Runo Knows...The Last Chancers
The Last Chancers is another Warhammer 40K omnibus, then one done in first person starring Lieutenant Kage, a member of the 13th Penal Legion, and his commanding officer Colonel Schaeffer.
Kage killed his sergeant over a woman; he got sent to the penal battalions along with a lot of other scum, and they're slowly (and not-so-slowly) winnowed through in order to form up a hardened crew to infiltrate and destroy a hive city (in the first novel), to kill a tau general (in the second novel), and to capture or kill a renegade Imperial governor (in the third one).
As time goes on, it's harder and harder to feel any compassion or anything for the main character because, well, he's a psychopathic mass murdering scumbag. The other characters come and go or die quickly enough that you never really notice them, with the exception really of the Colonel, who is so distant and emotionless he doesn't really flow as a human being.
(The one exception other than him: the Administratum scribe in the third novel. You can't help but like the poor guy.)
The writing is clear and action packed, though perhaps more workman than gifted. Gav Thorpe does okay, but having read it just after The Founding it's probably inevitable that it's going to suffer the comparison. Honestly, given the lack of characters to connect to, even interesting action scenes and plots can suffer...though at least it uses orcs and tau as a number of the enemies - it's always nice to see something other than chaos!
Kage killed his sergeant over a woman; he got sent to the penal battalions along with a lot of other scum, and they're slowly (and not-so-slowly) winnowed through in order to form up a hardened crew to infiltrate and destroy a hive city (in the first novel), to kill a tau general (in the second novel), and to capture or kill a renegade Imperial governor (in the third one).
As time goes on, it's harder and harder to feel any compassion or anything for the main character because, well, he's a psychopathic mass murdering scumbag. The other characters come and go or die quickly enough that you never really notice them, with the exception really of the Colonel, who is so distant and emotionless he doesn't really flow as a human being.
(The one exception other than him: the Administratum scribe in the third novel. You can't help but like the poor guy.)
The writing is clear and action packed, though perhaps more workman than gifted. Gav Thorpe does okay, but having read it just after The Founding it's probably inevitable that it's going to suffer the comparison. Honestly, given the lack of characters to connect to, even interesting action scenes and plots can suffer...though at least it uses orcs and tau as a number of the enemies - it's always nice to see something other than chaos!