Warhammer 40,000 Novels

Eh, Epistolary level Librarians are immensely powerful. I'm guessing Ahriman is roughly on the same power level Chief Librarian Tigurius, maybe a bit stronger, even if GW goes out of their way to make the Ultramarines ridiculously overpowered, and Tigurius is considered to be one of the strongest psychics in the Imperium.

Ahriman is more of an anti-hero than a sadistic villain. He seeks the downfall of the Imperium, but he and his warband, the Prodigal Sons, are outcasts from the Thousand Sons legion. While he bears the mark of Tzeentch, he doesn't consider himself to be a servant of Tzeentch and is far more concerned with his own goals than prosecuting the Long War.

I started the Horus Heresy series last week. I'm running over to half-price today after class to see if they have Fulgrim. If not then B&B probably will.

It's been a while since I read a 40k book and I'm forgetting why I stopped. I haven't able to put the series down.

Also reading The Grey Knights Omnibus in-between books. The Ciaphas Cain books catch my eye everytime I'm at the book store. Are they worth the read?

Ciaphas Cain books are probably my favorite 40K series. Still brings the 40k grit while being pretty humorous, and it is always nice to get a break from being inundated with space marine power levels every time I pick up a 40K book.

OUAriakas_sl said:

Christ Taloo, you were not lying. ADB has suprassed Abnett as my favorite BL author. He made you actually feel sorry for Angron and in turn the World Eaters for how he treated them. The afterword he wrote to explain they burden he takes on when he writes the primarchs' personalities. The Night of the Wolves flashbacks were fucking epic. Oh, and Kharn as a rational Astartes is a fantastic read when you know how his story eventually ends.

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Most of the traitor legions have pretty tragic stories that explain why they sided with Horus against the Emperor. I'm still holding out hope that some day they finally stop teasing us and give a detailed account of what happened with the two lost legions.

As for Dan Abnett, he gets credit for kicking off the series and really sort of setting the tone going forward, but his contributions to the series have been pretty meh. Aside from Horus Rising, he wrote Legion, which I initially thought was good but now I sort of hate the way they write the Alpha Legion, Prospero Burns, which was interesting seeing all the info about the pre-Heresy space wolves but ultimately had almost nothing to do with the title of the book, and Know No Fear in which he managed to make one of the most important battles of the entire civil war be completely bland and actionless. Abnett is amazing for Gaunt's Ghosts, Eisenhorn, and Ravenor, his Heresy books have been less than stellar.

The three powerhouse books of the series so far (I'm behind and haven't read Angel Exterminatus or Betrayer yet) are definitely Fulgrim, A Thousand Sons, and The First Heretic, written by Graham McNeillx2 and Aaron Dembski-Bowden respectively. If Betrayer is anywhere near as good as The First Heretic, I'll definitely have to check out the Night Lords series. I also own Helsreach, his novel in the Space Marine Battles series, which was quite good.

fucker_sl said:

trust me, if you are a fan of complex scifi settings, fantasy settings and general fan of shit-getting-blow-up you will simply lose yourself in it. 40k tabletop survived the competition, the broken rules, and the general bad handling by Games Workshop because the lore is that awesome

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Sounds like Malazan in a sci-fi setting. I'm in.

Honestly I like the Night Lords series better than Eisenhorn/Ravenor.

Betrayer is probably my favorite book in the series at this point. I've read them all way too many times and if 1-3 could count as a single book nothing would ever come close but Betrayer is just such a great read.

I'm seriously liking the way they are writing Rogal Dorn. He has these dreams as to what the Imperium should be and yet it seems like he constantly get kicked in the gut as to how it actually is. Nemesis really showed that.

Julian the Apostate_sl said:

Sounds like Malazan in a sci-fi setting. I'm in.

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as it was said many times in the old thread on FoH.org, 40k books quality depends of what author you are reading. Just go towww.blacklibrary.comand check them

basically, you have to options as first approach:

1) read the stories in the 41th millennium. It's the "present" time of warhammer40000

My suggestions is to check the Gaunt's Ghosts books. Of all of them, they are the best as "first taste" and will give you a good picture of the Imperial Guard (the main army of the Imperium, composed by normal humans) and the general setting of this universe. You can find them into 3 omnibus (The Founding,The Saint (Omnibus)andThe Lost)

2) or start with the Horus Heresy serie. This serie talks about the 30th millennium and the Great Crusade, an event that has shaped the 40k universe like we see it today. If you are a fan, you know pretty much what is going to happend already because the stories are part of the lore, but the books are finally describing with details how and why everything went down the shitter and what role the major characters of that time had in it. Each group of books infact describe the story and actions of one of the 18 Primarchs

the first 3 books are:Horus Rising,False GodsandGalaxy in Flamesand focus on Horus

Also.....useLexicanumorWarhammer40000 wikias a source of information while reading the books. Some of them are written with 40k fans in mind. They will mention events or characters you cant possibly know (for example, the Horus Heresy books are about the Space marines, but they wont tell you exactly what a spacemarine are, or how they are created....the wiki will cover these gaps)

these are the suggestions i can give you. if you want to spoil yourself in the first page of this thread i have written a essay about the general history

i'll leave you with a reply from Gravinrad that will help you if you chose to simply pick whatever book you like

Gavinrad_sl said:

The majority of the discussion in this thread is about the Horus Heresy, which takes place 10k years before the 'present day' of the 40k setting. You can't really go wrong starting on that, the first book is 'Horus Rising'. As for the modern day stuff, as long as you avoid certain authors (Mainly CS Goto and Henry Zhou) you can't really go too wrong. Graham Macneill and Dan Abnett are generally the best authors 40k has, it's hard to find something bad that they've written. But yeah, don't read anything by CS Goto or Henry Zhou. I'd also avoid Gav Thorpe, while he was a major contributor to the overall setting itself, his books are pretty lousy.

