I was always intrigued by this Universe ever since the early 1990s when a friend of mine from university introduced me to the gaming Warhammer Space Marine miniature figurines (which I was always fascinated with) but which I never collected, painted, played or saw anybody play. I'll ask true Warhammer fans and connoisseurs to forgive me as I review this book and share a little bit about the Universe of Warhammer from an outsider's perspective. If you don't know science fiction, I'll ask you to stop here as what I'm about to write will be unintelligible to the non sci fi fan.
This omnibus is actually 3 entire books which tell the story of the Imperial Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn. What is an Inquisitor? Well let me tell you about the Universe to help provide context. Warhammer 40,000 Universe is set circa the year 40,000 in a time when humanity has colonized countless millions of planets throughout a good portion of the Milky Way. The whole Imperium is ruled by an Emperor centered on Earth who exists in a half dead state (he's ruled for thousands of years in this state....The Horus Heresy books tell the story of how the Imperium came to be) and the whole administration of the Empire is somewhat Feudal and Medieval with gargantuan bureaucracies and religion seems to permeate a significant portion of people's lives. So many technologies have been invented and forgotten that technology has come to be regarded as technomagic and there's a whole religion associated with technology. There's an Imperial Army and there are Space Marines, the Emperor's elite, genetically engineered, and powerarmour augmented fighters. In this time, faster than light space travel is through something called the Warp also known as the Immaterium (hyperspace) but hyperspace is not empty like in Starwars or Star Trek, hyperspace is teeming with demons and lost souls that are just ready to rip a spaceship that is not protected appropriately -- This realm of the Immaterium is also known as Chaos. In certain places the Imaterium is very close to real space (the two realities, ours and chaos, are very close to each other and here demons will sometimes spill out into the real universe and invade and corrupt real worlds and people (they become tainted with chaos)). In addition to the threats of chaos, there are orks and elves (homage's and elements of traditional fantasy, Tolkein etc)and insect like creatures (homage's to Starship Troopers and the Forever War) and ancient powerful creatures from millions of years ago --- and everything is fighting everything in this Universe (homage's to Brin's Earthclan etc). So there is plenty of evil to go around.
With me so far? Here then the Inquisitor's job is to seek out and find the taint of Chaos, mutants, orks, xenomorphs, elves etc throughout the Imperium (basically orks and evil elves, genestealer cults, and demons). Inquisitors are very independent but they each carry the full weight of the Emperor, each has his own way of doing things but they have a hierarchy and they go out throughout the Universe seeking anything evil and once they do (each in their unique way) then they focus the Empire's legions to destroy it. They're like the white blood cells of the imperium by finding evil, tagging it, and then having space marines or imperial legions to come and destroy the evil.
What we wind up with is a very Gothic, dark, dystopian and dystopian in the sense that this Universe entirely unapologetic in the torment and suffering of its people (hopelessness, war, terror, is the norm). Seems dark huh? It is....
Begin tiny spoiler ****
The Omnibus of Eisenhorn finds Eisenhorn already a full fledged Inquisitor hunting evil and traces his development as his devotion to emperor has him use more and more marginal (almost heretical) approaches to hunt Chaos and finally leaves us with an Eisenhorn who is devoted to the Emperor but who will use even Chaos to fight Chaos....is Eisenhorn good or evil - hard to tell....and this also leaves the gamers with the character as the gamers and their miniature games portray him....a Super Inquisitor
***************End Spoiler
I loved this book -- if you're going to jump or dabble (as I) in the Warhammer Universe --- this book is probably the best to open the doors and show you the Warhammer Universe. If you want some background on how the Warhammer Universe came to be, I highly recommend Horus Rising also a tremendous book from Abnett. Eisenhorn will show you some of the greatest parts of the Imperium as well as some of the worst evils and you'll even be rewarded by Abnett by him giving you glimpses into almost every facet of the Imperium including some glimpses into some Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, and Titans and Chaos Titans (giant sentient Battletech like robots -- Warhammer fans, don't shoot me for comparing Titans to Robotech).
Adult Context and note to PARENTS (next two paragraphs)
A couple of things I didn't like about this book in fairness. Inquisition brings back thoughts of the Spanish Inquisition and some of the other horrible atrocities like the Holocaust that we as humanity have done to our fellow man and especially some of the atrocities towards the Jewish People. Also, this Universe is very very dark and grim - aside from being gothic it is filled with endless suffering and there is no hope for this suffering to ever end so it seems so unending but that is part of the appeal to the Universe. Also, I imagine by writing about Inquisitions and these terrible dystopias, in some grim sense - it helps us remember some of the horrible things we've done and how important it is to try to keep our real universe from becoming a Warhammer type Universe (I imagine WWII felt very much like Warhammer).
Off the soapbox and back to the book, Eisenhorn and his company of travelers (and it felt formulaic in a the sense of having an almost D&D or Final Fantasy where Eisenhorn builds a company of companions and then goes on quests and solving the world -- regardless, they all became very real to me and I connected with them. I've read some of the other Space Marine books since then etc and I must say writing for this genre is very very hard especially for Space Marines (they're very one dimensional) so once you finish Eisenhorn and you decide to venture beyond, you will find much more one-dimensional characters and writing appropriate more to young adult audiences (although don't know if I want my young adult reading this without the context of the holocaust, WWII, Khmer atrocities, Rhwanda etc so if you're a parent and your 12 year old is reading this genre - definitely consider pulling them aside, sitting them down, and provide some context...would I let them read? don't know - your call.
Abnett did a great job with Eisenhorn (probably the best Warhammer Novel I've read -- although i'm working through Horus Rising and that's also truly fantastic). Disclaimer, I'm not a gamer or a Super Diehard Warhammer person and I'm definitely not Goth in any way. I'm glad I read it and I'm glad I got to peek into this fantastic and rich Universe that brings so much enjoyment to so many and which to me is comparable to the Dune, Starwars, Startrek in matter of complexity and Scale. So connoisseurs please don't bash me for highlighting this as a dark dystopian universe or analogies to holocausts etc.....the darkness is the appeal and so long as we approach it from a mature standpoint, this has tremendous entertainment value as proven by an almost 20+ year longevity and worldwide following. Fantastic!
On Abnett -- Fantastic writer. You can tell he is very literary, very well versed, and has complete mastery of storytelling. I've loved every book I've read from him. His characters are real and I definitely connect with them.
On Amazon - Discovered and bought this from Amazon. When I was done, I went to a local bookstore to look for something else Warhammer and found a very limited selection (Its gotten better lately as this genre has gotten more popular though) but overall, for some of these harder to find books or the latest Warhammer releases - I find Amazon the best.
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Top reviews from other countries
James F.
Great stories of the legendary Gregor Eisenhorn!
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 20, 2020Mathieu R
Best Warhammer Omnibus. No contest.
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 13, 2012Brittany Marie
He was beyond happy. The price was steep but the look on ...
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on March 8, 2018
Arthur Radvilas
Wanna get into 40k? Start here!
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on June 7, 2023
