Flashman is awesome. Loved the novels.
But Cain also adds Blackadder to the mix. And unlike Flashman he is competent.

Of course the series is mere trivial literature. It is 40k afterall.
So it is impossible for Mitchell or any other 40k author to get to the level of George MacDonald Fraser's masterpiece.

Quote from: Coffeecup on December 09, 2023, 05:04:53 AM
I am a fan of Sandy Mitchell's Commissar Cain series.
He describes the military decisions and background quite well and sticks quite close to the canon. Additionally the writing is high quality and humourous
In his latest novel there is a tech-priest antagonist which is described as "they" but while distracting in the beginning it makes sense since that one is biologically totally androgynous.

I tried Abnett's Ghaunt's Ghosts twice and I was totally underwhelmed. To my mind the novels read like the author once drove by a military camp in the past, his descriptions are way over the top while the endings were both stupid (in one case a handful of Eldar allied themselves with 100 soldiers of the Ghaunt's Ghosts and an inquisitor and defeated 10,000 heretics). And the writing is way too serious for my liking.

King is also pretty good. Never read any of his 40k novels but Felix and Gotrek are legendary.

  I had the same opinion about Gaunt's and had I tried it before Eisenhorn and Raveneor series...I would have never read those.  It was odd, as if a different person wrote it compared to the other two.  I think he has a niche and is pretty good at it...Gaunt's Ghosts to me is not it.   

The Eisnerhorn and Ravenor omnibus' are a must.

Scourge the Heretic + Innocence Proves Nothing, are fantastic. The only downside is they're the first 2 books of a trilogy that was never finished, but they're great.

The Ciaphas Cain series is great fun.

Brothers Of The Snake is a really good Space Marines novel. The first and last bookended stories especially are top tier.

The Inquisitor War trilogy is solid, although some of the lore is sketchy now (but in 40k truths aren't absolute!) Make sure you get the old version where they travel with the Squat (think 40k Dwarf). They 'updated' the novels to make him a Techpriest, and it's incredibly jarring. 


PS - OMG, so heartened at seeing other people not like Gaunt's Ghosts. That series is SO pushed as God's gift to 40k, and I could never get more than a few chapters in before dropping it. I kept thinking I was going insane because of the gaslighting.

Meanwhile everything else Abnett writes is solid.

I thought the Inquisition War trilogy was pretentious crap back in the day, and it's gotten worse with comparison to Eisenhorn/Ravenor.

The Kharne-clusion of the Horus Heresy is here! Were any of you bad enough dudes to scalp in line to get the collectors edition versions?

Yeah I wasn't, fuck that noise.

Quote from: Thornhammer on January 27, 2024, 11:40:48 PM
The Kharne-clusion of the Horus Heresy is here! Were any of you bad enough dudes to scalp in line to get the collectors edition versions?

Yeah I wasn't, fuck that noise.

I'm happy to say I haven't touched a single HH book. Not only do I not want to wade through the wank and terrible characterizations of the awful books to find the gems, but I haze zero interest in reading a kitchen bursting with chef's concept of an epic galactic tragedy. "It happened long ago, here's some high points, the rest is cloaked in mystery and lies" was always good enough for me.

The best writers at Black Library are no Frank Herbert, and the worst make Brian Herbert look like Frank Herbert.

Personally, I had read Ciaphais Cain, Dark Imperium and Vaults of Terra novels. I tried reading the Gaunt's Ghosts... didn't get very far.

That being said, I am looking to read the Felix and Gotrek novels next instead of more 40k stuff.

Path of the Warrior is about a lame-ass eldar (now called aeldari) dude that wants pussy so bad that when he gets rejected, his whole life goes to shit. He runs off and joins the striking scorpions so he can hide in the shadows, then he "loses his way on the path" and becomes an exarch after his second battle. But then it gets worse, because in his first battle as an exarch, he sticks his hand in the gaping wound of the dying striking scorpion phoenix lord and gets sucked off into nothingness. And he never got that pussy.