the increasing apparency that - having survived on a Chaos-held world for fifteen months, these prodigal comrades are on another level of proficient in dealing death and destruction (not to mention, quite seriously-questionably corrupted from their long exposure to Chaos). The Guard win the day, but it's a close call, and one only made possible by the heightened specialisation of the Gereon team and their return into the Imperial intelligence networks. The ending of this book is heart-breaking, even if it's characters you barely know.* Is that a spoiler? Probably. Sorry.

* True fact - this was the first Gaunt's Ghosts book I ever read. I found it in my local library, a fourteen-year-old who had been painting and playing Warhammer 40k for about four years, but had never read one of its books - and even with no familiarity with the characters or context, the sheer scale and depravity of war I was exposed to in these pages blew my tiny young mind. Needless to say, I read it twice, took it back, paid my late fee, and as soon as I could afford it started buying up the whole series from the start. And part of me still wishes I hadn't, because however good they are, Dan keeps stabbing me in the feel-bone.

Traitor General

This book is the eighth in Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts saga, and let me tell you it's the most harrowing yet. Not by a long shot the most upsetting, but the most consistently intense and unnerving throughout. Gaunt and a small crack-team of elites from the regiment* are tasked with a top-secret mission to infiltrate Chaos-held world Gereon, meet up with the local resistance, and then find and eliminate - oh, you guessed it from the title? - an Imperial Guard general who has turned traitor. This is a hard swallow, this book. The portrayal of a human life under the Imperial regime is often bad enough but under Chaos - it's fething insane. Anyway, I won't tell you how the team get on with their mission, but I will say that this book contains some of the most outrageously badass scenes** in the entire series, and also introduces one of the coolest characters, Ezsrah ap Niht, into the regimental fold. So there's that.

* I won't say who, but you wouldn't be at all surprised, if you're familiar with the series so far, that it includes Criid, Varl, Larkin, Mkoll, Bonin, Brostin, Rawne, and Mkvenner.

** I mean, Mkvenner could probably have done this whole book on his own. He is ridiculous.

Sabbat Martyr

This book is the seventh of Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series. Fuck me. I can't do this. Yes I can. So. The Ghosts are sent to the tactically-insignificant world Herodor - where, to everyone's surprise, the reincarnation of Saint Beatti herself is present to lead the crusade into glorious victory. Except Gaunt doesn't believe it's really her. Regardless of whether it is her or not, the Tanith and Verghastite troops have to contend not only with a typical Chaos assault of the main hive-city, but also with a subversive ploy by the archenemy to assassinate the Saint using a small coterie of incredibly-dangerous specialists. And while the ensuing fights that the Ghosts and these specialists get into are incredibly cool and punchily well-prosed, again, this book ends with a loss that puts George R.R. Martin to shame for its sheer miserable wastefulness.

Straight Silver

This book is the sixth instalment of Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series. Yes, I've finally calmed down from the fuckeries at the end of the last one to come back to re-reading my way through. I may regret this. Alternatively, I may just force myself to get through them all as fast as possible so then I can just sit back and let the trauma fade for several years before I feel the need to revisit the series. Anyway, here the Tanith First are sent to Aexe Cardinal, where a horrifically-overblown trench war has been raging for decades. Aristocrats are in charge, which makes for a delightfully Sharpe-ish* butting of heads over tactics, priorities, and whatnot; aristocrats also make up a hefty proportion of the non-Guard troops involved in the war, which largely explains why it has been going on so long. Incompetence and cowardice are on full display, and Ibram Gaunt is in full swing as a leadership-empowered Commissar - which doesn't make him or the regiment very popular. I have to say that the depictions of a trench war in this book are absolutely heart-rendingly gross; they made me feel the realities of what an absolute shitshow that kind of thing must be like far worse than any World War 1 film ever has.

* Dan always has said that the inspiration for doing the Ghosts was "Sharpe in space".