Gaunt's Ghosts 1: FIRST & ONLY by DAN ABNETT - Warhammer Book Club with Mira!
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- Опубликовано: 21 окт 2024
- Against our better judgement we're starting the OTHER massive series in the Black Library - Gaunt's Ghosts. Join me and Mira as we chat through the first book - First and Only by Dan Abnett!
NOTE: Podcast version should be up soon! I'm currently going through and uploading all the old episodes so they're in the right order!
Mira's interview with Dan Abnett: • Let's Talk...Gaunt's G...
Intro Art by @KCP FARGO
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Copyright: Unless noted in the video, all images © Games Workshop 1987-2022. Title music is 'Black Rainbows' by Karl Casey @White Bat Audio
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This shenanigans has turned into one of the few consistently great Warhammer 40k streams.
Yeah, I really enjoy these book streams. Long may they continue!
No exaggeration, gaunts ghosts got me reading sci-fi and was my intro to 40k. The school librarian didn’t let me take the books out because I was too young and he was a 40k player/reader and knew how violent they were so I had to ask my older sisters friend to take them out for me 😂
Same, FaO turned my love of the hobby and models into a love of the deeper 40K universe.
My dad went to the local library one day about 20 years ago and came back with Necropolis for me to read - grimdark grabbed me and never let go!
40:10 Gaunt's Ghost's being confined to legacy tech would be so very 40K.
I think Mira touched on this at the end but one of the hardest contradictions to hold in Warhammer fiction is the idea of heroes in the Imperium. Gaunt and his troops are heroic, they do brave and noble things and sacrifice for their friends but then, in the end they're serving the interests of the most cruel and bloody regime imaginable.
People in warhammer can be nice, brave and kind but in the end, its really for nothing in the face of the horrors of their imperium.
I wouldn't say it's for nothing. They're protecting their friends, their families, the loads of innocent people who Chaos or Tyranids want to eat. It's not some farmer or random hive worker's fault that the Imperium is corrupt, and a city full of people just trying to get by day to day don't deserve to die just because their rulers are fascist. Gaunt, the Ghosts, Eisenhorn and Ravenor, they're ultimately fighting for human life and the survival of humanity, not for their own power or to advance the powerful people above them.
And still the Imperium are the nicest guys around if you're a human (the Tau will just get everyone corrupted by Chaos because they are so naive about it).
I think I’ve read this four times over the years, it still holds up :) all hail Dan Abnett!
"I wasn't even born then!" - Thanks Mira, you didn't need to say that. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go yell at these kids to get off my lawn. 😂
i was already a huge warhammer fan (just videogames and lore videos) then a copy of First & Only mysteriously appeared in a box while moving (it was a girft from tzeench. now I'm halfway through the heresy
Saw this video in the feed when it first posted and had never heard of it. Three months later I'm 12 books in and finally watching this. Thanks for the content yall!
If you are looking for a female author Rachel Harrison's "Honourbound" might make for a good comparison to Gaunt's Ghosts. The main-est of the characters is commissar Severina Raine and she is a more traditional/strict commissar than either Gaunt or Cain are
I was able to get 1 physical copy of this at msrp
We aren't
@@BM-is5ei I should have timestamped 1:06 ; I was referring to Mira saying they might have a patreon poll for a book by a female author. I was not trying to tell you what you or other people included in your first person plural pronoun should be looking for, hence the conditional phrasing of my comment.
‘Seven dwarfs’ primarchs:
Duelly, perfecty, grumpy, speedy, wolfy, buildy, flay-y, pretty, grumpy, angry, logisticy, grumpy, wizardy, heresy, worshippy, happy, emo-y, dissembly 😊
Hang on a second, does that make Big E the Snow White stand in?
Don't forget [REDACTED]Y
@@rakino4418 🤣
Mortarion should be smelly
Surely Alpharius is actually
Ian and Mira continue to be unfathomably based
The book that started it all for me. Had a friend in Junior high hand me the book after I got done reading the last of the Enders Game books with the Bean ones. Now 20 yearsand 120+ novels later I still can't get enough of it. Got the part 1 and 2 of The End and The Death hardcover on the way. I always recommend the Gaunts Ghost books to anyone that wants to get into WH 40k. More action packed then the Eisenhorn series but with still standard humans and not to insane of lore.
Victor Hark is a personal favourite character and wonderfully encapsulates a "good" commissar, in the way he has his eye out for the Ghosts both on and off the field.
Hark is a good guy in a horrible job. When he has to be "commissar" it's to make a point.
