First And Only by Dan Abnett
Oct. 9th, 2009 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koilungfish28/9/09-1/10/09 - House moving
2/10/09 - Ill
3/10/09 - Ill
4/10/09 - House moving
5/10/09 - House moving
6/10/09 - 8/10/09 - Ill
Title - First and Only
Author - Dan Abnett
ISBN - 978-1-84416-164-1
Strangely enough, it doesn't show. In fact, the initial impression one gets of First and Only is that one is reading a fantasy version of World War I. The action starts in muddy trenches with bombardments, vermin, mud, detached senior officers who lack any concern for the lives of their men and then some more mud. As the story and the army advance the new, non-WWI elements introduced have a strong fantasy feel, giving one the impression of a story that uses its far-future setting to glue these different aspects together. The addition of the Vitrian Dragoons reinforces this confusion of genre, since they seem to belong in some cleaner, brighter sci-fi story.
My first reaction to this was one of confusion and displeasure; this was not the W40K I had grown used to. However, after some gentle nudging from Rath, it became clear that this is one of the things that makes the W40K universe so versatile. It is, in essence, a universe that allows for most any combination of genres, themes and ideas, held together with a common set of concept screws and jargon bolts. W40K's scope allows for claustrophobic mystery horror, arcane mass military spectacle or tactical suspense using just one of the universe's ten or so different factions. First and Only defies genres - it is military fiction, it is action/adventure, it is mystery/suspense, it is fantasy and sci-fi ... it is just about everything except a romance. This could, indeed, be held to be the hallmark of a W40K novel, especially a good one; that it ignores concepts of genre and, rather than being "sci-fi action" or "military AU" or such, its genre is simply "W40K".
One imagines that the W40K universe must be both a joy and a terror to write for: a joy in that it is so open in what it may contain, since I cannot thing of any subject or theme that could not be fitted into the universe, except romance which I am given to believe is banned; a terror in that it seems almost impossible for one mind to contain all the fiddly bits of detail, concept and jargon that make the universe what it is. It must also be difficult for the tie-in novel writers in that the universe is so incredibly bleak. Reason and scientific progress have gone out the window millennia ago, religion is an oppressive constant, bureaucracy and mindless ritual combine to replace any form of democracy and God is not only dead but has been since the end of the world ten thousand years ago ... and that's just the baseline for normal humanity. Everything else is downhill from there. It must be a great strain for the writers of these tie-in novels to move out of the modern mindset - of progression, of scientific advance, of the culture of understanding everything [truly, we live in the age of Tzeentch] - and fold one's mind into a canon that prides itself on being grimmer and darker than everything else out there.
Mr Abnett does this better than Mr Spurrier or Mr Reynolds. His prose is clean, his imagery clear, his description to the point, and he knows how to use similes. His plotting is considerably more advanced than the other three W40K novels I have read so far; First and Only is a three-act story, with each act subdivided into two or three stages. The chapters are separated by small interludes, providing the main character's backstory in well-deployed flashbacks. The plot is engaging, if a little unclear at first as to what it is going to be, and at no point do the characters have it too easy, nor so hard that their successes seem improbable or authordained. For example, at one point the main characters must decode a message; Commissar-Colonel Gaunt has a device for doing this, but it is out of date. A plan is staged to update his device, which proceeds with panache and a spattering of blood. Had the device worked first time, things would have been too easy, and the device itself would have been a pure plot device. Had the plan worked without need for the device, things would have been too easy. The two parts together form a good strong whole, giving motive for action and leading to one of the best lines in the book - a simple but excellently placed "Report that.".
I have to take my hat off to Mr Abnett, and possibly also eat it, since he manages to do something that I have not had done to me for quite some time. He pulls off a simple misdirection, diverting suspicion from one character to another and yet letting the second character display just enough oddness to arouse suspicion ... in an entirely different direction. This manoeuvre is very difficult to accomplish well - too much misdirection will leave the reader feeling let down when the covers come off, too little or too obvious will leave the readers knowing what's going on long before the writer wants them to - and this is the first time I've seen it done well in a long time, and indeed the first time I've been misdirected without suspicion that it was being done in an even longer time.
