Dan Abnett has been a stalwart member of the Black Library pantheon of writers for at least a decade; ask anyone to name their top three writers at Black Library and inevitably Dab Abnett will come up as one of them (if not all three!). Having put in the ground work for his stellar career writing everything from 200AD to The Real Ghostbusters, no one can doubt his dedication, and skill, and the debt these fantasy worlds owe him as he has helped to populate them with such diverse, vibrant and distinct characters.
It’s hard to say now which of his many books Dan Abnett is most famous for writing, being such an original and prolific author, he has written the Gaunt’s Ghosts series, The Eisenhorn and Ravenor Trilogies, several of the most poignant of the Horus Heresy novels, you can also add to this many individual novels in the 40k universe and the world of Warhammer Fantasy, and that’s not even listing his works outside of Black Library.
I was lucky enough to have met Dan Abnett about 13 years ago at Games Day, while he was signing copies of his then new book Ghostmaker; a collection of short stories from Inferno magazine that had been collated and expanded into a new novel. I had really enjoyed reading those stories in Inferno; it was for these same stories that I bought the magazine in the first place and they stood out as quite excellent in my mind, and I told him so. He was of course gracious and appreciative of my praise, and I told him that I really hoped I would get the chance to read more of his novels in the future and he said he hoped so too. Well that was history, and I wasn’t disappointed.
In my opinion it was the Gaunt’s Ghost novels that really put Black Library at the forefront of great modern science fiction writing. The Founding, The Saint, The Lost are three omnibuses that gather together in three books the first 11 novels of his Gaunt’s Ghost series. These are amazing value, so if you haven’t got them already, please do rush out and buy them, I highly recommend them.
The one and only criticism I have ever heard from others has been describing the Gaunt’s Ghost series as “just a poor mans Sharpe in space” well they couldn’t be more wrong. It’s easy to see to see some shallow similarities between the excellent Bernard Cromwell series of novels; both series detail the events that beset a band of warriors, bound together in a long campaign, under the leadership of a dramatic and charismatic leader. These simplistic compressions do not do full justice to either authors works, and it’s not really much of an insult to have your set of books compared to one of the best selling military series of modern times
In the world of high-space-opera-science-fiction no one expects painstaking detailed character description and development, and this is why it is such a pleasure to find it in the work of Dan Abnett. Like the characters in the great Russian master Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace, Dan Abnett has realised a simple truth behind writing a great war novel “you have to care about the characters” not just as a reader but as a writer. His books are not some simple “morality play” with Good and Evil battling to the usual dialogue of “Kapow” and “Blam”, with Good’s inevitable triumph in the final chapter. No, Dan Abnett welcomes in the grey areas of war; the civilians left to die by their own side in order to preserve the lives of the masses, indiscriminate bombing, infighting amongst the Imperial forces, bureaucracy and poor leadership all costing the lives of the ordinary solider, privilege and poverty, love and hate in fact such a complicated and intricate series of scenes (many single chapters read like short beautiful character studies), that you cannot truly say that anyone is wholly good. Like Tolstoy he populates his world with a myriad of characters from the highest ranks to the common foot solider, and together we follows their story to their conclusion, how ever painful that may be for the reader, however you never doubt that the journey is rewarding one.
I don’t re-read a lot of books (my wife, and my bookcases, can tell you that I have a real problem buying books quicker than I can read them), but I love returning to read the Gaunt’s Ghosts books, as do many others I have spoken to. Why do we return, for me it’s quite simple I enjoy the characters and I want to relive the journey of the triumphs, failures, loves and deaths. I found reading these books an incredibly personal journey quite surprising when you consider the story is about distant futuristic space soldiers fighting an extra dimensional evil that infests reality! It’s like visiting old friends.
Unlike so many things in this world Dan Abnett has yet to disappoint me, and I think that is why I always get a little excited when I see that he has a new book out, what more could you ask for.
Andy's Clean Slate Challenge 