Warhammer 40K: Gaunt's Ghosts #1: First and Only - Dan Abnett

Some years ago, I read several novels and anthologies set in the Warhammer 40K universe and enjoyed them. But as often happens with me (because I have the attention span of a six-week-old puppy) I moved on to other things and didn’t read any more of those books. Now, since there’s talk of a Warhammer 40K TV series being in development, and because I still have a bunch of the books on my shelves and on my Kindle, I thought I ought to give another one a try. So I read FIRST AND ONLY, the first novel in the Gaunt’s Ghosts mini-series, by Dan Abnett, who’s one of the most prolific and influential Warhammer 40K authors.

I probably should back up here for a minute, for those of you unfamiliar with Warhammer 40K. It started out as a tabletop role-playing game in the Eighties and expanded into a novel franchise, the same way Dungeons and Dragons and a lot of other role-playing games did. I don’t know how many Warhammer 40K novels and anthologies have been published, but there are a lot. Set 40,000 years in the future, hence the title, the basic storyline is that the Imperium of Earth is engaged in a galaxy-wide war with the forces of Chaos, an occult threat from somewhere beyond the galaxy. This mixture of high-tech military science fiction with supernatural horror is something I haven’t encountered anywhere else, and it allows for a variety of story types, although, boiled down, all of them have to do with the war and are pretty grim and bleak. The Imperium forces are the nominal good guys, and some of the individual characters are pretty noble and heroic, but mostly they’re just not as bad as the forces of Chaos.

FIRST AND ONLY is the first novel in a long-running series-within-the-series called Gaunt’s Ghosts, after its protagonist Ibram Gaunt. He leads an Imperial Guard regiment from the planet Tanith, the only survivors from that planet, in fact, which makes it the First Tanith, and the only one there’ll ever be. The Imperial Guard are the regular soldiers in the Imperium’s military, the equivalent of our armed forces. (There are a lot of other types of combatants we won’t go into here.)

Tanith was a wooded, frontier planet, so Gaunt’s Ghosts are trackers and hunters, which makes them perfect for commando missions. In this novel, Gaunt comes into possession of some vital information that reveals the hiding place of a secret so big and important that it could change the course of the war. To get his hands on it, he and his men have to contend not only with their usual bloodthirsty enemies but also some supposed allies who are plotting against them. A lot of political intrigue and double-crosses ensue, along with plenty of gritty action scenes and some epic battles. Occasional flashbacks fill in some of Gaunt’s history, but not all of it.

This was Abnett’s first published novel and the first book I’ve read by him. He did some comic book scripting for Marvel many years ago that I read and remember enjoying. In FIRST AND ONLY, he does a fine job of balancing all the plot elements and creates some compelling characters. It's still available as an e-book. I enjoyed this one quite a bit and want to read more in the series, as well as sampling some of the other Warhammer 40K authors. Maybe I’ll actually do that this time, instead of getting distracted.

The Killing Ground - Graham McNeill

I haven’t read that many Warhammer 40,000 novels, but I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve read. For those of you unfamiliar with them, these books are a rather odd mix of far-future space opera and gothic horror, featuring various groups of Space Marines who do battle for their emperor against not only aliens but also demons and other supernatural monsters. They’re related to the Warhammer sword-and-sorcery novels (both series are based on role-playing games produced by the same company, after all), but they can be read independently of each other.

THE KILLING GROUND is the fourth book in the Ultramarines series, featuring a couple of rugged Space Marines, Captain Uriel Ventris and Sergeant Pasanius Lysane. Picture, say, Gunner and Sarge in the far future, with no Pooch, for those of you with long memories of DC war comics. This is the first one I’ve sampled from this series, as well as the first thing I’ve read by author Graham McNeill, and while it’s very unusual for me to jump into a series in the middle – I’m obsessive enough to feel like I have to read a series from the first, in order – I didn’t have any trouble getting up to speed on the story, which says something for the author’s skill. Escaping from the calamitous events in the previous book, Uriel and Pasanius find themselves on the planet Salinas, which has a grim, bloody past and now finds itself engaged in guerrilla warfare as rebels battle against the local governor. As space-hopping science-fiction heroes always do, the two Ultramarines wind up being forced to choose which side they want to be on.

I’ve come to expect big, sprawling action scenes in both Warhammer and Warhammer 40K novels, and in that respect, the first half of THE KILLING GROUND sort of disappoints. The pace is a little slow, as McNeill spends a lot of time setting up the conflict on Salinas. But the second half of the book makes up for that with plenty of action. Stuff blows up real good, to say the least, and McNeill conjures up a number of bleak but striking images. Also, Uriel and Pasanius are really likable heroes and the reader can’t help but root for them.

It took me longer than usual to read this book, which is usually a sign that I don’t like what I’m reading. That’s not the case here. I’ve just been really busy and haven’t had much time to read. I thought THE KILLING GROUND was very good and liked it enough that I’m definitely going to search out the first three books in the series and read them, too. If you think you’d like space opera with some horror elements blended in, I recommend it.