What makes Gaunt so likable is the fact that he is a role model for what a Imperial Commisar should be. Many commisars forgot, that gunning down guardsman is just one (and should be the last) option of restoring moral. Honestly, I think that the reason, why he is so good at being commisar is the fact that he is also a commanding officer🤔
I think Mira was trying to make clear some criticisms of the book that Ian's enthusiasm brushes over a little bit and I wanted mention that.
I haven't read the books but am definitely up for Sharpe in Space, but thanks to Mira I am now aware that is really all it is.
It is not too rich, or weird and it is very battley and fighty, and certainly I wouldn't recommend it someone as an in to 40k as, whilst I would enjoy it, you'd want to give some new a fuller, more unusual and maybe slightly less stomach churning (because of the reality of the action) intro.
Ta Mira! And ta to both of you. I have just started to revisit 40k after 20 years away and have decided the books and lore are the things I am most interested in currently, and your book club is the best thing out there! And I've watched a lot!
Any series that takes heavy inspiration from Sharpe is a gem
I never read the Sharpe novels, but I've seen the Sean Bean version.
@AliceBowie both amazing, while i dont like the actor as a person very much, he does do a great job playing Sharpe
The chat about whether Warhammer 40K is historicals in Spaaaaace or proper Sci Fi is really interesting. I never played in Rogue Trader, having started with 2e in the 90s, so to me it seemed like a big mish mash of...everything! I'd been reading 2000AD for years so that stuff absolutely made sense to me, and the LOTR references made sense too. I hadn't at that stage read Dune so that seemed really unique and interesting to me. But I have a great fondness for the Historicals In Space Imperial Guard. They're great, I guess mostly because the Perry Twins are just brilliant sculptors. The Gaunt novels and the 3.5e Guard codex opened it up even more to other historical ideas or weird high concept stuff like the Vostoroyans (not out at the time, but I mean that was the sort of stuff you could do) or feudal worlds or the Elysians and so on. I've always felt that GW haven't capitalised enough on that aspect of the Imperial Guard.
The other thing First and Only gets across is that the great mass of troops for Chaos are normal human cultists, with Chaos Marines being few and far between. That's another thing that's rarely been represented in game but is how I feel Chaos should be. 3e Lost and the Damned came close, and the Forgeworld Renegades and Heretics were gorgeous representations that could have stepped right out of Fortis Binary.
Anyway, loved this. I read First and Only when it came out and I've re-read it loads of times. I love it to bits. The whole thing lived rent free in my head for years as a teenager, I'd be thinking about dioramas of the blasted trench hellscapes of Fortis Binary and how to make my own Tanith First and Only from scratch. I know Ian prefers Necropolis but I really love First and Only, even if it might be mostly nostalgia.
Gaunt's ghosts is one of my favourite series and it was so great to listen to you two discussing everything Ghostmaker, loving this series!
Mira's chats with Dan are also awesome and i hope they do more!
Amazing, timing. I just started a reread of the series after seeing Mira's interview with Dan Abnett.
The thing that sticks with me about this series is that this war is consuming billions of lives, seeing whole planets being destroyed, massive armies are clashing, it's taking place over decades...but on the Imperium as a whole, it's a blip. Even the enemies that do so much damage are essentially the Chaos B-Team--they're overwhelmingly just regular humans with guns, it's very rare to see a Chaos Marine, daemon or mutant.
Gaunts Ghosts was my gateway into Warhammer 40k, and I've just finished it! IT'S AMAZING!! So glad I stumbled on your channel to help me into the lore, thanks so much! This was a great review, and I'm completely hooked now. Thanks so much, you two! xo
"The Jantine Patricians...whose main character trait is...C_" HAHAHAH
Just started The Founding Omnibus as my first 40k leap into the books. So good!!
First & Only was good enough to peak my interests. Which Ghostmaker almost squashed. I gave up halfway through that book.
Then I read Necropolis...let me tell you by the time you get to this part, you'll want to read the whole series:
"He began to play. The tune rose above the yard, above the flurries of sparks rising from the oil drums. One by one, the men began to sing."
Necropolis is where it all really kicks off, I love that book.
*pique
These chats are so fun. I love revisiting these books with you guys.
Looking back at it now, it's so weird seeing mentions of 'petroleum' and 'cigarettes' in place of promethium and lho sticks, not to mention all the data-slates 'snapping open'! Things were so different back then!
Love the old 40K novels by Ian Watson, although they do this strange introspection tangents with the characters. Space Marine is great in terms of the transformation process of new recruits from Necromunda and the Inquisitor trilogy sets out some early theories around the nature of the Emperor and the future of the Imperium.
