Traitor General

[Khemri_Daemon]

What up, y'all? I'm back, and I brought a review with me.

I purchased Traitor General a few days ago. I must admit that it was more out of a sense of obligation than anything else, I’d started reading the Gaunt’s Ghosts novels, and I was damned well going to finish reading them. I’d been pretty disappointed by most of the Ghosts books, so I was genuinely surprised when I found myself enjoying Traitor General immensely.

I think that my enjoyment of it stems largely from the fact that it was something of a return to form for the Tanith First, even though most of them aren’t actually in it. Their mission actually seemed like something they were suited for, unlike several of the previous novels where they’d briefly transformed into trench fighters, city fighters, a mechanised company, and even an airborne unit. It was nice to see them doing stealth work, something not done properly since the heady days of Ghostmaker (unless you count Operation Larisel in The Guns of Tanith).

Unusually for a Gaunt’s Ghosts book, I found the characterisation to be pretty decent, most of them being at least likeable. The resistance fighters, Cirk in particular, managed to avoid being outshone by the Ghosts, something the host of other supporting characters in the series have mostly failed to do. However I was somewhat irritated by the fact that it took being on a Chaos-held world to bring out any real flaws in Gaunt. This is the only book, apart from Honour Guard and his painfully bad drinking scene, where he displayed any real personality beyond his usual, monstrously archetypal, hero persona.

Getting a look at what goes on behind the battlefront from a Chaos perspective was both unexpected and quite interesting. I found it slightly amusing that the forces of Chaos actually made an effort to understand the Imperium, when the Imperium itself would call trying to understand Chaos heresy. It was also quite thought-provoking to realise that not everyone who fights for Chaos is a traitor, because some of them never fought for the Imperium in the first place. I suppose it should have been obvious, but the idea that people had been born and raised within Chaos cults wasn’t one that had occurred to me before.

In fact, some of the scenes at the Bastion were more interesting than ones which actually involved the Ghosts. Abnett seemed to remember that there didn't have to be action in every chapter, and there were a few moments where it felt like I was reading a Chaos version of Eisenhorn, with more focus on dialogue and character-building than gunplay.

I was somewhat surprised to discover the identity of the traitor General in question, mostly because it had been so long since I read Necropolis that I'd wholly forgotten about Sturm. I had gotten the feeling that his augmentic hand, and the fact that he knew who Gaunt was, were meant to be significant, but it didn't click until he had his 'total recall' moment.

The only real complaint I have against Traitor General would be Sturm’s death. It was wholly predictable, and a little annoying. Once the mind-lock had been taken off, he displayed nothing but resentment toward the Imperium, but as soon as Gaunt and his kill-team show up, he turns into a wreck and shoots himself. I was hoping for a duel between an unrepentant Sturm and Gaunt, two sides of the same coin facing off, with the General battling the man who ruined his life in a fight to the death. But Abnett took the easy way out, which turned the ending into a bit of a low for me.

Despite that minor irritant, I’m actually looking forward to reading the next book, as it seems Abnett has upped his game for the new ‘Lost’ arc.