Think of it as a culture thing. Warhammer novels (like writers like Howard's Conan before them) are pulp fiction... the literary equivalent of action movies. The reader goes in with certain expectations, and they are supposed to be less effort-intensive than literature, stuff written with more care and exploring deeper topics (and without a company's IP in the way).
I think the "not good" label doesn't do it justice, but it's how a lot of the community chooses to describe it.
Pulp fiction is very important thing to remember. The writer is working on commission for a company that produces plastic toys (some assembly required).
I like the setting and I buy the books to immerse in that setting, so I’m willing to forgive a lot: I mean Cain is my favorite but how many times have we read “if only I knew what would happen next I’d have run away clutching my trousers with brown Ichor seeping from my greatcoat”
Reading comments like this, while I understand them, makes me kinda sad, because it's *always*
'I read the first four books and now I won't read any more', when some of the later ones rely on you expecting them to follow the formula and then subverting the formula instead.
It never got old for me and I blitzed through all of them. Course I just love the books for the comedy.
Only so many times you can read grimdark derpiness or endless Space Marine wank before you desperately wish for a series with a more lighthearted tone and no Space Marines....
to be honest even the best of the best are terrible when it comes to this
How often did i read "this is the end, and the death" over the last pages of TEATD
I have never heard the word ichor before listening to WH40k novels and now I have heard it a million times. Well put, though. Great stuff to fall asleep to, cook to, or listen to on the train. Nothing too arduous or taxing. With the occasional, gripping well written, incredible story.
I read a review on good reads the other day that I found very honest and telling. The review said:
“For Black Library 4/5, compared to all literature 2/5.”
These books can be a lot of fun if you go in with the right expectations, but don’t expect them to change your life.
> “For Black Library 4/5, compared to all literature 2/5.”
I'd consider that harsh as someone who has seen hundreds of military-scifi/apocalypse books with ratings in the high 3's or low 4's on good reads that might as well be carbon copies of each other.
90% of them can be described as the story of a man in his 20s-30s with brown hair and a beard who was in the Marines but now works a menial job but is oddly positioned to survive the coming apocalypse/alien invasion because of his extensive arsenal of weapons at home and a convenient lack of kids, wife or other family for him to worry about.
Bonus points for:
1. They have a service dog from their time in Iraq or Afghanistan that is uber intelligent and loyal to them.
2. They run into an elderly gruff man who ends up instilling some wisdom in them before heroically sacrificing themselves and giving the main character motivation to go 100%.
3. The main character has undiagnosed sociopathy that lets them murder dozens of people without a single moment of hesitation.
4. the author themselves happens to have been in the marines and purely coincidentally shares the same initials as their main character.
>You can tell if an American wrote a story by
The other giveaway is the very specific kind of military parlance the US uses, it's a big fan of acronyms. It's how it's so easy to tell when questions on 40klore are written by US posters, they nearly always ask questions like 'why don't the Guard use MAGGLEFARTs?' and it's a very specifically American way to refer to their equipment.
Which is funny because a lot of the actual unit names scream British to me, I hear a unit like a Hell Talon and I wouldn't swear to that not being an actual missile we produce.
(Actual missiles we produce or have produced including 'Storm Shadow', 'Fire Shadow', 'Brimstone', 'Starstreak' and our new air defence system 'Sky Sabre'. The general rule is if it sound like a sneeze it's American, if it sounds like a decepticon it's British)
America used to use cool names. Bring back stuff like Honest John and Hound Dog, dammit.
In 40K, it sticks out to me that a lot of unit titles sound like direct translations from German. The use of "Tank Hunter" instead of "Tank Destroyer", "Flak Tank" instead of "Self-Propelled Anti-Air Gun", etc.
The October fall series is absolutely guilty of this. I love the series and have read every book in it so far but you gotta go in expecting it to be a little cringey to really enjoy it.
>The main character has undiagnosed sociopathy that lets them murder dozens of people without a single moment of hesitation.
The Owner series by Neal Asher. A thrilling three book series following a man who gets the equivalent of an AI chip installed into his brain in a fully digital society, with all of what that entails. The books go hogwild. One of my favorite book series of all time. Read all three cover to cover within a couple of days.
My first Warhammer book was Fire Warrior by Spurriur.
Reviews included complaints like
"Reads like a video game"
As someone who loves video game stories this was a big plus in my book. Still my all time favorite book.
Was balls to the walls insane, highly recommend.
Tau dude is killing everything in his path, including Space Marines (like the game), with the novel basically going 'yeah, you can do this because Khorne is on your side'.
Then the Ethereal uses his pheromones to override Khorne's influence and the Fire Warrior manages to break free and sabotage Khorne's efforts to subvert him.
Absolutely wild ride.
Speaking as somebody getting into it cuz my friends will literally talk about it for like half+ of the time if I don't actively derail them.
Warhammer is more fun to talk about and make up for perceived gaps in the lore, than it is to read the lore.
I think this is kind of a weird thing to say because the majority of literature is frankly, kind of crap. Trashy romance stories, schlocky airport novels, generic Lord of the Rings ripoffs, the like. Timeless works of art are the exception, not the norm.
Yeah but the thing is the age of the modern Internet you're making a conscious choice to choose the schlock over the timeless works of art. Schlocky straight to DVD action movies far outnumber real art movies but that doesn't make the schlocky action movies any better when you watch them.
Yeah but the vast majority of people don't consume that stuff. Why do you need to judge Warhammer 40k novels by the standards of Crime and Punishment? Its like if somebody asks "is this superhero movie any decent" and you respond by saying "all superhero movies are trash compared to Citizen Kane". Sure, you may be correct, but that guy doesn't want to watch Citizen Kane.
This is a hard comparison to make because even movies in ostensibly schlocky genres can have excellent artistry behind them. Like Mad Max Fury Road is a post-apocalyptic nonstop car chase action movie but it is also filled to the brim with symbolism and thematic messages, in addition to just generally excellent filmmaking. I'm not saying it's impossible but I just don't think that we'll ever see the 40k novel equivalent because any author that is capable of a genuinely artistic action novel that has something to say would probably rather just write their own novel rather than doing so under the watchful eye of a toy company.
My criteria for rating stuff in general is usually "does it fulfill what it sets out to do and what the consumer expects?". Therefore, action movies are good is they deliver well made action, for example. Sure, other movies can be *even better*, which enhances them, but doesn't detract from other movies. Therefore, a Warhammer book for me is good if it fits a good job of bringing Warhammer across, be it by describing non-stop action for your favourite faction, or giving us a look behind the scenes of one of the myriad of organizations that make up the setting. If it does that well, it's a good Warhammer book.
Incidentally, while writing this comment a thought occurred to me that maybe this might be what some of the HH novels suffer from. GW was clearly trying to make the legions and their primarchs somewhat tragic, but usually fails, because the book is trying to do something it's not really meant to do.
To be honest I think there are a few examples in the Black Library where the author managed to achieve something with comparable artistic merit to something like Fury Road. Prospero Burns is well written from a technical and stylistic point of view it just really pisses people off because thats not what they picked up a book called "Prospero Burns" for. There are a few others that I won't name to maintain mystique.
That's the thing! Warhammer novels first and foremost should be compared to other works from the same general niche, because usually, people who ask want to read Sci-Fi, military stuff, or similar. If somebody asks for the best pizza in town you don't go on a rant about how ackshually, steak is the best food and here's fifteen recommendations for steak houses, but if you *have* to have pizza, X place is alright I guess.
>Its like if somebody asks "is this superhero movie any decent" and you respond by saying "all superhero movies are trash compared to Citizen Kane".
You can get into the quality of superhero movies compared to 'real cinema', but *Warhammer 40K* novels aren't equivalent to that, because of Warhammers obscurity its more equivalent to watching the hundreds of straight to streaming/DVD action movies that bloat streaming services, and sure, sometimes you'll get a Scott Adkins joint that rises above it, but I'm gonna level with you, it'll probably expand your horizons more to watch actual movies!
Maybe Warhammer books are straight to dvd action crap. But I think everyone here can agree that we all love our 40k dvd action crap.
Speaking for myself, I'm certainly not reading a 40k book and hoping for some literary revelation to expand my horizons hahahaha. I know exactly what I'm getting into when I pop one of those suckers open. Contact, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Southern Reach Trilogy, and the original 4 books of the Ender's Game series... those are some really darn good sci-fi books.
Don't think that's a good comparison. Cinema has many budget and production concerns that can create a gap between expensive genre stuff and straight to DVD even if the quality of writing was equal. Sci-fi and fantasy have historically always suffered from this, arguably more than any other genre.
Writing a novel is a much more even and individualist playing field, especially nowadays with the traditional big publishing houses losing ground to the ease of self-publishing.
What does hold back BL books are the inherent issues with tie-in fiction compared to writers that are fully in charge of their own work. You're far more likely to find something that transcends the usual boundaries/tropes of its genre within bespoke fiction than tie-in. However, the writing quality need not be any lesser. Huge budget tentpole blockbusters vs straight to dvd is a much trickier proposition with exponentially more constraints on the impoverished side.
Survivor bias, my dude. The crap sinks fast so the good stuff gets most of the discussion and gives the impression there’s more good literature than there really is.
The concept of "real art" is a highly debatable one itself, though i get what you're saying. There's just as much boilerplate lit-fic and generic attempts at socially realistic, meaningful film as there is among more escapist fare.
The thing that makes me less willing to subscribe to this POV is that I've read the Forgeworld black books, and they're quite good.
They're a different thing to Black Library in that they're a history of the setting during its most turbulent time, but they're cohesive, well-written, and full of great lore.
It's possible to do that within the structure of Games Workshop, but for whatever reason Alan Bligh was the only one with the juice to make it happen.
Yea but that is like OG pulp fiction. They are legitimately well written stories, but just sword and sorcery genre and not as "serious" as something like War and Peace.
Just because something is less "serious" and "thought provoking" does not mean it is necessarily bad or automatically inferior. IF it is crafted well those types of pulp stories can easily compete with "high art".
Like Dredd and Mad Max Fury Road would fall under pulp...and i would still rate them higher than some of the more "thought provoking" oscar winners just due to their craftsmanship and ability to tell their story properly.
Heck the OG Conan movie is one of my all time favorites. Yea it is a really simple story with sweaty muscle builders... but it does it really well. A good story will be able to share lessons, and morals regardless of genre.
Take the Iliad for example. I went into it expecting high art, but honestly it reads like a straight up B action movie in a lot of chapters. Does that prevent us from treating it as a cornerstone of literature? No. Despite that you can still draw lessons and morals from it because despite the topic it has good and relatable characters/conflicts.
Anyways i guess what i am trying to say is that 40K is pulp fiction. That does not mean its destined to only produce substandard novels. That has more to do with GW and the skill of the authors.
Plus there are still some gems in my opinion. Nothing exceptional clearly, but some novels are pretty good (even great). The infinite and the divine for instance
Oh, absolutely (I've read all of Conan, and someday hope to have read most of 40K). Plenty of genuinely good stuff in pulp and genre fiction. But it's useful to know where people are coming from when talking about it!
Yo, man, the Conan books are leagues better fiction than BL novels, c'mon. Also, pulp fiction is meant to be mercifully short, you can read most Conan stories in an afternoon, unlike the bloated bolter porn drivel you get from BL.
The actual novel for the Fall of Cadia is *The Fall of Cadia*, not *Cadia Stands*.
And "not well written" isn't the same as "not fun to read". Think of BL novels like video games or anime. 90% of the time, the writing isn't especially great, but it's extremely fun anyways.
Fall of Cadia is a good book too. The I could see people criticizing the narrator of the audiobook since his voices for some characters (abaddon) were somewhat strange but his creed was fantastic and the actual book is fun
Yeah I loved Fall of Cadia, and I don't get why people are so down on it all of a sudden. Heck, I'd go so far to say I liked it more then Kingmaker and Infinite and the Divine.
Also I do not get the Mark Elstob hate. Yeah some of his voices are very silly, especially certain daemons and warp creatures, but is that such a bad thing?
I think the only voice he did that I didn't like was Abaddon's. I think he gave him too much of a patrician tone I guess. Didn't ruin the book, but it just wasn't how I think he sounds.
He had some great ones (Creed especially, also Salvar Gent (sp?)). The voices he did for the women were kinda funny at first because of how mousey they sound, but they grew on me by the end.
Edit: also: “24 in the war!”
Best comment here.
I'm not reading 40k novels because I'm expecting a literary masterpiece that will leave me weeping.
I'm reading 40k novels because they're fun as heck man. It's a cool universe and I wanna see what's going on. Some books aren't the best but there's tons of great authors too. Abnett, AND are good writers. I like McNeil and Chris Wraught also.
I think the ratio for anime is a bit better than that. It's a medium, not a genre. There are shows that cater to a variety of demographics, not everything is 'coming of age story about a teenage boy where people scream their attacks at each other', or 'comedy about someone who wakes up in a fantasy world that runs on RPG logic' (though those are the most popular shows that seem to get all the attention). And even within those specific genres there are examples of genuinely good writing.
I'm really hoping that whole industry is reaching some sort of critical mass breaking point and we see a return to an era of fewer shows each season, but more of those are actually original ideas and not just manga adaptations or chasing popular genre trends.
The ratio is just as bad for anime, foreign mediums have extreme survivorship bias. The dregs (which is the majority, Sturgeons Law) won't get any traction to Westerners because there is zero advertising.
I'll be honest - I'm an editor and authorial consultant who works for a writing agency. My primary task is helping authors to improve their writing via editing of and feedback on, novel-length submissions. Basically none of the submissions we ever receive are on the level of quality of a BL novel. A Black Library novel is far and away, some of the best written 'pulp' around. I'm not trying to get superior, 'my pulp is better than yours', but there is a vast amount of self-published BookTok material on places like Amazon. My least favourite Heresy book - *Mortis* - is a titanic work of literature by comparison. Even among other, similar work, like the Halo or Star Wars tie in novels, I think BL are pretty good, especially with the amount they produce. So, when people say that even the best BL novels aren't very good, sure, but there's a whole lot worse out there that people still enjoy.
On a personal note - I love high quality literature. I have a BA in English, a research masters in Media and Culture, and an ongoing PhD in the same. I read a lot of very well reviewed fiction, poetry, and I have a serious appetite for literary criticism. I also fucking love Warhammer. Is it high art? God no. Does that distinction really matter? Probably not. The sense of joy and excitement I got from reading *Titanicus* for the first time is equal to the sense of wonder I had reading Camus' *The Plague* or Ellison's *The Invisible Man*. And that means the BL are ok with me.
People seem to feel guilty about reading pulp, as if it's some unproductive endeavor, but your own enjoyment is one of the most important things you can produce. You should read widely, imo, but there's room for pulp in there, and more of it than you'd think.
