The Lost

Gaunt's Ghosts #8-11

by Dan Abnett

The Tanith First-And Only are among the most legendary regiments of Imperial Guard and at their head stands Commissar Ibram Gaunt, unflinching in duty and unrelenting in combat. The Lost sees the very furure of the regiment in jeopardy as Gaunt battles the forces of Chaos the Sabbat Worlds, from rescue missions to the horrors of the battlefield, the Tanith First-And-Only must survive extreme dangers or be forever lost.

Genres: Science Fiction, 40k, Fiction, Fantasy, Military Science Fiction, Military Fiction, Short Stories

960 pages, Paperback

First published March 30, 2010

Reviews

[Jean-Luc · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the 3rd Gaunt's Ghosts omnibus. I already reviewed The Founding and The Saint omnibuses. If you read those reviews, you know I'm going to slap 5 stars on the book and slobber all over the author. If you're not familiar w/ Warhammer 40k, start w/ The Founding. Don't worry, the rest of the series will wait.


Traitor General - Gaunt and comrades infiltrate the Archenemy-occupied planet of Gereon to assassinate the titular character. Local conditions are horrific as the planet and populace are bled dry to feed the Archenemy's campaign. Gaunt has to adapt to weapons and enemies he hasn't seen anywhere else, with almost no support, while Chaos space marines nip at their heels.

His Last Command - Gaunt was gone for so long, he and his men were assumed dead and the mission a failure. The idea that he and his men could return from a Chaos-occupied planet w/out any taint of Chaos is heresy, and the Inquisition is not pleased. Gaunt is stripped of his command rank. The Tanith First and Only were disbanded, no longer Gaunt's Ghosts, and rolled into the 81st Belladon. On Anacreon Sextus, an ancient world w/ structures so massive they could only be monuments to the God-Emperor of Mankind, the Ghosts have to make do w/out Gaunt's leadership while the Archenemy attacks here & there, hideous monsters stalk them at night, and entrepreneurs turn a buck wherever they can.

The Armour of Contempt - How exactly did Colonel-Commisar Gaunt and his people not turn traitor while on occupied Gereon? Simple: they shielded their souls w/ the armor of contempt. In other words, they didn't succumb to Chaos because they hated Chaos so very much. In the grim dark future of the 41st millenium, that's what passes for logic. The Ghosts finally return to Gereon in force for the planet's long overdue liberation. Dalin Criid, son of Gol Kolea, adopted by Tona Criid and Dermon Caffran, is finally old enough to enlist in the Imperial Guard. He finishes his training just in time to have his paperwork misplaced: instead of joining the Tanith First and Only, his RIP training group (retraining, indoctrination, punishment) is designated a cannon fodder unit and immediately moved to the front. At the same time, the Ghosts land at a different location to try and contact the friends and allies they left behind at the end of in Traitor General. The Inquisition remains unhappy throughout.

Only in Death - As the commissariat is fond of reminding guardsmen: only in death does duty end. How would the rest of the Ghosts fare if Gaunt himself were to die? Enough people see Gaunt fall off a cliff that this ceases to being an academic question. This is the Ghosts' haunted house story. The supernatural happenings in Honor Guard (the 4th book) had a perfectly reasonable explanation, so I should've known that things weren't really as spooky as they seemed, but the fighting is so intense that there's never any time to piece the clues together.


I'll admit I still have nightmares about the battle for Vervunhive, and I wasn't even there! None of these 4 books match the impossible pace set in Necropolis (the 3rd book) and that is a blessing. The Imperial citizens of Gereon are so scrappy, you can't help but root for them from first contact to the bitter end. (And that isn't a spoiler, you fucking clowns. Warhammer 40k may not be Game of Thrones, but you know damn well that we don't get happy endings in this universe.) Ezra Night is a great addition to the cast, exactly the sort of noble savage manservant every good colonial officer had @ the height of the British Empire. The Belladon are colorful and great counterparts to the Tanith and the Verghast. Abnett's willingness to kill of major characters hasn't subsided in the least; it's gotten worse, in fact.

