Honour Guard

What better premise for a book? Not just any trip, but one with tanks, of course. Honour Guard is an extremely grabbing tale in the Gaunts Ghosts series because there is a whole lot of emotion running through this story. Awesome to read, another great by Dan Abnett.

As with the previous three Gaunt's Ghosts books, this one is action-packed and contains very well-defined characters. The Ghosts from the previous books continue to be fleshed out and the relationships between the soldiers continue to mature. In this book, Abnett focuses a much greater proportion of the fighting on tank battles, which made for extremely exciting and visual scenes and kept me going to Forgeworld to check out the designs of the various units. Another aspect of this book that stands out is the revealing of weakness within Gaunt himself, getting stuck in a rather dark and depressive mood through much of the book. The main plot of the book revolves around what most of the Ghosts feel is their last campaign under Gaunt. Seemingly sent on a suicidal mission after loosing favor with his bosses, Gaunt finds himself in a desperate fight to attain a goal that he is unsure about. Reverence and dedication to the ideals of Saint Sabbot is stressed in this book and a lot of history behind the Sabbot Worlds Crusade is revealed. The last half of the book is just awesome and I bet most people read it all in one sitting. Highly reccomended

I'm typically not much of a reader but I must say, after having picked this up on a whim, Dan has me hooked. Any fan of sci-fi and/or military themed books should not hesitate to check this series out. Prior knowledge of the 40k universe isn't necessarilly required but after reading a bit you may find yourself compelled to look more into the mythos of one of the most vivid and well-realised fictional worlds ever created. Abnett does a wonderful job of depicting the surreal haze of frontline combat while never letting the reader feel lost in it all. His sense of pacing and penchant for pinning down even the most trivial of details serves well to keep the reader interested and involved in what is going on. For a book about war and combat there is a surprising ammount of introspection and character development that really gives his writing the feel of a well-scripted movie rather than just a book about faceless people in some random battle on some generic, far off world. Read this.. and all the rest of Abnett's books... now!

With Honour Guard, Dan Abnett continues his Gaunt's Ghosts series with another tightly-written, action-packed war novel. the fourth book in the series, Honour Guard actually is the beginning of the Sabbat Crusade story campaign. The first three novels in the series introduces Colonel-Commissar Ibrahim Gaunt and his Tanith First and Only Regiment. This time around certain high-ranking elements in the Sabbat Crusade Army has blamed Gaunt and his Ghosts for a battlefield loss that was orchestrated by some behind-the-scenes. Honour Guard is pretty much a story about redemption and spiritual discovery for Gaunt and the troops in his regiment. We actually see Gaunt brought low by outside forces, most of which are actually officers in the Army who are jealous of his sudden rise to power and popularity amongst the regular troops. It was refreshing to know that Gaunt was human after all and not some super-commander who could do no wrong and who could brush off any drawbacks with aplomb. This time around, Abnett's battle scenes are more centered towards fighting between armored units with infantry in support. Again, Abnett must have good knowledge of military history because the battles leading up to the final stand in the end is very similar to the armor battles which occurred on the roads of the Dutch countryside during the Allies ill-advised Operation Market Garden. Honour Guard is a worthy successor to the first three Gaunt novels that precedes it. Here's to hoping that Abnett continues is hot streak. I highly recommend.

Honour Guard finds the notorious regiment of Gaunt's Ghosts embroiled in yet another of the many campaigns to liberate a stretegic cluster from the clutches of Chaos. On one of the holiest worlds to the crusade, Gaunt had been charged with the reclamation of the holiest shrine. But the forces of Chaos are well-prepared, and Gaunt suffers a disgrace. Basically broken in terms of military command, Gaunt is given one last mission to redeem himself before beign forcibly retired and allowing the Ghosts to be dispersed. He is to seek and recover a most important and ancient artifact.This novel, as with all the Ghosts books to date, is filled with great amounts of carnage and violence. But this is the depiction of a most unprecendented war, one in which the enemy has only a regard for madness and suffering, as well as a hatred of all that is stable. And against this we have a single great leader, not only fighting the enemy, but dealing with jealousy and prejudice from different units and superior officers. As he has done in the three previous books, Abnett lets us see new sides to almost all the characters. This is a great talent, as the personalities never stagnate, and it keeps the reader interested. I highly recommend this book, not only to Warhammer 40k players, but to any that like well-written science fiction.