Ciaphas Cain

The Ciaphas Cain series is a collection of science fiction novels set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. They center on the eponymous character, an Imperial Commissar of the Imperial Guard, and his varied and colorful career.

Cain is the main character of Sandy Mitchell's novels published by the Black Library. The Cain series currently stands at nine titles:

The novels are presented as Cain's personal and often rambling notes. After his death, a third party edited them into a more coherent form, interspersed them with footnotes or snippets of other accounts where Cain's first-person (and self-centered) perspective does not provide sufficient context, and made them available for use by the Holy Inquisition. This editor is revealed over the course of the first account to be Inquisitor Amberley Vail of the Ordo Xenos, Cain's long-time collaborator and herself a prominent figure in the accounts.

Cain also appears in three short stories (featured respectively in the anthologies What Price Victory,Crucible of War, and Bringers of Death), one novella and 2 audio books:

In April 2007 the first three books in the series and the 3 short stories were collected in a volume entitled Ciaphas Cain : Hero of the Imperium.

In October 2010 Defender of the Imperium, an omnibus compilation of Death or Glory, Duty Calls and Cain's Last Stand was released, and also contains the short stories "Traitor’s Gambit" and "Sector Thirteen".

Ciaphas Cain is a "Commissar," a political officer of the Imperium of Man's troops. Commissars are charged with maintaining the morale and loyalty of Imperial troops, an important matter when one considers the horrific odds and staggering casualties of the "grim dark future" of the WH40K setting. Despite holding no standard rank and being outside the chain of command, commisars have wide discretionary powers, including summary execution or even decimation, in pursuit of their duties. Cain, having observed the tendency of many members of the Commissariat to fall victim to "accidental" friendly fire, prefers to lead by example and encouragement instead of fear, and has gained a reputation for charismatic leadership, self-effacing heroism and concern for the common trooper. This has spiraled rather out of Cain's control, as he is now regarded as a "Hero of the Imperium", and is frequently assigned to dangerous and unusual circumstances. The truth, as presented in the novels, is that Cain is the sort of person he himself is supposed to execute: self-serving, incredibly paranoid, a truly skilled liar, and happy to put as many bodies between him and the enemy as possible in order to save his own skin. The author has stated that the character of Cain was inspired by both Harry Flashman and Edmund Blackadder.

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