This is not to say that First and Only is perfect. Gaunt is saved from certain death by the timely arrival of someone else who had no damned reason to be there at least twice if not three times, and it wears a bit. Brin Milo, teenage sidekick to the entire cast, probably should have been taken in as an unsanctioned psyker long ago. The concept of the pacifist medic who refuses to carry a sidearm is not new; having one in the armed forces is not wholly implausible, but to have one in the Imperial Guard seems pushing probability rather. Said pacifist medic overcoming his scruples in order to get Gaunt out of a scrape is pushing things even further. Again, the reader may be impressed with Mr Abnett for getting away with this at all, let alone making said pacifist medic a character one would be displeased to see die. The Tanith First-and-Only - Gaunt's regiment, two thousand men sharing one tragic backstory - seem to be universally fond of their leader, to the point that there is a little too much devotion to be realistic. Gaunt may supposedly be a great commander who cares deeply for his men, but one would expect more than two out of two thousand to have some dislike for him. The climax has a strongly derivative feel, reminding me of Dark Apostle first and ten dozen sci-fi movies second.
Some of the flashback chapters are of an oddly poor quality. The very last scene of the book in particular seems to have been written either long before the rest of the book or tacked on in a rush afterwards. It seems bizarre that this scene, which provides motivation for Gaunt's actions at the climax of the story, should be so weak and so clumsy. That it follows on from a scene which contains dialogue such as this:
Commissar-Colonel Gaunt, as mentioned, is the book's main character. Indeed, the series of which this is the first volume is entitled Gaunt's Ghosts, so one can get an idea of how central a character he is. And yet strangely, despite the flashback chapters dedicated to explaining his life-story, the centre of his personality remains blank. There seems to be a moratorium in W40K novels on having anyone, especially the main character, think where the reader can see them. Their emotions are kept under covers, their thoughts are unrecorded. The rest of the cast are there to support Gaunt, and there are a great many of them. The most memorable are the aforementioned teenaged psydekick Milo; the fatherly pacifist medic Dorden; Colonel Corbec, whose characterization boils down to "competent and generally present"; Major Rawne, disaffected bastard and the man who appears to be paying Gaunt's piano taxes for him; even more competent and by-the-book Colonel Zoren, about whose regiment I'd be happy to read a novel; Flense, bitter and twisted antagonist; Dravere, inhumane arch-antagonist ... the list goes on and on. The number of minor characters who pop up for a dozen pages then die or vanish makes it hard to bother remembering names.
In finality, any story that can pull a Luke I Am Your Father in the post-climactic chapters, without more than the faintest hints that such a confrontation is coming, and get away with it is worth reading, if only for the lessons in writing one can learn from Mr Abnett's good work.
This book is:
* - well-written
* - surprisingly shory
* - good as a sci-fi novel, excellent as a W40K novel
This book is not:
* - of any specific genre
* - going to win prizes for originality
* - excellent as a non-tie-in novel
2/10/09 - Ill
3/10/09 - Ill
4/10/09 - House moving
5/10/09 - House moving
6/10/09 - 8/10/09 - Ill
Author - Dan Abnett
ISBN - 978-1-84416-164-1
"The elevator doors ahead of them parted and a second Iron Warrior Chaos Marine lunged out at them. It was loftier than the tallest guardsman, and clad entirely in an almost insect-like carapace of ancient power armour dotted with insane runes in dedication to its deathless masters. It was preceded by a bow-wave of the most foetid stench, exhaled from its grilled mask, and accompanied by a howl that grazed Gaunt's hearing and sounded like consumptive lungs exploding under deep pressure."First and Only is yet another W40K tie-in novel - W40K novels being all I have available due to the recent house move and resultant chaos, if not Chaos, hence the continued focus on the line - but this time the story follows a group of Imperial Guard, the closest thing the W40K universe has to the everyman. First and Only is by Dan Abnett, a man renowned for having written for everything, and indeed for being the main source of income for the W40K tie-in novel line. It is commonly believed that he is in fact identical quintuplets acting in tandem, which may be the cause of my accidentally referring to him as a "many" rather than a "man". However, any readers I may still have these days [save Lupie and Weiß] will most likely be interested in knowing that Mr Abnett once wrote for the Transformers Marvel comics run; specifically, the stories Firebug, Chain Gang and most notably Dry Run. Yes, First and Only is by the man who once wrote Megatron kicking seven bells out of Galvatron.