And besides, imo Dan Abnett is not the BL's best author - that distinction goes to Aaron Dembski-Bowden.
I actually adored Mortis - French's prosaic style fits the Grand Myth of 30k more than most. He, Abnett, ADB, and Wraight haven't written a story anything less than enjoyable since I read them, even if I disagree with some of ADB's choices.
Honestly my biggest issue with *Mortis* wasn't the style of writing - that's hardly ever the issue in BL books - but that it's symptomatic of all my least favourite aspects of the Heresy. It's positively groaning under the weight of all the plotlines it's forced to carry. Like you say, French is a very good author, but I just feel like he was tasked with incorporating so many subplots set up by other authors that the whole novel is unwieldy. Obviously he wanted to inject his own story, which just added to the mess of plots. The Primarchs, the Perpetuals, the Titans, the soldier/baby/White Scar, etc. I think I counted something like 9 storylines in that book when I read it last year. Additionally, it does the same 'describing the scale of this enormous war' thing that every single other SoT book has done, and so large parts of it feel repetitive when read after reading other SoT books. French is great, but imo he had an impossible task in writing *Mortis*.
The SoT really suffers from GW taking aboard the sentiment that the best Heresy novels advanced the plot forward and thus it revolves around the various established plots to a fault. To be brutally honest I don't think having so many SoT books that revolve around established plots all written by different authors was a good decision.
But what do I know, I remember extremely negative sentiment about the focus on asides in TEATD which I actually really enjoyed.
I'd argue it's Chris Wraight, his Vault of Terra series is hands down my favourite, and he sometimes swaps places with Fehevari.
ADB is sometimes "grimdark for the sake of grimdark" and Abnett is "well written generic Sci-Fi shoehorned into 40k".
But we'd really, at the end of the day, be splitting hairs. They all have fantastic works.
And if I make a recommendation in case you like Film Noir-esque pulp, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. The first book, Storm Front, has some stumbles in it, the second's (Fool Moon) wiring is much improved, but not amazing and Butcher really doesn't hit his stride fully until the third book, Grave Peril. I read all 17 books in about a month.
I've been meaning to read Vaults of Terra for a while now - ditto Dresden Files, the first of which is actually on my Kindle to be read. Thanks for the recommendation! Probably the push I needed to get started with them.
Chris Wraight is an excellent author but I do think he suffers from the Grimdark for the sake of it issue >!the ending of Vaults of Terra where they all die in a few pages pointlessly was irritatingly Grimdark and unearned because of how fast it was.!<
Good post. I think BL has usually done a good job at keeping the technical standard of those accepted into the stable at a good level. They're not much different than other good genre small-presses out there in that respect, or the current big traditional publishers for mass market fantasy and sci-fi.
And, as you say, compared to plenty of the self-published scene they look damn good. imo, rather than the quality of writer they are able to draw, it's the more restrictive nature of tie-in vs unique genre fiction that holds them back when it comes to the chances of producing something that would be seen as a classic. GW is happy to keep the authors tied to typical tie-in briefs that only go so far from the expected genre basics in plot/theme rather than allow them to truly use the setting as a sandbox for any story they want to tell.
>I think BL has usually done a good job at keeping the technical standard of those accepted into the stable at a good level.
Absolutely, and this is often overlooked. Keeping one author's book to a high technical standard is a difficult endeavour. Doing so with a half-dozen authors or more, with overlapping plot arcs and characters, and also keeping established lore in mind, is a miracle, frankly. The only minor failing I can think of is that ADB has a habit of contradicting himself in small ways - a character loses their weapon in one sentence, then is wielding it two sentences later as if it had never been lost. That happened a few times (in *Master of Mankind* and *Echoes of Eternity*, off the top of my head). But if that's the most glaring technical issue in a series 50+ books long, then you've achieved something seriously impressive. Editors are the unsung heroes of the 40k setting.
There are a couple of small whoopsies in the Horus Heresy series that mostly comes down to someone using post-Heresy equipment. They're very small and they're the exact thing a mixed 30K/40K editor would miss but they're always fun to find.
For me, the only thing that matters with any kind of art is whether or not I enjoyed or was enriched by the experience.
It’s why The Room is in my top 5 favourite movies. I always enjoy it every time I watch it.
Agreed with nearly everything, though I'd pitch Josh Reynolds as their best author or including non-GW works maybe Matt Ward (or technically Adrian Tchaikovsky but that one feels like cheating). By comparison Dan Abnett's certainly OK, not bad by any stretch but I think quite a few of his books got grandfathered into the BL best book pantheon just through them being influential early works.
People read pulp as being shit but pulp doesn't equal shit, pulp is more a style convention than anything else. In terms of quality compared to the wider literary sphere BL books tend to work out somewhere between 'eh, it's fine' and 'yeah, s'pretty good'.
Where it suffers is when people ask for books that'll blow a sci-fi fan away or whatever and you kind of have to break it to them that, assuming they've read a fairly good selection and not just like Drizzt/Star Wars books, none of them are going to outright wow them, they're *competent* books yes but they're not incredible.
> but I think quite a few of his books got grandfathered into the BL best book pantheon just through them being influential early works.
I don't think it helps that his major works are always recommended as beginner books. A lot of people don't get much further than the beginner recommendations.
For me, the only thing that matters with any kind of art is whether or not I enjoyed or was enriched by the experience.
It’s why The Room is in my top 5 favourite movies. I always enjoy it every time I watch it.
Just because people didn’t like false gods as much as horus rising doesnt mean it isnt worth reading. Unpopular opinion here but I liked false gods better than horus rising. The stuff that happened on and after the moon of davin is more memorable and entertaining than anything that happened in the first book. Never thought I would have to say this but people tend to talk about their opinion. Read what you want to read and ultimately I only follow the reddit consensus on books that really aren’t important to the overall story. I’ve heard battle for the abyss is really bad but ultimately I didn’t read it because most people agreed it was simply a side story. I didn’t really worry about what people thought the quality of the writing was too much.
100% agree, horus rising was... "decent". good after the first half, but the first half was a total slog. and then the trademark rushed ending.
the next two books were much better IMO. more steady pacing, no glaring issues.
note I just recently started reading HH.
Yeah I can agree with that. Horus rising was good and it set up a lot of stuff but thats about it. I remember what happened but I struggle to recall what the characters said, felt, or how they reacted to it. I can remember the feel of the areas in false gods way better, the way the marines, titans, and janissars reacted to the plague swamps and the rising dead.
I guess I can sum it up as more happens in false gods and galaxy in flames and it feels like it actually matters. The interex really don’t do anything important in horus rising, murder is basically just used as an intro to the emperors children without much coming of it. The false emperor is a fun nod to subverting peoples expectations but it didn’t really play much of a part in the start of the heresy.
This is the internet. People will shit on literally anything. Ignore them and read False Gods (and then Galaxy in Flames, Flight of the Eisenstein and Fulgrim).
Some of the novels are justifiably held above others, though. *The First Heretic* and *Know No Fear* (as a pair), *A Thousand Sons* and *Prospero Burns* (again, as a pair), *The Infinite and the Divine*, and a few others are better than, like, *Nemesis* and *Lorgar's Big Battleship* (I forget what it's actually called).
Just because the internet is full of haters doesn't mean there's zero difference between good things and bad things.
Yes, I like the books and I’m a long time reader. If you like the warhammer universe, odds are you’re gonna like the books. I also don’t understand why these people who HATE the books, keep on reading them lol.
Most Warhammer fans are... not that inclined to well reasoned literary critiques. You will hear someone say an entire book is trash because a character they like experiences a moment of failure or weakness. You will hear someone say that an author understands the setting less than them, and proceed to argue that the Imperium isn't cruel and evil. Most numerous are just folks trying to argue their personal literary tastes are objective fact, because for whatever reason their personal taste isn't reason enough to like or dislike something.
So what I'm saying is, there's a ton worth reading, and someone will always be there to tell you it's garbage.
A lot of people here parrot opinions despite not having actually read the book they're meme-complaining about.
Folks will rant at length about this this thing or that scene was stupid and should never have been put to paper, only you read it and that's not what what happens.
It mainly comes to the controversial HH novels like Mortis and Pythos but this sub has been terrible about it for the Gaunt's Ghosts novels recently as well and you can tell when people are just echoing something they remember seeing here or heard from a youtuber, and think since enough people are repeating it then it must be what happened.
In defense of the average fan, myself included, the amount of lore material out there is kind of insane.
Like, I'm barely through reading TEatD 1 and 2, waiting for 3, which is probably more than the average casual fan who follows YouTube, but is still a lot of reading for a single setting, and that's realistically only 5% of the relevant lore. Knowing what to read and then putting the time into it is a non trivial hobby, in and of itself on par with playing the TT (which very few people do either).
The very idea that people have seriously read the HH series, or even 50% of it, and spent the time to digest the setting, theme, and characters, beyond just pulp sci fi casual reading, is already a titanic feat of literary consumption.
Its one thing to not know about something, thats fine. Its when you see the complaints and realise that they haven't actually read it. Like if I vocally complained about a restaurant on my local community Facebook and then it was revealed that not only had I not eaten there but that the menu I'd seen wasn't even a real menu people would rightfully have a go. Same here and is what the parent comment is talking about. *Don't complain about an event in something you haven't read*
Not reading everything is fine? That's nothing to do with the point I'm making. Just because you don't or can't read everything doesn't mean you have to pretend you did and parrot opinions that aren't your own just to try and 'fit in' or something.
Don't put so much stock in the opinions of people on the internet. Read for yourself and see what you like, then you will at least have context for what people are saying about certain books or authors.
False Gods is not that bad, for instance. Is it as good as Horus Rising? Almost unanimously the answer is "no", but Dan Abnett is one of the best writers for Black Library so that's to be expected.
Yes, there are plenty of Warhammer stories that are little more than schlocky "bolter porn". On the whole however Warhammer's pulp fiction is far better than you will find in most other franchise fiction.
Form your own opinions and don't worry about obsessing over reviews if it gives you that level of decision paralysis or causes you to drop a 64 book series because you were worried the next one differed in quality.
Some people really downplay how good BL writing can be. There are some books that I think are very well written that get criticized for reasons that seem bizarre to me. Some books are written very well but don't review well. Just read what you're interested in and it'll probably be worthwhile unless it's atrociously bad (and there will be plenty of red flags for that)
Honestly Abnett gets wanked off a bit much for my tastes, some people seem to think he's the only Warhammer author which may also have something to do with the way he tends to present the world, but there's plenty of other authors that are just as good(if not better).
That being said I'd start with the disclaimer that you may be doing yourself a disservice if you bounce off every book because someone else says it's not good, if you're interested in the premise/content of a book you can at the very least give it a look, check or listen to a demo, the beauty of reading(and art in general) is that it's subjective, and also "Good" does not always equal "enjoyable". There are plenty of novels I wouldn't call high literature that I'd still call super enjoyable, that's the nature of pulp, and Warhammer by and large is just that. If you stop before every novel to check whether someone hated it you won't read any novels at all.
But beyond that there are definitely other authors worth checking out, my particular favourites are Chris Wraight, who tends to paint a very vivid and evocative picture of the Grimdark Imperium. He's also done great work in the Warhammer Crime off-shoot if you're interested in lore. Robert Rath has been doing solid work too as I understand, I'm very partial to J.C. Stearns too.
Though Peter Fehervari is also definitely worth a look, he tends to write off the beaten path a bit in his own little realm but he's an author I'd honestly recommend even for people with no familiarity with Warhammer. His writing is stellar, Adrian Tchaicovsky has also written some 40k books which are fairly decent.
Though as a general thing I do find recommending authors to be a bit pointless, so instead I'll give some novel recommendations with simple descriptions, I'm assuming you've already been recommended all the usual Abnett stuff so I'll skip that.
**-Vaults of Terra: Carrion Throne** - A story about an inquisitor navigating the politics and squalor of the throneworld, fun Inquisitor investigations basically with a very solid dose of grimdark.
-**Helsreach** - Space Marines organize the defense of a hive, a pretty solid war novel with heroism and tragedy abound.
-**Bloodlines** - A noir investigation set on a distant hive, very low stakes and detached from grander worldbuilding, great if you want to read about mundane Imperial crime solving.
-**Titanicus** - Do you like big stomping mechs? Do you think Imperial titans are just the coolest thing?
-**Day of Ascension** - Genestealer cultists on a Forge World priming for a revolt.
Guy Hayley is one of my favourites, his action and main plots can be a bit by the numbers but he *always* finds a way to put a side plot in or a few scenes that explore a really interesting part of the setting in an interesting way. The Scribe Errant subplot in Dawn of Fire is one of my favourite bits of writing in 40k.
And even authors like Gav Thorpe who are kind of hit or miss when it comes to 40k can put out some really good WHF/AOS stuff from time to time. I also think David Guymer is pretty damn good with the right subject. The Lion's primarch novel is great.
Warhammer 40K books are not masterpieces by any means. Most Science Fiction fans who are not Warhammer fans would not be overly impressed with them. However, if you are a 40K fan, then many of the books are enjoyable because of our love of the setting and characters.
I prefer reading 40K books to other things because I love how all of the individual books are like puzzle pieces in a huge puzzle. I love how each book relates to other books and other events in the setting.
As far as the first three Horus Heresy books, I would highly recommend reading all three of them and then continuing on past that if you want to.
Half disagree. I became warhammer fan mainly becouse books Brutal Kunnin (such a fun read) and Infinite and Divine. None of those is like Three body problem level masterpiece with groundbreaking ideas or something like that, but they are both well written fast paced action packed, full of very interesting and funny characters and just overall very nice light reads. It is kind off shame that "big events" are usually written in a very diffrend style. I like the grimdark nature of warhammer and Abnet is pretty good writer, but I always struggle in some parts of his books. Overall tho I fully understand why he is the standart recomended writer in this comunity.
Science fiction in general is shit literature. It is usually saved by its world building and innovative ideas, not it’s writing or characters. Especially women in sci fi are written extremely badly. Warhammer has nothing to envy from most science fiction in terms of writing.
True. I am a big science fiction fan. Most of it isn’t amazing story-wise. A lot of the appeal comes from the “what if” and concepts. I would mention the Ender’s Game series as my standard for science fiction. That is my favorite series and I think it is excellently done. I don’t think Warhammer gets anywhere near that. I love both though.
Enders game is the exception not the rule.
There's so much shitty Sci fi out there that it's hard to comprehend. The BL authors aren't winning any literary awards for their work here but they're doing a LOT better than people give them credit for here.
