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Book List 2010
Mar. 10th, 2010 09:50 pm#7. Gaunt's Ghosts: The Saint by Dan Abnett
As I said in an earlier review, I don't normally go for gaming fiction. I have a few books, mostly singles from series set in a game world that I want to see a perspective on. The exception to these are the Gotrek and Felix series for Warhammer Fantasy, and several collections for the Warhammer 40K Universe. There's something unique about Warhammer 40k that makes it interesting to me, and some of the Black Library's (Games Workshop's fiction house) stable of writers are extremely talented.
Dan Abnett is one of these. He currently writes on a couple of titles for both of the big comic companies, but he wrote most of his Warhammer fiction before that. The Gaunt's Ghosts series chronicles the story of the Tanith 1st Imperial Guard, the Tanith "First-and-Only," a company of guard set in the Warhammer Imperium of Man whose home planet of Tanith has been destroyed by the forces of Chaos. The Ghosts are the only survivors of their homeworld, drawn together under the command of Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt. The Saint is the second omnibus that the Black Library has released and reprints the middle four books of the series.
The stories in this omnibus center on the events leading up to the second coming of an Imperial Saint, whose original crusade many millennia before claimed the sector of space for the Emperor. Now that the forces of Chaos are being fought in a new crusade, the signs point to the saint's return. The Ghosts find themselves dealing with conflicts on several worlds, and in each place, there are signs and portents indicating their part in events to come, leading up to the final reappearance of the saint, and their defense of her against one of the Enemy's greatest commanders.
Abnett writes engaging military sci-fi, and the characters he has created are well developed and interesting. Even the sociopathic Lijah Cuu, who is instrumental in the progression of the story, draws you in and reveals himself to be more than a two-dimensional caricature. While the stories aren't very deep, they are enjoyable, and it is clear that Abnett has researched the activities of individual soldiers during conflicts and not just how battles are won. You can see some of the great battles of World War I in "Straight Silver" and the commando raids of World War II in "The Guns of Tanith."
As I said in an earlier review, I don't normally go for gaming fiction. I have a few books, mostly singles from series set in a game world that I want to see a perspective on. The exception to these are the Gotrek and Felix series for Warhammer Fantasy, and several collections for the Warhammer 40K Universe. There's something unique about Warhammer 40k that makes it interesting to me, and some of the Black Library's (Games Workshop's fiction house) stable of writers are extremely talented.
Dan Abnett is one of these. He currently writes on a couple of titles for both of the big comic companies, but he wrote most of his Warhammer fiction before that. The Gaunt's Ghosts series chronicles the story of the Tanith 1st Imperial Guard, the Tanith "First-and-Only," a company of guard set in the Warhammer Imperium of Man whose home planet of Tanith has been destroyed by the forces of Chaos. The Ghosts are the only survivors of their homeworld, drawn together under the command of Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt. The Saint is the second omnibus that the Black Library has released and reprints the middle four books of the series.
The stories in this omnibus center on the events leading up to the second coming of an Imperial Saint, whose original crusade many millennia before claimed the sector of space for the Emperor. Now that the forces of Chaos are being fought in a new crusade, the signs point to the saint's return. The Ghosts find themselves dealing with conflicts on several worlds, and in each place, there are signs and portents indicating their part in events to come, leading up to the final reappearance of the saint, and their defense of her against one of the Enemy's greatest commanders.
Abnett writes engaging military sci-fi, and the characters he has created are well developed and interesting. Even the sociopathic Lijah Cuu, who is instrumental in the progression of the story, draws you in and reveals himself to be more than a two-dimensional caricature. While the stories aren't very deep, they are enjoyable, and it is clear that Abnett has researched the activities of individual soldiers during conflicts and not just how battles are won. You can see some of the great battles of World War I in "Straight Silver" and the commando raids of World War II in "The Guns of Tanith."