Fantastic as always guys. Looking forward to being able to revisit these episodes as podcasts.
Dan is an amazing writer...can't wait until the 3rd Bequin novel is finally out.
Thanks for another great overview and discussion. Gaunt's Ghosts do love it when a plan comes together 😉🤣🤩
I highly recommend anything written by Dan Abnett. I find the Gaunt's Ghosts novels to be much better than expected, but I've quite liked EVERYTHING by Dan Abnett. I never expected 40k fiction to be so mature and compelling.
I've read most of Dan Abnett's 40k stuff, and thought that it was really great. The Gaunt's Ghosts series just seemed to get better over time. I seem to remember that Necropolis and the book which came after were even better.
Perfect description of the Jantine Patricians!
The best duo doing their magic. Again !
I just started re-reading this book for what? Like the thousandth time? I love this book it got me into the 40K verse long before I started playing it. I'll always be thankful for Dan Abnett for that.
Oh I've really been looking forward to you guys doing Gaunts Ghosts. This is brilliant
Gaunts Ghosts is my default recommendation for new players. Second would be Eisenhorn. The fact that they’re both by the same author is not lost on me. All hail papa Abnett!
"97? That's so long ago, I wasn't even born then" *Turns to dust hearing that*
Another wonderful chat between two engaging people.
This was really good. Look forward to more. Completely agree that Gaunt's Ghosts would be ideal for an animated/live action series. The annoying thing is the individual books are really hard to find but they're so much easier to read than a massive omnibus. Does boggle my mind a little that they aren't easier to find given they're undoubtedly one of Black Library's most popular book series.
That action movie read made me laugh. "if no one else can help, and if you can find them" fits perfectly with their ability to essentially disappear at will and proficiency at sneaking around to do what few others can.
Magic stuff! I read Gaunt in the.. naughties? Early 2010s? So going through it again via Mira's eyes is sublime ^^
So many clever observations. Thanks you two !
I saw Mira's interview with Dan Abnett. It was really good. Now I own 11 Gaunts Ghost books...
And it would certainly be entertaining to see how the 2 of you react together to some of the episodes on Warhammer+. Some of them are really good.
Hmmm... 🤔
Iron Within was very cool
I would totally be up for discussions on the Warhammer+ shows, I would be interested in Mira's thoughts on the Hammer and Bolter anthology series.
That action move plot summary sounds suspiciously like the intro to the A-Team TV series 🤔🤫
Every time you two do a book review I want to go out and get the book, especially after Mira's A-Team inspired Hollywood intro :D Another great episode. I'm hoping when they conclude the Horus Hersey Black Library will do The Great Crusade as a series and we get a bit of lore pre Hersey. would be great to read about the emperor finding the Primarchs and the reunification. Love you T-Shirt Ian
They have pretty much done that with the Primarchs novellas :)
I read the original gaunts ghosts stories in inferno magazine before the first book came out and I remembered I was very surprised that those stories weren't in the first book, they were then changed and put together to make the second book ghostmaker.
Love these videos with you two, top quality ❤
Human sized Nac Mac Feegles. But quiet and stealthy....
I started listening to the audiobook of First & Only a couple of weeks ago... and just finished reading Traitor General today. They're pretty good 😅
Been really enjoying these book clubs
Thanks for reviewing this one! One of my favourite titles and always hoped you guys would look at it.
I loved Mira’s initial confusion at the term “Bolter porn”. 😂
Brave Ian Watson's work... May the Emperor Protect you
You guys watching Hammer & Bolter and other Warhammer+ Stuff would be amazing, I know they're quite aggressive with coming after that, but I love any vids you're both in together, you're excitement is infectious :)
Magic Milo.... The name is now seared into my memory forever
Always look forward to these videos coming out
I still have my original GG copy on my shelf.
Omg yes, you need to introduce Mira to inquisitor Jaq Draco.
This takes my mind back a generation.
Mira gives off such a "girl next door" vibe...
You can tell she's such a sweet a soul...😊
One of my favourite 40k books
25 years ago Gaunts ghosts and Gottex and Felix started to make me the man I am today
I already posted this as a reply to some else’s comment, but I’d like to post it here to give some perspective regarding WWII tabletop gaming.
I play WWII on the tabletop because I’ve had a lifelong interest in the subject, but I recognise that the Nazis were horrific and committed the worst atrocity in history. Whenever I play as and portray them on the tabletop, they are villains to a man. I make it abundantly clear that none of them were heroes, nor sympathetic in any sense, at best as insufferably vainglorious and morally cowardly as the pre-heresy Emperor’s Children. I take interest in their technology and tactics, and no-one can seriously study that without being constantly confronted with the horror of what they perpetrated and what their genocidal regime stood for. My interest in the subject has made me more aware of the dark side of it, not less. And I know I am not alone in this perspective.
