While hunting insurgents in Vincula Province on Voltemand, a dark secret within Tanith's own culture comes to light. The creature was a dog, if a dog could be the size of a horse, if a horse could move as fast as a hummingbird. These works are military SF. Bad things happen in them. Good characters get killed. But they have very dramatic plots, and many vividly drawn characters. Filled with honor and friendship and valor. Ibram Gaunt is a deeply developed character, and at any time, a dozen or so Ghosts are major characters. He does a massively multi-POV that lets in him get in a large scope of the battles they are in.

On the forge world of Urdesh, the massed forces of the Imperial Crusade engage in a final bloody battle with the Archenemy commander known as the Anarch, and his elite warriors - the barbaric Sons of Sek. A victory for either side will decide more than just the fate of Urdesh... it will determine the outcome of the entire Sabbat Worlds Crusade. Ibram Gaunt – now serving at the right hand of Warmaster Macaroth – finds himself at the very heart of the struggle. His regiment, the Tanith First "Ghosts", holds the vital key to ultimate success. But as the forces of the Imperium and Chaos square up for the final, large-scale confrontation, Gaunt discovers that the greatest threat of all may come from inside rather than out. I was pleasantly surprised when I found not only do they hold up, they are actually really good! Abnett manages to give us concepts and things we can understand, such as loss, comradeship, and classism; while surrounding these familiar traits with the alien world of Warhammer 40k. After the success of their desperate mission to Salvation's Reach, Colonel-Commisar Gaunt and the Tanith First race to the strategically vital forge world of Urdesh, besieged by the brutal armies of Anarch Sek. However, there may be more at stake than just a planet. The Imperial forces have made an attempt to divide and conquer their enemy, but with Warmaster Macaroth himself commanding the Urdesh campaign, it is possible that the Archenemy assault has a different purpose… to decapitate the Imperial command structure with a single blow. Has the Warmaster allowed himself to become an unwitting target? And can Gaunt's Ghosts possibly defend him against the assembled killers and war machines of Chaos? Gaunt’s Ghosts is a series of military science fiction novels written by the bestselling British author of short stories, The title of the novel is part of an old Imperial proverb; only in death does duty end. The beginning of each chapter opens with an extract from Commissar Viktor Hark's field journal, which is written in a font which resembles handwriting. This style changes slightly at points when Nahum Ludd scribes on Hark's behalf. The novel re-introduces Agun Soric, who was absent from the previous books in the 'Lost' arc.I managed to finish this book in a record time of one week and two days. My normal reading speed for omnibuses of this size was around 3 to 4 weeks, but this book was special. His Last Command introduces troopers from the 81st Belladon, several of whom become key characters in the series. The title refers to both Gaunt and Wilder. When informing Gaunt of his demotion, Van Voytz tells him that the Tanith was "[his] last command". Wilder issues his last command to a platoon of Belladon soldiers participating in a suicidal rearguard for the rest of the regiment, of which Gaunt assumes leadership. I haven't read this series since high school, and so I went into it fully expecting it to not be nearly as good as I remembered.

A sub-plot in Salvation's Reach follows Doc Dorden's battle against terminal cancer, and his determination to serve the Tanith First until the very end. Another sub-plot explores the relationship between Captain Ban Daur and his new partner, Elodie. Through the latter, readers are granted an insight into the lives of the wives and other civilians that follow Imperial Guard regiments around the galaxy. The novel also features the appearance of Brother Kater Holofurnace of the Iron Snakes, a Chapter of Space Marines that previously appeared in Abnett's novel, Brotherhood of the Snake. Vermilion Level, 2013 – ISBN 978-1-78251-130-4 (An alternate version of the story in the First and Only novel.) To my mind, the problem is that by dint of participation in this established universe, the books seem really happy to present material that is far more interesting than their subject. Necropolis (A Tier), though fuzzy in my memory by now, was a great siege story and stood out against the two previous novels. To me, GG hits its stride on Necropolis and establishes what makes the series memorable.Ghostmaker brings us to a battle a earlier than the one described in 'First and Only'. During the waiting for the heat and death on the field, the reader is taken to several small tales, insights of a selective group of Ghosts. In the middle of each tale, a insight on the waiting. The pace of the book is very pleasant. One keeps reading to search the insight of the next character. And when we notice, we are almost at the end of the book. Yet, the battle (finally) takes place and we can percieve who is the mysterious force behind the calling of the chaos forces in the planet. And what that force can do to our Tanith boys. This one was, and still is to the moment, one of my favourite books of this series. The Volpone Bluebloods spearhead a meat-grinder liberation mission against the Blood Pact on Gnostes. Not only is this not a very good entry point -- a lot of knowledge of the setting is required to really make sense of it -- but it also just isn't a very good book. The omnibus includes three novels and after finishing the first one I had zero interest in forcing myself to read the rest. Only in Death is much better than I remember, a haunted-house horror, that feels tense and uncomfortable throughout, with a genuinely disturbing fate for a returning character. And the follow-up novella, Iron Star, is worth the price of admission on its own.

It was hard for me to read this book. I never had the patience to hold to sieges. And this book is about a long siege. A siege that could be avoided if... well, you have to read to understand, of course. A lot of things could be avoided in this book if the right people had the guts for it. But they didn't, so a siege went under way. Once more Dan takes us so inside some characters humanity that we anger, cry and laugh with them. And when certain things happen, one gets revolted. Gaunt's Ghosts is a series of military science fiction novels by Dan Abnett, set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. It was inspired by the Sharpe series of books written by Bernard Cornwell. [1] Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the Hyrkan 8th are deployed in the underways of Formal Prime, during the final stage of Operation Redrake, Warmaster Slaydo's initial advance into the Sabbat Worlds. I will admit that when at the end of the last omnibus, having Colonel-Commissar Gaunt rescued kind of disappointed me. I thought the series had reached an appropriate ending, with the 1st Tanith entering a new phase of existence, beyond the legacy of being Gaunt's Ghosts. The prognostications are good! Blood Pact (A Tier) is an interesting retread of Traitor General - this time swapping the roles of the cat-and-mouse game. While the side-adventures of the Tanith First's ensemble make for an amusing sideshow, they make the story less focused than Traitor General was. In spite of this, the two main perspectives (that following Gaunt & co., and the much appreciated Blood Pact) remain engaging and tense.

Midnight Rotation, 2015 – ISBN 978-1-78572-031-4 (Released as part of an unrelated series titled Call of Chaos.) The Iron Star (D Tier) is technically more of a novelette than a full-fledged book, but it is substantially longer than any of the other short stories in these omnibuses (and I have chosen not to review those), so here it is. There's no way to really talk about it without going into spoilers, but suffice to say that it provides interesting insights into Gaunt's psychological struggles with leadership. As it has no real bearing on plot, I can't justify putting it above D Tier. It would be unjustified to put it in F Tier with that awful Ghostmaker though. This omnibus edition comprises the novels Blood Pact and Salvation's Reach along with four short stories that continue the story after the events of the novels and set up the next stage of the Tanith First's adventures. If I had bought this as a standalone book I’d probably be 50/50 about buying then next one (so 2-3 stars rating range). In particular, the author chooses the Imperial Guard to team up with an alien combat group to defend himself against a larger enemy, a trope that several Warhammer 40,000 writers use when needed despite the fact that the association with an alien in the WH40K universe is considered heresy in all circumstances.