A Guide to Dan Abnett’s Inquisition Series

Dan Abnett’s trilogy of Inquisition trilogies – the Eisenhorn, Ravenor and Bequin novels – are among the best that Black Library has ever published, and certainly some of my personal favourites. With the upcoming release of Penitent, the second Bequin novel, there are now more than twenty individual stories across the overarching Inquisition series, with the nine novels (with at least one more still to come) accompanied by a dozen or so short stories. As with many Black Library series, the tricky part is knowing where to start if you’re keen to check out these stories, or where to go next if you’ve read some of them and are keen for more!

I’ve put together this guide to help with that – I’ve included a chronological reading order for the whole series (based on the information provided in The Magos), along with a few thoughts about each story and links to my reviews and interviews where appropriate. I haven’t reviewed every single story, but I’m not far off, while I’ve spoken to author Dan Abnett for interviews about the two most recent instalments in the series (with the latest interview due to be published very soon). As and when I publish any further reviews or interviews, I’ll make sure to update this article with the new links!

Reading Order

Dan Abnett kindly provided a reading order for pretty much the whole series in the front of The Magos, which I’ve reproduced here. It’s not essential to read them all in order, but if you do want to start at the beginning and work your way through then this would be a good way of doing it – and the short stories really do add a lot of extra detail and texture to the overall series.

Even if you’re not planning on reading the short stories, I would personally recommend you at least read the novels in order – Eisenhorn, then Ravenor, then Bequin.

Titles in bold are the novels.

• Pestilence (short story)
• Master Imus’ Transgression (audio drama/short story)
• Regia Occulta (audio drama/short story)
• Xenos (Eisenhorn #1) – START HERE
• Missing in Action (short story)
• Malleus (Eisenhorn #2)
• Backcloth for a Crown Additional (short story)
• The Strange Demise of Titus Endor (short story)
• Hereticus (Eisenhorn #3)
• The Curiosity (short story)
• Playing Patience (short story)
• Ravenor (Ravenor #1)
• Thorn Wishes Talon (audio drama/short story)
• Ravenor Returned (Ravenor #2)
• Ravenor Rogue (Ravenor #3)
• Gardens of Tycho (short story)
• The Keeler Image (short story)
• Perihelion (short story)
• The Magos (Eisenhorn #4)
• Pariah (Bequin #1)
• Lepidopterophobia (Medea Unbound) (short story)
• Penitent (Bequin #2)
• Pandaemonium (Bequin #3 – TBC)

• Born to Us (short story)

NOTE: you’ll notice that I’ve included the micro-short Born to Us (released as an e-short back in 2012) at the end of the list, off on its own. That’s because this one doesn’t really fit with the overall canon – it’s an Eisenhorn story, but not exactly part of the overall narrative (hence why it wasn’t included in The Magos). It clearly takes place after Xenos (there’s a reference to the Glaws, and Harlon Nayl appears in it), so if you want to fit it into the reading order then you could maybe read it somewhere around Malleus/Hereticus.

Next up, I’ll take a look through all of these stories with a few observations and links out to my reviews. I’m not going to list these following the reading order, but rather break them up as well as I can into each of the three series – Eisenhorn, Ravenor and Bequin. I’ll start off however, with the one story which doesn’t feature any of the main characters who appear elsewhere…

Pestilence
One of the oldest stories in the series, published roughly the same time as Xenos, this is a great little investigative mystery following recollector Lemuel Sark as he searches for a cure to a terrible illness. You wouldn’t necessarily know it was linked to Eisenhorn and co. unless someone pointed it out, but there’s both a thematic connection and a small, direct link in there!

Check out my review of Pestilence.

Eisenhorn

While Ian Watson’s Inquisition War trilogy was the first ever series of 40k Inquisition stories, Abnett’s Eisenhorn trilogy (in four parts) is unquestionably the most popular, well-loved and most influential of them all. The novels are all told in honest first person and provide a gripping depiction of the lengths Eisenhorn is prepared to go to in order to do his duty, while the accompanying shorts explore a range of stories from Eisenhorn’s youth to the adventures of Magos Biologis Drusher (who plays an important part towards the end of the series).

