Yarrick: The Omnibus

This is my first read of Yarrick as a main character and these stories really deliver. Annandale really shows you Yarrick's development as a legend (and I love his comment about keeping a sergeant to keep him in line). I also really love the development of the orks, as well as Thraka and how he keeps outthinking the humans.

I'd say the two novels are the strongest part of this.

Love how Annandale will show parts from other characters to move the story along.

Easy to recommend for any WH40k fan.

This is a set of books about a commissar, and thus the imperial guard and politics. Its really a fun read, with lots of action against several different kinds of threats. So it isn't just all xenos necessarily. You really get to watch a commissar become a legend, but what shocked me was how much we missed. Without spoiling too much, there's basically a very large time skip between books that was pretty crazy. I get why it happened, but at the same time it disconnected me with the character because it seemed like a lot around him had changed. But that's 40k, its galaxy spanning baby, so time just flies to tell all of these different stories.

If you like 40k politics (inner workings of low level imperium in this case) and a wide flavor of battles/enemies, as well as a compelling human character, this is the one.

Plus this includes one/two of the best planets in the entire 40k series imo, Armageddon.

The Warhammer 40k universe thrives on the setting and themes of grimdark and war. Every fan knows there is no happy ending, and there really are no "good guys" at all. That isn't to say there aren't heroes of a sort. This book follows one such man known as Commisar Yarrick through some of his biggest acheivements. However, like many stories too overly reliant on theme and setting its flaw cause it to stumble into predictable boredom.

Yarrick as a character is decently fleshed out in the writing. The storytelling focuses on not just him, but his thoughts on everything happening. This is fine as an interesting protagonist is the basis of a good story, but every other character is denied enough time or effort to become interesting. This hurts because even Yarrick tends to drop off due to relying very heavily on Imperium of Man rhetoric to make his points. In short he is interesting, but his predictability prevents him from taking advantage of that interest.

The first story in this book follows Yarrick through an event in his early career. You can tell there was care and planning with this story as it has a general plot flow from story beat to beat and genuinely tries to keep the reader aprised of the events. Yarrick is sent alongside a small army of the Imperial Guard to assist a world that is in the midst of rebellion. The characters are forced to contend with an upset populace succumbing to threats within from corruption both political and chaosborn. This story is generally good and holds it's own. It's greatest flaws is that it's a character story with weakly developed characters outside the protagonist, Yarrick, who suffers greatly from the problems I previously pointed out.

The second story covers the lore famous second war for Armageddon. This was a huge war brought on by an enormous invasion of orks led by an unusually influentual ork named...well it doesn't matter as he never shows up in the story. As a matter of fact this story doesn't even cover anything past the first few days of the war. So much detail is left out to the point where the story is almost pointless. You get as much detail about the characters and events if you read a wiki page, and there isn't anything of real value that fills it in otherwise.

In conclusion Yarrick is an interesting character with a few too many "the Emperor protects" in his external internal dialogues to stand out from the 40k crowd. The stories he is involved in fail to elevate him higher than that. The first one they tried, but the second feels too restrained by the setting's lore to really shine. Average rating.

If you like 40k stories you'll love this book. The very 1st story in the book I couldn't put down. Yarrick is now in my top three Commissrs!

Great book.
Purchased for husband and he’s very happy.

got my book ty

Great reading. if you don't already have this one, it's time to buy...happy reading

great book...huuuuge

A fantastic read and look into the exploits and development of Yarrick. Each story is a great story in its own right, but together you see Yarickk evolve and conquer each trial

Its good