‘Death’s Head: Day of the Damned’ – David Gunn (Transworld/Del Rey)

One of the good things about running this blog, for me, is looking at series that started up at roughly the same time as the blog itself and seeing how they’ve developed. I’m not great at keeping up with these series (apologies to Tom Lloyd here...) but I find it interesting to write my thoughts down and then go back and see what I thought of the preceding books.
It wasn’t that long after I started the blog that I picked up David Gunn’s debut ‘Death’s Head’ for a flight home from Scotland. I absolutely loved it and was very much looking forward to reading the sequel ‘Maximum Offence’. I wasn’t too keen on that though; I mentioned that if you were a fan you would probably love it but cartoonish violence might not be to everyone’s taste...
So... one good book, one not so good book. The latest instalment, ‘Day of the Damned’, arrived a few days ago and it was this book that could sway the balance either way of what I thought of the series overall...

‘Not quite one hundred percent human but hard as nails nonetheless’ Sven Tveskoeg and his band of auxiliary militia are taking some well earned R&R on Farlight (capital of the Octovian Empire) that is about to end very abruptly. Civil war has come to Farlight and OctoV is in danger of losing the throne that he has held for thousands of years. Behind all the scheming and betrayals are the United Free, a galaxy spanning empire with designs on OctoV’s territory but all that is incidental to Sven. The only things that matter to him are a promise made to old friends and killing whatever is in front of him in the meantime...

‘Day of the Damned’ is where you get the answers to all the questions (except one, maybe that will come out in another book?) that you’ve been asking since ‘Death’s Head’. The only problem is that the plot flies by so quickly you may not notice that you’re being given the answers until it’s too late. Either way you’re onto a winner as you will either have it all laid out for you or you will be enjoying the full on riotous action that drives the plot onwards. There’s plenty of that in the midst of a world that is tearing itself apart in an orgy of carnage...



This is a book that gets right in your face and bombards you with all the horrors of a world at war. Gunn doesn’t hold back in showing us what it all means, the civilian cost as well as the stubborn last stands and last ditch heroism. It’s an exciting rollercoaster of a read but also surprisingly bleak at the same time. Gunn uses Sven to great effect as ‘the grunt on the front line’, philosophical about life but with no other option than to follow orders and not get himself killed in the process. Sven also has as much idea of what’s going on as we do and it’s all the more fun finding things out at the same time as he does.

The overabundance of violence can get repetitive with very few options for the characters to reflect on what is going on around them; everything is done on the fly. The way I saw it was that people aren’t necessarily going to be able to take a quick break, from the fighting, and sort themselves out; this is a war people! Readers who like a bit more introspection in their book, however, should bear in mind that ‘Day of the Damned’ is rather light in that respect...
All credit to Gunn though in that he seems to be more aware of the importance of not having Sven as the invulnerable character he could easily become. There’s more of a level playing field this time as Sven’s AI gun doesn’t feature as much and Sven also spends a lot of the time with only one arm. This raises the stakes for Sven, along with his allies, and this kept me reading.

The ending offers scope either for the series to branch out in new directions or for more of the same. After the slightly disappointing ‘Maximum Offence’, ‘Day of the Damned’ has got me interested again and I want to see what happens next... US readers are going to have to wait another month to get their hands on this book, people in the UK should be able to grab a copy in the next couple of weeks.

Eight and a Quarter out of Ten