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 ten 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 ten short stories (featured respectively in the anthologies What Price Victory,[9] Crucible of War,[10] and Bringers of Death[11]), and one novella:
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.[12]
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.[13]