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Lemme start by saying I don't hate Graham, I liked the Ultramarines Omnibus and the short stories.
I'll admit "Warriors of Ultramar" was a little hard to get into (and the Norn queen scale was screwed up) but the other 2 books and the short story were great. I've even enjoyed his Horus Heresy work (3/4 of the way through Mechanicum) but I absolutely HATED "Killing Ground."

If you thought Ventris couldn't get more un-Ultramarine you were wrong. I found the main reason I kept reading the book was so I could say I finished it. I'm an avid Ultramarines fan so it is really hard for me to diss somethign associated with them, but "Killing Ground" was just bad. VERY campy, to the point where I thought I was watching a 1980s B movie. Everything you expect to happen does.

*spoilers*
If you read the book you'll agree with these:
1) The 2 characters apparently break the Demon engine from the last book to their will. No explination is given.
2) Guardsmen believe in going to hell when you commit suicide... where did that come from?
3) The big bad hard as nails commander that everyone hates, is really a big bad ass hat who is such an ass that it makes you want to stop reading the book (congrats on that one Graham that was a well written character, I wanted to kill him). I just thought it was rather too convenient for him to be the perfect bad guy that no one could kill.
4) Guardsmen aren't afraid of space marines, they say "we've fought your kind before." Then later when a history is given they've been fighting rebels and peasents, not marines.
5) The guardsmen somehow don't miss space marines but they seem to lose sight of Pasonius' bolter in about 2 seconds after he drops it.
6) The whole underground rebellion was just pathetic.
7) When we finally think our heroes are about to die they're saved by the inquisition and we're given this BS story about how this world is so close to the Eye and how evil constantly appears blah blah...
8) Even the repentent characters don't seem honest. They go from "We did our job but felt like hell for it," to "Well ok I can die now."
9) Pasonius seemed like he swung from comic relief to "F this lets just kill-em all" at the drop of a hat.
10) "Of mice and men" that's all I've gotta say really.
11) And this was the biggie. The commissar and the rebel leader hug and make nice... WTF?
*/spoiler*

I found myself constantly being bothered by these things and really had to make myself finish the book. Now like I said I like almost everything else I've read by Graham, but this book was just bad.

Couldnt agree more.
And even though its been ages since I actually read the book, I think I remember most of the points you mentioned.

Its ridiculous how an awesome evil guy like Honsou all of the sudden turns into some dumbass not able to control pretty much anything on ... a demon world. But two Ultramarines and a bunch of their cronies can swing whole battles the way they like it.

The first IW book was awesome and I was really looking forward to more IW fluff, but this book simply made them mindless idiots.

Flachzange wrote:Couldnt agree more.
And even though its been ages since I actually read the book, I think I remember most of the points you mentioned.

Its ridiculous how an awesome evil guy like Honsou all of the sudden turns into some dumbass not able to control pretty much anything on ... a demon world. But two Ultramarines and a bunch of their cronies can swing whole battles the way they like it.

The first IW book was awesome and I was really looking forward to more IW fluff, but this book simply made them mindless idiots.

I believe you're thinking of "Dead Sun Black Sky" which came out some time ago. "Killing ground" is only a few months old.

I agree that this book left me somewhat.....empty. However, I've come to expect anything from Black Library, that involves Space Marines or Chaos Space Marines to be extremely off the mark.

To be honest, its not worth worrying about......GW does not equal Consistancy!!!

I didn't particularly enjoy Killing Ground, but I think that Graham McNeill's writing is improving, so it wasn't as bad as the other Ultramarines novels.