Maybe these 4 books don't gel as seamlessly as in The Saint omnibus, but it's still one hell of a crazy ride.

[Thomas Lambert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dan Abnett once again interweaves his strong grasp of infantry tactics with his cast of captivating characters, yielding three masterfully crafted Tanith operations in this military fiction trilogy. Those following the compelling Tanith road of corpses will not be disappointed in the slightest as these faithful soldiers of the Imperium endure their hardest and most thankless trials yet to date.

[Guinevere · Rating 4 out of 5]

I assume that if you have found yourself here, and you have not already read this series, it is because you are interested in the Warhammer: 40k setting. No matter what your level of knowledge, I would say congratulations! you have found likely the best WH40k novels yet written (which is saying something, with as many books as have been published by the Black Library), and you will be happy to read them. You would be doing yourself a disservice to start here, though, so please start with The Founding omnibus instead.
However, if you aren't already predisposed to enjoy these books by virtue of familiarity with the setting, it's fairly simple: these are great action books that are, admittedly, perhaps a little pulpy. The four star rating is for you. Again, though, you really need to start with The Founding.

For the Warhammer reader, seasoned or novice, I have this: a tier list of the Gaunt's Ghost series up to and including The Victory: Part One omnibus. Ratings are therefore relative to each other; suffice to say that even the worst GG is better than a lot of other WH40k. The bolded below are the novels featured in this omnibus, each having their own short write-up after the list.

S Tier - Traitor General, Only In Death
A Tier - Necropolis, Blood Pact
B Tier - First and Only (I do need a reread tbh), Straight Silver, His Last Command, Salvation's Reach
C Tier - Honour Guard, Guns of Tanith, Armour of Contempt
D Tier - Sabbat Martyr, The Iron Star
F Tier - Ghostmaker

Traitor General (S Tier) is, in my opinion, the finest Gaunt's Ghosts novel. In spite of only involving a small group, the pacing and intense tension make for a tight and satisfying story.
His Last Command (B Tier) is a tricky beast for me because technically, it follows the formula very well - but it simply didn't grab me as well. I think it deserves B for the moments it shined, because they really did shine, even if going off my enjoyment might land it in a lower tier.
Armour of Contempt (C Tier) is a triumphant return to the setting of a previous novel - or at least, that's what the Ghosts expect. However, the deliberately dismal return is spoiled by one of the series more convoluted plot points - perhaps a necessity to satisfy lore-centric fans who chafe under the Ghosts' plot armor, but ultimately unsatisfying for me personally.
Only In Death (S Tier) was kind of a sneaker hit for me. I did not expect it to be one of the best, but again: the tension and pacing is just excellence. There are devastating reveals and a constant sense of just how endangered the major characters were.
The Iron Star (D Tier) is technically more of a novelette than a full-fledged book, but it is substantially longer than any of the other short stories in these omnibuses (and I have chosen not to review those), so here it is. There's no way to really talk about it without going into spoilers, but suffice to say that it provides interesting insights into Gaunt's psychological struggles with leadership. As it has no real bearing on plot, I can't justify putting it above D Tier. It would be unjustified to put it in F Tier with that awful Ghostmaker though.

The Lost is definitely my favorite collection thus far. If you're anything like me, you will be utterly hooked by the time you finish this omnibus. True or not, you won't want to stop here - the Ghosts have much further to go.

[Calyx · Rating 5 out of 5]

its seems it took me 1.5years to read it all... and i must say this is sequel done best. it takes what was done in previous omnibuses and builds on them. and in turn every book in this omnibus does the same, but with fresh ideas, although armour of contempt is my least favourite (might give it another read after some time), what it gives overall and how next one built on it... is amazing! Dan Abnett please dont ever stop with Ghosts!

