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I've got hold of a copy of Salvations Reach audio book but I've not read any of the other Gaunts Ghosts books. Would I be able to enjoy this book as a stand alone story, or would I be best to catch up on the others first?
Thanks.

Well, Salvation's Reach is (currently) the last book in the series. You probably won't understand most of what they reference unless you read the first twelve books.

I've read them all, and I highly, highly recommend them.
You can now get 3-4 books in an omnibus. There are 3 omnibuses currently: The Founding, The Saint and The Lost.
Read them all. Trust.

Ya I doubt you could enjoy it much without at least 3 of the others.

Any news on when the next one will be out though?

Don't listen to it without reading the others. Gaunt's Ghosts' biggest strength, IMO, is its characters and the attachment to them you develop over the course of the series. Jumping in at the end, while you may understand most of it, will definitely lessen its impact.

Also a few of the major plot points will make no sense if you haven't read Traitor General and Blood Pact.

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
Don't listen to it without reading the others. Gaunt's Ghosts' biggest strength, IMO, is its characters and the attachment to them you develop over the course of the series. Jumping in at the end, while you may understand most of it, will definitely lessen its impact.

Also a few of the major plot points will make no sense if you haven't read Traitor General and Blood Pact.

Another thing to consider, is that given this aforementioned character attachment.. When you read some major developments throughout the story, having read from the beginning, its direly emotional. I found myself getting teary eyed at some points.
Probably my favourite fiction series of all time.

CaseyColt wrote:

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
Don't listen to it without reading the others. Gaunt's Ghosts' biggest strength, IMO, is its characters and the attachment to them you develop over the course of the series. Jumping in at the end, while you may understand most of it, will definitely lessen its impact.

Also a few of the major plot points will make no sense if you haven't read Traitor General and Blood Pact.

Another thing to consider, is that given this aforementioned character attachment.. When you read some major developments throughout the story, having read from the beginning, its direly emotional. I found myself getting teary eyed at some points.
Probably my favourite fiction series of all time.

Absolutely, I'm not at all ashamed to have cried at the end of Only in Death.

You need to at LEAST red First and Only. You can skip the 2nd novel, it's kinda bleh and doesn't really develop the characters.

After that you can pick and choose, but if you don't read them all the way through there will be points where you say "Wait, what? When did that guy die? When did this guy join the Ghosts?"

I read First and Only, then not having read any BL books since it was published picked up the 3rd Omnibus, Traitor General was a weirdly perfect book to get back into the series with, but there was a lot of stuff that got spoiled for books 2-6 that I wish I hadn't known about in advance.

Thanks for the replies. I'll definitely read the others first.

The first couple of books are pretty bad, particularly the second (which is actually a rather boring story wrapped around short stories originally published elsewhere, which if I recall correctly may have been published before the first book). Things pick up with the third book, and only go uphill from there, though.

If there was any one book from the series I'd recommend reading before reading the last book, I'd say Blood Pact. It isn't that long, but at least half of the story elements in Salvation's Reach are created in that book. So if you read it first you'll be good to go for most of the plot elements.

Personally, I consider Salvation's Reach to be the point where the series jumped the shark. Way too much melodrama.

And as a general good jumping-off point for the whole series, you can skip the first two and go straight to Necropolis. It's where Dan really gets the hang of it, and most of the characters don't develop in the first two books - so they're pretty much still 'new in box' in Necropolis. It's from then on that the interesting stuff happens, and you won't regret starting from the 'beginning'. Even this far down the line, Necropolis is still my favourite GG book.

Traitor General and His last command are pretty badass as well.

I suggest to start with Necropolis and end with Sabbat Martyr. The later books are, thanks to the increasingly "sueish" tendencies of the ghosts ( or better, their scouts ) less enjoyable.

The Saint IMO is the best of the omnibuses and contains the most important parts of the plot

MandalorynOranj wrote:Don't listen to it without reading the others. Gaunt's Ghosts' biggest strength, IMO, is its characters and the attachment to them you develop over the course of the series. Jumping in at the end, while you may understand most of it, will definitely lessen its impact.

Also a few of the major plot points will make no sense if you haven't read Traitor General and Blood Pact.

Who doesn't love Colm Corbec (Coincidently Colm is oneof my brother's middle names)

MandalorynOranj wrote:

CaseyColt wrote:

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
Don't listen to it without reading the others. Gaunt's Ghosts' biggest strength, IMO, is its characters and the attachment to them you develop over the course of the series. Jumping in at the end, while you may understand most of it, will definitely lessen its impact.

Also a few of the major plot points will make no sense if you haven't read Traitor General and Blood Pact.

Another thing to consider, is that given this aforementioned character attachment.. When you read some major developments throughout the story, having read from the beginning, its direly emotional. I found myself getting teary eyed at some points.
Probably my favourite fiction series of all time.

Absolutely, I'm not at all ashamed to have cried at the end of Only in Death.

