Welcome to the Sabbat World's Crusade. If you've been with us since the first book in this series - First and Only - then you'll know how hard fought a campaign it's been. Ibram Gaunt and his devoted Ghosts, the Tanith First regiment, have seen some tough times and some tricky situations.
The volume you hold in your hands - Honour Guard - is the fourth in the series, but it also marks a new beginning. Let me explain.
When I first started writing the Gaunt's Ghosts novels, I was just moving from one book to the next. "What can I do for the next adventure?" I thought to myself. "What happens after this?" I wondered.
By the time I'd reached this fourth novel, I had started to have plans. Big plans. Long term plans. I had ideas for five or six or seven novels (just now, having recently finished the tenth book, I have plans for eleven and twelve!). I started to see shapes, large plot arcs, long-term character schemes.
Honour Guard marks the start of that creative acceleration. As I started writing it, I saw the way the next four novels would work. And I also recognised the shape the first three had already made. First and Only, Ghostmaker and Necropolis clearly formed to me an origin arc. When, in the UK, we put those first three books into an omnibus edition, we called it, collectively, "The Founding". That's what it was about. The beginning for the Ghosts.
Honour Guard begins the second arc, which I've called "The Saint". Big things happen from here. Stay with me, because Honour Guard and the three books that follow have become the most notorious and talked-about books I've ever written.
Honour Guard is a fresh start, if you like. It's a new place to join in. If you've never read a Ghosts book before, this is a fine place to catch up.
But if you think the Ghosts have had a hard time up until now, consider me, your diligent author. To begin with, I wrote this book twice. That's right. I had written about three quarters of it when my trusty computer crashed, and erased the entire manuscript. That was the day, professionally, I learned the reason for backing up my files.
Anyway, I asked my UK publisher, Marc Gascoigne, if he wanted me to try and rewrite the entire book in the three weeks remaining on the deadline, or if he preferred to push the publication date back (which would, of course, have cost a lot in printing and publicity fees). As you can guess, he went for the former.
I wrote - pardon me, I rewrote - the book you're about to read in three weeks flat. Now, please don't think that suggests it is in anyway impoverished of quality. I actually think it's one of the best books I've written. Driven by need and, I suppose, fury, I wrote like a demon. A daemon, maybe (he chuckles to himself). I think Honour Guard is one of the best Gaunt novels, and I believe it has, after my Warhammer Fantasy novel Riders of the Dead, the best and most symmetrical symbolic plot scheme I've ever pulled off.
What's more, it's better than the first version. A thousand times better. Here's the very strange part. Have you ever read an interview with a really proper, serious author, like - say - Stephen King - where he's been talking about the way certain characters take on a life of their own? "They just start writing themselves" these proper authors say. I always though that was a load of (hey, Mathieu, what's a polite French word for crap?).
Well, I was rewriting this book, following the same plan and outline, remembering what I'd done before. and a totally new character just walked into the plot. He just walked in, sat himself down, and demanded I paid attention to him. Suddenly one of my characters had taken on that "life of his own" that real authors talk about. He wouldn't go away. He wouldn't stop dominating scenes and plot threads.
I won't tell you who he is, because you haven't read this yet. But I'm glad I lost my files, I really am. I'm glad I had to rewrite this book. Honour Guard wouldn't have been the same without him, and neither would the huge story arc that follows. He walked into my writing and became absolutely essential to what happens next.
It's a funny old life, writing for a living. You never know who you're going to meet. And when authors talk about accidentally creating characters who "write themselves", believe them! It happens, and it's a little bit scary.
My thanks, once again, to Mathieu Saintout and Julien Drouet, respectively my French publisher and my translator. Dju, you make me sound better than I ever did originally.
Honour Guard is one of my proudest achievements. If you like it too, well that makes me very happy. Remember, the ride starts here. You won't believe what happens next. And it's all "his" fault.
Dan Abnett
Maidstone, August 3rd, 2006
www.danabnett.com