Master Imus’ Transgression
Originally released as part of a trio of short audio dramas, this is one of my favourites of the whole series. It’s a clever, characteristically Abnett tale of young interrogator Eisenhorn as he listens to the confession of the ageing Master Imus, a scared but honest book-keeper who believes he has stumbled across something he shouldn’t have.

Check out my review of Master Imus’ Transgression.

Regia Occulta
Another story first released in audio, this one features a still-young Eisenhorn, not long after rising to the rank of inquisitor, investigating a relatively low-key mystery while trapped by electrical storms on a dreary planet. I can’t think of many – if any – other stories which essentially detail the life of a travelling inquisitor doing his rounds!

Check out my review of Regia Occulta.

Xenos (novel #1)
This is where it all started, with a novel that’s still – twenty years later – widely held as the quintessential ‘domestic 40k’ story and one of the best entry points into Black Library fiction. It introduces Eisenhorn himself, many of the key characters from the rest of the stories, not to mention the first-person, hardboiled detective stylings of the whole Eisenhorn series. It’s a stone-cold classic, simple as that.

Check out my review of Xenos.

Missing in Action
A direct sequel to the first novel, this fits in nicely between Xenos and Malleus and shows a little bit of what Eisenhorn and the gang got up to after their first major adventure. It’s perhaps not one of the most crucial short stories to read in context of the wider series, but it offers a nice look at the emotional cost of life in service of the Inquisition.

Check out my review of Missing in Action.

Malleus (novel #2)
2001 was a great year for Inquisition fans, with this second novel coming hot on the heels of Xenos. It skips ahead a fair few decades further into Eisenhorn’s career, taking the characters out of their comfort zones, ramping up the danger and the tension in that classic second-novel fashion. By this point you can start to see the changes that Eisenhorn goes through over the course of his career, while it also introduces the character of Gideon Ravenor who would go on to big things himself.

Check out my review of Malleus.

Backcloth for a Crown Additional
Not only does this have one of my all-time favourite story titles, but it’s also one of my favourite Eisenhorn stories. It’s essentially a paranormal investigation story, as Eisenhorn and Alizebeth look into the suspicious death of an old friend, and its low-key location and style lend it a quiet, personal tone that’s really satisfying.

Check out my review of Backcloth for a Crown Additional.

The Strange Demise of Titus Endor
One of the most interesting secondary characters in the series, Titus Endor’s story continues with this ominously-titled tale, which doesn’t feature Eisenhorn himself but is nevertheless an important part of the overall narrative. It’s a strange, melancholic story that’s very quiet and unlike most other 40k fiction, but is very much worth reading.

Check out my review of The Strange Demise of Titus Endor.

Hereticus (novel #3)
If Malleus saw Eisenhorn’s path turning dark, this really ramps things up to 11 as the inquisitor – once such a hardline puritan – is forced to compromise yet further on his principles in order to track down an old enemy. It’s the natural extension of his arc, and forms a powerful, emotional conclusion to the story – if you stopped here, you’d have a brilliant trilogy in and of itself. Of course there’s also a fourth novel (The Magos) and the other series, if you still want more!

Check out my review of Hereticus.

The Curiosity (Drusher)
One of two short stories featuring Magos Valentin Drusher – who plays an important role in The Magos – this was originally published back in 2003 and presumably wasn’t intended, at the time, to be part of the Inquisition series. It’s a natural fit though, and while Drusher’s reluctant hunt for a beast on the loose takes a different form to an Inquisitorial investigation, it’s no less gripping!

Check out my review of The Curiosity.

Gardens of Tycho (Drusher)
Magos Drusher’s second appearance, originally published in the Fear the Alien anthology, this is another tale of amateur investigation as Drusher is called in to help once more when a series of bodies turn up with the apparent signs of animal attacks. It’s more of the same really, but that’s not a problem when it’s as much fun as this!

