The Armour of Contempt

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Title: The Armour of Contempt
Series: WH40K: Gaunt's Ghosts #10
Author: Dan Abnett
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 340
Words: 92K

Synopsis:

This is the story of the liberation of Gereon. The book starts out by introducing us to a new character, Dalin Criid, the adopted son of Tona. He's going through training and the plan is for him to get into the Ghosts once he graduates.

The Ghosts, along with a bunch of others, are tasked to retake the show more planet Gereon. It turns out High Command thinks there is something special about Gereon that resists Chaos and they hope to discover what that is and to replicate it.

Dalin is not sent to the Ghosts and must endure his trial by fire with a lowly group of reject Guards. He survives but hears the voice of his adopted father Caffron several times giving him advice which saves his life.

The Ghosts are tasked with retaking a small village and establishing contact with the remnants of the Resistance. High Command then imprisons all of the resistance to test them for the ability to resist Chaos. There is nothing Gaunt can do. At the end of the book, when the Ghosts are leaving, the Resistance is spirited away by the remaining Ghost Resistance scout MkVenner and head off into the wilderness to hide and survive.

My Thoughts:

I think this was the grimmest Gaunt's Ghosts book yet. Dalin being introduced as a character and his trying experience, we really get to see how the men in the trenches experience warfare. They're cannon fodder, nothing else. We also get to experience a Commisar that is more typical than Gaunt. Both of these experiences make the reader realize just how unusual both the Ghosts and Gaunt are.

I guess this was a contrast book. So far the Ghosts series hasn't been that grimdark and I've almost slid into thinking that maybe the Warhmmer40k Universe wasn't that bad. This was a stark reminder that yes, it is a horrible place and even the supposed Good Guys aren't really Good Guys, they're just not as horrific as Chaos. Heck, if I was even a semi-powerful force I'd be trying to liberate my own corner to live in. Feth the Emperor and feth Chaos. In my system every child would have a pony, there would Free Pizza Friday every Friday, all the woman would wear long skirts, all the men would have curly beards and wear suspenders and we'd all sing Nordic'ish songs with lots of “j”s in the words.

But back to THIS book. Caffran dying at the end, at the hands of a terrified child, well, that just was the grimmest part. The person he was trying to save is the one who kills him seems to hold the very essence of what Warhmmer40k is all about. I'm just thankful all the books haven't been like that and I hope the rest aren't. We'll see though.

★★★☆½ show less

Gaunt returns to the chaos held planet of Gereon, and he discovers all is not as it was. The last time Gaunt was on Gereon, he led a small team on a suicide mission in order to assassinate a traitor to the empire. When he was able to lead his team out again, he promised to return and liberate the world from chaos. Now he is back with reinforcements. Dan Abnett is an amazing writer. His words are like poetry and are so descriptive and packed with emotion that you can actually taste the blood and fear. He creates characters that you come to know and love and he is fearless enough to kill them off. The stories are well developed and engaging. I just don't ever want them to end.

My tenth Gaunt's Ghost novel and read right after having finished “The Founding” omnibus. Maybe I’m still suffering from the shell shock and the fast paced gut thrust of the omnibus edition, but I do feel that this edition of Gaunt lacked a little something. Perhaps Gereon’s experience is so overwhelmingly morose that it carried on into how I felt about the book. In any case, there is plenty of the action, suspense and characterization we’ve come to expect from Abnett. In addition, young Dalin Criid’s first taste of true Imperial Guard battle is gruesome and far better detailed (with triumph, loss, fear and misery) here than in another young guardsman’s ordeals played out in “Fifteen Hours.” Overall it was a good show more novel. However, not among the best in Abnett’s work. show less

This is the tenth Gaunt's Ghosts book, and the series is still not tired. Dan Abnett continues his great job of bringing the trials of a single Imperial Guard regiment to life.

This book can easily be read as a standalone, but fans of the series will enjoy this latest addition.

you can pretty much guess how this goes but its gripping its its on way

Nueva entrega de la serie Los olvidados, de Warhammer 40.000. En la despiadada Cruzada de los Mundos de Sabbat, el comisario Gaunt regresa de Gereon, un planeta sometido al Caos, para enfrentarse a sus propios demonios. Todavía afectado por la larga misión tras las líneas enemigas llevada a cabo en Gereon, el comisario Ibram Gaunt regresa a ese planeta con el ejército imperial de la Cruzada para liberar a ese mundo del Caos. Gaunt y el Primero y Único de Tanith descubren, después de establecer contacto con fuerzas guerrilleras de élite del lugar, que la brutalidad de la «liberación» les obliga a enfrentarse a sus comandantes, quienes creen que la victoria debe conseguirse a cualquier coste, sin importar lo cruel que sea. Todo show more puede ocurrir cuando Gaunt y los suyos desafían de un modo directo la autoridad de sus superiores. show less

En la despiadada Cruzada de los Mundos de Sabbat, el comisario Gaunt regresa de Gereon, un planeta sometido al Caos, para enfrentarse a sus propios demonios. Todavía afectado por la larga misión tras las líneas enemigas llevada a cabo en Gereon, el comisario Ibram Gaunt regresa a ese planeta con el ejército imperial de la Cruzada para liberar a ese mundo del Caos.

Gaunt y el Primero y Único de Tanith descubren después de establecer contacto con fuerzas guerrilleras de élite del lugar que la brutalidad de la «liberación» les obliga a enfrentarse a sus comandantes, quienes creen que la victoria debe conseguirse a cualquier coste, sin importar lo cruel que sea. Todo puede ocurrir cuando Gaunt y los suyos desafían de un modo show more directo la autoridad de sus superiores. show less