Because the Warhammer universe is so far into the future, mankind has moved out into the galaxy (maybe beyond? don't know, nerds) that men now live on thousands of planets, and have for thousands of years. This, I think, makes for a ripe backdrop for story telling given that these worlds now all have their own histories, cultures, flora and fauna, that influence the people that live there. While some planets are more centralized, and their cultures more homogeneous, more distance or isolated planets diverge more from the centralized culture and norms of the empire.
The stories in this book are all that have been written by Dan Abnett about this character, and they are arranged chronologically and so we can follow Eisenhorn's character development, along with those of his team members, through their long (and sometimes short) careers. I do love SciFi, but again, this isn't something I would have chosen for myself, however, I did find myself stealing extra moments to read a little longer, or forgoing other things in order to read another chapter. The stories range from novels (there are a few novel length stories) and some short stories of varying lengths (magazine article length, to novellas). Its a big boy; Eisenhorn: The Omnibus is nearly a thousand pages, but it didn't take too long for me to read.
I especially liked how Abnett describes the dress, food, drink, or technology of a scene in detail (sometimes including the ingredients of a dish, for example) and then names off the bits that make up whatever he is describing using series of made-up words and phrases that can only be understood by their context, and gives no further definitions or descriptions. I think this needs to be done carefully so as not to overwhelm the reader with SciFi speak, and Abnett does a good job threading that needle.
* Sorry nerds, Warhammer is apparently not a video game (maybe Warcraft is?) Apparently is a fantasy combat board game played with miniatures and its been around since the early 80s.