The Keeler Image
Eisenhorn meets the Horus Heresy! Well, sort of. There’s certainly a lovely link here – the ‘Keeler’ part of the title will be familiar to most Heresy fans – but it’s very much its own story too, as a post-Hereticus Eisenhorn attends an unconventional auction and finds himself caught up in the action.

Check out my review of The Keeler Image.

The Magos (novel #4)
The unexpected fourth part of the trilogy, The Magos is both an anthology collecting together all (well, almost all) of the short stories in one place, and a short-ish novel in its own right. It’s sort of a bridging novel between the other Eisenhorn books and the Bequin series, and heavily features Magos Drusher as well. It’s also the only one of the Eisenhorn novels to not be told from Gregor’s POV.

Check out my review of The Magos.

Check out my interview with Dan Abnett about The Magos.

Ravenor

Forming the second of the three trilogies, the Ravenor books take a secondary character from Malleus (ok, technically Hereticus too) – Gideon Ravenor, once Eisenhorn’s promising interrogator but now an inquisitor in his own right – and tells a different kind of Inquisition story. These are much more about the ensemble, with some familiar faces forming part of Ravenor’s warband, and with a different tone of voice to the first trilogy…but they’re fantastic too!

Playing Patience
While some of Ravenor’s warband will be familiar to Eisenhorn readers, other characters are brand new, including the unusually-named Patience Kys. This story tells the tale of how she came to be working with Ravenor, and while it’s suitably action-packed it’s also long enough to be able to really dig into this character in a satisfying way.

Check out my review of Playing Patience.

Ravenor (novel #1)
It’s worth reading the Eisenhorn novels first if you can, but if not then this would still be a decent place to start, and the Ravenor trilogy has its own unique voice that some readers prefer to Eisenhorn. It’s pacy, inventive and brilliantly characterful, and kicks off a story – centred around Ravenor’s investigation of an illicit narcotics trade – that goes to different places than the first series, maintaining the same sense of ‘domestic 40k’ but expanding things out to a slightly different scale.

Check out my review of Ravenor.

Thorn Wishes Talon
The last of the three shorts to have originally been an audio drama, this is very much a Ravenor story but ties in very closely with the Eisenhorn stories too. Fans of the series will probably be able to figure out the gist of things from the title (depending on their grasp of Glossia), but suffice to say it involves a mysterious meeting on a dark and stormy night, with enemies all around.

Check out my review of Thorn Wishes Talon.

Ravenor Returned (novel #2)
Where the second Eisenhorn novel is set a considerable amount of time after its predecessor, this picks up pretty much straight away after the conclusion to Ravenor, with the Inquisitor and his warband working undercover to continue their investigation away from prying eyes. The three volumes of this series feel more closely linked than the Eisenhorn novels, so this is very much setting things up before the finale.

Ravenor Rogue (novel #3)
This does pretty much what it says on the tin – Ravenor goes rogue, acting against orders to continue his hunt, track down his prize and prevent a disaster from occurring. It’s hard to say more without giving spoilers – read it and enjoy! (I imagine it’s unlikely that we’ll get a fourth part of this particular trilogy.)

Bequin

The third (and presumably final?) of the three trilogies, this one started with a bang back in 2012 only to be put on hold for years to follow. The second novel is now (at the time of writing) about to be published, so let’s hope the third one follows soon! Even from one short story and one novel it’s clear that this series is taking a very different approach to the other two, focusing on a deeply ambiguous character who interacts with the Inquisition in a very particular way, and who knows much less about the realities of the galaxy than either Eisenhorn or Ravenor. Mysteries abound, let’s just say that.

Perihelion
The Bequin series was originally pitched as “Eisenhorn vs Ravenor” – it’s even on the cover to this short story – and that’s exactly what this particular story deals with. It’s an opportunity to catch up with both inquisitors before the main series kicks off, giving an idea of where each of them stands in terms of loyalty and attitude.