[Northern One · Rating 5 out of 5]

These novels are not for the faint hearted. And I'm not just talking about gore, which there is quite a lot of, but also immense psychological and emotional darkness. In fact, the last part of this omnibus contains darkness of a scale I've never actually encountered before in literature. Which is saying something.

But of course that's not why I've given it five stars, oh no. The five stars are for the depth of the characters, the intensity of the writing, the way Abnett makes you feel as though you're really there, present in the living hell of Guard life. Abnett truly is a master of his craft.

[Claire Benham · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember thinking, I love the Gaunt' s Ghosts series, it should be amazing to jump back in. And; He's already killed off most of my favourite characters, what is the worst that could happen? My heart could just burst while reading this that's what. Those last few pages, my god. I felt so many emotions so damn deeply, I literally need recovery time. I loved this book.

[Simon Mee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alright, yep, peak Abnett. The Lost is a collection of four novels and a somewhat later coda, all hitting all the right emotional beats.

In The Grim Darkness of the Far Future There is Only War

So the universe sucks. Really really and, just in case you were wondering, REALLY, sucks. The Imperial Guard, while underrated, is a great mass thrown against all enemies with the expected results from that.

Many of the dead came back with them, held upright by the density of bodies, and only falling, hundreds of metres from where they had died, once the pressure eased and the spacing increased.

Abnett (mostly) manoeuvres his characters around that – a small strike team acting as assassins, a unit covering the flanks, a last stand in a haunted house. But it’s still pretty grim. Grim dark even. The character losses have built up (and continue), and there is a frayed quality to Gaunt and the Tanith First and Only (which receives another batch of “reinforcements” in this omnibus).

'One last point,' Hark added. He punched the man in the side of the head with his augmetic. The man tumbled the length of the wall and fell on his face. His skull was probably fractured. A mercy, Hark considered. Thirty years on a penal colony would probably pass a lot easier if you were simple from brain-damage.

One step after the other

There’s better interconnectivity between the stories in this omnibus. They are still thrown from planet to planet, but there’s a little bit more of a thread connecting them. Abnett’s interactions between characters is probably the stronger point than the plot, though he likes to pull the rug from under you – don’t fall too in love with anyone.

So what do you learn? I’m unsure. It’s mostly about how you deal with the unrelenting horror and a sense of loss. What it’s like to not really win even when the dust clears. It’s not a pleasant series, just one of the best.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The nostalgia re-read continues, and now we're into the good stuff.

Traitor General is still the best Ghosts book. The ever-expanding cast is cut to the bone, with a handful of characters behind enemy lines. We get some superb action, genuine tension, and the best fleshed-out villain of the piece. Some cracking character work too.

His Last Command is a slight drop-off in quality as Dan writes himself out of the corner Traitor General finished in. There are a few good beats, and the new one-night-only characters are much better than a few other one-offs in the series.

The Armour of Contempt is a tale of two stories. In one, Abnett reacts to the percieved criticism that the Ghosts novels aren't "typical" of the setting with some truly horrible horror of mass warfare scenes. Genuinely great stuff. The second part, with most of our main cast, is much more by-the-numbers with possibly the most upsetting character death in the series so far.

Only in Death is much better than I remember, a haunted-house horror, that feels tense and uncomfortable throughout, with a genuinely disturbing fate for a returning character. And the follow-up novella, Iron Star, is worth the price of admission on its own.

This is the Ghosts' Imperial Period. Definitely worth picking up.

[Rae · Rating 5 out of 5]

In continuation of the epic story of Commissar Gaunt - The Lost is a series of books that sees the ghosts through some of their most trying missions yet. Across chaos occupied worlds - the regiment experiences some of the most vicious battles of its history.

Full of action and suspense, terror and gore - fans of Gaunt's Ghosts will find heartbreak and grief alongside a deep appreciation of characters who have long gone. I believe this particular omnibus has some of the best character development of the entire series so far.

