Ultramarines: The Second Omnibus (2) Paperback – May 22, 2012

This collection contains three tales following the adventures of Ultramarines captain Uriel Ventris and Sargeant Pasanius, plus a small comic book and a short story (Eye of Vengeance).I appreciated the first novel: The Killing Ground, for it placed our protagonist away from your typical war situation and in a far more personal (and smaller) scenario than what is common for an Adeptus Astartes. Courage and Honour, the second novel, chronicles a conflict between the Space Marines and the alien Tau in a familiar setting. While the third and final novel, The Chapter's Due shows the reader all-out war on a planetary scale between the Iron Warriors traitor legion and the Ultramarines.The Killing Ground was my favorite, quite frankly, for the reason already mentioned. Graham McNeill's writing skills have improved considerably and he is able to deliver amazing action sequences, particularly in the battles of the second novel. The Chapter's Due is more epic in scale and follows the viewpoints of multiple characters, such as that of the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, Marneus Calgar, and 2nd company Captain Cato Sicarius.Reading the first Omnibus isn't mandatory but you'll be left wondering how Uriel and Pasanius came to be, so reading it first is recommended.Veredict: A must-read for Ultramarines fans. 40k fans will have a good time.

FOR THE CHAPTER! FOR THE EMPEROR!In the words of the main character...."I have seen my share of death, both honourable and despicable, and yes, I know that war is a brutal, bloody business capable of bringing out the best and the worst in men. This is a harsh, dangerous galaxy, with untold terrors lurking in the dark to devour us, but the minute we turn on our own kind and murder them, we might as well take a blade to our throats."

There's not really much I can say other than I found the first omnibus more to my liking. The battle with the necrons, tyranids, and the civil war in a chaos world just seemed way more gripping than the settings in the second one. In the second omnibus, the first book's main antagonists are a bunch of ghosts trapped by one man's rage...I liked necrons better. The second book entails the attempted takeover of Pavonis by the Tau, but I think Tyranids are way more intense to read about....plus I'm one of those "heretics" who kinda like the Tau. I didn't make it to the third book, but all I can say is definitely read the first one before you read this one!!!

The Second Omnibus is even better than the first. I found the author's introduction to be spot on. He does an excellent job of building the scope of these three books, and the writing is even better. I'm very impressed with the Ultramarine series in total.I do worry about the Captain of the 2nd Company. You can see a fall building for him.Must, must get for a WH 40K fan. Would definitely recommend for any science fiction/military fiction fan.

This is an awesome buy. This book covers the fall and redemption on a Hero. If you like war against choas, this is the book for you. It takes reader through the eye of terror to full blown dark crusade against Ultramar. The bonus content is worth the buy alone.

This is classical WarHammer 40K hard corps science fiction at it's best! Uriel Ventris, the hero, kicks ass! This is one of the better written WarHammer novels. I'm a hard corps sci-fi nut since I was a kid. Highly recommended!

Bought it for my son to replace his worn out version for Christmas. Looks like its going to be perfect. Great delivery!