Pariah (novel #1)
With a fresh voice and an unusual angle on the idea of an Inquisition story, this launched back in 2012 and blew minds with its mysteries and unexpected ideas. The name Alizebeth Bequin will be familiar to readers of the Eisenhorn series, but a bit of a puzzle too. The city of Queen Mab, the identities of various characters, the nature of allies and enemies…very little is what you expect, and while some readers aren’t so keen on all the twisted world building and ambiguity, I loved it! Just don’t expect answers…

Lepidopterophobia (Medea Unbound)
This is a Medea Betancore short story that was included in the Special Edition of Penitent, and subsequently released in the anthology Inferno! Presents: The Inquisition. I asked Dan where it fits into the timeline and he suggested reading it between Pariah and Penitent, which I think makes sense – it’s hard to say too much about this one without giving spoilers, but it’s a fun little story and definitely worthwhile for completists.

Check out my review of Lepidopterophobia

Penitent (novel #2)
It’s been a long, agonising wait to find out more about these characters and the mysteries surrounding them, but that wait is nearly over! Penitent is due to go up for pre-order on the 20th February as part of the 2021 ‘Black Library Celebration’, so it won’t be long until we can see what happens next!

Check out my interview with Dan Abnett about Penitent.

Pandaemonium (novel #3 – TBC)
The title of the third novel has long been known, but it’s been too far off to really consider. Now though, it doesn’t look so far off. As soon as I hear more about it, I’ll make sure to update this page!

Born to Us
As I mentioned earlier, this micro-short (it really is very short), which was released as a standalone e-short back in 2012, is sort of non-canonical. It features Eisenhorn thinking back to a time when he and Nayl were mid-investigation on a world named Koradrum, and is essentially just a few pages of musings on the importance of an inquisitor being able to sift myths and legends for the core of truth that they might contain. It doesn’t tie in to any other stories, and is far from an essential read, but if you’re planning to read it for the sake of completion it’s a fun little extra.

How to get hold of these stories

As usual with Black Library there are, theoretically at least, three formats that some or all of these books are available in – physical, ebook and audio. Most of the stories in the various Inquisition series are available in most formats, with the exception being that if you want hardback editions of the novels (as opposed to paperback) then you’ll have to look for most of them second hand (and I may be wrong, but I’m not sure the first three Eisenhorn novels were ever released in hardback).

Ebooks
All the novels are available as individual ebooks, with Penitent coming soon, while there are also the Eisenhorn and Ravenor omnibuses. From a value perspective, getting a whole series as an omnibus seems like the obvious choice. Most of the short stories are available as individual ebooks, with the exceptions seeming to be Master Imus’ Transgression and The Curiosity, but your best bet is to find them in anthologies. The Magos includes all of them except Born to Us, so that would be my suggestion.

Physical copies
At the time of writing you can either get hold of now – or will be able to soon – all of the novels in one physical format or another. All of the Eisenhorn books are available as individual paperbacks (including The Magos, which has all of the short stories too) – there used to be an Eisenhorn omnibus but it looks like that’s only in ebook now. The three Ravenor novels, meanwhile, are no longer available individually in paperback, but there is still a paperback Ravenor omnibus (even if it does have terrible cover art, in my opinion). Pariah was originally released in hardback and then paperback, but that edition (with the black and red cover) has been out of print for a long time – but there’s a new hardback edition coming to match the hardback of Penitent.

Audio
None of the Eisenhorn or Ravenor novels received the audiobook treatment when they were first released (I don’t think BL did audios back then) but they’ve all been released in audio over the last few years, all of them narrated by the excellent Toby Longworth. The audiobook of The Magos covers the whole book, so not just the novel but the short stories too, which is great! It looks like Penitent is going to be released in audio at the same time as the ebook and hardback editions, so the only one I’m not sure about is Pariah – you would hope it would get an audiobook at the same time as Penitent, but I haven’t heard either way as yet.

***

There you go, then – I hope this has been useful, whether you’ve read most of this series already or you’re planning on making a start with it. If you haven’t already, do take a look at my reviews of these stories, and give them a go – you can always check out the samples on the BL website if you want to try before you buy.

Have you read some or all of these stories? Do you have a favourite, or are you looking forward to seeing what happens next with the Bequin series? Let me know in the comments below, or over on Twitter.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to support Track of Words, you can leave a tip on my Ko-Fi page.