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though not perfect, the three novels bring the story of Gaunt and the Ghosts even further than before. At this point, with so many books preceding these, parts of each novel can become tiresome where battle description stretches and repeats ad nauseum. But as with the past stories, the characters provide the balance to the war infused books that the 40K lore typically demands.

[Daren Molina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Band of brothers in warhammer delivers again. Crazy good stories that keep you on the edge of your seat. We really get to delve into some of the other characters (Britain, etc). I really like how how they all progress and make you care about this group more than ever. Mkvenner and Mkoll are still awesome, by the way.

[Matthew Schiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent series. In this omnibus, Only In Death shines as the best in my opinion although the Dalin Criid parts in The Armour of Contempt rate as a close second. Can’t wait to get my hands on the next omnibus to continue.

[Stefan Snigorski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always fresh

I don't think Dan Abnett has ever served in the military and Gaunt and his Ghosts exist in the 40k fantasy future, but if you want to read brilliant stories of a unit at war, then you can't go wrong by reading these books.

[Arthur B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collects one of the shakier arcs, though it's probably more satisfying to tackle this arc as a block than it would have been to wait for each novel to come out one by one. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...

[Ed LZY · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timeless Classic #2 in the Warhammer 40k universe. Begin from the First Omnibus and when you get here, you feel like you have wandered the hellish trenches of the Great War for a dozen years, suffering pyrrhic victory after pyrrhic victory.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the haunted feel of this collection.

[Mansor · Rating 5 out of 5]

That's the good stuff

[David Rowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!

Wow. Great books. Sad, tragic, and excellent twists for some of them. Some of my favorite 40k I've ever read are in this omnibus!

[Ulzeta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing

I loved this book i just wish that they stopped killing off characters, but it’s a book about war so it makes sense

[Magnus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good.

[Damian Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why Gaunt's Ghosts Is More Than Warhammer: A Reflection on Memory, Meaning, and Masterful Storytelling

Introduction: The Long March of the Lost
If you’ve read Gaunt’s Ghosts, you know the truth:
This isn’t just military sci-fi.
It’s not just another campaign in the grimdark galaxy of Warhammer 40,000.
It’s a meditation on what remains when everything else is gone.
It’s a story about people who lost their home, and—against all odds—found a purpose worth dying for anyway.
And the deeper question the series asks is this:
How do we stay human in a universe designed to strip us of that very thing?

The Craft: Why This Series Works
Dan Abnett achieves something rare. With Gaunt's Ghosts, he doesn’t just write battles—he writes people living through battles.
✦ The Characters Feel Real
Across the omnibuses, the cast deepens and fractures. You can’t read the series without picking favourites—and dreading the moment they might fall. Whether it’s Larkin’s haunted genius, Rawne’s barely leashed fury, or Gaunt’s quiet, principled resolve, every character brings the weight of memory to the page.
✦ The Atmosphere is Tactile
You can hear the lasguns cooling after a firefight.
You can feel the dirt of Tanith underfoot, even centuries after the planet is gone.
You can smell the cordite and the damp, and somehow that sensory immersion makes the philosophy hit harder: This is what we fight to remember. This is what we lose when we forget.
✦ The Pacing is Relentless—but Gentle When It Needs to Be
Sure, there are siege breaks, doomed charges, and desperate defences. But Abnett gives us the quiet, aching spaces in between:
• The whispered campfire stories.
• The shared cigarettes before dawn.
• The moments when Gaunt writes letters to the families of the fallen, knowing he’s lying to make their deaths sound noble.

The Philosophy: Finding Meaning in the March
At its core, Gaunt's Ghosts is existentialist fiction wrapped in bolter fire.
• You will die.
• Your name will be forgotten.
• Your victories are grains of sand in a cosmic storm.
And yet... they march.
Like Camus’ Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill, the Ghosts define themselves through action. Their world is absurd. Their Emperor is silent. Their cause is often suspect.
But they choose each other.
They choose to remember Tanith.
They choose to fight so the man next to them might see another sunrise.
In that, Gaunt’s Ghosts becomes quietly profound: it’s not the war that matters. It’s how we preserve our humanity despite it.

