Clara’s Verdict
Book four in Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts series, Honour Guard marks a genuine turning point for the Tanith First – and for readers who have followed them since First and Only. Abnett does something courageous here: he puts his characters through disgrace, strips away the certainties that have sustained them, and then sends them on a mission that blurs the line between warfare and something far stranger. The result is one of the best entries in a series that has consistently punched above the weight of what licensed Warhammer fiction is generally expected to deliver.
Toby Longworth’s narration has been the voice of Gaunt’s Ghosts for years, and ten hours in his company is a genuine pleasure. If you have been reading the series in print and are considering making the switch to audio, this is as good a place as any to commit fully to the format.
About the Audiobook
Honour Guard follows directly from the catastrophic events of Necropolis. Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the surviving Tanith First find themselves disgraced and sidelined, assigned a mission that feels like punishment: retrieve sacred relics from the planet Hagia before Chaos forces overrun it entirely. The holy artefacts of Saint Sabbat are at stake, and failure would be more than a military setback – it would be a blow to the spiritual morale of the entire crusade.
What begins as a straightforward extraction operation deepens into something more unsettling. The Ghosts encounter miracles they cannot explain. Strange events cluster around the relics. And Gaunt begins to suspect that Saint Sabbat herself – dead for centuries – may be intervening in the physical world on their behalf. Abnett handles the supernatural elements with a careful hand, keeping the ambiguity alive long enough to make the revelations land with genuine impact.
The regiment has also structurally changed. New troopers have joined the Tanith First, and Abnett uses this shift to freshen the ensemble without abandoning the characters we already care about. The women who now serve alongside Gaunt’s original Ghosts bring new dynamics that the series will continue to develop across later volumes. There is also, threading through the action, a meditation on faith – what it means to believe in something when the evidence is ambiguous, and whether miracles diminish the courage required to act in their absence.
Published by Black Library, this is Book 4 of the Gaunt’s Ghosts series, running 10 hours and 12 minutes.
The Narration
Toby Longworth is the definitive voice of Gaunt’s Ghosts, and that consistency matters enormously in a series of this length and complexity. He has a gift for distinguishing between the many characters in Abnett’s large ensemble without resorting to caricature, and his handling of the battle sequences – which in Abnett’s prose are genuinely visceral – is assured and propulsive. The slower, more spiritually charged passages in Honour Guard show a different register: Longworth brings a quiet gravity to the moments where the supernatural intrudes. Ten hours pass very quickly in his company.
What Readers Say
Honour Guard carries a rating of 4.7 out of 5 on Audible UK, based on 331 ratings – a substantial and consistent body of opinion. UK listeners are enthusiastic: one described it as “nothing short of brilliance” and praised Abnett for keeping them “turning page after page, reading on and on,” following Gaunt, Corbec, and all the other Ghosts without wanting to stop. Another called it simply “an excellent read,” citing the action sequences, the plot construction, and the engaging characters. The book has a deeply loyal following among Warhammer 40,000 fans who consider it essential reading in the expanded canon, and new readers consistently report being surprised by how emotionally engaged they become with what is, on the surface, a military science-fantasy series. Several reviewers specifically recommend reading the earlier books first, which is good advice: the emotional weight of Honour Guard depends on what came before.
Who Should Listen?
This is unmissable listening for existing fans of the Gaunt’s Ghosts series – do read the earlier books first, as Honour Guard builds directly on events in Necropolis and the first two volumes. For newcomers to Warhammer fiction, this series is among the most accessible entry points into the 40K universe: Abnett writes military drama that functions as drama first, with the universe’s lore enhancing rather than overwhelming the human story. If you enjoy audiobooks with a strong ensemble cast, morally complex command decisions, a willingness to mix brutal combat with genuine emotional stakes, and an interest in how faith operates under pressure, you will find a great deal to admire. Available on Audible UK, Kobo, Scribd, and Storytel.