Who didn't? I actually took it off my shelf today and it's one of my favourite GG novels (aside Blood pact, Traitor General and Sabbat Martyr)

KingDeath wrote:I suggest to start with Necropolis and end with Sabbat Martyr. The later books are, thanks to the increasingly "sueish" tendencies of the ghosts ( or better, their scouts ) less enjoyable.

I dunno, I mean who doesn't love the hell out of Mkoll. Th only really sueish moments is Ezra and Mkoll's tracking of Guants abductors and Ven in general but he is the "Epic" character

The Ghosts in general are pretty sueish.The entire concept behind them is that they're way smaller than most of the other regiments, are only light infantry, and generally get sent to do the shittiest, most impossible missions, and yet their success rate is like 90% at least. lol

BlaxicanX wrote:
The Ghosts in general are pretty sueish.The entire concept behind them is that they're way smaller than most of the other regiments, are only light infantry, and generally get sent to do the shittiest, most impossible missions, and yet their success rate is like 90% at least. lol

If I could just make an analogy; I really like the Die Hard movies. (Haven't seen the new one though). They're a lot of fun. Blowing gak up, gun fights etc etc. John McClane is a cool character too. I would be pretty pissed off if he fails and dies 20 minutes in. Then in the next movie he's replaced by some other character who I've got no interest in. Might be realistic for McClane to have died, but it doesn't make a good movie or movie series. Doesn't make good books either.

Unkillable =\= a gary stu. If that were the case, 99% of protagonists would be gary stus.

I have only ever heard the phrase "mary sue" on dakkadakka.com

I don't really find most of the charectors over the top, especially if you take the series as a whole. Gaunt is a brilliant charector.

You should prolly hang out on writer forums. You'll hear it more, since it's a pretty common problem with writers.

The original term is "Mary Sue", and since it's a general term for a phenomenon, trying to change it to reflect the gender with a new name that vaguely rhymes is rather silly, particularly as it loses sight of the trope's origins. Not that people don't do it anyways.

And the Ghost's are at their most mary sue in the first two books, after that things become Anyone Can Die (except Gaunt) and they start getting used like actual light infantry for the most part, so it's not nearly so bad.

Edit: actually, I just realized what the two posters above probably meant, so disregard that first part as actually relevant to the discussion at hand.

Dying doesn't make you not a gary stu, however, so whether tons of the characters die or not really doesn't determine what constitutes a gary stu.

A gary stu is defined by its characteristics. The Ghosts have unparalleled snipers, unparalleled scouts, unparalleled commanders in Gaunt (who is far more reasonable and strategic than 90% of the other commanders). Every regiment they meet is awed by their skills and tenacity, and either hate them or admire them. Despite being smaller than most of the other regiments and less well armed, they can hold their own against any opponent through sheer skill, and always inflict more damage than they take, they never get outsmarted, never get outmaneuvered, generally only coming close to losing due to being vastly outnumbered, etc. That tons of them die doesn't really matter. Every group suffers turrible losses- it's 40K.

I'd read them all, they are brilliant military sci-fi. Good as combat novels, and great characters. I would go against the others here and suggest book 2 (Ghostmaker), as it is basically a collection of short stories, each centering on one of the "Main" guys of the regiments, and is highly worth it.

Generally, I do agree that the Ghosts are pretty overpowered (I mean, Mkoll alone), but I really don't find it an issue in the books.

Ahhh yes, Ghostmaker. Is that the one where Mkoll kills like twenty guys by himself by due wielding laspistols and going backflips and gak? LOL

BlaxicanX wrote:
Ahhh yes, Ghostmaker. Is that the one where Mkoll kills like twenty guys by himself by due wielding laspistols and going backflips and gak? LOL

Dude, that passage is epic. It's way more dire than you make it out to be with your rather brief brush off. If I remember correctly he's fighting while there's a psychic storm going off, falling off loose ground, getting shot at from all directions...pretty damn heroic fight for survival. Besides, Mkoll is sort of like the Marbo of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels.

 gpfunk wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:
Ahhh yes, Ghostmaker. Is that the one where Mkoll kills like twenty guys by himself by due wielding laspistols and going backflips and gak? LOL

Dude, that passage is epic. It's way more dire than you make it out to be with your rather brief brush off. If I remember correctly he's fighting while there's a psychic storm going off, falling off loose ground, getting shot at from all directions...pretty damn heroic fight for survival. Besides, Mkoll is sort of like the Marbo of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels.

That and that whole incident was fuelled by Eldrich magic

And MkVenner is Marbo, Mkoll is like Marbo -0.001

 BryllCream wrote:
I have only ever heard the phrase "mary sue" on dakkadakka.com

Prepare to have your mind blown...
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue

I apologise to your friends and family for introducing you to that site.

Definitely start from the beginning. When a new book takes awhile to come out, I sometimes have to go back and read the past books to remember certain characters, although the main and most featured characters I remember well. Plus a lot goes down in the books before Salvations Reach. But definitely an awesome FREAKING series to read, that keeps you on the edge of your seat