With all that in mind, am I still a bad person for playing WWII games?
Gaunt's Ghosts was my 2nd entry into 40k after some anthology I'd bought on a lark. You must read as much of the old stuff as you can before diving into the Heresy, reading in chronological order is a mistake. It's so much better just getting peripheral hints and clues regarding the Heresy so that you can return to those memories as you then eventually work through all the events of the war in detail.
Love this book. The start of a great series.
15:20 New Keyword added to Universal Special rules 😁
I might get lots of hate for saying this but this was my first read in the 40k universe after having consumed tons of Loretuber stuff for a year. I was heavily disappointed and then read another popular recommendation "Devestation of Baal" which gave me much the same feeling. I was about to give up on the Universe until I gave one last recommendation a try ADBs Night Lords Trilogy. That's where I finally found the quality I had hoped for. Gave Dan Abnett another try much later with Eisenhorn and loved that.
What disappointed you?
Ghosts really gets going properly in book 3
@@johnnybigbones4955 The massively incoherent short story format in Book 2 (I bought an Anthology that had the first 3 books all in one), that jumped back and forth in time and did nothing to advance the plot. Book 1 was alright but relatively slow. Book 3 I had finally given up on the whole endeavor.
@@sphyre1196 Yeah book 2 is literally just some short stories written for the short story magazine Inferno stitched together into a novel. I'd been reading Inferno! at the time so I skipped straight to Necropolis. But as a novel it doesn't work well at all, and it should be clearer what it is. It's unfortunate that it's the second book because it's probably, overall, the weakest one.
Book 1 is also a bit weird structurally, but I do like that about it anyway. A lot of Abnett's early novels are a bit odd structurally, but then so are a lot of my favourite novels like LOTR.
I'd say if you ever feel like it, give Necropolis a go. It is more of a traditional novel format, and it's quite cohesive, being set entirely on one world dealing with one conflict. If you dislike that one, then GG is absolutely not for you.
@@johnnybigbones4955 Thanks for all the background information. I might give Necropolis another chance some day but currently I am jumping all over the heresy series and have landed at the tail end of the siege of Terra, where I will next be reading the End and the Death Part 1 (also Dan Abnett). I would say after ADB he has become my favorite author, it might just be GG that isn't my thing.
I wish i could reread F&O for the first time...and Ravenor.
What's interesting is I think actually all the Bolter Porn came after the first Ghosts novel.
First and Only was the first novel under the Black Library imprint. Before that BL published Inferno which was a short story magazine, and Warhammer Monthly which was the comics collections.
Before that there was the Ian Watson novels from the early 90s and not much else.
My only Warhammer experience is with the first three or four Gaunt's Ghosts books. I really liked them, especially First and Only. I guess I'll have to get back into reading them.
They get better and better as they go on imo :) the recent flashback novella The Vincula Insurgency is set before First and Only
I got a bit bored with space marine books, being that they are so far removed from people, with lines like “his 2nd heart kicked in” or “he could already feel his broken bones knitting back together” so Gaunts Ghosts was such a breath of fresh air, it really took me back to being a kid in the early 80s reading comics like Charley’s war, where it wasn’t all about heroes, and you realised just how vicious and ruthless your own side could be!
This was so much fun to watch!
Mira’s action movie summary is an obligatory *like*
Don't forget the cameo of Inquisitor Defay and Interrogator Gravier from Abnett's Inquisitor comics....
At last, a book I've actually read! 😄
whooop!!!!! Bloody great characters in this!
The names escape me but the two imperial Navy books that deal with the gothic war are a nice break from Marines and Guard.
Execution Hour and Shadow Point
@@kellytownsend8580 That's them.
the intro is a copy of the A-Team intro?? Class
I think we're the only 2 to have mentioned it in the comments. Are we old? 😂
@@donkeysunited only 40ish. I think the presenters knew it
Gaunts Ghosts needs to be a TV series. I'd pitch it as Band of Brothers meets Stranger Things!
awesome A-team
Excellent series of books
I can't believe you got so far through this without saying 'sharpe in space'
so my question here is are you doing them in writen order or chronology, because The Vincula Insurgency is probably between ghostmaker and Necropolis and is a weird one (aka its the war in afghanistan but 40k) and i'd be fancinated to see your take on it
I loved it so much, great Milo and Rawne content too
@@HistoritorJimaldus Like i can't say i loved it as such, but i will be obsessed with it till i die.
