The Lost [Paperback]

I first came across Dan Abnett's 40K writings in the Eisenhorn Trilogy. Amazing writing, in my opinion one of the very best 40K series ever written. Thankfully for us sci-fi (and 40K) fans, Mr. Abnett has been prolific in his output for war-filled grim universe of the 40th millennium. The story of Tanith's First-and-Only regiment, and its legendary command Colonel-Commissar Gaunt, has been a mainstay of the 40K literature for years, there being some twelve volumes released so far. A few years ago Games Workshop started re-releasing the earlier books in omnibuses. This omnibus, The Lost, is the third omnibus, consisting of four complete titles, as follows:

Book 8: Traitor General
Book 9: His Last Command
Book 10: The Armor of Contempt
Book 11: Only in Death

The book itself consists of 1,016 pages, and for those who haven't read any of the titles contained, is obviously a good value compared to each individual title costing around $8-9 each.

I won't give away any spoilers or plot here, but I found the books to be compelling read. Mr. Abnett's writing is, simply, so much better than the vast majority of other 40K authors. The characters' actions seem plausible, reasonable, and the glimpses we get into their inner turmoil are gripping and realistic. So many of the 40K novels are two-dimensional blood and gore, each vying with other to top the graphic violence and chaos. Not so Mr. Abnett's books. His description of the battlefield and the ebb and flow of combat is superb.

I highly, highly recommend this omnibus. And when you're done with it, go and check out the Eisenhorn Trilogy--you won't be disappointed.

I'm a big fan of the Omnibus books Black Liberty releases. Just my personality, but I don't like to buy book series separately. I often don't have cash to buy them all at once and later I forget and end up missing a book. With the Omnibus books, you have the entire book series at your finger tips and at a discounted price. It's even better on Amazon because they often discount them.

This is not the first Omnibus novel for this series, but this is the first one I've actually read; I didn't have any problems getting into the story though. The story is your basic military story, where the main characters are not super human, just extremely well trained. It'd be kind of hard to give a detailed review of something so massive without this review becoming many pages long. So I can at least give you a general idea what to expect. Really though, all you need to know is that these are some pretty cool stories about rank and file military troops (well, more like special forces) that grab you from the beginning and you could do a lot worse than this book.

Traitor General

Commissar Gaunt and a small squad of special ops must meet up with the planetary resistance on the Chaos controlled world named Gereon. Their mission is to assassinate an Imperial general before he reveals vital military secrets jeopardizing the entire Imperial campaign. Can they trust the resistance? Are they tainted already? It's a cool look at what happens to the conquered plants. This one was my favorite.

His Last Command

Gaunt returns from his mission on the Chaos world under suspicion of being tainted and finds his regiment has been merged with another and is now under a new commander. He and his men are eventually brought back into combat to fight and prove themselves yet again.

The Armour of Contempt

You'll remember the planet Gereon from the first book, well now the Imperial Crusade has finally seen fit to turn its attentions to liberating the planet from Chaos. Why have they decided to visit this doomed planet? It's not because the Imperium is full of nice guys...

The book is actually two parallel stories. Gaunt tracking down the resistance fighters he left on the planet and one of the Ghost's children who is just joining the Guard.

Only in Death

Gaunt leads his unit in battle on the fortress world of Jago. They're tasked with holding a fort, but weirdness abounds when they start seeing dead comrades. Basically, it's an excuse to delve into psychological aspects of the characters in addition to the fighting. Generally, people either really like that kind of thing or really don't. I thought it was handled well.

At four novels and over a thousand pages, this book is cheap entertainment. If you like military science fiction, you can't go wrong. More generally, if you're new to Warhammer books and you're trying to pick a book, you'll seldom go wrong with a Dan Abnett one. The guy does good work. He's not overly wordy in his descriptions, creates interesting characters, and writes compelling stories. There's a reason he's regarded so highly in so many reviews here on Amazon.

I was enjoying His Last Command up until page 384 when about 47 pages of the story are replaced with 47 pages from the later book The Armour of Contempt. Kind of wish I knew what was in those missing pages.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 17 reviews  4.4 out of 5 stars