"Enforcer"

Enforcer: The Shira Calpurnia Omnibus (Matthew Farrer)

Yes, it's time for another w40k omnibus. This one covers a police officer named Shira Calpurnia, and it gives a nice, ground-level view of the setting with nary a Space Marine in sight. I'm going to cover the books included one by one.

Crossfire: The omnibus kicks off with our heroine arriving in the Hydraphur system and almost immediately being targeted for assassination. This book is pretty good; there are some slow-moving parts where we see more about the characters and setting that I assumed would be put to good use in future novels, and the author introduces too many characters and doesn't give them much to do, but it held my attention and I was genuinely interested to see the outcome. I'm not sure the eventual bad guy really makes a lot of sense, but this is a solid B.

Legacy: This, unfortunately, is where the book goes off the rails. Legacy is about a succession dispute, with two groups fighting over who's going to inherit an ancient and very valuable rouge trader writ. This is fine, but it reduces Shira to the role of, at best, guest star in her own book. She has nothing to do until the climax, and even then the focus is on all the other groups fighting each other. Most of the book is a slog; the author introduces too many characters and doesn't give them enough to do. The climax is exciting, but the ending that follows kind of makes the entire book pointless in my view. Skip this one.

Blind: This is better than Legacy, but only just; at least it has our heroine in it, even if she ends up not really doing much. This time the action takes place on a space station full of psychics, and the mystery is how a man in a locked room was killed. It's not very good; once again, a ton of characters are introduced and most of them are giving nothing to do, and the eventual resolution is enough of a letdown that if I still cared about this book I probably would have been annoyed.

Overall, I'm gonna have to say pass on this collection; It's tedious, and two bad books that are a chore to read adds up to a omnibus that is bad and a chore to read. I'd say pick up Crossfire, but even then, a lot of it is taken up in world and character building that never pays off - the second book has nothing to do with the setting, and the third book takes place on a space station far away from anywhere else. This is kind of a mess, and I really can't recommend it to anyone, unless you need a heavy book to hold something down.

Grade: D