The Continuation of Gaunt & His Ghosts (His Last Command - Dan Abnett)

Member Name: Drone007

Product:	His Last Command - Dan Abnett
Date:	15/12/05 (458 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A thrilling continuation of the Gaunts Ghosts Series . Will keep you gripped .

Disadvantages: Due to pace it appears quite short and leaves the reader waiting at end .

Gaunt's Ghosts is an exciting series set in the warhammer 40,000 universe.
His last command is the ninth in the series and continues the Sabbat Worlds Crusade.
I firstly recommend reading the previous books in the stories. Already Dan Abnett has built up characters, the reputation, feelings and history of colonel commisar (now only commisar) Gaunt, the tension between the Tanith and Verghasites and the individual characters like Mkol and Larkin within.

In the previous book of the series, Traitor General, Gaunt and a small number of his soldiers were sent on a one way mission to Gereon, behind enemy lines.
After completing their task, Gaunts men manage to escape on a transport and thats where this book begins.

After firstly being taken in as prisoners of war, Gaunt and his men are freed by the Warmaster despite already being declared dead, but are accused of having a chaos taint - it is felt it was impossible for them to survive on Gereon without picking up this.

After trials by the commisarite which are intervined by the inquisition, the team is found innocent, but with Gaunt being stripped of his title of colonel.

Gaunts men re-join the rest of the tanith platoon which now has its own new command with commisar Hark and is now part of a new army. Gaunt, although on the same planet is sent elsewhere with his advisor junior commisar Ludd.

Without giving the gripping storyline and twists away, Gaunt and his Ghost's paths cross (how could they not) and slowly aid each other with link backs to past events. When the force they are fighting for could have been crippled when taken by surpise, The ghosts manage to intercept and uncover more details about the old enemy's the blood pact. This is fed back to Gaunt who starts taking on more command than he should.

A lot of the storyline concentrates on how difficult members of Gaunt's teams find it to fit back into their old units and how they upset their old friends by constantly mentioning how they did things on Gereon.

As with previous books in the serious, Gaunt and his men save the day but with losses. We find out Ludd's secret agenda and how he has been turned against Gaunt . Also Gaunt regains command of the Tanith, but how long for we will find out in the next book, as a twist at the end reveals trooper Cirk, offering information to a commisar, Balshin, who would like to see the back of Gaunt.

This booker, is highly recommended, especially to anyone interested in the world of warhammer or sci-fi war books. However, it will make very little sense on its own due to the refferences to back stories from the previous books, especially 'Traitor General'. The book had me gripped from start to finish and I found it hard to put down.

It is currently available as hardback and is published by Black Library. The story itself is 308 pages long and at the back it containd more background and information about the Sabbat Worlds Crusade.

Summary: This book will keep you gripped until you reach the end.