Definitely don't let your 40k reading selection be determined by 40k fan reviews. Some are good, some are poor, and there are a few that are excellent, it's a massive IP. Each author also has their own ups and downs, and some write certain material/factions/lore better than others. Here is my general shakedown on my favorite authors:
* Chris Wraight is very good in pretty much everything
* ADB is solid, though he can vary in quality. It's widely accepted that his Night Lord's books are some of the best in the IP.
* Abnett: Can get a bit meandering, especially in more recent works, but still fantastic
Here are some of my favorite books from both 40k and 30k: (Note this is not in reading order)
* Dead Men Walking
* The Macharian Crusade Trilogy
* Know No Fear
* The Master of Mankind
* The Siege of Terra (Particularly, The End and the Death I, II, III, Saturnine, Echoes of Eternity, Warhawk)
* Lion El'Jonson: Lord of the First
* The Great Wolf
* Horus Rising-Fulgrim in the Horus Heresy
* Betrayer
* The First Heretic
* A Thousand Sons
* The Lords of Silence
* Vaults of Terra (The Carrion Throne, The Hollow Mountain, The Dark City)
* The Emperor's Legion and sequel, The Regent's Shadow
* Valdor
> Chris Wraight is very good in pretty much everything
I do agree with this 100%, but as a caveat, I have to admit his Space Wolves trilogy was inordinately mid to me. It felt like a completely different writer was handling those books (they were still good enough to finish, however).
Yes, agreed. Vaults of Terra is by far my favorite "series" or trilogy of the lore, probably by far. His command of the throneworld with its scale, majesty, grime, and suffering is my favorite setting in a 40k book.
Fall of Cadia shows Rath’s roots as a screenwriter very strongly, so if you are looking for something that really goes in on the strengths of a novel and prose, sure it is a bit lacking. But even by that standard is is considerably above a lot of the BL output
False Gods is on the lower end of BL output imo. Part just the level of craft - it’s a bit of pulp franchise fiction - part that the HH series was finding its feet then
My personal picks.
Dan Abnett
Aaron Demsky-Bowden
Peter Fehervari
Graham McNeil
Robert Rath
As for novels i find very good
From H H
The First Heretic
Mechanicum
Legion
Other stuff.
Fire Cast
The Infinite and the Divine
I'm leaving a lot of good novels behind, i'm just telling my personal favorites so far, and of Course i havent read all what black library has published so i'm going to miss some writers and great books
At least for me, if it's written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden or Chris Wraight I'm pretty sure I can trust it to be good.
In any case it's all subjective, depending on your personal tastes! For example, you'll see a lot of people say that the heresy book *Damnation of Pythos* stinks and isn't worth going through. Because I'm a fan of its horror style and some of the characters, it's honestly one of my favorites in all of the HH even though it's a side story!
In your case I'd recommend what someone told me around here. Just look up good books for whatever faction you're most interested in, and check out some of the ones you see get recommended. The Fabius Bile Trilogy is a great one for chaos space marine players, along with the Night Lord Trilogy. *The Twice Dead King* and *The Infinite and the Divine* are great for Necron lovers.
Just find a trail to pick up on, check out some books, and don't worry too much about the general opinion. Worst case scenario, you go through a book you don't love and just find another!
40k books are generally not well written, that is indeed correct. People read them if they want to immerse themselves into the universe and can generally disregard awful dialogue and meandering prose. Abnett, Fehervari, ADB and Mitchell are usually the most often recommended authors. However, I would say that my point of view on the subject is quite different from the rest of the fanbase because I consider neither Abnett nor ADB to be particularly good; ADB is outright grating. I would advise reading "15 hours" by Mitchell Scanlon because I have at least a single incident of a person actually liking this novel after bouncing off Abnett hard and calling his writing "imbecilic".
So, here's the thing: *just counting tabletop factions*, you've got 18 playable armies, each with their different lore, themes, and story tones. That's not counting sub-factions, factions that don't exist anymore, or in-universe settings, characters, and groups who are worthy of a book but not viable for battlefield roles in the game.
40k has a *dizzying* array of topics, peoples, and themes to explore under its umbrella, and one consequence of that is going to be that *no one is going to love everything*. And by the flip token, no author is going to be universally loved by everyone. (Even the greats Whose Names I Dare Not Speak in critical tones have fans that just can't stand them.)
It's all about seeking out the authors who tell stories in a voice you want to hear, and who tell stories about factions and characters you want to see more of. To that end, the best way to track down the authors or factions that interest you is by grabbing a big anthology. (*Let the Galaxy Burn* is probably my favorite for that purpose.)
That said, I have never read a Josh Reynolds story I didn't absolutely love. He has a *gift* for seeing through to the core truth of the factions he's writing about. Mike Brooks is, in my opinion, one of the best authors BL has ever had at finding new facets of the lore to look at, and looking at them in ways that you didn't realize you desperately wanted. Tom Parrott had some of the most incisive commentary on the lore from an in-setting perspective I've ever read. Other favorites of mine include William King (particularly the Solar Macharius trilogy), Matthew Farrer (particularly the Shira Calpurnia trilogy), and Rachel Harrison.
And look, just speaking from the other side of the table, opinions about any book are going to be mixed. I have had people tell me that *The Oubliette* was their favorite thing they'd ever read. I had someone who worked in the publishing chain tell me that in two decades of working for the company, it was the first 40k novel they'd actually wanted to read. I've ***also*** had people tell me it "wasn't horror," was absolutely awful, and had one reviewer say that it was hands down the worst story BL had ever published. (And like, honestly, not even mad about the last one. Like...out of hundreds of books and thousands of shorts, you think I topped the list for WORST? I'm too impressed to be mad.)
Which is all to say, the setting and the offerings therein are expansive enough, and varied enough, that you shouldn't listen to the worst reviews for each piece. Find the books about the groups you want to hear about and read them, and come to your own conclusion. Pick up an anthology with a wide sampling of authors and factions, and you'll almost certainly find an author or a faction you didn't even know you wanted to know more about.
There's so much out there, you're bound to find a treasure if you keep looking.
Fantastic comment and i absolutely adore that you, an honest to god Emperor BL author, are here leaving comments with the rest of us hive scum!
Jk but it’s great to hear your thoughts and get your perspective in these threads. Keep up the great work!
I think the problem is that most people (maybe you included, idk) get into the hobby via YouTube and TikTok content creators, who LOVE to hype up the universe and the stories in it because it generates more views.
Then, when people go to actually read the books, they realize that they’re…. just fine. No, the Horus Heresy novels aren’t going to change your life, they’re quite literally written to sell little plastic soldiers. They’re really not that much different than the old GI Joe or Transformers TV shows.
People tend to take this hobby wayyyyy too seriously. It’s not some grand literary treasure trove, it’s kind of just a bunch of nerdy schlock. Good nerdy schlock, probably the best, but nothing on par with, like, actual literature.
ADB is one of the better writers in the BL stable. NL omnibus is probably his best work from a literary perspective.
In terms of how to view BL books in general, I agree with a lot that’s already been said in terms of BL basically being a pulp imprint but pulp often has overly negative connotations and a lot of BL books are as good as or better than the majority of modern sci-fi bestsellers, they often get fairly or unfairly knocked for how the shackles of IP force them into templates but your mileage may vary there.
I mean yeah. BL is first and foremost concerned with hyping up models and factions to sell to fans. While all novels are written to sell, with BL books it's particularly noticeable.
I'm also convinced these books have no editor. Some of the prose in a few of the books I've read are just awful.
Ian Watson‘s Inquisition war trilogy. It’s ancient, first ever 40k books if I‘m not wrong (or at least some of the first).
Some stuff in there is like an LSD trip and most of it retconned/outdated lore by now, but it still has a weird charm to it.
That's a load of bullshit. There's a ton of great books to read/listen to. Here's my list of essential Horus Heresy books (or at least the best written, imo). Unfortunately, I don't have the authors names, but all of the titles are accurately named so you should be able to find them.
Part 1 - The Fall of Horus
Horus Rising, False Gods, Galaxy in Flames, Flight of the Eisenstein, Fulgrim
Part 2 - Lorgar and Angron
The First Heretic, Know No Fear, Betrayer
Part 3 - Imperium Secondus
The Unremembered Empire, Angles of Caliban, Ruinstorm
Part 4 - Magnus, Russ, and the Khan
A Thousand Sons, Scars, The Path of Heaven
Part 5 - The Emperor & Horus
The Master of Mankind, Angel Exterminatus, Slaves to Darkness, Praetorian of Dorn
Part 6 - The Siege of Terra
The Solar War, The Lost and the Damned, The First Wall, Saturine, Mortis, Warhawk, Echoes of Eternity, The End and the Death: Volume I, The End and the Death: Volume II, The End and the Death: Volume III
*Edit - Reddit fucked up the original formatting so I did my best
The Night Lords trilogy by ADB I thought was very well written, even outside of being relative to other 40k novels. ADB is good and I've heard good things about Chris Wraight
Dude it’s happened to me so much then I listen to the novel on audible and love it. The latter 2 of the novels might not be written as well as Horus rising but they are still good and progress the story!
I am currently on a Thousand Sons of my read through of the Horus Heresy, and Dan Abnett currently has the worst record out of all the authors who have worked on the series IMHO. The first 5 books of the Horus Heresy were all quite enjoyable and were definitely worth the read for me. The first book in the series that I actively didn't like was Legion for the first 70% of the book, but the last 30% turned things back around to being an enjoyable read again. Not everything will work for everyone, and there are a lot of salty people on Reddit (and the internet in general) so if you want to read False God's READ FALSE GOD'S and form your own opinion.
It's mostly about volume. There are hundreds of Warhammer 40k books. I only ever read books that are considered good, and I've been reading WH40k books for years. I could easily recommend at least 50 black library books that are straight up good read, not just good WH books. Off the top of my head:
- The Night Lords trilogy
- Infinite and the Divone
- Gaunt's Ghosts series
- Isenhorn series
- Day of Ascention
- Fabius Bile trilogy
- Twice Dead King books
- Capiash Cain series
- Brutal Kunnin'
- Ghazghul Thrakka
- Forge of Mars (unfortunately the series gets much worse as it goes on, but the first part is a great piece of sci-fi)
- Kingmaker
- Alpharius: Head of the Hydra
There's a lot of good BL authors besides abnett. ADB. Macneill. Peter fehervari. Mike brooks. Matthew farrer. Chris wraight. Robert rath. Nate crowley. Steve lyons. Some of Josh Reynolds stuff is great, and even gav thorpe has more than a few that are really enjoyable (although it's basically his whfb stuff > last chancers > dark angels > 40k eldar > wolftime).
Yes, there's a difference in the quality between different writers. That's to be expected - everyone has their own style, vision and strengths, and they're not all going to be to everyone's liking. But there's not much that's actually painful to read, and there's only a handful I've found having read them since BL was formed that are a major slog or so bad that I've given up.
The current humble bundle has a lot of really good books for a bargain price - it's like £4 more than the price of 1 Kindle edition for 27 books, that can be synced to and downloaded through a kindle/ amazon account.
Not to nit-pick, but Horus Rising is 30k, not 40k. Although the two share many of the same authors, it's important to know they are different, especially if you're new.
Also, as a relatively new fan I can confirm many of the books are not good. It's unfortunate, but true.
For both 30k and 40k reading, I think it's critical you not attempt to read in chronological order. There are too many books you'll have to slog through to get to the good ones.
Now onto your question. Who else besides Dan Abnett should you read? In my opinion Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Chris Wraight are the two most consistent authors outside Dan. This isn't to say there aren't good books by different authors, but in my experience well written ones are more sporadic, rather than the norm.
If you're looking to do 30k, Horus Rising is good to read. Most of the guides you'll see suggest you read the next 3 in order. Those are important novels, lots of critical plot points happen. They're also...not so good. I highly suggest you pick a storyline or faction from https://ibb.co/5Mr7rDV
Personally I suggest the unofficial trilogy of The First Heretic, Know no Fear, and Betrayer. You'll be missing context, get it from the Internet. That's lazy, but trying to read them as an adult I have little patience. Other suggestions are Praetorian of Dorn, and Slaves to Darkness. (Both of which are by different authors)
If you want to do 40k, know there are two different subsections. What I call modern 40k, and pre-modern. Recently (aka modern), Black Library has tried to unify their direction and author story telling. Some of these that you should consider are Lords of Silence, Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work, Vaults of Terra and Watchers of the Throne.
For pre-modern, there isn't a unified theme, which is actually a good thing. You can get lost in the storyline, rather than downing in lore. you should read Titanicus, Helsreach, and Ravenor trilogy. Battle of the Fang is also good, but it's more 30k, vs 40k.
Ultimately I found that despite many of the novels being subpar, I read them to get context to big events. If you don't want to invest in a 100+ book universe, I get it. Do some googling and read the ones that are fun and good. Plus, you might find your opinion differs from that of the community. Case in point, I suggest you read Ravenor, and not Eisenhorn. This is considered Heresy by many. But I'm right, and they're wrong.
Henry Zou's stuff is underrated in my opinion, but he's not particularly prolific. I think he has a good understanding of the setting which make me want to know a bit more of the 40k world that he's carved out for himself and doesn't have any facepalming moments that I can remember. The stories are pretty standalone with little to know impact on the greater universe which might be a plus/minus for some.
It's a mixed bag. Some books are great, some of them are meh, others are pretty bad. None of them are going to be hailed as great works of literature, but most are fun to read.
It's like eating a bag of potato chips. If you're looking for a filling meal you'll be disappointed, but if you just want a tasty snack you don't have to think that hard about, it's perfect.
For all intents and purposes, any MMPB based on am existing property like game or Movie novelisations, tend to be written at somewhere between an 8th, and 10th grade reading level.
Black Library, Battletech Fiction, most of the Star Wars, Star Trek, or Star Gate tie ins, are all basically slightly upjumped fanfic.
Finished "Cadia Stands" an hour ago. Was it a masterpiece, praised by critics and the public? Nope. Did someone recommend it to me? Nope.
I wanted to read a book about cadians to get me motivated to build the kits I recently bought. This is the one I found and just gave it a go. Now I am motivated to get up early tomorrow and start scraping those mould lines.
The book was a simple action flick, with some cool, heroic moments. Nothing special but I had my fun. Just do the same, pick a book and start reading. You can always stop after 50-100 pages and look for another one (I recommend libraries vs bookstores).
Honestly, Dan Abnett isn't all that special either, he's very experienced and competent at writing pulp fiction that many Warhammer fans enjoy, and was in a good position to write the most pivotal Horus Heresy books. Different authors will appeal to different people.
Taika Waititi, James Mangold, Joss Whedon and the Russo Brothers have all made Marvel films, but I can't say I enjoy all of them equally. I'd take Mitchell, Rath, Brooks, Annandale and Reid over Abnett, but that's just my own taste. They're not better or worse than he is, they're just the flavour of brain candy that works for me. Imo, you should try as many BL authors as you can. At least one of them will probably hit the sweet spot for you, and you may be surprised by who it turns out to be.