Shadowhawk reviews the second omnibus of the popular Ultramarines series by Graham McNeill as the valiant, heroic Uriel Ventris and his friend Pasanius Lysane return from their journey into the Eye of Terror and are reunited with their chapter."This is a collection that made me feel really sad and really upbeat throughout. A great reading experience in the end that does make me want more Ultramarines action." ~The Founding FieldsNote: Review contains some spoilers for the previous omnibus. This is also a long review, longer than normal.The Killing Ground and Courage and Honour are two novels I regrettably missed out on in the months I took a break from reading any new fiction and buying any novels. When The Chapter's Due came out, it looked like I was going to be missing out on that too because I've never bought hardcovers. So when Black Library announced the omnibus edition of the second trilogy novels, I was pretty excited. The last omnibus ended with a fairly big plot thread and I was really looking to get back into reading about the adventures of the Ultramarines 4th Company and their maverick Captain.I needn't have worried how good the second trilogy was going to be. Mostly......Truth be told, The Killing Ground didn't really work for me. I was expecting to be wowed and that just didn't happen. In that respect, it is a very similar novel in terms of its feel to Dead Sky, Black Sun. They are both extremely bleak novels, the former more so. What Graham got right here was that he portrayed the desperation of the people of Salinas and soldiers, both former and current, of the Achaman Falcatas regiment. You can really feel it as you turn each page. And in that respect, the core theme of the setting was plain as day throughout the novel because, in the grim darkness of the far future, the galaxy is a very bleak place...........Overall, The Killing Ground is borderline decent. It didn't work for me particularly but I can appreciate its place in the series, and that's an important one.Next up is Courage and Honour, the fifth novel in the series. This was an absolutely mind-bending novel. This novel echoed everything that made Warriors of Ultramar so good and on top of that, it was heavy with symbolism. This novel sees a restored and reinstated Uriel Ventris return to the battlefields of the 41st Millennium alongside the proud warriors of the Ultramarines 4th Company, his old command. And its not just any battlefield but Pavonis itself, which was Uriel's first theatre as a Captain. Quite fitting that he returns to the once-more troubled world and that this time he is fighting against the Tau of all aliens. In this novel Uriel has to prove that he has learned the lessons of deviance from the Codex Astartes and that he is fit to be an Ultramarine once again.As such, the novel was a beauty. Whether it was the scenes with the Ultramarines and the 44th Lavrentian Hussars defending Pavonis, or Uriel's scenes back on Macragge with his superiors, the novel is quite perfect from beginning to end. The action scenes in particular were extremely well done. The Tau rely on surgical strikes and a fast, adaptive form of warfare and they make natural enemies for the Ultramarines, not to mention that they are the perfect "test enemies" for Uriel to prove himself against. All the action was fast, brutal and very visceral. Not to mention that there was a great amount of variety in the scenes as well: we get Thunderhawk deployments, regiment-level mechanised assaults, drop-pod assaults, behind-enemy-lines missions, lightning raids and so on. We also get a good look at how an entire company of the Ultramarines makes war, right from Uriel coordinating planetary defences from a prefab command post in the capital Brandon Gate, to their armoured assaults, and everything else. Whether its the Ultramarines, the Lavrentian Hussards and the planetary defence forces or the Tau themselves, Graham makes good use of the varied units on both sides to deliver a single, unified sequence for each battle......Overall, this was a fantastic novel. Some people may be put off by the fact there is a lot of combat in it and the action is nearly non-stop, but let me assure you that there is ample character development here and that Graham has not skimped on any of it.The last novel in the omnibus is The Chapter's Due, which marks the return of Warsmith Honsou of the Iron Warriors since his last novel-length appearance in Dead Sky, Black Sun. If you have read Iron Warriors: The Omnibus, then you know how Honsou rose to prominence and how we was brought down by Uriel Ventris. You'll also be aware of the depths of Honsou's need for vengeance on the one man who has dared defy him and refuse his....benevolence in equal measure. A good portion of Iron Warriors: The Omnibus sets up events for The Chapter's Due and also shows its aftermath in part, so finally getting to the novel itself was something I had been anticipating for a good while yet.If anything, The Chapter's Due is much better than Courage and Honour, although the latter didn't really go wrong much. The characterisation was much stronger, the action scenes much more varied this time (trust me!) and we really get a sense for how the Ultramarines fight on a chapter-level in multiple simultaneous enagements in different battlefields. There are a few novels that have shown chapter-wide deployments, like Rynn's World with the Crimson Fists, Grey Hunter with the Space Wolves and Nocturne with the Salamanders, to name a few. They each brought something different to the table, with the first two being focused on a few individuals, and the latter being focused on a lot of different characters from across the chapter heirarchy. Nocturne is also a novel that got chapter-wide warfare just right. In that respect, The Chapter's Due was just as great and while overall it has a similar feel to it, it is different in that we see the Ultramarines in defending not just a single planet, but multiple different ones, since they actually command an entire sub-sector of space, the Ultramar Empire......Overall, The Chapter's Due is a fantastic novel, on par with Nick Kyme's Nocturne, and so much better than Warriors of Ultramar and Courage and Honour, which were both absolutely great themselves.You can find the review in full over at The Founding Fields[...]

Yes...another fine book from the Warhammer series.I purchase the omnibus editions so that I can keep concurrant with the ongoing actions.This way I do not skip an episode and it removes the waiting to search for the next instalment.Keep up the good work.

Good condition and an excellent read

Much better than the last book and more print then you can shake a stick at! By the time you really get into it...it is over and you will be buying the third huge novel with a total of 9-10 stories to satisfy your blood thirsty urges.The book isn't what you expect and doesn't really go anywhere and actually goes back closely to where you have been before but that is not nec. a complaint, just expect a smaller story than maybe you imagined.

Great book, more depth than the first omnibus. You pretty much know what to expect from this book and it delivers. I don't want to say to much except read it.

Quick delivery and an easy purchase that really met my expectations. The description was spot on and really caught my attention.