Product Description

The adventures of wily Commissar Cain, his malodorous aide Jurgen, and the 296th Valhallans have proved great favourites among Black Library fans. This omnibus edition is an attractive introduction to a very popular series.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73539 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 768 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781844164660
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Sandy Mitchell is a pseudonym for British author Alex Stewart. He has written science fiction and fantasy, television scripts, comics, and gaming material. His television credits include the BBC's high tech espionage series Bugs.

Customer Reviews

Dark humor at its best
Even thought the WH 40k universe can be a dark and trecherous landscape Sandy Mitchell's character has a way of projecting his own sort of humor on every situation. The book takes place over the first three installments in Commissar Ciaphos Cains adventures along with a few short stories.

The best part of Mitchell's books is that they are humorous but not to the point of absurdity. The author does a good job of interjecting humor into most situations will stil being able to maintain a sense of suspense, adventure, or tension. The characters are well thought out and even though a good portion of the book is written from the point of view of Commissar Cain, the natual and self depricating style and angle from which it is written draw you into Cains world and psyche and make you root for him even though you get the sense that like the rest of us he only ends up in the most heroic of situations only be accident and only claims credit when it is advantagous and his original intentions are misconstrued.

Frak This!
The book far outshines the series. His turn of phrase is practically P.G. Wodehousen. I could wish it had been accomplished outside of the Warhammer franchise because it can only limit his potential audience.

Cain provides a bit of humor in an otherwise bleak galaxy
Ciaphas Cain, is one of my favorite characters in all the WH40K that I've read. I think mainly because you can actually get inside his head and really see what he's thinking about. The fact that his luck seems limitless and the fact that no matter how many times he tries to take the safe route away from an otherwise dangerous situation, he gets thrown into something even more perilous. Rather than fighting a bunch of armed rebels on the surface, he ends up going undergroud and fnding a rather large group of Tyranids that have been on the planet for a few generations. Yet everytime this happens he manages to escape with little wear and tear, and the best part is that you can actually see that he's a normal person, he doens't want to die a horible death, he would rather serve somewhere away from the fighting where he can eventually retire with no worse for wear. He also gives a rather interesting side to commissars that is rarely seen, he would prefer to find a solution that doesn't involve shooting his own men and women uner his command rather than go in guns a blaze and shoot anyone who so much as sneezes.

All in all it's great to read about a commissar you actually care about, like Commissar Gaunt, and that actually care about the guardsman who serve under them.