Product Description

Graham McNeill's epic trilogy of "Ultramarines" novels is now collected together into a single, great-value omnibus edition. Containing the novels "Nightbringer", "Warriors of Ultramar" and "Dead Sky, Black Sun", plus a trio of connected short stories, the series follows the adventures of Space Marine Captain Uriel Ventris and the Ultramarines as they battle to destroy the enemies of mankind. From their home world of Ultramar, into the dreaded Eye of Terror and beyond, Graham McNeill's prose rattles like gunfire and brings the Space Marines to life like never before.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27391 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 768 pages

About the Author
Author name is a lead games designer at Games Workshop, where he has worked for the last five years. As well as seven novels, he's also written a host of short stories. He lives in Nottingham, UK.

Customer Reviews

Holy Throne!
I wouldn't class myself as an avid Warhammer fan, but i have always appreciated the fiction surrounding it, and the literature.
This book has definately rekindled my love and interest in the Warhammer 40k universe.
I do agree that it isn't the best written book of all time; it is oftentimes ridiculous and fantastically cheesy, and lets not forget very far fetched.
But who cares? It's flipping great reading!
Rich enviroments and exciting, gut wrenching scenes abound. The three stories link nicely together and have heaps of substance.
They'll leave you wanting more!

I would love to say its good....
....but it's not. At all.

Without meaning any disrespect to my fellow reviewers I wonder if they have read the same book, because I cannot begin to understand their enthusiasm for this pap, nor can I barely believe that it's the same author that penned the awesome False Gods. I have been an avid fan of the Games Workshop universe and ethos for 20 years and since Warhammer 40,000's release in 1980-something I have had a soft spot for Space Marines (can I call them Astartes? Much cooler), and in particular the Ultramarines chapter. In recent years, since they were adopted by GW as their basic introductory force to the GW hobby, they, and by proxy I, have endured a bit of stick, so you can imagine how enthusiatic I was to pick this up. My general enthusiasm grew as I read the new introduction written especially for the omnibus edition, with the author's assurances that he was going to right all the wrongs, set the record straight, and demonstrate to the world that which I alone seem to know - that the Ultras ARE cool, the epitomy of everything a superhuman warrior should be. Did he succeed? No. In fact, he made it worse. Much, much worse.

Ok, Nightbringer (the first full length story) was Graham McNeil's first novel, so you have to extend him some leeway I guess, but this is dross. The dialogue is appalingly clunky and so unbearably cheesy in places in actually makes you wince, plot hooks are painfully obvious, characters one-dimensional and the author also happily plagiarises album titles and scenes from movies throughout - in fact the entire plot of Nightbringer is basically a rip-off of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Its REALLY bad. Ok, it is well paced, some of the more original set-pieces are exciting, but they cannot begin to save this massively disappointing book. Reading this made me want to write a book about the Ultramarines, simply to try and salvage some of their already ravaged dignity. Things do not improve into the second and third books at all, and while some of the other factions certainly are interesting (the Malefactors Space Marines, Iron Warrior Traitor Marines, heck, even the Dark Eldar seem to be something other than a laughing stock), there is really nothing here that seems to develop the central characters and the rest of the Ultramarines to anything like the degree needed to shake off their boring, unimaginative tag. The author claims he wanted to make them cool again. He made them into intergalactic stamp collectors.

No disrespect to stamp collectors, of course.

Epic classic 40K
All three books that make up the omnibus are master classes in Warhammer 40K story writing. The characters and their stories are excellent to read, well written and leave you gagging for more. Can't wait for the next instalment of this series later on this year!