
Werthead |

Gaunt's Ghosts 1: First and Only
The peaceful, arboreal world of Tanith is commanded to raise a legion of troops to serve in the Imperial Guard, the billions-strong regular army of the Imperium of Man. On the day the Tanith1st is commissioned and depart for deep space, their homeworld is annihilated from orbit. Thus, they are the Tanith First and Last. The Tanith First and Only.
Many years later, the Tanith 1st has a new name: Gaunt's Ghosts. Under the command of Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt, the Ghosts have become a respected unit, skilled in battle and reliable under fire. But Gaunt, a political officer filling a military role, has made some very dangerous enemies in the High Command of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. The Ghosts are now part of the attempt to liberate the Sabbat Worlds from the forces of Chaos, but Gaunt discovers corruption and heresy may be taking root in the High Command, and he cannot trust anyone but his men in an effort to find a weapon of unimaginable power on the dark world of Menazoid Epsilon before his enemies do the same.
Over the past decade, Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series of military SF novels and several related series have sold more than a million copies for the Black Library, a remarkable feat that has made Abnett one of the UK's biggest-selling SF authors with sales on a par with the likes of Peter F. Hamilton, Iain Banks and Alastair Reynolds. Many of these readers have gone on to become fans of the wider Warhammer 40,000 universe of which Abnett's series is part (although self-contained; the Ghosts books can be read with no pre-existing knowledge of the setting), boosting sales of the related computer games and the miniatures line.
First and Only is where the story began. For a first novel - although Abnett had previously done successful work in comics - this is a remarkably polished effort, with a superbly-executed structure as the main story thunders forward, interspersed with brief flashback interludes to key moments in the history of Gaunt and his unit. As a slice of military SF, this is top-notch stuff, with Abnett providing a reason for the carnage and using deft but not overdone characterisation to differentiate the various officers and grunts from one another and make the stakes in the battles clear. Military SF is a subgenre where it is remarkably easy to fall into cliche quite easily, but Abnett manages to avoid most of these issues and makes the few uses of standard military tropes - such as the unit's doctor who treats soldiers injured in battle willingly enough but refuses to fight himself - almost a welcome nod to a classic trope rather than anything too corny.
With a firm grasp of character and a superior ability to convey action (you can almost hear the bullets roaring overhead and feel the apprehension of troops stuck in foxholes), Abnett delivers a great, readable SF novel here and earns his comparisons to an SF Bernard Cornwell.
First and Only ( **** ) is a fast-paced, SF military thriller. It is not generally available by itself anymore, but is readily available as the first part of the omnibus volume The Founding (together with its two immediate successors, Ghostmaker and Necropolis), available now in the UK and USA. There are currently twelve novels in the Gaunt's Ghosts series with several more planned, along with three spin-off works and several related Warhammer 40,000 game accessories.

Werthead |

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.

Werthead |

The liberation of the Sabbat Worlds is in full swing. The overextended Crusade invasion front is now under flank attacks, with the world of Enothis proving a pivotal flashpoint. With the war raging over a vast continent, the battles hinge on the forces of the Aeronautica Imperialis, the atmospheric fighter and bomber wings flown by the Imperial Navy and the Imperial Guard. The Phantine XX, fresh from their victory on their homeworld, are deployed to Enothis to help mount a last stand against the Archenemy.
Double Eagle is a spinoff from Dan Abnett's signature Gaunt's Ghosts series of science fantasy military adventures, in particular the fifth novel in the series, The Guns of Tanith. Fortunately, references to the events of that novel are slight and familiarity with that book, the Gaunt's Ghosts series in general or even the wider Warhammer 40,000 universe is not required to enjoy this novel.
Double Eagle is, basically, the Battle of Britain But With Lasers. Previous Warhammer 40,000 books largely focused on the ground war involving the human Imperial Guard and the genetically-engineered, superhuman Space Marines, with occasional nods to the armoured divisions and the space fleets, but this is the first book to really delve deep into the air force. Influences from World War II movies and books about the air war over Europe and the Pacific are clear, although (as is often the case with WH40K) there are sacrifices to realism in pursuit of the rule of cool. Despite being set an unfathomable 39,000 years in the future, the aircraft in use by both sides are far slower than, say an F-15 Strike Eagle and they seem to have less fuel than a Hurricane (given how curtailed dogfights are before someone has to bug out).
Once you accept that - and you have to if you want any hope of enjoying the many excellent stories in this setting - then you can kick back and enjoy the book. This is Dan Abnett doing what he does best: assembling a collection of flawed, relatable characters, putting them through the grinder of war and telling a great-action-packed page-turner in the process. Double Eagle starts a bit slower than many of his books - the result of a need to introduce a dozen or so major new characters (and reintroduce a couple of characters from The Guns of Tanith, which most readers may have forgotten about) rather than being able to pick up with a well-established cast from an ongoing series - but soon kicks into gear as we witness the air war for Enothis unfolding in its full glory.
In fact, I wondered if Abnett had made a bit of a mistake by having such a large cast and the need for each main character to have their own story arc, given the need to also depict the war in its full scope and explain the intricacies of air combat, all in a very tight page count. However, Abnett, as usual, delivers with aplomb. The widely-scattered characters and storylines converge satisfyingly at the end of the book for a major battle and most of the storylines are wrapped up quite satisfyingly
Double Eagle (****) won't be winning awards for originality, but it is Abnett delivering another perfectly-executed barrel roll of action, strong characters and addictive writing. In fact, Double Eagle scores more highly than much of his work because, being so independent of other series, it works very well as a stand-alone novel that can be used to sample his writing style and skill. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.
A sequel, Interceptor City, has been promised for fifteen years but is still a fair bit down on Abnett's schedule (as he is currently working on the Horus Heresy's concluding arc and on his third Inquisitor trilogy). However, Double Eagle does not end on a cliffhanger and can be enjoyed on its own merits.