Warhammer 40,000 Novels

I always thought that the writing/characters of Prospero Burns were of too high quality for Warhammer 40k. Really liked that book.

Fiance got me into 40K lore end of this summer. The Eisenhorn trilogy has been amazingly done so far (almost finished with Hereticus) and I can't wait to start Ravenor trilogy and Pariah. Every town I'm at, I go to an used books trying to look for Abnett's Gaunt's Ghost series, but I haven't been able to find them yet. I did listen to the abridged Martyn Ellis audiobooks of the first three Horus Heresy books, but after the third Ellis stopped doing them and they just aren't the same. Any recommendations on how to continue the heresy series? Since reading this thread it sounds like most of the authors are terrible. I plan on reading all the Abnett heresy books since my fiance has them, but is it worth it to get the other books or just read their plot summaries online?

I would at least try one book from each author then decide whose styles you like. I'm a bit of a book snob but still enjoy most books by Abnett, MacNeill, and Dembski-Bowden.

Just read Lucius: The Faultless Blade by Ian St Martin and enjoyed it overall. Has a lot of the heavy hitters from the 3rd legion if you're into Slaaneshy chaos types like me.

These books are definitely hit or miss. I enjoyed the hell out of Fulgrim though, I thought MacNeill did a great and entertaining job illustrating the III legion's descent into depravity. In fact I think he made their flip to Chaos more believable than any of the other chapters.

All the games workshop stuff can be hard to find outside of printed books or their own produced audio-books. I really wish they were on Kindle, but I usually end up buying them in paper to keep anyways. I'm still on the fence on some of the newer writers they seem to have. The first 3 books in the series are amazing and then there are some great ones in the middle, but alot of the books lately have been Ultramarines / Calth / Empire Secundus stuff and I find it pretty dry. I really liked Legion, The First Heretic, Nemesis, Prospero Burns and A Thousand Sons and Master of Mankind. Any of the short stories or books about Lorgar, Sevatar or Kharn are pretty well done as well.

There is a lot to choose from, but it seems you either read em all, or just pick the authors / legions you like and only read their stuff. I haven't gotten into the small single storey novellas because they are insanely expensive and usually released as part of a short stories book within a few years.

Wrath said:

Fiance got me into 40K lore end of this summer. The Eisenhorn trilogy has been amazingly done so far (almost finished with Hereticus) and I can't wait to start Ravenor trilogy and Pariah. Every town I'm at, I go to an used books trying to look for Abnett's Gaunt's Ghost series, but I haven't been able to find them yet. I did listen to the abridged Martyn Ellis audiobooks of the first three Horus Heresy books, but after the third Ellis stopped doing them and they just aren't the same. Any recommendations on how to continue the heresy series? Since reading this thread it sounds like most of the authors are terrible. I plan on reading all the Abnett heresy books since my fiance has them, but is it worth it to get the other books or just read their plot summaries online?

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Ciaphus Cain is my favorite
Gaunts Ghosts, then
Eisenhorn,

Everything else is muddy to bad.
The only one that's been throw away garbage though is Soul Drinkers

I've read less than a dozen, counting omnibuses as one, not three

I do enjoy the Cain novels, though they tend to be counter to what GW believes their universe to be (not entirely MF GRIMDARK). Unfortunately Sandy Mitchell (aka Alex Stewart) was "fired" from Black Library for who knows what, so no more canon Cain novels.

In regards to Abnett. I just read The Warmaster. I have to say I was majorly disappointed. I won' t spoil it here other than to say that this seems to be a rather "safe" cop-out to possibly end the series. I understand that DA has a ton of other projects that pay better than Black Library stuff, but I was not expecting Warmaster to be what it was.

The only one that's been throw away garbage though is Soul Drinkers

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Did you read the first Dark Angels book? That was the one that made me start just skipping forward to whatever looked interesting, holy crap it was bad.

On that note - anyone read the Magnus book in the new Primarch series they're doing? I'm a definite Magnus fan, but it's only 200 pages or so and was going for $30, which seems a bit much. Having trouble digging it up on the usual sources, wondering if it's worth the effort either way.

Azrayne said:

Did you read the first Dark Angels book? That was the one that made me start just skipping forward to whatever looked interesting, holy crap it was bad.

On that note - anyone read the Magnus book in the new Primarch series they're doing? I'm a definite Magnus fan, but it's only 200 pages or so and was going for $30, which seems a bit much. Having trouble digging it up on the usual sources, wondering if it's worth the effort either way.

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Magnus the Red by Graham McNeill (.ePUB) | Mobilism

If you're able to find Ghost Warrior: Rise of the Ynnari, let me know, been looking for an ebook for ages.

ilubro nohomo

Will definitely keep an eye out. Lost all my 40k ebooks to a harddrive failure, so I've been trying to stock back up.

Edit: Damn, that was actually pretty good. Definitely a cut above the other HH reading I've done. It does a much better job at portraying pre-Heresy Imperium and giving it it's own tangible flavor compared to the early HH books, and there's cool insight into the early Crusade and pre-Unification background stuff. More to the point, I really liked their characterization of Magnus and his interactions with Perturabo (who, of all people, they actually managed to make relatable), and the fact that the focus was shifted away from some big military drama to a humanitarian effort which then takes a typical 40k twist is a nice change of pace. Some of the foreshadowing was maybe a bit much, but it was still a great read.

Just read Warmaster. I haven't been reading a lot of the novels the last few years because a lot of them are pretty poorly written, but I'm an Abnett fanboy so I always keep up with those. I enjoyed it quite a lot. Without any spoilers I can definitely see how he's getting ready to wrap up the series within another book or two if he wants to, but after 14 books I can see why he'd want to wind it down. I just hope he keeps writing for BL, because he's one of the best writers they have, and I've never read one of his books that I didn't enjoy.

Abnett is coming out with a new Eisenhorn book on March 6th called The Magos- https://www.amazon.com/Magos-Eisenhorn-Dan-Abnett/dp/1784967025

So he's just pretending he never even started the Pariah trilogy?

Screamfeeder said:

That's the 13th Black Crusade. You have a few. Soul Hunter, Grey Knights Omnibus, Ciphas Cain books and a few others dealing with parts of it. If you are looking for the most recent stuff about the timeline, I believe the Gathering Storm stuff is most recent. Pretty sure the canon year is still around 000.M42 (Ciphas Cain books might allude beyond it but I can't remember.

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The Soul Hunter Night Lords trilogy are great if you want to read some non-HH stuff.

Found a Barnes and Nobles so got The Magos and Legacy of Caliban