These are generally written in a prose so purple that it verges on ultra-violet, and Amberley repeatedly apologises for inflicting this on her readers.Ĭaine keeps insisting that his reputation as Hero of the Imperium is wholly undeserved, and that what he really wants is peace and quiet and a nice glass of amasec. At regular intervals, she adds excerpts from other sources to complement Caine's rather self-centered narration. In addition to that, there is an editor, who is revealed as Amberley Vail, an Inquisitor who shares Caine's sense for sarcasm (as well as.other things), and who peppers the text with her footnotes. The books are narrated by Caine as first-person narrator, and deliciously sarcastic. Caine and his extremely malodorous aide Jurgen are basically Blackadder and Baldrick transposed into the far future (although Jurgen is actually very efficient in his work, if not the brightest bulb in the chandelier). (I don't know what a ploin is or what shape it is, but ploins and squinches are the funniest-sounding vegetables I've ever encountered in fiction) But the main reason to read these books is not the terribly original plot, but that they're really entertaining. The plot they follow is basically the same every time: Caine and his regiment, the 597th Valhallan, are sent to some Emperorforsaken planet to fight against the scum of the universe, and it generally develops into action-loaded military campaigns, and some politics, and things tend to go extremely ploin-shaped. It contains 3 novels, For The Emperor, Caves of Ice and The Traitor's Hand and the short stories The Beguiling, Fight or Flight and Echoes of the Tomb.

This is a Warhammer 40K tie-in novel, presenting the life and works of Comissar Ciaphas Cain, the most heroic man in the human Empire.

Saviour of the imperium ciaphas cain