Blood Pact (WH40K: Gaunt’s Ghosts #12) ★★★✬☆

~ Bookstooge


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Title: Blood Pact
Series: WH40K: Gaunt’s Ghosts #12
Author: Dan Abnett
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 243
Words: 99K



Synopsis:

From Wikipedia & Me

After the gruelling events on Jago, the Tanith First is removed from active service for the first time since its founding and sent to Balhaut to perform garrison duties. Two years on, however, the Ghosts are becoming restless from the lack of combat and purpose. A number of them go as far as turning to petty crime and other bad habits to amuse themselves. Ibram Gaunt himself becomes increasingly idle and distracted, but remains confident that the Tanith First will return to the front again soon.

Events turn as Gaunt is summoned to Balhaut’s Commissariat headquarters. A senior officer of the arch-enemy has been captured, and refuses to speak to anyone but Gaunt. The Inquisition is attempting to secure custody of the prisoner so that they may handle him their own way. The prisoner insists that he wishes to help the Imperium, but this claim is met with speculation by Gaunt. However, he is forced to protect the prisoner and go to ground in the city when a Blood Pact insertion team storms the facility in an attempt to silence the prisoner. With heretical witchcraft influencing the populace and a determined hunter pursuing them, who can Gaunt turn to for aid? And what information does the traitor general know that prompts the enemy to openly assault an Imperial stronghold?

The Inquisition gets involved and is as much after Gaunt’s blood as the Blood Pact members. There is a running battle for a day before the Ghosts come to Gaunt’s aid, destroy the Blood Pact, reveal the Inquisitor to be an agent of Chaos and generally kick butt and help destroy the city. Gaunt gets rewarded and everybody prepares to go back to the front lines instead of going stir-crazy on leave.

My Thoughts:

2 years is a long time. Since it happens between books it is really hard to accept and fathom. It doesn’t “feel” like 2 years so you’re just kind of left dangling and have to accept it as authorial fiat.

When I started this book I was pretty meh and wondered if my reading rotation had let me down. I really considered dropping this for a rotation and move on to the next book. Thankfully, I stuck to it and I was not let down. Once I got past the “Oh, it’s been 2 years and we’re going stir-crazy being on leave and leading a peaceful life” and things started happening, wham, it was game on. I loved the mirror image this was to Traitor General and seeing the Ghosts in a slightly more relaxed environment was fun.

I ALSO liked seeing how the Blood Pact insertion team worked and how their magic was conducted. When the Inquisition got involved I wasn’t sure what to expect, maybe a battle of Techno-Magics but whatever I was expecting, I did NOT see the ending coming, not by a long shot. It was great though!

Abnett continues to impress with his writing here. While not an indepth character study, he’s able to reveal new little tidbits that help flesh Gaunt out (hahahaa, get it? Flesh out, Gaunt? Never mind). The revelation that Gaunt could possibly have been Warleader of the Crusade was a real stunner for sure.

Overall, another thoroughly enjoyable entry in the Gaunt’s Ghosts series.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

40 thoughts on “Blood Pact (WH40K: Gaunt’s Ghosts #12) ★★★✬☆”

  1. I’m yet to read Gaunt, but I’m getting into WH40, there’s a new Humble Bundle with 26 titles, I now have… 44 titles on my Kindle? Yes, 44 🙂 Although the new one has less authors I recognize, probably not the best of Black Library.

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    1. Once I’m done Gaunt I’m going to take a break and then try Caiaphus Cain. The Commisariat seems to be the only way I can enjoy WH40K. All the others I’ve tried just haven’t worked for me.

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    2. IF Cadian Honour is on the list, you can skip that one, the series was not good at all… What other titles did you get? I would love to take ppart in a Humble Bundle some time, but some of the books they offer I already own in physical form. In WH it is hard to know where to start and where things tie into others. I’m always willing to answer questions around certain books so be sure to reach out when you get stuck/ do not know where to go…

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      1. Well, the first Humble Bundle was better, there were three Horus Rising books, among other stuff. This is mostly second rate, from what I know, but there was a Ciaphas Cain novel, some books by Abnett, and Chris Wraight whose Iron Company in Warhammer Fantasy setting I rather enjoyed 🙂 You can look the collection up, it’s still active.
        I often buy the cheapest tier of a bundle even if I’m not very interested, it’s 1 euro, but here I decided to buy it all, I’ll be ahead even if I only read 4 or 5 of these…

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  2. Glad you stuck with it and it ended up working out for you. This is one of the exact reasons I work hard not to DNF books. 👍 Excellent review.