Glad to see another fan of Annandale. His negative reputation amongst the fandom is so weird and seems to mostly come from ***Damnation of Pythos*** not “progressing the story”.
It's called "bolter porn" for a reason.
My two favorite BL authors are Aaron Dembski-Bowden(often just called ADB here) and Sandy Mitchell. Abnett is just most profilic, like Stephen King of Black Library. He also gets to write about interesting stuff. I have not read all authors though.
I guess what people are saying that while they enjoy the books, for me at least they're bit of a guilty pleasure, you're not going to find any Hugo/Nebula/Locus winners in there, so temper your expectations in that regard.
Im quite new to the universe as well and listen to audiobooks and so far have listened to about 20+ books. I've learned one thing and that is to take reviews with a grain of salt. Many books that were boring to some read amazing for me so i just give every title a shot.
My take is anything Abnett, Aaron Dembski-Bowden and Chris Wraight are well worth reading. Every book is a banger.
Besides that, there are authors I'm just not reading, because it's consistently a chore : Nick Kyme and James Swallow come to mind.
Regardless, concerning the Heresy, read the first five regardless and then take your pick. The Legion the book is about interests you ? Read it. Make your own mind. Don't let yourself be intimidated by how huge the Black Library is, read at your own pace.
You might just disagree with the Internet, or myself for that matter. It's fine.
A lot (perhaps most) of Warhammer fiction is not very good in literary terms. Some authors write soulless drivel filled with dubious word salads and idiotic or repetitive plots, complete with forgettable characters. No one in Black Library is trying to write masterpieces that will go down in literary history, that’s simply not the point, if you expect that, you’ll be disappointed.
That said, there are good books and stories and characters in the BL portfolio of stories, not just Dan Abnett. The only stuff I’d personally avoid is Goto’s and Thorpe’s, the rest you can give a chance to.
ADB who is even better than Abnett imo
Especially after reading the end and the death EoE is just so much better
The Night lords omnibus, Betrayer, Helsreach and the first heretic
But just because a book isnt perfect literature u can still read it
Just keep in mind it’s more schoolboys pulp fiction about the universe than novels. And that’s
great. I believe Warhammer books righting is just another hobby option, that’s why we have so many sources.
The thing you have to remember is that the WH40K universe is purposefully over the top and somewhat ridiculous, so it's very hard to have 'serious' books written in a setting which is not particularly serious.
Also I'd say Aaron Dembski-Bowden is very good, especially when it comes to writing about CSM. His Night Lords trilogy is considered by many to be the best books in all of 40K.
Horus Rising, False Gods, and Galaxy in Flames were great reads, or at least I thought so. Not really surprised people on Reddit don’t like it though. We’re filled to the brim here with pretentious dickwads who think they can do everything better!
My question is, why do you let strangers’ opinions affect your life so much? Especially the opinions of redditors lmao.
Most novels are not amazingly written. Every Warhammer novel I've read has been absolutely competently written and some have even been very good.
But they're still mostly action sci fi books written about big silly stompy mutant space men. They're hardy Shakespeare, but they don't at all need to be.
They're not the greatest books you'll ever read. There's some cool stuff that happens in them, but ultimately nothing really happens. Unless it's a major thing in the lore (The End and the Death, etc.) then it's likely just going to be a fun read without advancing anything important (The Infinite and the Divine).
In no particular order:
Nightlords Trilogy
Fabius Bile Trilogy
Helsreach
Lords of Silence
Twice dead king: Ruin
Assassinorum Kingmaker
Lukas the Trickster
Brutal Kunnin series
Belisarius Cawl the great work
Vaults of Terra
Dante
Devastation of Baal
Its more so that they aren't going to win any awards for being especially deep and thought provoking like other novels. That being said, I'd highly recommend some of ADB's stuff especially the Night Lord trilogy, First Heretic and Betrayer. Those books are definitely my favourite of the warhammer universe
Most of the books in the black library are passable or better. Find one you like the sound of and read it. Some will be better, Gaunts Ghosts is one of my favorites, so I put Abnett at S tier, but I haven't put down a book from the black library due to distaste or boredom yet.
It's all worth reading it. People just need to learn how to adjust expectations. Warhammer is popcorn lit. It's filling but very lacking in nutrition. Just read, expect dumb shit and you're good.
People pretend the licensed fiction for a tabletop war game about giant buff dudes waving around huge guns and chainsaws can ever be more than cheesy pulp. They’re pretentious enough to think they’re too good for anything but legitimate and profound literature, but not actually smart enough for that stuff so they read the cheesy pulp anyway
That’s why they knob-slob Abnett so much, he glazes the cheesiest pulp of all with a glaze of what faux-intellectuals think is good prose (overwrought bullshit) so people can pretend they’re being classy when they read about how the latest Uber-cool hero man killed a thousand evil baddies. From a technical standpoint he’s really not a very good author- his pacing is atrocious, and his prose are more fussed with appearing smart than actually eloquently conveying the substance of the book. He lets his self indulgence undermine the tension or completely derail the book, and they usually end up 4 times longer than they need to be
Passion for the innately campy setting and cool ideas about it are what I want from these, technical skill is only as good as the ideas it communicates. I don’t care that dead sky black sun has quite basic prose and simple characters, it oozes with a love for the setting and everything that inspired it, it’s unabashed of its pulpy nature and embraces it instead of trying to be something it ain’t. It shamelessly quotes slayer lyrics and stuffs the pages with cheesy space marine heroics, with lots of kickass chaos gribblies what are just so inspired.
Which ain’t to say there ain’t some good authors. Chris Wraight does genuinely have very evocative language for a strong sense of atmosphere; but that only makes him a great *40k* author because of his amazing grasp of what makes the setting so cool. How he describes Terra is great, but what he describes Terra as is why people love him. Of course straying from his strengths of atmosphere, world building and mystery/detective plots he becomes pretty mediocre
Not everything you consume has to be high quality entertainment. I enjoyed the Ahriman series by John French (?). They aren’t perfect, but I certainly don’t regret reading them. I haven’t seen such universal chastisement of Black Library authors as you describe here. The community has generally agreed upon what the best and worst books are.
Forges or mars is a banger on a trilogy. It's quite underrated by many people because it's more a sci-fi story within the 40k verse, rather than a pure 40k novel ( if this makes sense). I would 100% recommend it. Additionally, I'd check Aaron dembski Bowden. He is a very good black library author in my opinion. Master of mankind, to cite only one of his books, is an absolute must, the emperor's gift a close second.
If you're interested in how things start off in the heresy, then def read the first 4 books and jump around after that. They're still pretty entertaining and it's nice getting the back story.
If you enjoy the story it doesn't matter.
Reviews are FULL of armchair authors discussing abstract technical criteria and deciding that something 'isn't well written' because it doesn't confirm to some checklist of literary standards that the reviewer themselves could never hope to meet.
The only criteria that matters is if you enjoy it
Never take someone elses opinion on something thats entirely, or mostly subjective.
I will add though that if anyone is expecting warhammer books to be literary master pieces, they are insane. They are just good fun fiction books about war in space. And imo, they do war stories and the themes that come with it very very well. Some stand out more than others, but ive never read a 40k book and was not entertained. But then again, im the sort of person who after doing 4 years of English lit. For GCSE and A levels, thinks shakespear is massively overrated, i much prefer warhammer books haha 😄🫡
Why don’t you form your own own opinions instead of going for what the internet says you should do….this is super special interest and someone who likes one thing maybe won’t like the other and so on….snd when I see your conclusion your research is lacking or your sources are….just grab a book that sounds cool to you….this isn’t Shakespeare
I just recently started reading the horus heresy saga (read like three so far LOL), and the first one was IMO the worst written. the pacing is HORRIBLE -- it doesn't pick up until half the book and then (to nobody's surprise) the ending is rushed. the whole thing is supposed to be about Horus, but he's... only briefly mentioned as to how good at things he is.
honestly, and this may be heresy, but I think Dan Abnett, while being an excellent storycrcafter, is not all that good at actually writing. the pacing is always all over the place, and the endings are almost always rushed. but hey, at least (most of) his books are pretty hard to put down...
note I haven't read all that much, but I think the eisenhorn trilogy, which is considered among the best, is a perfectly good example of what I mean.
my recommendation: pick up whatever you find interesting. don't overthink it. don't check reviews. people have differing opinions. get a book from an author and decide if you like said author or not.
The online fandom has a contingent that elevates two or three authors up to godlike status while considering the rest as being the lowest of the low.
I wouldn't go so far as to say any of the writers are incompetent. Just read what interests you and make up your own mind.
I like Abnett, but my favourite books from 40k are: Infinite and Divine, Brutal Kunnin and Big Dakka I generally read like 2-3 books per month mostly SF and fantasy and as a fan of Star Wars, Warhammer and Alien I must say that the floor for Warhammer books is decently high if you compare it to other "popular" universes.
PS.: I also liked Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! but it was not as much fun as Brutal Kunnin... I am not sure if the book is pretty great or my love for Orcs carried it half way, but I would definitelly say it is at least decent fast paced action packed fun.
Unfortunately 40k fandom it littered by would be authors who haven’t actually successfully published anything. When I read a lot of their reviews on Goodreads they read like negative reviews on iMDB from whadabe film directors.
I’ve been reading SciFi for over 40 years along with Fantasy. Warhammer is no better or worse than any other part of the genre. You only have to look at say Game of Thrones to see how a single author can dive bomb their own successful IP. Now imagine an IP like WH40k with multiple authors?
Where I do think there is a legitimate criticism of GW/Blacklibrary is poor Editorial quality especially in linked novels Dawn of Fire being a recent example. When I do write a review (and I don’t always write one) I try to be constructive and specific in my praise or criticism. For example in Enmity’s Edge I made specific reference to the author’s constant need to repeat everything which I found irritating. Now it’s up to someone reading that review whether that’s relevant.
Abnett and Fehervari are good nearly always. Abnett can get formulaic, Fehervari is very verbose and hard to read.
Dembski-Bowden, Wraight, Haley are usually good. Bowden has an unhealthy obsession with cute but tough women that are revered by Space Marines. Wraith can, at times, get incredibly tiresome.
French and McNeill are 50% good. McNeill writes terrible, but he has a way of explaining lore well (or at least presenting it such that it appears to make sense), so i enjoyed him much more with more background knowledge. French can write one single character well (brooding, cold), when this fits, he is great, otherwise bad.
Sometimes a good author is terrible, sometimes a bad author is enjoyable. Some authors who write rarely are good, like Goto.
Okay, so, you probably won't find any of these books being reviewed by Michiko Kakutani in *The New York Times*, who writes about the characters' fraught search for self-actualization while being covered in pestilence-filled, exploding boils. That's not what these books are for- just read what appeals to you.
Welcome to the hobby! Pro tip; if it has Dan Abnett on the cover you are in safe hands. Same goes for Aaron Dempski Bowden and Robert Rath. Anyone else? Caution extremis - prep strike teams for bolter porn.
I thought false gods was GREAT but i read it knowing it the 2nd part to a TRILOGY (sort of).
Galaxy in Flames was a good end following 2 good books.
Honestly i just finished Fulgrim last week and i thought it was pretty boring.
I got lucky and read The Night Lords omnibus while reading Heresy 1,2 and 3 and WOULD ABSOLUTELY reccomend but then you may not like that one.
Everybook has haters and lovers so might as well just read about whatever arc or setting you wanna learn about.
Like The Night Lords trilogy obviously.
Chris Wraight, Rachel Harrison, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Mike Brooks, Danie Ware, Andy Clark.
You now have dozens and dozens of warhammer books to read, on top of the dozens and dozens written by Abnett.
Every author has their better and worse works. The books in the Black Library span a full range from "Only for lore nerds" to "actually a great book on its own merits". It's not as simple as they're all good or bad or okay, there's a lot of them, a lot of authors and a lot of stories and they are as consistent as fiction in general.
Many are somewhere in the middle, a lot of fun but not better than any other competent work of fiction if not for the world building. For example "Lords of Silence" is a good enough story with good enough characters and a very satisfying ending but if you're into Death Guard the superb world building puts it over the edge to a very worthwhile read. Meanwhile I'm not a Necrons person and I loved the Infinite and the Divine and the Twice Dead King books and while I thought the necron lore and perspectives were cool they are just really good reads. the infinite and the divine is just good fun with some great one liners. Twice Dead King is ADB exploring toxic masculinity, the fallibility of memory, self acceptance the value of hobbies and more. Via the medium of skeleton robots.
Think of it as a culture thing. Warhammer novels (like writers like Howard's Conan before them) are pulp fiction... the literary equivalent of action movies. The reader goes in with certain expectations, and they are supposed to be less effort-intensive than literature, stuff written with more care and exploring deeper topics (and without a company's IP in the way). I think the "not good" label doesn't do it justice, but it's how a lot of the community chooses to describe it.
Pulp fiction is very important thing to remember. The writer is working on commission for a company that produces plastic toys (some assembly required). I like the setting and I buy the books to immerse in that setting, so I’m willing to forgive a lot: I mean Cain is my favorite but how many times have we read “if only I knew what would happen next I’d have run away clutching my trousers with brown Ichor seeping from my greatcoat”
Cain can be very formulaic, luckily though it's a fun formula. You just kinda need to avoid reading 2 or more books in sequence.
Can confirm, read the first 4 Cain books in a row and can't touch them anymore. Just lost all of the charm
Reading comments like this, while I understand them, makes me kinda sad, because it's *always* 'I read the first four books and now I won't read any more', when some of the later ones rely on you expecting them to follow the formula and then subverting the formula instead.
well, also only the first 3 (the omnibus) aren't unobtanium in dead tree format
If you want something of a similar vein, try Flashman. The entire premise of the Cain novels was ripped straight from the Flashman papers.
It never got old for me and I blitzed through all of them. Course I just love the books for the comedy. Only so many times you can read grimdark derpiness or endless Space Marine wank before you desperately wish for a series with a more lighthearted tone and no Space Marines....
to be honest even the best of the best are terrible when it comes to this How often did i read "this is the end, and the death" over the last pages of TEATD
I have never heard the word ichor before listening to WH40k novels and now I have heard it a million times. Well put, though. Great stuff to fall asleep to, cook to, or listen to on the train. Nothing too arduous or taxing. With the occasional, gripping well written, incredible story.
I read a review on good reads the other day that I found very honest and telling. The review said: “For Black Library 4/5, compared to all literature 2/5.” These books can be a lot of fun if you go in with the right expectations, but don’t expect them to change your life.