I’m mostly a historical player and my version of that line discussed in the video were my hobby gets to fucking real, is 100% things that happened while I was alive.
So seeing Dan who I started reading when I was like 10 just crash through that barrier a trip to say the least. Then he goes get takes a position in a modern highly political fight about Counter Insurgency Doctrine. Too have an imperium with battlefield sociologists like what the fuck.
It was deeply destabilizing to say the least.
Meera should read Inquisitor
Best warhammer book series.
Yes, this is the material Henry Cavill's show should be adapting.
Gaunts ghost and Eisenhorn should both get adapted
They should make their own corner of the 40k galaxy. No one is good enough to live to the Rawn in my head.
@@iand3lond rawn is by far my favorite ghost. His cast would be the biggest chalange imo.
Band of Brothers meets Stranger Things
As an audiobooker, these were kind of my in to the black library stuff - less space ham than the heresy stuff, poor bloody infantry are generally more sympathetic. Slightly wrecked by Audible releasing them out of sequence, so there was a gap that included the whole insurrection thing, the intro of the Belladons (is Abnett a Siouxsie fan?), resuming with the colours band rocking up. Quite a lot to go in that ellipses. I think there’s still more to go.
Ickiest bit? The kid mouths in Necropolis. Yeesh. Worth sticking round for possibly straight silver for the farmhouse interlude, though. Hey, they’re all pretty good.
Right Mira, so you are as young as I thought. So how do you know about crappy bits of 70's-80s culture like mini metros, which blighted my Gen X youth? Love the shows both of you do.🤣😂👍. Could you do Terry Pratchett (witches abroad or small gods)or Runequest FRP? Only so an old git like me can get nostalgic.
For a bit less war related story you could try the Rogue Trader Omnibus by Andy Hoare it also features the Tau. Also for weird 40k stories the forges of mars series is a bit more out there.
Great content!
I was watching the new hot ones, then RUclips let me know this dropped
Yey! A new book club! I love Mira, I want to take her for tea, and meet my parents. 😊❤
A lot of people have mentioned this novel (as well as Eisenhorn and Ciaphas Cain ones), as a great way to introduce you to WH40K. Is it true?
In 1996, my then-fiance was incredibly job-secure because she was the only person in the office who know how to actually program Excel spreadsheets. So it definitely existed back then.
And Ian hit on my exact conundrum with WWII gaming. I *like* WWII games, especially when I can do things like recreate the brigade my grandfather served in or the RCAF squadron my ex-wife's grandfather flew for; having that connexion feels very strong. But to play those force I have to ask someone to play the Nazis. (Explicitly the Nazis and not just the Germans - my grandfather served in Holland and most of the time, 1 Canadian Army was up against the Hitlerjungend or Waffen-SS.) So either my opponent is uncomfortable having to take control of those awful people - or they *aren't* and then I feel weird. So I've basically stopped playing WWII minis.
Most Germans were not Nazis; people forget that the first country the Nazis conquered was Germany. The SS and the party officials were the evil ones. The German military was not evil, anymore than the Allies were. They were soldiers serving their country, just as any other.
I play WWII on the tabletop because I’ve had a lifelong interest in the subject, but I recognise that the Nazis were horrific and committed the worst atrocity in history. Whenever I play as and portray them on the tabletop, they are villains to a man. I make it abundantly clear that none of them were heroes, nor sympathetic in any sense, at best as insufferably vainglorious and morally cowardly as the pre-heresy Emperor’s Children. I take interest in their technology and tactics, and no-one can seriously study that without being constantly confronted with the horror of what they perpetrated and what their genocidal regime stood for. My interest in the subject has made me _more_ aware of the dark side of it, not less. And I know I am not alone in this perspective.
With all that in mind, am I still a bad person for playing WWII games?
@@Mr_Bunk I don't think so, but you're also demonstrating a lot more mindfulness than the (specific) people who make me uncomfortable do.
@@Mr_Bunk uhhh, the “worst in history“ goes to other tyrannies. Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao all killed more than the Nazis did. Communism is the worst in history, period.
Regardless, the Wehrmacht had some of the coolest equipment and uniforms of any army, ever. No one should feel bad playing the bad guys in any game. It is, after all, a game, and in no way relates to who a person is when they choose the bad guys to play as. Game, not reality.
Wow, shes a gem do keep her around
Tbh I have always thought Christopher Eccleston would be perfect as Gaunt
Ooh been waiting for this!!
U neeed to read the omnibus version becouse it has stories that bind the books together and fix plot holes...
A fantastic series!