The Spiritual Undercurrent: Faith After the Fall
Religion in the series is subtle, yet potent. On one side, you have the oppressive, zealot-driven Imperium. On the other, the earthy, almost animistic beliefs of Tanith—omens in the wood, whispers in the dark.
This contrast asks us:
• What happens when institutional faith no longer serves the people?
• Can local, folk beliefs carry us through existential collapse better than empire-sanctioned dogma?
And there’s an answer in the Ghosts’ survival. They don’t pray because the emperor demands it. They honour the dead because someone must. They keep the old superstitions alive because they are the last threads connecting them to a home that exists now only in memory.

The Emotional Resonance: Why We Stay
By the end of the series (or even halfway through), you’re not there for the campaigns. You’re not even there for the Sabbat Worlds Crusade.
You’re there because you’ve become a Ghost yourself.
You want to see if Larkin finally conquers his demons.
You want to know if Rawne ever forgives Gaunt—or himself.
You want to sit one more night around the fire and hear one more story about Tanith.
And that’s the quiet genius of it:
Where most war fiction is about who wins, Gaunt’s Ghosts is about who endures.

Connections: What Other Stories Does It Echo?
If you love Gaunt’s Ghosts, you're hearing the same ancient drumbeat found in:
• The Things They Carried – the burdens of memory and loss.
• All Quiet on the Western Front – the futility of orders from above.
• Band of Brothers – the unbreakable bonds of those who fight side by side.
But it also reaches into deeper philosophical territory:
• Camus' defiance of absurdity.
• Tolkien’s lingering grief over lost homelands.
• The mythic resonance of the last survivors guarding the old songs.

Final Reflection: Why It Matters
When people say "Gaunt’s Ghosts is the best of Warhammer," they’re right.
But I’d go further:
It’s some of the best modern war fiction, period.
Because in a setting defined by endless death and darkness, Abnett found a story about life.
About holding the line.
About remembering what’s worth saving—even when you know it won’t last.
And that’s the quiet wisdom of the Ghosts:
We are all marching toward something inevitable.
But we don’t march alone.

[Art Steventon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best arc?

This arc of Gaunts is possibly my favourite yet - harrowing, yet ultimately uplifting, Dan puts the Ghosts, and Gaunt himself, through hell... and get the come out fighting!

[Derek Weese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghost's series just keeps getting better and better as it goes along. There's very little I can say that can add to the voluminous verbiage that has already been pontificated about these books and this here omni. So let me just say very little and trust that you'll want to read this once you start the very first book.
Dan's amazing ability as a writer is not in his ability to throw you into truly epic (gargantuan, huge, AMAZINGLY GIGANTIC) battle scenes as well as individual fire fights/knife fights (though these are, of course, balls to the wall awesome) but rather in his ability to make you feel for his characters. Remember Lijah Cuu? hated that slimy, bastard didn't you? Remember Colm Corbec? Did you sniff a bit when you realized that he was gone and wouldn't be coming back? Same with Bragg? Or the hollow feeling you got when Brin Milo went to travel the Crusade with the Saint? Dan does this amazingly well, and the losses keep mounting as the Crusade just drags on, and on, and holy fething, gaking on...
He even has the truly amazing ability to make you give a damn about characters who aren't from the Tanith or from Verghast like those from Gereon and (especially) from Belladon. Colonel Wilder, a hell of a fine officer and no greater example of a truly great Commissar (save Gaunt and Hark of course) is to be found than Gennady Novobazky... (I know I butchered that name, sorry, the book is far from me right now so I can't look it up). The story of their last stand is...well, soul tearing. The speech that Novobazky gives the troops, all of whom must know that they will fall, is really awe inspiring. I was literally irate when it dawned on me that both Wilder and Novobazky died, I truly felt their loss. Not all writers can do this, Abnett can.
He takes the Ghost's on a hell of a ride that is, well, pure hell. And you'll be loving every minute of it. You'll lose friends in this omni, lots of them to be honest. But Abnett's genius is that you never grow numb, you never grow desensitized, every death of a character you went to battle with, joked with, loved with, cried with and marched long marches with impacts you on a deep level. You really feel as though you lost someone close to you.
If you've not gotten into this now gigantic series (14-15 books now?), do so. It might be the best Black Library has going.

