The Eisenhorn Omnibus is a collection of 4 books that follow the adventures of Gregor Eisenhorn, an Imperial Inquisitor in the Warhammer 40k universe. The 4 books it comprises are:
- Xenos
- Malleus
- Hereticus
- The Magos
All of the books describe some conflict(s) between Eisenhorn (& his team) and devotees of chaos/of the warp. There’s a loose umbrella plot that runs through the first three books, which are all connected by Eisenhorn’s developing “relationship” with Cherubael (a daemonhost) as well as by his pursuit of Pontius Glaw, the big bad across the books.
I enjoyed these books. They’re certainly not high literature, but they’re well-written page turners, and Dan Abnett knows how to keep momentum in the plot. In some cases, this leads to seemingly difficult problems being resolved too quickly in service of moving the plot forward. And though those moments feel largely unrewarding for the reader, they weren’t so egregious as to make me stop reading.
The Eisenhorn books differ in scope from the Gaunt’s Ghosts books, which I appreciated. The Gaunt books are much larger, theatrical books in the sense that they follow an ensemble of characters and typically provide a zoomed-out, panoramic view of a theater of war. In contrast, the Eisenhorn books are more character-driven combinations of horror and mystery, eschewing battlefield scenes for research, puzzles, and intra-Inquisition political drama.