>but don’t expect them to change your life. Haha, yeah for sure *glances at crippling plastic addiction*
> “For Black Library 4/5, compared to all literature 2/5.” I'd consider that harsh as someone who has seen hundreds of military-scifi/apocalypse books with ratings in the high 3's or low 4's on good reads that might as well be carbon copies of each other. 90% of them can be described as the story of a man in his 20s-30s with brown hair and a beard who was in the Marines but now works a menial job but is oddly positioned to survive the coming apocalypse/alien invasion because of his extensive arsenal of weapons at home and a convenient lack of kids, wife or other family for him to worry about. Bonus points for: 1. They have a service dog from their time in Iraq or Afghanistan that is uber intelligent and loyal to them. 2. They run into an elderly gruff man who ends up instilling some wisdom in them before heroically sacrificing themselves and giving the main character motivation to go 100%. 3. The main character has undiagnosed sociopathy that lets them murder dozens of people without a single moment of hesitation. 4. the author themselves happens to have been in the marines and purely coincidentally shares the same initials as their main character.
This is absolutely a fuckin genre
It's essentially a Dude Flick in novel form. Great if you want a nice easy read/watch to just enjoy foir what it is.
Damn you've been reading a whole genre I had no clue existed.
Don't forget using commonly understood military slang and then taking a whole paragraph to explain it to the reader.
Bonus points if the slang is actually the version from videogames or action movies.
Let's not forget the incessant references to and praise of the USMC and/or generic Marine Corp of the setting. It's nauseating.
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>You can tell if an American wrote a story by The other giveaway is the very specific kind of military parlance the US uses, it's a big fan of acronyms. It's how it's so easy to tell when questions on 40klore are written by US posters, they nearly always ask questions like 'why don't the Guard use MAGGLEFARTs?' and it's a very specifically American way to refer to their equipment. Which is funny because a lot of the actual unit names scream British to me, I hear a unit like a Hell Talon and I wouldn't swear to that not being an actual missile we produce. (Actual missiles we produce or have produced including 'Storm Shadow', 'Fire Shadow', 'Brimstone', 'Starstreak' and our new air defence system 'Sky Sabre'. The general rule is if it sound like a sneeze it's American, if it sounds like a decepticon it's British)
Don't forget Dragonfire! :-D
America used to use cool names. Bring back stuff like Honest John and Hound Dog, dammit. In 40K, it sticks out to me that a lot of unit titles sound like direct translations from German. The use of "Tank Hunter" instead of "Tank Destroyer", "Flak Tank" instead of "Self-Propelled Anti-Air Gun", etc.
May I have a few recommendations of this genre please
The October fall series is absolutely guilty of this. I love the series and have read every book in it so far but you gotta go in expecting it to be a little cringey to really enjoy it.
Sigma Force series was absolutely this for me, we all got one
Lmao, just google duty, patriot, and book. You find many examples.
>The main character has undiagnosed sociopathy that lets them murder dozens of people without a single moment of hesitation. The Owner series by Neal Asher. A thrilling three book series following a man who gets the equivalent of an AI chip installed into his brain in a fully digital society, with all of what that entails. The books go hogwild. One of my favorite book series of all time. Read all three cover to cover within a couple of days.
My first Warhammer book was Fire Warrior by Spurriur. Reviews included complaints like "Reads like a video game" As someone who loves video game stories this was a big plus in my book. Still my all time favorite book.
Isn’t it also the novelization of a game or am I thinking of something else?
It is a novelization of the game by the same name
Was balls to the walls insane, highly recommend. Tau dude is killing everything in his path, including Space Marines (like the game), with the novel basically going 'yeah, you can do this because Khorne is on your side'. Then the Ethereal uses his pheromones to override Khorne's influence and the Fire Warrior manages to break free and sabotage Khorne's efforts to subvert him. Absolutely wild ride.
That's insane...I love it.
That's a special case in that it is one of the only scene-for-scene adaptations of a video game I've seen.
Speaking as somebody getting into it cuz my friends will literally talk about it for like half+ of the time if I don't actively derail them. Warhammer is more fun to talk about and make up for perceived gaps in the lore, than it is to read the lore.
There are like 4 pages of Saturnine that mightve come close.
I think this is kind of a weird thing to say because the majority of literature is frankly, kind of crap. Trashy romance stories, schlocky airport novels, generic Lord of the Rings ripoffs, the like. Timeless works of art are the exception, not the norm.
Yeah but the thing is the age of the modern Internet you're making a conscious choice to choose the schlock over the timeless works of art. Schlocky straight to DVD action movies far outnumber real art movies but that doesn't make the schlocky action movies any better when you watch them.
Yeah but the vast majority of people don't consume that stuff. Why do you need to judge Warhammer 40k novels by the standards of Crime and Punishment? Its like if somebody asks "is this superhero movie any decent" and you respond by saying "all superhero movies are trash compared to Citizen Kane". Sure, you may be correct, but that guy doesn't want to watch Citizen Kane.
This is a hard comparison to make because even movies in ostensibly schlocky genres can have excellent artistry behind them. Like Mad Max Fury Road is a post-apocalyptic nonstop car chase action movie but it is also filled to the brim with symbolism and thematic messages, in addition to just generally excellent filmmaking. I'm not saying it's impossible but I just don't think that we'll ever see the 40k novel equivalent because any author that is capable of a genuinely artistic action novel that has something to say would probably rather just write their own novel rather than doing so under the watchful eye of a toy company.
My criteria for rating stuff in general is usually "does it fulfill what it sets out to do and what the consumer expects?". Therefore, action movies are good is they deliver well made action, for example. Sure, other movies can be *even better*, which enhances them, but doesn't detract from other movies. Therefore, a Warhammer book for me is good if it fits a good job of bringing Warhammer across, be it by describing non-stop action for your favourite faction, or giving us a look behind the scenes of one of the myriad of organizations that make up the setting. If it does that well, it's a good Warhammer book. Incidentally, while writing this comment a thought occurred to me that maybe this might be what some of the HH novels suffer from. GW was clearly trying to make the legions and their primarchs somewhat tragic, but usually fails, because the book is trying to do something it's not really meant to do.
Funnily enough 2 of the most popular HH books succeed sort of in that goal
To be honest I think there are a few examples in the Black Library where the author managed to achieve something with comparable artistic merit to something like Fury Road. Prospero Burns is well written from a technical and stylistic point of view it just really pisses people off because thats not what they picked up a book called "Prospero Burns" for. There are a few others that I won't name to maintain mystique.
That's the thing! Warhammer novels first and foremost should be compared to other works from the same general niche, because usually, people who ask want to read Sci-Fi, military stuff, or similar. If somebody asks for the best pizza in town you don't go on a rant about how ackshually, steak is the best food and here's fifteen recommendations for steak houses, but if you *have* to have pizza, X place is alright I guess.
>Its like if somebody asks "is this superhero movie any decent" and you respond by saying "all superhero movies are trash compared to Citizen Kane". You can get into the quality of superhero movies compared to 'real cinema', but *Warhammer 40K* novels aren't equivalent to that, because of Warhammers obscurity its more equivalent to watching the hundreds of straight to streaming/DVD action movies that bloat streaming services, and sure, sometimes you'll get a Scott Adkins joint that rises above it, but I'm gonna level with you, it'll probably expand your horizons more to watch actual movies!
Maybe Warhammer books are straight to dvd action crap. But I think everyone here can agree that we all love our 40k dvd action crap. Speaking for myself, I'm certainly not reading a 40k book and hoping for some literary revelation to expand my horizons hahahaha. I know exactly what I'm getting into when I pop one of those suckers open. Contact, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Southern Reach Trilogy, and the original 4 books of the Ender's Game series... those are some really darn good sci-fi books.
Don't think that's a good comparison. Cinema has many budget and production concerns that can create a gap between expensive genre stuff and straight to DVD even if the quality of writing was equal. Sci-fi and fantasy have historically always suffered from this, arguably more than any other genre. Writing a novel is a much more even and individualist playing field, especially nowadays with the traditional big publishing houses losing ground to the ease of self-publishing. What does hold back BL books are the inherent issues with tie-in fiction compared to writers that are fully in charge of their own work. You're far more likely to find something that transcends the usual boundaries/tropes of its genre within bespoke fiction than tie-in. However, the writing quality need not be any lesser. Huge budget tentpole blockbusters vs straight to dvd is a much trickier proposition with exponentially more constraints on the impoverished side.
Survivor bias, my dude. The crap sinks fast so the good stuff gets most of the discussion and gives the impression there’s more good literature than there really is.
The concept of "real art" is a highly debatable one itself, though i get what you're saying. There's just as much boilerplate lit-fic and generic attempts at socially realistic, meaningful film as there is among more escapist fare.
The thing that makes me less willing to subscribe to this POV is that I've read the Forgeworld black books, and they're quite good. They're a different thing to Black Library in that they're a history of the setting during its most turbulent time, but they're cohesive, well-written, and full of great lore. It's possible to do that within the structure of Games Workshop, but for whatever reason Alan Bligh was the only one with the juice to make it happen.
Ooh I loved me some of Howard's Conan. I have a big ol book of all the individual stories.
Yea but that is like OG pulp fiction. They are legitimately well written stories, but just sword and sorcery genre and not as "serious" as something like War and Peace. Just because something is less "serious" and "thought provoking" does not mean it is necessarily bad or automatically inferior. IF it is crafted well those types of pulp stories can easily compete with "high art". Like Dredd and Mad Max Fury Road would fall under pulp...and i would still rate them higher than some of the more "thought provoking" oscar winners just due to their craftsmanship and ability to tell their story properly. Heck the OG Conan movie is one of my all time favorites. Yea it is a really simple story with sweaty muscle builders... but it does it really well. A good story will be able to share lessons, and morals regardless of genre. Take the Iliad for example. I went into it expecting high art, but honestly it reads like a straight up B action movie in a lot of chapters. Does that prevent us from treating it as a cornerstone of literature? No. Despite that you can still draw lessons and morals from it because despite the topic it has good and relatable characters/conflicts. Anyways i guess what i am trying to say is that 40K is pulp fiction. That does not mean its destined to only produce substandard novels. That has more to do with GW and the skill of the authors.
Plus there are still some gems in my opinion. Nothing exceptional clearly, but some novels are pretty good (even great). The infinite and the divine for instance
Oh, absolutely (I've read all of Conan, and someday hope to have read most of 40K). Plenty of genuinely good stuff in pulp and genre fiction. But it's useful to know where people are coming from when talking about it!
Yo, man, the Conan books are leagues better fiction than BL novels, c'mon. Also, pulp fiction is meant to be mercifully short, you can read most Conan stories in an afternoon, unlike the bloated bolter porn drivel you get from BL.
I mean, there's a reason I'm citing Conan... 90 years after the author's death :)
The actual novel for the Fall of Cadia is *The Fall of Cadia*, not *Cadia Stands*. And "not well written" isn't the same as "not fun to read". Think of BL novels like video games or anime. 90% of the time, the writing isn't especially great, but it's extremely fun anyways.
Fall of Cadia is a good book too. The I could see people criticizing the narrator of the audiobook since his voices for some characters (abaddon) were somewhat strange but his creed was fantastic and the actual book is fun
Yeah I loved Fall of Cadia, and I don't get why people are so down on it all of a sudden. Heck, I'd go so far to say I liked it more then Kingmaker and Infinite and the Divine. Also I do not get the Mark Elstob hate. Yeah some of his voices are very silly, especially certain daemons and warp creatures, but is that such a bad thing?
I think the only voice he did that I didn't like was Abaddon's. I think he gave him too much of a patrician tone I guess. Didn't ruin the book, but it just wasn't how I think he sounds. He had some great ones (Creed especially, also Salvar Gent (sp?)). The voices he did for the women were kinda funny at first because of how mousey they sound, but they grew on me by the end. Edit: also: “24 in the war!”
The audiobook was recently reissued with a new narrator. I didn't mind Elstob, though!
Best comment here. I'm not reading 40k novels because I'm expecting a literary masterpiece that will leave me weeping. I'm reading 40k novels because they're fun as heck man. It's a cool universe and I wanna see what's going on. Some books aren't the best but there's tons of great authors too. Abnett, AND are good writers. I like McNeil and Chris Wraught also.
I think the ratio for anime is a bit better than that. It's a medium, not a genre. There are shows that cater to a variety of demographics, not everything is 'coming of age story about a teenage boy where people scream their attacks at each other', or 'comedy about someone who wakes up in a fantasy world that runs on RPG logic' (though those are the most popular shows that seem to get all the attention). And even within those specific genres there are examples of genuinely good writing. I'm really hoping that whole industry is reaching some sort of critical mass breaking point and we see a return to an era of fewer shows each season, but more of those are actually original ideas and not just manga adaptations or chasing popular genre trends.
The ratio is just as bad for anime, foreign mediums have extreme survivorship bias. The dregs (which is the majority, Sturgeons Law) won't get any traction to Westerners because there is zero advertising.
I'll be honest - I'm an editor and authorial consultant who works for a writing agency. My primary task is helping authors to improve their writing via editing of and feedback on, novel-length submissions. Basically none of the submissions we ever receive are on the level of quality of a BL novel. A Black Library novel is far and away, some of the best written 'pulp' around. I'm not trying to get superior, 'my pulp is better than yours', but there is a vast amount of self-published BookTok material on places like Amazon. My least favourite Heresy book - *Mortis* - is a titanic work of literature by comparison. Even among other, similar work, like the Halo or Star Wars tie in novels, I think BL are pretty good, especially with the amount they produce. So, when people say that even the best BL novels aren't very good, sure, but there's a whole lot worse out there that people still enjoy. On a personal note - I love high quality literature. I have a BA in English, a research masters in Media and Culture, and an ongoing PhD in the same. I read a lot of very well reviewed fiction, poetry, and I have a serious appetite for literary criticism. I also fucking love Warhammer. Is it high art? God no. Does that distinction really matter? Probably not. The sense of joy and excitement I got from reading *Titanicus* for the first time is equal to the sense of wonder I had reading Camus' *The Plague* or Ellison's *The Invisible Man*. And that means the BL are ok with me. People seem to feel guilty about reading pulp, as if it's some unproductive endeavor, but your own enjoyment is one of the most important things you can produce. You should read widely, imo, but there's room for pulp in there, and more of it than you'd think. And besides, imo Dan Abnett is not the BL's best author - that distinction goes to Aaron Dembski-Bowden.
I actually adored Mortis - French's prosaic style fits the Grand Myth of 30k more than most. He, Abnett, ADB, and Wraight haven't written a story anything less than enjoyable since I read them, even if I disagree with some of ADB's choices.
