Imperial Guard Omnibus: Volume One

This book is another one of the Black Library's growing collection of omnibuses, 3-in-1 book collections that gets you on average $21 worth of bang for your 11 bucks. This omnibus is fairly unique in that it deals entirely with the Imperial Guard, the giant horde of flashlight-toting average joes given a flak jacket and orders, then expected to take down whatever enemy of varying size, green-ishness, spikyness, or in general deadliness they're ordered to, or die trying. Imperial Guard is generally the most down-to-earth fighting force in 40K to write about, thus making this book a good idea for first timers to warhammer literature, or at least first timers who'd rather ease in to it before jumping straight into the heavier stuff(Horus Heresy, Grey Knights Omnibus, Titanicus, etc.). The three books in this omnibus are all by different authors, and therefore of somewhat varying quality. So here's a blow-by-blow: Fifteen Hours: One of Mitchel Scanlon's earlier works, this one struck me as a bit mediocre. The book starts up with an in medias res that establishes the mood fairly effectively for the rest of the novel. It then flashes back to an earlier point in time, setting up the protagonist's backstory. Without any spoilers, the book is essentially about a young soldier fresh out of training experiencing war for the first time, and his trouble adjusting to it. It also zooms out to show a little bit of the Guard's command structure and Imperial bureaucracy in a Catch-22-esque satire. There's even some bizarre non-sequitir story about something with little understandable relevance to the plot. As for the writing in general, the plot isn't terribly exciting, the dialoge is rather ham-handed(most notably the fact that the author refuses to incorporate conjunctions into his writing, resulting in frustratingly awkward sentences full of "it is" and "do not" and "can not", which isn't very believable coming from the rather casual disposition the soldiers are portrayed with) and characters aren't developed very well at all, not to mention their names are about as bad as the dialoge. However, this book has a surprising amount of genuinely good moments in it, enough to make it passable. 3/5 stars. Death World: My personal favorite of the three, this Steve Lyons novel follows the exploits of a squad of Catachans, elite, rowdy jungle fighters who have their own style both in and out of combat that differentiates, even alienates them heavily from the more conventional breeds of Guardsmen. The general plot is that the protagonist's squad goes on a mission to a "Death World", a planet with an exceptionally dangerous ecosystem, to combat an Ork incursion. The dialog in this book is exceptional, and not only are the characters given plenty of attention and detail, but the Catachan style is also very fleshed out. The plot is followable, but overly simplistic. 5/5 Rebel Winter: Steve Parker, author of Gunheads, another IG novel to check out, offers Rebel Winter, fo

I recently introduced a work mate to the 40k universe. We r both vets working as contractors in Afghanistan and both have some idea of the soldier's story. Fifteen Hours was the Gem of this omnibus and I am always happy to admit to reading it.

This is a good read for anyone with and interest in Warhammer 40K or who just wants to read some good war stories. This collection contains 3 complete stories of the Imperail Guard. They are well written, showing the not so clean and organized side of war! The authors do a nice job of showing that battles are won or lost by the Grunts not the commissars (Officers) !

Wanted a break from space marines for a little more "human" story. This Omnibus doesn't disappoint!

The book is a collection of three Warhammer 40,000 novels about the Imperial Guard. If one purchases the books separately, it would cost near $30. In this omnibus format, it costs $14, plus there are three additional short stories that further develop the characters in the original novels. Fifteen Hours describes a new recruit, completely indoctrinated into the Imperial Guard and propaganda, gets accidentally dropped into the wrong planet. He is the sole survivor from his 200+ soldier company and gets attached to a nearly eliminated Regiment. The Regiment is one of many suffering from attrition from years of front line fighting against the orcs, around the same city. 15 hours is the average life expectancy for a new soldier in the city. Will the young and idealistic recruit survive, both physically and mentally in believing the propaganda? Death World has tough jungle fighters trying to survive orcs, commissars, and the planet's environment. The fighting is fierce and this is my favorite story in this omnibus. Rebel Winter is also well written with an Imperial Guard Regiment trying to survive a mechanized battlefield against the orcs and human rebels. The one strangely consistent message in all three stories is how incompetent and inept the Imperial Guard Generals are. If this is always the case, then the Imperial Guard units would have been obliterated in far quicker fashion. What is lacking from these stories is how a leader develops and eventually becomes a good general. It is easy to use a stereo-typical bloated general as being the reason why the Imperial Guard is getting annihilated. Overall an entertaining collection of stories. Just hope that the leaders in future books are better.