Straight Silver

Straight Silver is packed with interesting ideas for doing a classic Warhammer 40,000 novel a bit differently. The problem is the execution doesn't always allow the novel to deliver.

The premise of the book is a case in point. Gaunt and his Ghosts are dropped into the hell of trench warfare as part of an Imperial deployment set to break a 40-year war on a minor planet in the Sabbat system. There are plenty of 40K novels, many of them by Dan Abnett, which hint at disparities in technology levels on different worlds, but this book dives into that idea and runs with it to give us quite a different setting and feel to the usual gothic sci-if. It is nakedly ‘WWI in space' but that is (in my opinion at least) fundamentally a cool premise. We get to see the locals marvelling at technology like Lasguns and personal comma beads. We see the locals waging war with cavalry mounted on giant killer birds. We see the cut and thrust of trench warfare 40K style with Chaos cultists, prometheum and, of course, more incompetent commanders for Gaunt to contend with, putting the lives of the Tanith at unnecessary risk. This is a great setting for a very different novel to the usual 40k fare. However, we only really get a couple of trench fights, very little in the way of building the world of 40K trench warfare and a couple of sweeping paragraphs to outline the broader war. In the end, the setting feels under-explored.

After some initial skirmishes, the Ghosts prove their worth and are given a crucial scouting mission. This sees the First split into two sections, one led up by Gaunt on a suicide mission into enemy territory and the other off to scout in the woods. This second mission gives what is, for me, the second cool idea in the book. One of the scout groups finds an abandoned house and sets it up as a base. This kicks off a series of strange occurrences culminating in a typically brutal battle scene. The ‘manse' as it's called by the troopers, is a brilliant opportunity for a much more atmospheric, eerie and small scale novel. It has the promise of something which is a mix of war novel, haunted house and mystery rolled into one. Unfortunately, again, this setting just isn't given enough space so we only really get a taste of what could have been.

I think ultimately it is the classic Gaunt's Ghosts novel structure that lets this book down. All the books in the series, except Necropolis, feel like a series of short stories or novellas stitched together. This is a feature that comes in for a fair bit of flack, normally I'm a defender of it. In this case, I think it is a problem. Dan Abnett's ideas here are great and each one just would have benefited from being given more focus and time, by splitting the book into these distinct parts, nothing is quite given a chance to shine.

This all said the book does succeed in doing some important work for the series in developing characters and plot threads which are set to pay off later. Without giving anything away, some of the most explosive consequences of the previous book in the series are further developed and there are some great new elements that weave the 40K universe's more fantastical and otherworldly elements into a series that is otherwise very grounded in what we can recognise as ‘real life' forces.

The book also has some great character development. As in the previous Gaunt's Ghost novel, The Guns of Tanith, Gaunt himself takes a backseat and Abnett focuses on further developing the ensemble cast. I found in the first two novels, there was such a deluge of names of troopers, many of whom quickly met grizzly ends, that I never quite knew who was who. By now in the series, a defined cast of major and minor characters has emerged and we've spent enough time with them that heroes, villains and favourites have all emerged. Straight Silver pushes these characters still further, which helps raise the stakes for future novels in the series and fleshes out the world of the Ghosts.

As a Black Library novel, Straight Silver is probably one of the weaker in the Gaunt's Ghost series. It isn't as action-packed and its plot isn't as compelling as many of the others. It lacks compelling antagonists and as a stand-alone story feels incomplete. However, when seen as part of the longer form story which is the Gaunt's Ghosts series, I think it does important work.

If you are looking for your first Gaunt's Ghosts or Imperial Guard novel, definitely don't start here. But if you are already a devoted fan of the First and Only, this is still a must not be missed addition to one of the best series in the Black Library in my book.