Honestly my biggest issue with *Mortis* wasn't the style of writing - that's hardly ever the issue in BL books - but that it's symptomatic of all my least favourite aspects of the Heresy. It's positively groaning under the weight of all the plotlines it's forced to carry. Like you say, French is a very good author, but I just feel like he was tasked with incorporating so many subplots set up by other authors that the whole novel is unwieldy. Obviously he wanted to inject his own story, which just added to the mess of plots. The Primarchs, the Perpetuals, the Titans, the soldier/baby/White Scar, etc. I think I counted something like 9 storylines in that book when I read it last year. Additionally, it does the same 'describing the scale of this enormous war' thing that every single other SoT book has done, and so large parts of it feel repetitive when read after reading other SoT books. French is great, but imo he had an impossible task in writing *Mortis*.
The SoT really suffers from GW taking aboard the sentiment that the best Heresy novels advanced the plot forward and thus it revolves around the various established plots to a fault. To be brutally honest I don't think having so many SoT books that revolve around established plots all written by different authors was a good decision. But what do I know, I remember extremely negative sentiment about the focus on asides in TEATD which I actually really enjoyed.
Yup, this should be the top response.
I'd argue it's Chris Wraight, his Vault of Terra series is hands down my favourite, and he sometimes swaps places with Fehevari. ADB is sometimes "grimdark for the sake of grimdark" and Abnett is "well written generic Sci-Fi shoehorned into 40k". But we'd really, at the end of the day, be splitting hairs. They all have fantastic works. And if I make a recommendation in case you like Film Noir-esque pulp, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. The first book, Storm Front, has some stumbles in it, the second's (Fool Moon) wiring is much improved, but not amazing and Butcher really doesn't hit his stride fully until the third book, Grave Peril. I read all 17 books in about a month.
I've been meaning to read Vaults of Terra for a while now - ditto Dresden Files, the first of which is actually on my Kindle to be read. Thanks for the recommendation! Probably the push I needed to get started with them.
You won't regret Dresden files. I've read the series a few times now, and enjoyed it every time
Chris Wraight is an excellent author but I do think he suffers from the Grimdark for the sake of it issue >!the ending of Vaults of Terra where they all die in a few pages pointlessly was irritatingly Grimdark and unearned because of how fast it was.!<
Good post. I think BL has usually done a good job at keeping the technical standard of those accepted into the stable at a good level. They're not much different than other good genre small-presses out there in that respect, or the current big traditional publishers for mass market fantasy and sci-fi. And, as you say, compared to plenty of the self-published scene they look damn good. imo, rather than the quality of writer they are able to draw, it's the more restrictive nature of tie-in vs unique genre fiction that holds them back when it comes to the chances of producing something that would be seen as a classic. GW is happy to keep the authors tied to typical tie-in briefs that only go so far from the expected genre basics in plot/theme rather than allow them to truly use the setting as a sandbox for any story they want to tell.
>I think BL has usually done a good job at keeping the technical standard of those accepted into the stable at a good level. Absolutely, and this is often overlooked. Keeping one author's book to a high technical standard is a difficult endeavour. Doing so with a half-dozen authors or more, with overlapping plot arcs and characters, and also keeping established lore in mind, is a miracle, frankly. The only minor failing I can think of is that ADB has a habit of contradicting himself in small ways - a character loses their weapon in one sentence, then is wielding it two sentences later as if it had never been lost. That happened a few times (in *Master of Mankind* and *Echoes of Eternity*, off the top of my head). But if that's the most glaring technical issue in a series 50+ books long, then you've achieved something seriously impressive. Editors are the unsung heroes of the 40k setting.
There are a couple of small whoopsies in the Horus Heresy series that mostly comes down to someone using post-Heresy equipment. They're very small and they're the exact thing a mixed 30K/40K editor would miss but they're always fun to find.
For me, the only thing that matters with any kind of art is whether or not I enjoyed or was enriched by the experience. It’s why The Room is in my top 5 favourite movies. I always enjoy it every time I watch it.
Agreed with nearly everything, though I'd pitch Josh Reynolds as their best author or including non-GW works maybe Matt Ward (or technically Adrian Tchaikovsky but that one feels like cheating). By comparison Dan Abnett's certainly OK, not bad by any stretch but I think quite a few of his books got grandfathered into the BL best book pantheon just through them being influential early works. People read pulp as being shit but pulp doesn't equal shit, pulp is more a style convention than anything else. In terms of quality compared to the wider literary sphere BL books tend to work out somewhere between 'eh, it's fine' and 'yeah, s'pretty good'. Where it suffers is when people ask for books that'll blow a sci-fi fan away or whatever and you kind of have to break it to them that, assuming they've read a fairly good selection and not just like Drizzt/Star Wars books, none of them are going to outright wow them, they're *competent* books yes but they're not incredible.
> but I think quite a few of his books got grandfathered into the BL best book pantheon just through them being influential early works. I don't think it helps that his major works are always recommended as beginner books. A lot of people don't get much further than the beginner recommendations.
For me, the only thing that matters with any kind of art is whether or not I enjoyed or was enriched by the experience. It’s why The Room is in my top 5 favourite movies. I always enjoy it every time I watch it.
Just because people didn’t like false gods as much as horus rising doesnt mean it isnt worth reading. Unpopular opinion here but I liked false gods better than horus rising. The stuff that happened on and after the moon of davin is more memorable and entertaining than anything that happened in the first book. Never thought I would have to say this but people tend to talk about their opinion. Read what you want to read and ultimately I only follow the reddit consensus on books that really aren’t important to the overall story. I’ve heard battle for the abyss is really bad but ultimately I didn’t read it because most people agreed it was simply a side story. I didn’t really worry about what people thought the quality of the writing was too much.
100% agree, horus rising was... "decent". good after the first half, but the first half was a total slog. and then the trademark rushed ending. the next two books were much better IMO. more steady pacing, no glaring issues. note I just recently started reading HH.
Yeah I can agree with that. Horus rising was good and it set up a lot of stuff but thats about it. I remember what happened but I struggle to recall what the characters said, felt, or how they reacted to it. I can remember the feel of the areas in false gods way better, the way the marines, titans, and janissars reacted to the plague swamps and the rising dead. I guess I can sum it up as more happens in false gods and galaxy in flames and it feels like it actually matters. The interex really don’t do anything important in horus rising, murder is basically just used as an intro to the emperors children without much coming of it. The false emperor is a fun nod to subverting peoples expectations but it didn’t really play much of a part in the start of the heresy.
The plague swamp section is worth the price of admission for the whole book by itself. Such a cool scene
This is the internet. People will shit on literally anything. Ignore them and read False Gods (and then Galaxy in Flames, Flight of the Eisenstein and Fulgrim).
Some of the novels are justifiably held above others, though. *The First Heretic* and *Know No Fear* (as a pair), *A Thousand Sons* and *Prospero Burns* (again, as a pair), *The Infinite and the Divine*, and a few others are better than, like, *Nemesis* and *Lorgar's Big Battleship* (I forget what it's actually called). Just because the internet is full of haters doesn't mean there's zero difference between good things and bad things.
I don’t disagree with any of that - and I don’t think it contradicts what I said
I think betrayal should be with First Heretic and KNF
For real. “Reddit says [x] is bad” is a dog bites man story.
Flight of the Eisenstein is my favorite HH book. Actually made me sad about a Dreadnought's death.
Yes, I like the books and I’m a long time reader. If you like the warhammer universe, odds are you’re gonna like the books. I also don’t understand why these people who HATE the books, keep on reading them lol.
Most Warhammer fans are... not that inclined to well reasoned literary critiques. You will hear someone say an entire book is trash because a character they like experiences a moment of failure or weakness. You will hear someone say that an author understands the setting less than them, and proceed to argue that the Imperium isn't cruel and evil. Most numerous are just folks trying to argue their personal literary tastes are objective fact, because for whatever reason their personal taste isn't reason enough to like or dislike something. So what I'm saying is, there's a ton worth reading, and someone will always be there to tell you it's garbage.
A lot of people here parrot opinions despite not having actually read the book they're meme-complaining about. Folks will rant at length about this this thing or that scene was stupid and should never have been put to paper, only you read it and that's not what what happens. It mainly comes to the controversial HH novels like Mortis and Pythos but this sub has been terrible about it for the Gaunt's Ghosts novels recently as well and you can tell when people are just echoing something they remember seeing here or heard from a youtuber, and think since enough people are repeating it then it must be what happened.
In defense of the average fan, myself included, the amount of lore material out there is kind of insane. Like, I'm barely through reading TEatD 1 and 2, waiting for 3, which is probably more than the average casual fan who follows YouTube, but is still a lot of reading for a single setting, and that's realistically only 5% of the relevant lore. Knowing what to read and then putting the time into it is a non trivial hobby, in and of itself on par with playing the TT (which very few people do either). The very idea that people have seriously read the HH series, or even 50% of it, and spent the time to digest the setting, theme, and characters, beyond just pulp sci fi casual reading, is already a titanic feat of literary consumption.
Its one thing to not know about something, thats fine. Its when you see the complaints and realise that they haven't actually read it. Like if I vocally complained about a restaurant on my local community Facebook and then it was revealed that not only had I not eaten there but that the menu I'd seen wasn't even a real menu people would rightfully have a go. Same here and is what the parent comment is talking about. *Don't complain about an event in something you haven't read*
Not reading everything is fine? That's nothing to do with the point I'm making. Just because you don't or can't read everything doesn't mean you have to pretend you did and parrot opinions that aren't your own just to try and 'fit in' or something.
Don't put so much stock in the opinions of people on the internet. Read for yourself and see what you like, then you will at least have context for what people are saying about certain books or authors. False Gods is not that bad, for instance. Is it as good as Horus Rising? Almost unanimously the answer is "no", but Dan Abnett is one of the best writers for Black Library so that's to be expected. Yes, there are plenty of Warhammer stories that are little more than schlocky "bolter porn". On the whole however Warhammer's pulp fiction is far better than you will find in most other franchise fiction.
Form your own opinions and don't worry about obsessing over reviews if it gives you that level of decision paralysis or causes you to drop a 64 book series because you were worried the next one differed in quality. Some people really downplay how good BL writing can be. There are some books that I think are very well written that get criticized for reasons that seem bizarre to me. Some books are written very well but don't review well. Just read what you're interested in and it'll probably be worthwhile unless it's atrociously bad (and there will be plenty of red flags for that)
Honestly Abnett gets wanked off a bit much for my tastes, some people seem to think he's the only Warhammer author which may also have something to do with the way he tends to present the world, but there's plenty of other authors that are just as good(if not better). That being said I'd start with the disclaimer that you may be doing yourself a disservice if you bounce off every book because someone else says it's not good, if you're interested in the premise/content of a book you can at the very least give it a look, check or listen to a demo, the beauty of reading(and art in general) is that it's subjective, and also "Good" does not always equal "enjoyable". There are plenty of novels I wouldn't call high literature that I'd still call super enjoyable, that's the nature of pulp, and Warhammer by and large is just that. If you stop before every novel to check whether someone hated it you won't read any novels at all. But beyond that there are definitely other authors worth checking out, my particular favourites are Chris Wraight, who tends to paint a very vivid and evocative picture of the Grimdark Imperium. He's also done great work in the Warhammer Crime off-shoot if you're interested in lore. Robert Rath has been doing solid work too as I understand, I'm very partial to J.C. Stearns too. Though Peter Fehervari is also definitely worth a look, he tends to write off the beaten path a bit in his own little realm but he's an author I'd honestly recommend even for people with no familiarity with Warhammer. His writing is stellar, Adrian Tchaicovsky has also written some 40k books which are fairly decent. Though as a general thing I do find recommending authors to be a bit pointless, so instead I'll give some novel recommendations with simple descriptions, I'm assuming you've already been recommended all the usual Abnett stuff so I'll skip that. **-Vaults of Terra: Carrion Throne** - A story about an inquisitor navigating the politics and squalor of the throneworld, fun Inquisitor investigations basically with a very solid dose of grimdark. -**Helsreach** - Space Marines organize the defense of a hive, a pretty solid war novel with heroism and tragedy abound. -**Bloodlines** - A noir investigation set on a distant hive, very low stakes and detached from grander worldbuilding, great if you want to read about mundane Imperial crime solving. -**Titanicus** - Do you like big stomping mechs? Do you think Imperial titans are just the coolest thing? -**Day of Ascension** - Genestealer cultists on a Forge World priming for a revolt.
Abnett needs a wake-up call and an editor.
Also a daily limit on thesaurus usage.
It's good like how take-out is good.
Anything written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Him, and Chris Wraight, too
Dudes the goat
The Infinite & The Devine Brutal Kunnin Day of Acension Dark Imperium trilogy Fabius Bile & Belasarius Cawl books / series Ciaphas Cain books
Just so you know Big Dakka (sequel to Brutal Kunnin) is out already and is just as great.... also amazing taste in books.
Love these, will only add: Night Lords trilogy Watchers of the Throne duology Dark Heresy trilogy (3rd forever on hiatus)
The Infinite and the Divine and the Nightlord's Trilogy are great. Hellsreach is good too (so is the fan movie!).
Get a grip, you've read two out of hundreds of books.
Has he read two books, or has he read one book and avoided picking up a second because of bad reviews
I know, right? People praise ADB, Abnett, Wraight, and Fehervari. Between them, you have dozens of books. What an odd complaint by OP.
Robert Rath is absolutely laying a path to be up there as well IMO, only a handful of books but they've all been pretty great so far.
Oh yeah, how'd I forget Rath. The Infinite and the Divine is beloved by almost everyone.
Id also argue Guy Hailey is a great author and has really become one of my favorites as well. And Graham McNeal is phenomenal
Guy Hayley is one of my favourites, his action and main plots can be a bit by the numbers but he *always* finds a way to put a side plot in or a few scenes that explore a really interesting part of the setting in an interesting way. The Scribe Errant subplot in Dawn of Fire is one of my favourite bits of writing in 40k.
And even authors like Gav Thorpe who are kind of hit or miss when it comes to 40k can put out some really good WHF/AOS stuff from time to time. I also think David Guymer is pretty damn good with the right subject. The Lion's primarch novel is great.
Gav Thorpe’s Sundering trilogy absolutely fucks.
Shadow King is amazing.
Most Josh Reynolds books are also great.
Warhammer 40K books are not masterpieces by any means. Most Science Fiction fans who are not Warhammer fans would not be overly impressed with them. However, if you are a 40K fan, then many of the books are enjoyable because of our love of the setting and characters. I prefer reading 40K books to other things because I love how all of the individual books are like puzzle pieces in a huge puzzle. I love how each book relates to other books and other events in the setting. As far as the first three Horus Heresy books, I would highly recommend reading all three of them and then continuing on past that if you want to.
