Sandy Mitchell is a pseudonym of Alex Stewart, who has been a full-time writer since the mid nineteen eighties. The majority of his work as Sandy has been tie-in fiction for Games Workshop's Warhammer fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 science fiction lines. The exceptions have been a novelisation of episodes from the high tech thriller series Bugs, for which he also worked as a scriptwriter under his own name, some Warhammer roleplaying game material, and a scattering of short stories and magazine articles.
His hobbies include the martial arts of Aikido and Iaido, miniature wargaming, role-playing games, and pottering about on the family allotment.
He lives in the North Essex village of Earls Colne, with his wife Judith and daughter Hester.
Echoes of the Tomb is gripping as the Ciaphas, Killian and the Space Marines etc, brilliant, full of daring plot twists, cunning, ruib breaking shenanigans, full to the brim with humour of all kinds, daring do, brilliant daring pacing from the start, full of epic world building as we explore the surface of Interitus Prime, Necrons and elsewhere, unbridled opputunism, adventure and action! Crisp High Five! Brilliant and highly recommended! :D
Echoes of the tomb serves as a companion piece leading to the subsequent Book 7 in the Ciaphas Cain series . Which would see the 'heroic' commissar team up with the reclaimers Astartes chapter. Something which I'm looking forwards to reading.
The story follows Cain, as part of a Mechanicus exploratory mission, stumble across a necron tomb in a barren world which has been dead for millenia. Some of the events which transpire help to explain the sheer amount of terror which the commissar harbors when it comes to prospect of facing the soulless genocidal god killing automatons.
An OK read, though I'm a bit miffed because it is implied that the Commissar's ever loyal aide Jurgen, might not be joining him for this particular adventure.
Lo que nos cuenta. Ecos de la tumba (publicación original: Echoes of the Tomb, 2011) nos presenta a Ciaphas Cain, comisario imperial cuya fama heroica va contra su propio sentido de la autoconservación. Cuando se le asigna la misión de enlace con unos marines espaciales en un mundo agrícola, el comisario Cain espera pocos incidentes. Pero, cuando descubre que viajará hacia ese destino en una nave del Adeptus Mechanicus, quizá las circunstancias sean más peligrosas. En cuanto a la cronología del protagonista, relato anterior a la primera novela de la saga Ciaphas Cain: Héroe del Imperium, aunque se publicó siete años después.
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Honestly, these are even more fun in audiobook form - the narrator for this one was clearly having a splendid time, and it was infectious. With less meat than the full books, it can't quite earn itself a full five stars, as it's more scant on the depth of humour, setting and character, but I had a grand time with it. It's Ciaphas Cain. It's basically impossible not to.
Solid enough short. More swashbuckling than the full novels and it definitely suffers from the lack of the editorial footnotes present in the main series. Some interesting stuff about the tech priests though and just what happened to Cain's digits.
Another short story, good but a bit more disjointed than the other ones, and the ending felt a bit abrupt, feeling like missed out on a bit of what could have been in there :)
A short story which has little of interest to offer, the ending is weak and the build up somewhat chaotic. The writing has a simplistic YA style that struggles to engage.
Correctly suspecting that sitting about HQ is an excellent way to get sent on a dangerous mission, Cain inveigles his way into a job as liaison between the Space Marines and other Imperial Forces. Which, he finds, means he's shipped off to a Mechanicus site. Where they are investigating things. . . .
This being Cain, you know it's more trouble than expected.
Being safe at HQ? Done....wait they are sending me on mission...picking the mission with space marines...being safe with space marines, wait they are not here yet...sh*t ... Focusing on survival while techno priest activated something very nasty. Commissar Cain was again in troubles, but saved at the last moment.