Tanith First and Only

What made me happy today? Tanith First and Only.

It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die. Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces,the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse. To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods. (this is how the books start)

For Tanith! For the Emperor!
As I mentioned yesterday, I spent a lot of time reading Warhammer 40K books during my vacation. I read 7 books and 1 short-story about the Tanith First and Only regiment, also known as Gaunt's ghosts.
Gaunt's because Ibram Gaunt is their colonel-commissar, ghosts because their home-planet Tanith no longer exists. Tanith was supposed to form three regiments for the emperor. However, on the day of the Founding, the forces of Choas attacked Tanith. Gaunt managed to escape with one regiment, but the planet was destroyed.
And this is part of why these books appeal to me so much. Most men and women in the Imperial army fight to defend their homes and loved ones, to keep them safe. To keep the heretic, mutant, forces of Chaos and xenos away from their loved ones. But what do men (Tanith First and Only starts out as an all-male regiment) who have lost their homes and loved ones fight for? Revenge will only get you so far. I'm not going to tell you, read the books if you're intrigued :-)
The odd thing was, that after spending the better part of a week in the 'company' of Tanith's First, I started dreaming about them. Okay, maybe not that odd. But believe me, you start to care about the characters in the books. The end of the seventh book nearly broke my heart.
I will admit that Dan Abnett, the writer of Gaunt's Ghosts, sometimes uses story mechanisms that I personally do not like. But because I love Gaunt's Ghosts so much, I just keep reading it.
Now why do books that I've read over the past week make me happy today? Well, I found out today that there are 6 more books in this series, not 2 like I first thought. To the Black Library!


Suffer not the alien, the mutant, the heretic!