Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium

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.

Definitely one of the better items from the black library. The book was very well written and the style of writing was very interesting. The book is written as if an inquisitor is examining the life of the hero Ciaphas Cain by reading his diary and other historical documents. It has humorous footnotes from the inquisitor describing what actually happened over Cain's very narrow range of focus outside himself. The book has many inside jokes from other Warhammer 40k books. If you want the full experience I'd suggest reading Dan Abnette's books first.

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.

This is an excellent collection of novels and short stories about the reluctant hero commisar Ciaphas Cain. Well written, amusing, and full of action. Commisar Cain tries to avoid danger but always seems to save the day despite that.

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.