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      1. I don’t, but I won’t quit after only 50 pages or so. It’s something I try very hard to avoid. Recently, I DNF’d a friend’s book @60%, and I’m not even going to review it. It was just so bad for me that I couldn’t waste another minute on it. It’s so hard for me to waste time on books that don’t captivate me from the beginning, but then it’s also nice when you stick with it and you’re glad you did. Honestly, it has to be pretty bad for me to drop it early. What about you?

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        1. I tend to follow the Nancy Pearl rule of 50 (ish) for new books. Sometimes I’ll go a bit longer but a new book/series/author has to grab me.

          Ongoing series I’ll finish unless there are specific subjects involved. Then the book gets dfn’d at that point and I seriously think about if I want to read any more by the author.

          And I never read a book by someone I know, even online. I did that once and it was really, really bad. They were a friend of Mrs B’s, emphasis on “were” 😦 and I wasn’t even mean in my review. I really could have been though…

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          1. See, this experience for me is now the straw that broke the camel’s back. I won’t be reading books by friends anymore with the exception of one who I know I can be honest with without being shunned. Sad to hear that a friend was lost over it. I’ve heard those stories and it’s happened to close friends/bloggers. I wrote up an entire post about this, but decided not to share it.

            50 pages seems so quick, doesn’t it? Most books I’ll get to at least 30% first. Interesting!

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            1. yeah, it was not a good time. Thankfully, they were already drifting apart but instead of that gradual losing touch, it was a sharp knife cut.

              50 pages only seems short if an author is a bloater. Which in our current reading climate is the majority of writers 😀 But it used to be 25% of a book, so it’s pretty close to your 30%. I simply won’t play the authors game of moving the goalposts further and further down the field. Plus, there are so many books that I am not going to regret missing a “good” one. If an author shows they can’t keep my interest at the beginning, that is only going to get worse and I’d rather just avoid it.

              DNF’ing is definitely a personalized thing though. Just like music. There is no one size fits all.

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        1. Haha! Not even close. In fact, I would ‘t mind a Big Bird for Thanksgiving 😉
          The muppets are funny while Sesame Street is all about brainwashing helpless children into thinking that learning has to be all fun all the time…

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    1. I’m glad I don’t have to try to write in a universe like this though. It is just so big, so old and so vast. While I might complain a lot, I do understand some of the problems these writers must face. But that is they’re problem, not mine! Hahahahahahaa 😀

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  7. Glad to see Gaunt is still going strong, 12 books on… I’m still stuck on the second one but it’s not Gaunt’s fault – too many books in between! 😅 I’ll come back to it, though!

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      1. Heh, I don’t really plan it 😅 I usually read 3-6 books at once, choosing the current read on a whim or external pressure (NG, I’m looking at you 😁). So the Gaunt I’ve read a few months after Conrad Kurze novel, but it’s been probably at least half a year ago. As for Asher, or Cornwell, I tend to read one every few months – I need to build up that feeling of wanting to know what happens next.

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        1. Gotcha.
          How does the 5 or 6 at once work, practically speaking? Do you read them in different places, ie, you have Book A for the drs office, Book B for work, Book C in the living room, etc, or is it just that you start 6 books at the same time and read each as you feel like it?

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          1. Different places works only for audiobooks vs physical books/e-books – I listen to books in the car – and it reminds me there’s another book I’m reading 😉

            I switch between books when the inspiration strikes me or when I’m getting bored with a book, or when it’s just too much of a good thing 😉 I also read usually between 2-3 non-fiction books in my mix. I usually start one, then another, then another… 😀

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            1. For me, the issues that the author seems to struggle with and use his characters to express (God, evil, redemption, etc) are the same questions I have and so it was like I was reading a book I would have wanted to write. So writing a review was all about how it resonated with me.

              I seem to remember that my review took me weeks to compose because I wanted it “just right”.

              Good luck. Sometimes really good books can be really hard to review. Just say what you feel is important so if you come back in 5 years and read your review you understand what you were trying to say. Think of it as writing a letter to your future self.

              I don’t know if that will help you, but for the “important” books that’s how I treat it.

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  9. Pingback: Spring Cleaning Book Tag! – the orang-utan librarian

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