Strangely enough, it doesn't show. In fact, the initial impression one gets of First and Only is that one is reading a fantasy version of World War I. The action starts in muddy trenches with bombardments, vermin, mud, detached senior officers who lack any concern for the lives of their men and then some more mud. As the story and the army advance the new, non-WWI elements introduced have a strong fantasy feel, giving one the impression of a story that uses its far-future setting to glue these different aspects together. The addition of the Vitrian Dragoons reinforces this confusion of genre, since they seem to belong in some cleaner, brighter sci-fi story.
My first reaction to this was one of confusion and displeasure; this was not the W40K I had grown used to. However, after some gentle nudging from Rath, it became clear that this is one of the things that makes the W40K universe so versatile. It is, in essence, a universe that allows for most any combination of genres, themes and ideas, held together with a common set of concept screws and jargon bolts. W40K's scope allows for claustrophobic mystery horror, arcane mass military spectacle or tactical suspense using just one of the universe's ten or so different factions. First and Only defies genres - it is military fiction, it is action/adventure, it is mystery/suspense, it is fantasy and sci-fi ... it is just about everything except a romance. This could, indeed, be held to be the hallmark of a W40K novel, especially a good one; that it ignores concepts of genre and, rather than being "sci-fi action" or "military AU" or such, its genre is simply "W40K".
One imagines that the W40K universe must be both a joy and a terror to write for: a joy in that it is so open in what it may contain, since I cannot thing of any subject or theme that could not be fitted into the universe, except romance which I am given to believe is banned; a terror in that it seems almost impossible for one mind to contain all the fiddly bits of detail, concept and jargon that make the universe what it is. It must also be difficult for the tie-in novel writers in that the universe is so incredibly bleak. Reason and scientific progress have gone out the window millennia ago, religion is an oppressive constant, bureaucracy and mindless ritual combine to replace any form of democracy and God is not only dead but has been since the end of the world ten thousand years ago ... and that's just the baseline for normal humanity. Everything else is downhill from there. It must be a great strain for the writers of these tie-in novels to move out of the modern mindset - of progression, of scientific advance, of the culture of understanding everything [truly, we live in the age of Tzeentch] - and fold one's mind into a canon that prides itself on being grimmer and darker than everything else out there.
Mr Abnett does this better than Mr Spurrier or Mr Reynolds. His prose is clean, his imagery clear, his description to the point, and he knows how to use similes. His plotting is considerably more advanced than the other three W40K novels I have read so far; First and Only is a three-act story, with each act subdivided into two or three stages. The chapters are separated by small interludes, providing the main character's backstory in well-deployed flashbacks. The plot is engaging, if a little unclear at first as to what it is going to be, and at no point do the characters have it too easy, nor so hard that their successes seem improbable or authordained. For example, at one point the main characters must decode a message; Commissar-Colonel Gaunt has a device for doing this, but it is out of date. A plan is staged to update his device, which proceeds with panache and a spattering of blood. Had the device worked first time, things would have been too easy, and the device itself would have been a pure plot device. Had the plan worked without need for the device, things would have been too easy. The two parts together form a good strong whole, giving motive for action and leading to one of the best lines in the book - a simple but excellently placed "Report that.".
