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I should probably start this off with a disclaimer that I am a huge Gaunt's Ghosts fan, so any comments I make should be seen through that lens. After years and years of waiting, I happily bought the eBook last weekend and finished The Warmaster over a few days. Since I haven't seen another thread discussing The Warmaster, I wanted to share my thoughts and see what others thought of Gaunt's latest adventures.

My observations below:

1) Scale. One of the things that Abnett does really well in the Gaunt's Ghosts series is scale. From terse conversations between Rawne and Gaunt (any of the novels), to high stakes tribunals involving a handful of characters (think His Last Command when Ludd is introduced as a character to defend Gaunt when he is investigated by the Inquisition), to small skirmishes (think any of the earlier battles in Traitor General, a novel which I think would make a fantastic 40K movie) to large battles involving hundreds of soldiers (the Vervunhive battles during Necropolis and the raid in Salvation's Reach). All of these elements appear in The Warmaster and offer a spectacular number of highlights for anyone who is a fan of the series already. There are large-scale epic battles, smaller encounters where Ghosts fight their way through on their own, and revealing character moments when the las bolts and bullets aren't flying over them.

2) Humour. While Gaunt's Ghosts isn't what you would usually think of when it comes to humour (certainly not in the Ciaphas Cain style), there were some genuinely funny moments in this book that suited the grimdark tone of the Tanith First and Only wonderfully. Without giving too much away, keep an eye out for moments when a Space Marine gets shot with a lasgun, when Rawne makes a subtle dig about Gaunt surrendering Tanith to Chaos, and when Shoggy Domor hears some unexpected news. Those moments of levity didn't interrupt the pacing at all and rounded out the flavour of the novel quite well.

3) Politics. One of the newer aspects of the 40K universe that The Warmaster delves into is the politicking in the upper ranks of the Astra Militarum. While I can't get too much into this without giving away some major plot points, it was intriguing to see the machinations of the Imperial Guard command structure in motion. Also, Abnett explores the rivalry between the Imperial Navy and the Imperial Guard during the opening sequences of the novel, which I found interesting as well since the space warfare aspect of 40K isn't really portrayed on the table-top game as much.

4) Women. Another aspect of Gaunt's Ghosts (and of the Ciaphas Cain) novels that I have always appreciated is the portrayal of female characters, particularly female Imperial Guard soldiers, as I don't think we hear enough about them in the 40K universe. However, historically, the majority of women characters in Gaunt's Ghosts have been characterized by their toughness (Criid, Curth) or their ability to turn heads with their beauty (or both: think Banda and Nessa throughout the series and Sabbatine, the resistance fighter in Traitor General). However, in The Warmaster we get some very different portrayals of women and femininity during the 40K universe. Criid and Felyx's lifeward have a very interesting conversation about what it means to be a mother, Zhukova talks to Mkoll about how people have only seen her as a pretty face during her entire military career, and there's a very revealing discussion between Dalin Criid and Felyx about how Vervunhive nobility is a patriarchal society. To me, these moments alone were worth the price of admission as I cannot recall another book in the 40K universe that discusses these issues.

Overall, I would highly recommend picking up the novel for a read, especially if you have followed the Gaunt's Ghosts series this far. The only warning I would give is that The Warmaster, while still containing plenty of heart-pounding action sequences, has less than one might expect from a typical 40K novel. Still, that doesn't detract from what is an intriguing and well-crafted addition to the Gaunt's Ghosts universe.

Most of Gaunt's Ghosts is easily a superlative example of how to write any kind of fiction, ever. It's hilarious, the characters are fully realized, and it swings tropes like precision sledgehammers.

Hardcover preorder keeps getting cancelled due to delays, oh well.

Oh yeah, as far as the light combat portion, that's excellent. Even when it's a few characters having a conversation in a temple, or one person sitting alone in a waiting room, it feels like a war is happening. The violence is heavy all over almost any scene. You know that even though a conversation is light or tender, the characters are only there because they are warm bodies, or perhaps middle managers of warm bodies, and they are in peril even when it's quiet.

Otherwise known as: Dan Abnett is an awesome writer.

I bought First and Only within a few days of it coming out, been addicted ever since - even when I went off 40k for a few years, still kept reading Gaunt's Ghosts. Totally awesome book, it measured up all right!

Incidentally, inspired by this thread I started a spoiler-rich thread next door at https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/747098.page where those of us who have read can let rip!

Don't have it yet but i hope this didn't feel like last book? Just checking that there's still more to go right?

tneva82 wrote:
Don't have it yet but i hope this didn't feel like last book? Just checking that there's still more to go right?

I would be astounded if this was the last book as it ends in essentially a slow-burning cliff hanger with regards to both plot and characters.

Ok good to know it did't wrap things around!

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Otherwise known as: Dan Abnett is an awesome writer.

Pretty much nothing to add. That book was really a blast to read. Probably one of the best in the series, with only a handful of minor hickups (won't mention them here because spoilers). But, even more so than the others, you REALLY should have read the others first, at least Blood Pact as well as Salvation's Reach. Otherwise you will not have a whole lot of ideas of what is going on.
I just hope that we do not have to wait another six years for another book.