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Just got done withBrotherhood of the Storm. I liked it, it didnt hit you over the head with the constant Horus Heresy stuff. I would have liked it more if it was longer but I think I read too fast. Nice to see them getting around to the other First Founding legions. Heres hoping for an awesome Iron hands book.

I hope the next book is about the Salamanders legion and Vulkan because they are turning out to be one of my favorite legions so far. The tome of fire trilogy was a good read and would love to know what happened to Vulkan after the heresy. The tragedies surrounding the heretic legions and their primarchs are great to read about because it doesn't just make them mindless bad guys but instead there is a vaild reason behind their actions.

Also the Night Lords trilogy is great. Especially loved Void Stalker.

Gavinrad_sl said:

As for Dan Abnett, he gets credit for kicking off the series and really sort of setting the tone going forward, but his contributions to the series have been pretty meh. Aside from Horus Rising, he wrote Legion, which I initially thought was good but now I sort of hate the way they write the Alpha Legion, Prospero Burns, which was interesting seeing all the info about the pre-Heresy space wolves but ultimately had almost nothing to do with the title of the book, and Know No Fear in which he managed to make one of the most important battles of the entire civil war be completely bland and actionless. Abnett is amazing for Gaunt's Ghosts, Eisenhorn, and Ravenor, his Heresy books have been less than stellar.

The three powerhouse books of the series so far (I'm behind and haven't read Angel Exterminatus or Betrayer yet) are definitely Fulgrim, A Thousand Sons, and The First Heretic, written by Graham McNeillx2 and Aaron Dembski-Bowden respectively. If Betrayer is anywhere near as good as The First Heretic, I'll definitely have to check out the Night Lords series. I also own Helsreach, his novel in the Space Marine Battles series, which was quite good.

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I have to say, my opinions are the complete opposite of yours. Taste is taste of course and Abnett is by far my favorite author in the series. McNeill's books I actively despise. I think, since they write so completely differently, it is a matter of if you prefer one you probably don't like the other as much.

Really, though, I find McNeil's books a complete chore and am usually bored to tears the entire way through; only reading them because I feel like I have to. His most egregious mistake being the entire timeline ofThe Outcast Deadis completely wrong, leaving me utterly baffled through the entire book. I kept re-reading old chapters thinking I missed something important. After I had finished the book, I looked it up online and confirmed that I wasn't crazy, it was just that he and apparently all of his editors had missed that the book completely jumbles events in the Heresy timeline to the point where the story makes no sense.

I personally thinkLegionwas the best book in the series closely followed byProspero Burns. I also LOVE theBlood Gamesshort story, and all three were written by Abnett. So, I guess what I am saying is, don't skip any, you might end up liking the authors other people don't.

I wasn't saying the Abnett books should be skipped, and yes, Blood Games is definitely my favorite of all the Heresy short stories, but the short stories are relatively unimportant.

I guess I just sort of have a thing for sort of self contained stories.

Also I find myself disliking lots of science fiction other people like for some reason. For example, I can't stand Peter Hamilton's books. I think I just might be really picky with my fiction or something.

I'm a big fan of anything to do with these books, whether its the space marines, the orks, or the chaos marines and even the guard. Really good books. Ragnars my favorite though, i like his style.

hmm....i had a discussion with a friend the other day about the visions Horus has during his corruptions. i have my books digged down somewhere in my basament so i could not check but....are those visions real ? or everything was a fabrication ? the emperor really did not do anything to stop the warprift from trowing away the primarchs ?

damn too much time is passed since i read them

fucker_sl said:

hmm....i had a discussion with a friend the other day about the visions Horus has during his corruptions. i have my books digged down somewhere in my basament so i could not check but....are those visions real ? or everything was a fabrication ? the emperor really did not do anything to stop the warprift from trowing away the primarchs ?

damn too much time is passed since i read them

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Real. He walked in on it happening. Weighed his options and chose to let it happen. Reasoning isn't explained but at that point the chaos gods haven't shrouded the future or whatever the fuck it is they do to make the smartest, future-seeingest person ever not realize his favorite freak baby is an emo faggot so it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Also time portals and shit. Because magic. Argel Tal fucked up the incubators, Horus cracked one too. It's kinda retarded to be honest. I think so far there are three sets of people/primarchs who have been there while it happened at this point? Rooms getting fucking crowded.

never connected the thing with the idea that the whole HH and the 10k years of fascist imperium was all a "just as planned" plan-thing of the emperor