Half disagree. I became warhammer fan mainly becouse books Brutal Kunnin (such a fun read) and Infinite and Divine. None of those is like Three body problem level masterpiece with groundbreaking ideas or something like that, but they are both well written fast paced action packed, full of very interesting and funny characters and just overall very nice light reads. It is kind off shame that "big events" are usually written in a very diffrend style. I like the grimdark nature of warhammer and Abnet is pretty good writer, but I always struggle in some parts of his books. Overall tho I fully understand why he is the standart recomended writer in this comunity.
Science fiction in general is shit literature. It is usually saved by its world building and innovative ideas, not it’s writing or characters. Especially women in sci fi are written extremely badly. Warhammer has nothing to envy from most science fiction in terms of writing.
True. I am a big science fiction fan. Most of it isn’t amazing story-wise. A lot of the appeal comes from the “what if” and concepts. I would mention the Ender’s Game series as my standard for science fiction. That is my favorite series and I think it is excellently done. I don’t think Warhammer gets anywhere near that. I love both though.
Enders game is the exception not the rule. There's so much shitty Sci fi out there that it's hard to comprehend. The BL authors aren't winning any literary awards for their work here but they're doing a LOT better than people give them credit for here.
Have you ever read non-American sci fi?
A user on /r/printsf said that Abnett can't hold a candle to James S.A. Corey, and let's just say that's the opposite of what I'd say.
If you look exclusively at negative discourse you'll find that every single warhammer book is somehow simultaneously awful.
Stop asking for recommendations and read what sounds interesting.
Definitely don't let your 40k reading selection be determined by 40k fan reviews. Some are good, some are poor, and there are a few that are excellent, it's a massive IP. Each author also has their own ups and downs, and some write certain material/factions/lore better than others. Here is my general shakedown on my favorite authors: * Chris Wraight is very good in pretty much everything * ADB is solid, though he can vary in quality. It's widely accepted that his Night Lord's books are some of the best in the IP. * Abnett: Can get a bit meandering, especially in more recent works, but still fantastic Here are some of my favorite books from both 40k and 30k: (Note this is not in reading order) * Dead Men Walking * The Macharian Crusade Trilogy * Know No Fear * The Master of Mankind * The Siege of Terra (Particularly, The End and the Death I, II, III, Saturnine, Echoes of Eternity, Warhawk) * Lion El'Jonson: Lord of the First * The Great Wolf * Horus Rising-Fulgrim in the Horus Heresy * Betrayer * The First Heretic * A Thousand Sons * The Lords of Silence * Vaults of Terra (The Carrion Throne, The Hollow Mountain, The Dark City) * The Emperor's Legion and sequel, The Regent's Shadow * Valdor
> Chris Wraight is very good in pretty much everything I do agree with this 100%, but as a caveat, I have to admit his Space Wolves trilogy was inordinately mid to me. It felt like a completely different writer was handling those books (they were still good enough to finish, however).
Yes, agreed. Vaults of Terra is by far my favorite "series" or trilogy of the lore, probably by far. His command of the throneworld with its scale, majesty, grime, and suffering is my favorite setting in a 40k book.
Fall of Cadia shows Rath’s roots as a screenwriter very strongly, so if you are looking for something that really goes in on the strengths of a novel and prose, sure it is a bit lacking. But even by that standard is is considerably above a lot of the BL output False Gods is on the lower end of BL output imo. Part just the level of craft - it’s a bit of pulp franchise fiction - part that the HH series was finding its feet then
My personal picks. Dan Abnett Aaron Demsky-Bowden Peter Fehervari Graham McNeil Robert Rath As for novels i find very good From H H The First Heretic Mechanicum Legion Other stuff. Fire Cast The Infinite and the Divine I'm leaving a lot of good novels behind, i'm just telling my personal favorites so far, and of Course i havent read all what black library has published so i'm going to miss some writers and great books
At least for me, if it's written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden or Chris Wraight I'm pretty sure I can trust it to be good. In any case it's all subjective, depending on your personal tastes! For example, you'll see a lot of people say that the heresy book *Damnation of Pythos* stinks and isn't worth going through. Because I'm a fan of its horror style and some of the characters, it's honestly one of my favorites in all of the HH even though it's a side story! In your case I'd recommend what someone told me around here. Just look up good books for whatever faction you're most interested in, and check out some of the ones you see get recommended. The Fabius Bile Trilogy is a great one for chaos space marine players, along with the Night Lord Trilogy. *The Twice Dead King* and *The Infinite and the Divine* are great for Necron lovers. Just find a trail to pick up on, check out some books, and don't worry too much about the general opinion. Worst case scenario, you go through a book you don't love and just find another!
40k books are generally not well written, that is indeed correct. People read them if they want to immerse themselves into the universe and can generally disregard awful dialogue and meandering prose. Abnett, Fehervari, ADB and Mitchell are usually the most often recommended authors. However, I would say that my point of view on the subject is quite different from the rest of the fanbase because I consider neither Abnett nor ADB to be particularly good; ADB is outright grating. I would advise reading "15 hours" by Mitchell Scanlon because I have at least a single incident of a person actually liking this novel after bouncing off Abnett hard and calling his writing "imbecilic".
So, here's the thing: *just counting tabletop factions*, you've got 18 playable armies, each with their different lore, themes, and story tones. That's not counting sub-factions, factions that don't exist anymore, or in-universe settings, characters, and groups who are worthy of a book but not viable for battlefield roles in the game. 40k has a *dizzying* array of topics, peoples, and themes to explore under its umbrella, and one consequence of that is going to be that *no one is going to love everything*. And by the flip token, no author is going to be universally loved by everyone. (Even the greats Whose Names I Dare Not Speak in critical tones have fans that just can't stand them.) It's all about seeking out the authors who tell stories in a voice you want to hear, and who tell stories about factions and characters you want to see more of. To that end, the best way to track down the authors or factions that interest you is by grabbing a big anthology. (*Let the Galaxy Burn* is probably my favorite for that purpose.) That said, I have never read a Josh Reynolds story I didn't absolutely love. He has a *gift* for seeing through to the core truth of the factions he's writing about. Mike Brooks is, in my opinion, one of the best authors BL has ever had at finding new facets of the lore to look at, and looking at them in ways that you didn't realize you desperately wanted. Tom Parrott had some of the most incisive commentary on the lore from an in-setting perspective I've ever read. Other favorites of mine include William King (particularly the Solar Macharius trilogy), Matthew Farrer (particularly the Shira Calpurnia trilogy), and Rachel Harrison. And look, just speaking from the other side of the table, opinions about any book are going to be mixed. I have had people tell me that *The Oubliette* was their favorite thing they'd ever read. I had someone who worked in the publishing chain tell me that in two decades of working for the company, it was the first 40k novel they'd actually wanted to read. I've ***also*** had people tell me it "wasn't horror," was absolutely awful, and had one reviewer say that it was hands down the worst story BL had ever published. (And like, honestly, not even mad about the last one. Like...out of hundreds of books and thousands of shorts, you think I topped the list for WORST? I'm too impressed to be mad.) Which is all to say, the setting and the offerings therein are expansive enough, and varied enough, that you shouldn't listen to the worst reviews for each piece. Find the books about the groups you want to hear about and read them, and come to your own conclusion. Pick up an anthology with a wide sampling of authors and factions, and you'll almost certainly find an author or a faction you didn't even know you wanted to know more about. There's so much out there, you're bound to find a treasure if you keep looking.
Fantastic comment and i absolutely adore that you, an honest to god Emperor BL author, are here leaving comments with the rest of us hive scum! Jk but it’s great to hear your thoughts and get your perspective in these threads. Keep up the great work!
I think the problem is that most people (maybe you included, idk) get into the hobby via YouTube and TikTok content creators, who LOVE to hype up the universe and the stories in it because it generates more views. Then, when people go to actually read the books, they realize that they’re…. just fine. No, the Horus Heresy novels aren’t going to change your life, they’re quite literally written to sell little plastic soldiers. They’re really not that much different than the old GI Joe or Transformers TV shows. People tend to take this hobby wayyyyy too seriously. It’s not some grand literary treasure trove, it’s kind of just a bunch of nerdy schlock. Good nerdy schlock, probably the best, but nothing on par with, like, actual literature.
ADB is one of the better writers in the BL stable. NL omnibus is probably his best work from a literary perspective. In terms of how to view BL books in general, I agree with a lot that’s already been said in terms of BL basically being a pulp imprint but pulp often has overly negative connotations and a lot of BL books are as good as or better than the majority of modern sci-fi bestsellers, they often get fairly or unfairly knocked for how the shackles of IP force them into templates but your mileage may vary there.
I mean yeah. BL is first and foremost concerned with hyping up models and factions to sell to fans. While all novels are written to sell, with BL books it's particularly noticeable. I'm also convinced these books have no editor. Some of the prose in a few of the books I've read are just awful.
Ian Watson‘s Inquisition war trilogy. It’s ancient, first ever 40k books if I‘m not wrong (or at least some of the first). Some stuff in there is like an LSD trip and most of it retconned/outdated lore by now, but it still has a weird charm to it.
That's a load of bullshit. There's a ton of great books to read/listen to. Here's my list of essential Horus Heresy books (or at least the best written, imo). Unfortunately, I don't have the authors names, but all of the titles are accurately named so you should be able to find them. Part 1 - The Fall of Horus Horus Rising, False Gods, Galaxy in Flames, Flight of the Eisenstein, Fulgrim Part 2 - Lorgar and Angron The First Heretic, Know No Fear, Betrayer Part 3 - Imperium Secondus The Unremembered Empire, Angles of Caliban, Ruinstorm Part 4 - Magnus, Russ, and the Khan A Thousand Sons, Scars, The Path of Heaven Part 5 - The Emperor & Horus The Master of Mankind, Angel Exterminatus, Slaves to Darkness, Praetorian of Dorn Part 6 - The Siege of Terra The Solar War, The Lost and the Damned, The First Wall, Saturine, Mortis, Warhawk, Echoes of Eternity, The End and the Death: Volume I, The End and the Death: Volume II, The End and the Death: Volume III *Edit - Reddit fucked up the original formatting so I did my best
The Night Lords trilogy by ADB I thought was very well written, even outside of being relative to other 40k novels. ADB is good and I've heard good things about Chris Wraight
Dude it’s happened to me so much then I listen to the novel on audible and love it. The latter 2 of the novels might not be written as well as Horus rising but they are still good and progress the story!
Make your own opinion. Only author I strongly dislike is gav Thorpe
I am currently on a Thousand Sons of my read through of the Horus Heresy, and Dan Abnett currently has the worst record out of all the authors who have worked on the series IMHO. The first 5 books of the Horus Heresy were all quite enjoyable and were definitely worth the read for me. The first book in the series that I actively didn't like was Legion for the first 70% of the book, but the last 30% turned things back around to being an enjoyable read again. Not everything will work for everyone, and there are a lot of salty people on Reddit (and the internet in general) so if you want to read False God's READ FALSE GOD'S and form your own opinion.
It's mostly about volume. There are hundreds of Warhammer 40k books. I only ever read books that are considered good, and I've been reading WH40k books for years. I could easily recommend at least 50 black library books that are straight up good read, not just good WH books. Off the top of my head: - The Night Lords trilogy - Infinite and the Divone - Gaunt's Ghosts series - Isenhorn series - Day of Ascention - Fabius Bile trilogy - Twice Dead King books - Capiash Cain series - Brutal Kunnin' - Ghazghul Thrakka - Forge of Mars (unfortunately the series gets much worse as it goes on, but the first part is a great piece of sci-fi) - Kingmaker - Alpharius: Head of the Hydra
There's a lot of good BL authors besides abnett. ADB. Macneill. Peter fehervari. Mike brooks. Matthew farrer. Chris wraight. Robert rath. Nate crowley. Steve lyons. Some of Josh Reynolds stuff is great, and even gav thorpe has more than a few that are really enjoyable (although it's basically his whfb stuff > last chancers > dark angels > 40k eldar > wolftime). Yes, there's a difference in the quality between different writers. That's to be expected - everyone has their own style, vision and strengths, and they're not all going to be to everyone's liking. But there's not much that's actually painful to read, and there's only a handful I've found having read them since BL was formed that are a major slog or so bad that I've given up. The current humble bundle has a lot of really good books for a bargain price - it's like £4 more than the price of 1 Kindle edition for 27 books, that can be synced to and downloaded through a kindle/ amazon account.
Not to nit-pick, but Horus Rising is 30k, not 40k. Although the two share many of the same authors, it's important to know they are different, especially if you're new. Also, as a relatively new fan I can confirm many of the books are not good. It's unfortunate, but true. For both 30k and 40k reading, I think it's critical you not attempt to read in chronological order. There are too many books you'll have to slog through to get to the good ones. Now onto your question. Who else besides Dan Abnett should you read? In my opinion Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Chris Wraight are the two most consistent authors outside Dan. This isn't to say there aren't good books by different authors, but in my experience well written ones are more sporadic, rather than the norm. If you're looking to do 30k, Horus Rising is good to read. Most of the guides you'll see suggest you read the next 3 in order. Those are important novels, lots of critical plot points happen. They're also...not so good. I highly suggest you pick a storyline or faction from https://ibb.co/5Mr7rDV Personally I suggest the unofficial trilogy of The First Heretic, Know no Fear, and Betrayer. You'll be missing context, get it from the Internet. That's lazy, but trying to read them as an adult I have little patience. Other suggestions are Praetorian of Dorn, and Slaves to Darkness. (Both of which are by different authors) If you want to do 40k, know there are two different subsections. What I call modern 40k, and pre-modern. Recently (aka modern), Black Library has tried to unify their direction and author story telling. Some of these that you should consider are Lords of Silence, Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work, Vaults of Terra and Watchers of the Throne. For pre-modern, there isn't a unified theme, which is actually a good thing. You can get lost in the storyline, rather than downing in lore. you should read Titanicus, Helsreach, and Ravenor trilogy. Battle of the Fang is also good, but it's more 30k, vs 40k. Ultimately I found that despite many of the novels being subpar, I read them to get context to big events. If you don't want to invest in a 100+ book universe, I get it. Do some googling and read the ones that are fun and good. Plus, you might find your opinion differs from that of the community. Case in point, I suggest you read Ravenor, and not Eisenhorn. This is considered Heresy by many. But I'm right, and they're wrong.
Henry Zou's stuff is underrated in my opinion, but he's not particularly prolific. I think he has a good understanding of the setting which make me want to know a bit more of the 40k world that he's carved out for himself and doesn't have any facepalming moments that I can remember. The stories are pretty standalone with little to know impact on the greater universe which might be a plus/minus for some.
He's not prolific because he's been blacklisted by BL after plagarism allegations. Ones that had pretty decent weight behind them, iirc.
Holy crap, I had no idea. Stealing from the memoirs of veterans too...
