Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Centered on the 2nd seige of Perlia during the black crusade. Didn't know if it had been posted yet. That is all. Just wanted people to know as these have been one of my favorite series BL has produced. Probably due to the actually above par writing style and the slightly humorous bent though the other Sandy Mitchell books are really bad. Enjoy.

What are the other Sandy Mitchell books? Not sure I've read them.

I agree the Ciaphas Cain stuff is great, if for no other reason than they don't deal with Chaos most of the time, and instead get into battles with other races--Tau, Necron, Orks, Tyranids...which is a pleasant change of pace.

I picked up "Last Chancers" compilation the other day, gonna have to get around to reading that now. I'm just finishing up Nagash the Sorcerer, which is solid.

Avoid the other sandy mitchell books, they are the Warhammer roleplaying game based books and are horrible. Last chancers first 2 books are pretty cool, the last is a tank as far as i'm concerned

Cain is turning into a one-trick pony and is a great example of format writing. Here's the checklist that Sandy uses:

1. Cain will say how malodorous Jurgen is

2. Cain will make a remark along the lines of "If I knew that would happen I'd... *insert cowardly remark here*"

3. Cain will state several times that he is a coward and a sham

4. There will be two enemy factions in the book! One in the open and another, secret enemy that will pop out somewhere near the middle or end and do something

With the Last Chancers, give the first book a chance. It gets better as you go along - you need to slog along the first hundred pages or so.

BrookM wrote:Cain is turning into a one-trick pony and is a great example of format writing. Here's the checklist that Sandy uses:

1. Cain will say how malodorous Jurgen is

2. Cain will make a remark along the lines of "If I knew that would happen I'd... *insert cowardly remark here*"

3. Cain will state several times that he is a coward and a sham

4. There will be two enemy factions in the book! One in the open and another, secret enemy that will pop out somewhere near the middle or end and do something

But... it works! And it's funny! And, sadly, I've created an IG army based entirely around Cain, his Inquisitor chum, and the Valhallans he so famously runs around with. Complete with Juergan as an elite-level inquisitor with Null Rod.

@brook

Not true, the first one about perlia was only ever about orks, no other hidden enemy from start to finish.

But it is pretty stylized writing. I just enjoy it compared to most of the other poop that is released. Plus it's not about space marines and the bad guy isn't always chaos which is nice

Cain was fun at first, but now it's more of the same stuff, much like Gaunt and his sad wittle ghosts. BL is really hell-bent on milking their cash cows to the death. Especially when the good authors get their books released in hardbook covers first.

Admittedly I heard this through one of my local GW goons, but this is supposed to be the last of the Cain books.

I personally hope so, as there's no way in hell I'd like them to go the same way as the Gaunt books. Although in my opinion the only good Gaunt book was the introductory short story in Inferno, all that time ago.

I love the Cain books, primarily because they, oddly enough, add a sense of realism to the 40K universe - just because the galaxy is constantly at war, it doesn't mean it affects everybody. The Cain books bring in the idea that one can still have a normal life in the 41st Millenium. Maybe I'm missing something on that front, but I've been doing WH40K for since the 2nd Edition, and these particular books seem the most realistic. Even though they are basically comedy.

Well, Pratchett-like.

I liked necropolis and the second book of the gaunts ghosts, started to get bored when they combined the vergs and ghosts and only got reinterested on the raid mission book and have read the last few books.

I think you hit it on the head seba as far as it seeming like the most realistic because in it people are normal people but it probably is the last since they been dangling the second seige thing since book 1.

The Ghosts books have thrown up some good ideas - like people with a better tech involving themselves in a lesser-tech war (a la Straight Silver), but a lot of them don't seem so much WH40K as just generic Sci-fi, or even just plain military fiction. I can't remember which poster mentioned it, but the fact that one of the Ghosts was able to walk away because of Gaunt's "innocent until proven guilty" remark in one of the books really summed it up - that just don't sit with the rest of the fiction behind the Imp Guard. The Guard wouldn't give a poop whether a soldier was innnocent or guilty - the bugger would still be shot. Although I've read all the Gaunts books up until the end of the second omnibus, that never struck home. I didn't really like them, but there was no other source of fiction for the Guard, bar the odd Inferno piece. I've always thought it a weak link, and Abnett because of it, in the WH40K fiction. Cain sidesteps it because the chap will avoid that sort of thing.

Maybe its because I've been brought up on the Sharpe novels, which Gaunt seems a weak copy of, I don't know. The Sharpe novels show a military which is more than happy to grind the lower ranks under foot, in a way which the Gaunt novels don't do, even though it is much more fitting. My major complaint is that Abnett is writing about an entire regiment where Cornwell is doing just a company, and Abnett appears not to be able to do so. More than once is a character thrown up who one is supposed to know, but one can't remember - it was a passing reference last time.

Sorry, I've somewhat hijacked the thread.

Ah yes, Abnett is really good at introducing a character in a book, fleshing him out and killing him off, all in one book. Anyone remember Piet Gutes from Straight Silver? They should've stopped after Necropolis, which was to me the height of the series. Traitor General was okay, but the ending was rather super-happy-BFF rather than grim dark.