I have to take my hat off to Mr Abnett, and possibly also eat it, since he manages to do something that I have not had done to me for quite some time. He pulls off a simple misdirection, diverting suspicion from one character to another and yet letting the second character display just enough oddness to arouse suspicion ... in an entirely different direction. This manoeuvre is very difficult to accomplish well - too much misdirection will leave the reader feeling let down when the covers come off, too little or too obvious will leave the readers knowing what's going on long before the writer wants them to - and this is the first time I've seen it done well in a long time, and indeed the first time I've been misdirected without suspicion that it was being done in an even longer time.
This is not to say that First and Only is perfect. Gaunt is saved from certain death by the timely arrival of someone else who had no damned reason to be there at least twice if not three times, and it wears a bit. Brin Milo, teenage sidekick to the entire cast, probably should have been taken in as an unsanctioned psyker long ago. The concept of the pacifist medic who refuses to carry a sidearm is not new; having one in the armed forces is not wholly implausible, but to have one in the Imperial Guard seems pushing probability rather. Said pacifist medic overcoming his scruples in order to get Gaunt out of a scrape is pushing things even further. Again, the reader may be impressed with Mr Abnett for getting away with this at all, let alone making said pacifist medic a character one would be displeased to see die. The Tanith First-and-Only - Gaunt's regiment, two thousand men sharing one tragic backstory - seem to be universally fond of their leader, to the point that there is a little too much devotion to be realistic. Gaunt may supposedly be a great commander who cares deeply for his men, but one would expect more than two out of two thousand to have some dislike for him. The climax has a strongly derivative feel, reminding me of Dark Apostle first and ten dozen sci-fi movies second.
Some of the flashback chapters are of an oddly poor quality. The very last scene of the book in particular seems to have been written either long before the rest of the book or tacked on in a rush afterwards. It seems bizarre that this scene, which provides motivation for Gaunt's actions at the climax of the story, should be so weak and so clumsy. That it follows on from a scene which contains dialogue such as this:
"Through us, if we do our job properly, the black and white of war is tempered. We are the interpreters of combat, the translators. We give meaning to war, subtlety, purpose even. Killing is the most abhorrent, mindless profession known to man. Our role is to fashion the killing machine of the human species into a positive force. For the Emperor's sake. For the sake of our own consciences."which actually provides better motivation than the scene in question ... well, one wonders why it needed to be there at all.
Commissar-Colonel Gaunt, as mentioned, is the book's main character. Indeed, the series of which this is the first volume is entitled Gaunt's Ghosts, so one can get an idea of how central a character he is. And yet strangely, despite the flashback chapters dedicated to explaining his life-story, the centre of his personality remains blank. There seems to be a moratorium in W40K novels on having anyone, especially the main character, think where the reader can see them. Their emotions are kept under covers, their thoughts are unrecorded. The rest of the cast are there to support Gaunt, and there are a great many of them. The most memorable are the aforementioned teenaged psydekick Milo; the fatherly pacifist medic Dorden; Colonel Corbec, whose characterization boils down to "competent and generally present"; Major Rawne, disaffected bastard and the man who appears to be paying Gaunt's piano taxes for him; even more competent and by-the-book Colonel Zoren, about whose regiment I'd be happy to read a novel; Flense, bitter and twisted antagonist; Dravere, inhumane arch-antagonist ... the list goes on and on. The number of minor characters who pop up for a dozen pages then die or vanish makes it hard to bother remembering names.
In finality, any story that can pull a Luke I Am Your Father in the post-climactic chapters, without more than the faintest hints that such a confrontation is coming, and get away with it is worth reading, if only for the lessons in writing one can learn from Mr Abnett's good work.
This book is:
* - well-written
* - surprisingly shory
* - good as a sci-fi novel, excellent as a W40K novel
This book is not:
* - of any specific genre
* - going to win prizes for originality
* - excellent as a non-tie-in novel