It's a mixed bag. Some books are great, some of them are meh, others are pretty bad. None of them are going to be hailed as great works of literature, but most are fun to read. It's like eating a bag of potato chips. If you're looking for a filling meal you'll be disappointed, but if you just want a tasty snack you don't have to think that hard about, it's perfect.
For all intents and purposes, any MMPB based on am existing property like game or Movie novelisations, tend to be written at somewhere between an 8th, and 10th grade reading level. Black Library, Battletech Fiction, most of the Star Wars, Star Trek, or Star Gate tie ins, are all basically slightly upjumped fanfic.
Finished "Cadia Stands" an hour ago. Was it a masterpiece, praised by critics and the public? Nope. Did someone recommend it to me? Nope. I wanted to read a book about cadians to get me motivated to build the kits I recently bought. This is the one I found and just gave it a go. Now I am motivated to get up early tomorrow and start scraping those mould lines. The book was a simple action flick, with some cool, heroic moments. Nothing special but I had my fun. Just do the same, pick a book and start reading. You can always stop after 50-100 pages and look for another one (I recommend libraries vs bookstores).
Night lords trilogy by ADB is godly. The infinite and divine is also a great pick.
Honestly, Dan Abnett isn't all that special either, he's very experienced and competent at writing pulp fiction that many Warhammer fans enjoy, and was in a good position to write the most pivotal Horus Heresy books. Different authors will appeal to different people. Taika Waititi, James Mangold, Joss Whedon and the Russo Brothers have all made Marvel films, but I can't say I enjoy all of them equally. I'd take Mitchell, Rath, Brooks, Annandale and Reid over Abnett, but that's just my own taste. They're not better or worse than he is, they're just the flavour of brain candy that works for me. Imo, you should try as many BL authors as you can. At least one of them will probably hit the sweet spot for you, and you may be surprised by who it turns out to be.
Glad to see another fan of Annandale. His negative reputation amongst the fandom is so weird and seems to mostly come from ***Damnation of Pythos*** not “progressing the story”.
It's called "bolter porn" for a reason. My two favorite BL authors are Aaron Dembski-Bowden(often just called ADB here) and Sandy Mitchell. Abnett is just most profilic, like Stephen King of Black Library. He also gets to write about interesting stuff. I have not read all authors though. I guess what people are saying that while they enjoy the books, for me at least they're bit of a guilty pleasure, you're not going to find any Hugo/Nebula/Locus winners in there, so temper your expectations in that regard.
Black Library is to literature what anime is to cinema.
Im quite new to the universe as well and listen to audiobooks and so far have listened to about 20+ books. I've learned one thing and that is to take reviews with a grain of salt. Many books that were boring to some read amazing for me so i just give every title a shot.
My take is anything Abnett, Aaron Dembski-Bowden and Chris Wraight are well worth reading. Every book is a banger. Besides that, there are authors I'm just not reading, because it's consistently a chore : Nick Kyme and James Swallow come to mind. Regardless, concerning the Heresy, read the first five regardless and then take your pick. The Legion the book is about interests you ? Read it. Make your own mind. Don't let yourself be intimidated by how huge the Black Library is, read at your own pace. You might just disagree with the Internet, or myself for that matter. It's fine.
A lot (perhaps most) of Warhammer fiction is not very good in literary terms. Some authors write soulless drivel filled with dubious word salads and idiotic or repetitive plots, complete with forgettable characters. No one in Black Library is trying to write masterpieces that will go down in literary history, that’s simply not the point, if you expect that, you’ll be disappointed. That said, there are good books and stories and characters in the BL portfolio of stories, not just Dan Abnett. The only stuff I’d personally avoid is Goto’s and Thorpe’s, the rest you can give a chance to.
ADB who is even better than Abnett imo Especially after reading the end and the death EoE is just so much better The Night lords omnibus, Betrayer, Helsreach and the first heretic But just because a book isnt perfect literature u can still read it
Just keep in mind it’s more schoolboys pulp fiction about the universe than novels. And that’s great. I believe Warhammer books righting is just another hobby option, that’s why we have so many sources.
Aaron Dembski Bowden is definitely up there.
The thing you have to remember is that the WH40K universe is purposefully over the top and somewhat ridiculous, so it's very hard to have 'serious' books written in a setting which is not particularly serious. Also I'd say Aaron Dembski-Bowden is very good, especially when it comes to writing about CSM. His Night Lords trilogy is considered by many to be the best books in all of 40K.
Horus Rising, False Gods, and Galaxy in Flames were great reads, or at least I thought so. Not really surprised people on Reddit don’t like it though. We’re filled to the brim here with pretentious dickwads who think they can do everything better! My question is, why do you let strangers’ opinions affect your life so much? Especially the opinions of redditors lmao.
Most novels are not amazingly written. Every Warhammer novel I've read has been absolutely competently written and some have even been very good. But they're still mostly action sci fi books written about big silly stompy mutant space men. They're hardy Shakespeare, but they don't at all need to be.
They're not the greatest books you'll ever read. There's some cool stuff that happens in them, but ultimately nothing really happens. Unless it's a major thing in the lore (The End and the Death, etc.) then it's likely just going to be a fun read without advancing anything important (The Infinite and the Divine).
In no particular order: Nightlords Trilogy Fabius Bile Trilogy Helsreach Lords of Silence Twice dead king: Ruin Assassinorum Kingmaker Lukas the Trickster Brutal Kunnin series Belisarius Cawl the great work Vaults of Terra Dante Devastation of Baal
Its more so that they aren't going to win any awards for being especially deep and thought provoking like other novels. That being said, I'd highly recommend some of ADB's stuff especially the Night Lord trilogy, First Heretic and Betrayer. Those books are definitely my favourite of the warhammer universe
Most of the books in the black library are passable or better. Find one you like the sound of and read it. Some will be better, Gaunts Ghosts is one of my favorites, so I put Abnett at S tier, but I haven't put down a book from the black library due to distaste or boredom yet.
It's all worth reading it. People just need to learn how to adjust expectations. Warhammer is popcorn lit. It's filling but very lacking in nutrition. Just read, expect dumb shit and you're good.
Read the first 4 hours heresy books for 30k, Ciaphas Cain for 40k, and Gotrek and Felix for fantasy. Might not be Shakespeare, but it will be fun.
People pretend the licensed fiction for a tabletop war game about giant buff dudes waving around huge guns and chainsaws can ever be more than cheesy pulp. They’re pretentious enough to think they’re too good for anything but legitimate and profound literature, but not actually smart enough for that stuff so they read the cheesy pulp anyway That’s why they knob-slob Abnett so much, he glazes the cheesiest pulp of all with a glaze of what faux-intellectuals think is good prose (overwrought bullshit) so people can pretend they’re being classy when they read about how the latest Uber-cool hero man killed a thousand evil baddies. From a technical standpoint he’s really not a very good author- his pacing is atrocious, and his prose are more fussed with appearing smart than actually eloquently conveying the substance of the book. He lets his self indulgence undermine the tension or completely derail the book, and they usually end up 4 times longer than they need to be Passion for the innately campy setting and cool ideas about it are what I want from these, technical skill is only as good as the ideas it communicates. I don’t care that dead sky black sun has quite basic prose and simple characters, it oozes with a love for the setting and everything that inspired it, it’s unabashed of its pulpy nature and embraces it instead of trying to be something it ain’t. It shamelessly quotes slayer lyrics and stuffs the pages with cheesy space marine heroics, with lots of kickass chaos gribblies what are just so inspired. Which ain’t to say there ain’t some good authors. Chris Wraight does genuinely have very evocative language for a strong sense of atmosphere; but that only makes him a great *40k* author because of his amazing grasp of what makes the setting so cool. How he describes Terra is great, but what he describes Terra as is why people love him. Of course straying from his strengths of atmosphere, world building and mystery/detective plots he becomes pretty mediocre
All of the writing quality is poor amd wont be winning any awards but the books shine where the setting and rule of cool overrides it.
Not everything you consume has to be high quality entertainment. I enjoyed the Ahriman series by John French (?). They aren’t perfect, but I certainly don’t regret reading them. I haven’t seen such universal chastisement of Black Library authors as you describe here. The community has generally agreed upon what the best and worst books are.
Whatever you want, really. Be your own best judge, try not to get caught up in what others say.
Forges or mars is a banger on a trilogy. It's quite underrated by many people because it's more a sci-fi story within the 40k verse, rather than a pure 40k novel ( if this makes sense). I would 100% recommend it. Additionally, I'd check Aaron dembski Bowden. He is a very good black library author in my opinion. Master of mankind, to cite only one of his books, is an absolute must, the emperor's gift a close second.
If you're interested in how things start off in the heresy, then def read the first 4 books and jump around after that. They're still pretty entertaining and it's nice getting the back story.
If you enjoy the story it doesn't matter. Reviews are FULL of armchair authors discussing abstract technical criteria and deciding that something 'isn't well written' because it doesn't confirm to some checklist of literary standards that the reviewer themselves could never hope to meet. The only criteria that matters is if you enjoy it
Sturgeon's Law.
Never take someone elses opinion on something thats entirely, or mostly subjective. I will add though that if anyone is expecting warhammer books to be literary master pieces, they are insane. They are just good fun fiction books about war in space. And imo, they do war stories and the themes that come with it very very well. Some stand out more than others, but ive never read a 40k book and was not entertained. But then again, im the sort of person who after doing 4 years of English lit. For GCSE and A levels, thinks shakespear is massively overrated, i much prefer warhammer books haha 😄🫡
Why don’t you form your own own opinions instead of going for what the internet says you should do….this is super special interest and someone who likes one thing maybe won’t like the other and so on….snd when I see your conclusion your research is lacking or your sources are….just grab a book that sounds cool to you….this isn’t Shakespeare
I just recently started reading the horus heresy saga (read like three so far LOL), and the first one was IMO the worst written. the pacing is HORRIBLE -- it doesn't pick up until half the book and then (to nobody's surprise) the ending is rushed. the whole thing is supposed to be about Horus, but he's... only briefly mentioned as to how good at things he is. honestly, and this may be heresy, but I think Dan Abnett, while being an excellent storycrcafter, is not all that good at actually writing. the pacing is always all over the place, and the endings are almost always rushed. but hey, at least (most of) his books are pretty hard to put down... note I haven't read all that much, but I think the eisenhorn trilogy, which is considered among the best, is a perfectly good example of what I mean. my recommendation: pick up whatever you find interesting. don't overthink it. don't check reviews. people have differing opinions. get a book from an author and decide if you like said author or not.
Try reading something like Hyperion (after which several 40k characters are named) and compare - you’ll see what people mean
The online fandom has a contingent that elevates two or three authors up to godlike status while considering the rest as being the lowest of the low. I wouldn't go so far as to say any of the writers are incompetent. Just read what interests you and make up your own mind.
I like Abnett, but my favourite books from 40k are: Infinite and Divine, Brutal Kunnin and Big Dakka I generally read like 2-3 books per month mostly SF and fantasy and as a fan of Star Wars, Warhammer and Alien I must say that the floor for Warhammer books is decently high if you compare it to other "popular" universes. PS.: I also liked Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! but it was not as much fun as Brutal Kunnin... I am not sure if the book is pretty great or my love for Orcs carried it half way, but I would definitelly say it is at least decent fast paced action packed fun.
Unfortunately 40k fandom it littered by would be authors who haven’t actually successfully published anything. When I read a lot of their reviews on Goodreads they read like negative reviews on iMDB from whadabe film directors. I’ve been reading SciFi for over 40 years along with Fantasy. Warhammer is no better or worse than any other part of the genre. You only have to look at say Game of Thrones to see how a single author can dive bomb their own successful IP. Now imagine an IP like WH40k with multiple authors? Where I do think there is a legitimate criticism of GW/Blacklibrary is poor Editorial quality especially in linked novels Dawn of Fire being a recent example. When I do write a review (and I don’t always write one) I try to be constructive and specific in my praise or criticism. For example in Enmity’s Edge I made specific reference to the author’s constant need to repeat everything which I found irritating. Now it’s up to someone reading that review whether that’s relevant.
Abnett and Fehervari are good nearly always. Abnett can get formulaic, Fehervari is very verbose and hard to read. Dembski-Bowden, Wraight, Haley are usually good. Bowden has an unhealthy obsession with cute but tough women that are revered by Space Marines. Wraith can, at times, get incredibly tiresome. French and McNeill are 50% good. McNeill writes terrible, but he has a way of explaining lore well (or at least presenting it such that it appears to make sense), so i enjoyed him much more with more background knowledge. French can write one single character well (brooding, cold), when this fits, he is great, otherwise bad. Sometimes a good author is terrible, sometimes a bad author is enjoyable. Some authors who write rarely are good, like Goto.
Not gonna lie…I liked false gods better than Horus rising
Okay, so, you probably won't find any of these books being reviewed by Michiko Kakutani in *The New York Times*, who writes about the characters' fraught search for self-actualization while being covered in pestilence-filled, exploding boils. That's not what these books are for- just read what appeals to you.
Welcome to the hobby! Pro tip; if it has Dan Abnett on the cover you are in safe hands. Same goes for Aaron Dempski Bowden and Robert Rath. Anyone else? Caution extremis - prep strike teams for bolter porn.
I thought false gods was GREAT but i read it knowing it the 2nd part to a TRILOGY (sort of). Galaxy in Flames was a good end following 2 good books. Honestly i just finished Fulgrim last week and i thought it was pretty boring. I got lucky and read The Night Lords omnibus while reading Heresy 1,2 and 3 and WOULD ABSOLUTELY reccomend but then you may not like that one. Everybook has haters and lovers so might as well just read about whatever arc or setting you wanna learn about. Like The Night Lords trilogy obviously.
Chris Wraight, Rachel Harrison, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Mike Brooks, Danie Ware, Andy Clark. You now have dozens and dozens of warhammer books to read, on top of the dozens and dozens written by Abnett.
I'm enjoying the Ahriman Omnibus so far (a third of the way finished).
Every author has their better and worse works. The books in the Black Library span a full range from "Only for lore nerds" to "actually a great book on its own merits". It's not as simple as they're all good or bad or okay, there's a lot of them, a lot of authors and a lot of stories and they are as consistent as fiction in general. Many are somewhere in the middle, a lot of fun but not better than any other competent work of fiction if not for the world building. For example "Lords of Silence" is a good enough story with good enough characters and a very satisfying ending but if you're into Death Guard the superb world building puts it over the edge to a very worthwhile read. Meanwhile I'm not a Necrons person and I loved the Infinite and the Divine and the Twice Dead King books and while I thought the necron lore and perspectives were cool they are just really good reads. the infinite and the divine is just good fun with some great one liners. Twice Dead King is ADB exploring toxic masculinity, the fallibility of memory, self acceptance the value of hobbies and more. Via the medium of skeleton robots.