Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55373 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

Frankly awful
I consider myself a fan of the warhammer 40k universe, mostly the background. I gave up tabletop a while ago as it became so incredibly expensive.
I have read many books from the black library and consider Graham McNeil to have some writing ability, but he is so infuriatingly hit and miss.
I'm not sure why i have persevered with this series as it is only getting worse. The cliches and repetition are used to ever greater effect in this book, and it had me cringing on a regular basis. Overuse of "of course you are right, i am just concerned for this world" blah blah when discussing how best to defeat the tau is just one example.
The frequent contridictions of uriel and his fellow space marines is ever-present, as they somehow manage to have kindness and love in there hearts whilst being brutal killers. The ending was predictable and one passage near the end when uriel and friends charged to capture the Ethereal nearly had me throwing the book across the room it was so bad.

Sadly Mr McNeil seems determined to continue the awful, cliched writing style of this series. Suffice to say, i will not continue to read it.

Good, but could have been better
I am still having slightly mixed feelings about the book, on the one hand parts of it were as great as ever, on the other hand it felt like it was lacking.

I think for me the book possibly could have been better served with more flashbacks and less interaction with what I thought were relatively unimportant characters. While I did enjoy seeing what Sharben and Mederic(?) and others were up to, I was rather more interested in what happened with Ventris and Pasanius when they got back to the chapter. While it was interesting in the beginning, it felt a little rushed through and sidelined for this fight against the Tau, which itself could have been more or less sidelined as nothing more than a minor incusion.

Pasanius particularly felt sidelined when he had become such an integral character. It would have been interesting to see what his actual punishment was like for him and how he dealt with it. That being said a very much enjoyed Learchus and Uriel laying it all out on the table as to how they all feel about each other, but also that Learchus finally understood why Uriel ended up where he did. He should be a great character in the next book. Though I must say the ending was very omnious indeed, so many possibilities, though I think I could have a fairly good guess at what the next book will be about.

Almost there
Although not being a big reader i very quickly got into the Ultramarines series. With its easy writing style, grand action scenes and great charicters that got all the better when Dead Sky Black Sun was released, and the new much grander story ach started. Now i must admit the The Killing Ground was a little slow and disapointing compared to the more action orientated books that came before it but find that Courage and Honour more than makes up for that with the whole 4th company back in battle defending an imperial world from the upstart tau. Keeping the action going through out most the book and an ending that made me not want to wait for the next book, i can recommend this for any fan of Spaces Marines or anyone who wants a greater insight into the tau.