Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies: Choose Your Enemies (Volume 10)

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This Hero of the Imperium who, whilst not exactly a coward, is far short of the heroic ideal, or even the ideal of his office. Almost like a compilation album of the best bits of the series so far - a couple of the best tracks about the Tau, the Inquisition, the AdMech, the 'Nids, and Space Marines all mixed into a glorious whole. And on a sidenote, I'm mad I missed out on the Emeli and Cain history and if anyone knows where that starts if you could just refer me to that installment I would be most grateful. This does not mean they are bad books - if anything, they're quite fun, a bit of literary comfort food.

If you haven’t, you’re in for a treat – and despite being book ten this is as good a place to start as any. As is par for the course, Cain yet again finds himself dragged into the thick of it while desperately trying to keep his skin intact. The unintentional nature of their meetings and Cain's own dialogue helps to smooth this over, as always, but the greater scope at work really plays to the story's strengths. Part of that is down to the choice of placement within the narrative, but the details themselves have also become much more substantial.We had a break while waiting for the audiobooks of the newer books to come out, and had switched to another series in the meantime. One Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. Sir Michael Caine knows a thing or two about gangs: whether that’s joining one as a kid, or playing them in movies for over 50 years.

The people of Japan believe that everyone has an ikigai - a reason for being; the thing that gets you out of bed each morning. While hardly the worst example put onto paper, the efforts to reflect Cain's less formulaic style often interferes with the finer parts of pacing a book.

When an event occurs, how it occurs, what drives the protagonist onward, how important something is to the overarching plot; that sort of thing. the footnotes are inserted as appropriate, with Vale’s interruptions, additional thoughts, and scathing remarks cutting through Cain’s self-indulgent prose to hilarious effect. New and familiar characters abound, voiced by a bright mix of performers, including Kat Dennings, Regé-Jean Page, Emma Corrin, Michael Sheen, Kristen Schaal, Brian Cox, John Lithgow, Jeffrey Wright, and so many more, including fan-favorite narrators Simon Vance and Ray Porter.