[Ding Ong · Rating 5 out of 5]

I managed to finish this book in a record time of one week and two days. My normal reading speed for omnibuses of this size was around 3 to 4 weeks, but this book was special.

The first chapter of this book was an addictive read. I could not help but to just read on their underground activities on Gereon. The way that he depicted the chaos-infested world was very informative. It was the first time i have read about a former imperial world that was conquered by the forces of chaos and how it have affected the lives of the citizens there. It really opens up and further expose the reader to the universe of Warhammer40k. I especially liked the part where they showed the perspective from the captive general and his life-ward.

The way he ended the book was also pretty decent, a couple of loose ends from previous booked were tied up and stuff. In his last book, Only in Death, he seemed to have a new style of writing which was kind of fitting into the situation and setting.

Overall it was a very good read though it kind of lacks the epic scale of his previous omnibus, The Saint, hence it did not appeal to me as much.

[Ton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Third omnibus in Dan Abnett's series Gaunt's Ghosts. Since the second one he's been culling the herd, and this one suffers from the lack of interesting characters. The cast is still large, but the leftovers tend to have plot-armour (apart from the odd mangled limb, but then that's what augmetics are for) and the new additions aren't particularly fething interesting.

Plotwise, the storyline doesn't really seem to be going anywhere either. Abnett makes some daring choices by stranding a squad of his folk on a gak-all deathtrap of a world and separating them from the rest of the ghosts, but in the next book they're all re-integrated and it's grimdark business as usual. Not unusual perhaps, but in the end I didn't really care anymore. If you're a die-hard fan of this series you'll probably disagree with me, but if you're a moderate odds are you won't really enjoy this volume.

The amount of time it took me to finish this book says it all, regardless of how many stars I gave it.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I swore after Sabbat Martyr that I would not read another book in this series, but this omnibus was inexpensive at a used bookstore and I bought it. I actually liked the first two stories. The third story was miserable, but expected. Abnett likes to chew up his characters and this third story was no exception. The last story was the worst. I almost stopped reading the story 3/4 of the way through, because I was so tired of the way Abnett made this a complete destruction ending. I understand realism in a story, but I like when the heroes win, not just scrape by. This series could have had a happy ending, but this omnibus destroyed that chance. The series may go on, but I am done with it.

[Richard Tran · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Omnibus is the third one released for the Gaunt's Ghosts series. It contains 4 individual novels. I really liked the flow of the novels as they all follow after each other directly. Sometimes with Omnibuses you just get a collection of stories that are loosely based together but that is not the case here. I highly recommend this book for any fans of the series. Please refer to my individual reviews of each book contained in this omnibus: Traitor General, His Last Command, The Armour of Contempt, Only in Death.

[John Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although not my favourite of the series, its still an incredible read, and it does offer up the brilliant His Last Command and the harrowing Only In Death. His Last Command sees the Ghosts fighting under a new name and a new commander, as well as the Gereon team returning from their mission. I don't know why, but the thought of Kolea being a Major still gives me goosebumps. Only In Death is certainly the most vicious of the Ghosts' novels, with things down so close to the wire it cuts your arm off.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book(s) I've read by Abnett. I have to say I really enjoyed this omnibus, and am happy there are more unread.

Good sci-fi / fantasy. Bloody. Great characters.

Some folks may be turned off by the Warhammer connection. I pretty much disregarded and enjoyed the ride.

Two words used inappropriately across 4 book omnibus: one was "enervated", the other I can't recall right now. The mis-use irritated me more than it probably should.