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Title: Necropolis
Series: Warhammer 40K: Gaunt’s Ghosts #3
Author: Dan Abnett
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 416
Format: Digital Edition
Synopsis: |
The world of Verghast is comprised of Hive cities, which are great manufactoring cities that enable the Empire to continue its war against Chaos. Rivalries exist however and war between cities is not unknown. One such war breaks out and the city we read about call on the Empire for help, as their capture will severely curtail the current Crusade in space.
Gaunt, his Ghosts and several other Imperial forces descend to put an end to the spat. However, things are not at all what they seem. The head of the city is insane and tries to open it up to the enemies. The enemies are revealed to be the entire population of the opposing Hive city, all chaos tainted into fanatical death troopers. It is also revealed that some higher Chaos lord, Asphodel, is behind it all.
Gaunt and Co destroy the enemy but effectively lose the city in the process. The book ends with the surviving population heading off to start 2 new smaller Hive cities and most of the militia and those who fought with Gaunt becoming part of the Ghosts, as they too lost their home.
My Thoughts: |
I think this was the darkest Gaunt’s Ghost book yet. The Ghost’s rival, the Bluebloods, led by some Captain or General, pretty much loses it and the general tries to run away. Gaunt, as a Commisar, sentences him on the spot and gives him his gun to kill himself. The coward turns it on Gaunt and Gaunt has to kill him. About time as far as I was concerned. Those bluebloods were bad news for everybody.
The body count was in the millions. People die in such large numbers that it was almost incomprehensible. I also didn’t even bother to keep track of peoples’ names because chances were greater that they would be dead in the next chapter than not. The focus was more on the politics dividing the city and on the workers who were fighting in the trenches.
In many ways this felt like a campaign scenario from the game Warhammer40K. I could almost hear the dungeonmaster (or whatever the controller in a game of WH40K is called) telling the facts of what the players were facing and the dice rolling. Scent of a Gamer is a blogger I follow who does miniatures and I kept picturing posts from his blog about various projects he’s done.
I have been wondering how 30,000 Ghosts were going to last 10+ books when we lose so many each book. Well this book answered that in spades. Take on survivors from other lost worlds. Now we’ll have to see if what makes the Ghosts the Ghosts morphs into something else with the influx of new blood.
Overall I enjoyed this and while it threatened to get a little too dark for me it never crossed that threshhold.
★★★☆½
You lucky bastard! I’ve been looking for this book everywhere i can and still you got to read it before I did, and a 3,5 star? Jeeey Warhammer🙂.
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I think you’ll love it once you read it.
Now, are you looking for it in a paper, audio or ebook?
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Physical that fits the 3 other books i have. Im really glad that you gave these a chance man. Makes me exited to read them
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I’ve encountered so many of these Warhammer books at bookshops lately and got to admit that they are soooo beautiful, once they’re collected together. This sounds like it could be a favourite for fans of the universe though. Funny how you could see the story unfold like the game. Not sure if it’s a good or bad thing to be honest, considering that I could have, for example, hated a novelization that reads like a movie.
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Honestly, I think some of the covers are better than the stories.
As for the videogame aspect, that kind of thing really depends on how I’m feeling and if there are other things wrong with the book. If I’m feeling good and the book is zooming along, a bit of videogameitis won’t bother me at all. But if the book is already annoying me, then boy howdy, watch out as I call down heckfire and tarnation on the author for daring to go the lazy route and videogame it 😀
Thankfully, these books are all about the action and people, huge gigantic masses of people, dying. Not that I’m a total misanthrope but that kind of thing works for me 🙂
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It’s good this managed to stay just shy of being too dark- although the body count does sound pretty high!
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I’ve never equated body count to an oppressive reading experience. For me, it’s more about the emotional and psychological aspects that can get me down. Hence why I tend to stay away from Grimdark for the most part.
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Fair enough!
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