Dan Abnett's The Warmaster

Warning: Huge spoilers ahead. So if you don't want to be spoiled, click away now. Don't read this post. You've been warned.

I've finally finished reading Dan Abnett's The Warmaster as part of the Gaunt's Ghost series. I mean, I had like 20 hours aboard the plane, so I read a lot. And I really mean a lot. Like Sabbat Crusade and The Warmaster plus at least 3 short stories (Killbox, Dust, Fatespinner and stuff). Oh, and the majority of the Dead Space novel, Catalyst, which started out fairly great but fizzled out to the lamest ending I've ever seen. It felt like the author wanted to do too many things, but when we finally got to the infestation part, he suddenly realized he didn't have enough space left and rushed through the ending super-quick, left a lot of loose ends, killed off characters in the most absurd and unsatisfying way possible, and forgot about another bunch of characters. No...really.

But this isn't a Dead Space blog, so I'm not going to complain about the details here. Let's get to Warmaster, which is one of the most fun and satisfying books to read. Especially in comparison to Dead Space: Catalyst. And now I'm reading War of the Fang, and I'm enjoying it, especially after the Thousand Sons caused Ironhelm to make a fool out of himself. Well deserved, Ironhelm. Well deserved.

Spoilers ahead:

Ibram Gaunt is now Warmaster. What, you thought the title was for show? He was appointed Warmaster by Lord General Barthol Van Voytz and all the other command staff (read: Lord Generals and Lord Militant Commanders) in the Sabbats Crusade. They unaminously voted for him to be Warmaster after deciding that Macaroth was no longer fit to lead the crusade. So our luckless protagonist turns into the Warmaster.

Did you believe that? PSYCH! I was joking. Well, half-joking anyway. Most of the Command Staff, calling themselves the inner circle, did want Gaunt to be Warmaster, but being the proud, principled, upright (almost Mary Sue-ish protagonist, but he is a bad father) badass that he is, Gaunt was like, "nah, feth you guys!" and went straight to Macaroth to warn him. By the way, Gaunt is now Lord Militant Commander - yeah, you got that right. Better get used to it. He's no longer Commissar-Colonel Gaunt. He's fething LORD MILITANT COMMANDER Ibram Gaunt, with a bunch of Tempetus Scions as his bodyguards to match his status. Lord Militant Commander Gaunt! Hell, yeah! And now the Tanith First and Only is Cobalt level status! Meaning they get a lot of privileges, prestige and other stuff due to Lord Militant Commanders' personal regiments. Pretty awesome. On the other hand, he kind of got screwed over by his newfound status and rank and became a bad parent. Poor Meritous...oh, yeah. Another spoiler. Meritorious Felyx Chass is not a guy. She's a girl and she's Gaunt's daughter. You heard that right. That's how both Dalin Criid (or Dalin Kolea?) and Nahim Ludd got attracted to her. She's a girl, that's why. Kind of funny to see the two blokes fighting over her for her affection.

Oh, and back to Gaunt. He's not just the Lord Militant Commander, but after he helped Macaroth and warned him of the coup de'atat, he was promoted to First Lord Executor Militant. So he's basically Macaroth's second-in-command and the second highest ranking commander in the crusade now. Badass.

Oh, and Eli Rawne is now a Colonel. Colonel Eli Rawne. Woohoo. Gol Kolea got taken away by the Inquisition, and his fate is left unknown by the end of the book, except that Commissar Hark is still trying to help him. I hope Kolea gets away. Would suck to see him end up like Agun Soric, and I'm sure Hark will do something because he always regretted what he did with Soric. Ugh. Maybe the other officers will get promotions soon enough, but I'm not sure. We'll see.

Right, and Yoncy is revealed to be a...conduit or vessel for a daemon. The bad shadow had followed her into the command staff's HQ in Urdesh. This is not good. Not good at all. Ugh. I hope Kolea saves her. But another interesting revelation - while Dalin is indeed Gol's son, Yoncy turns out to be not his daughter - Gol remembers that he has two sons, not a son and a daughter. If that's the case, who is Yoncy?! Uh oh...

And please don't let anything bad happen to Gol. I'm begging you, Sir Abnett. Not that he'll ever listen to me, but...yeah.

Well, that's what I have for you. Meryn is a bastard as always, and I bet he'll get taken down in the next book or so. Poor Erza Night is gone...Meryn killed him. Fething bastard. I always liked Erza and I feel a burning hatred for Meryn now (that's probably Mr. Abnett's intention). Feth.

One last thing. Mkoll has gone MIA. He did this heroic one last stand against the Sons of Sek, shouting "I am death!" and slaying countless enemy soldiers...only for Colonel Rawne and the others to find nothing but his Tanith silver knife in the deck in the aftermath. I know Mkoll is still alive somewhere. We'll find out where he is in the next book. I hope.

Let me know if you want more spoilers.