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I wanted to buy the warhammer books but im not sure if there any good or not.

Are they all about space marines or are there mentions of the other races?

Hows the writing? Good to read?

Thanks for the help guys. They look interesting at the moment im not sure

I have read a couple of the 40k books, mostly from the Horus Heresy series. Of the two that I have read I would say that there pretty good. I think that most of the books done by the Black Library mostly focus on the Imperium (sp?) though i beleive that i have seen some books about the orks and chaos. The two that i would recommend are Descent of Angels (about the Dark Angels) and Legion (about Alpha Legions fall), which both are from the Horus Heresy. Hope this helps.

I've read about 30 so far and on the whole I'd recommend most of them.

There are books which follow most of the races so you don't have to read about just space marines.

The only book I haven't enjoyed was Sons of Dorn but that is just because it took about 200 pages to really get started.

I recommend one of the short story collections like Hero's of the Space marines (covers both loyal and chaos SM) as a good starter book. The stories are well written and not too long (ideal for traveling).

Some of the stories follow on into their own Novels which is nice.

But on the whole it's completely up to you as the books cater for most tastes.

I read the Imperial guard book with Gaunts Ghosts. The first novel I think. I enjoyed it. It might have been two books. It was a bit on the darker side. No happy parts as such. I never regretted reading it though.

40k fiction in general is pretty average pulp sci-fi. It's better than the typical licensed Star Wars/Star Trek/Starcraft/Warcraft etc. novels, but it's not high literature. They are, for the most part, pretty fun reads. I'd recommend anything by Dan Abnett, as he's probably the best writer they have right now. Dan Abnett writes mostly Imperial Guard and Inquisitor stuff. Most books are from the perspective of the Imperium, and I'd say there's about a 50/50 divide between Marine and Guard/Inquisition books. Some Marine books, like the mostly solid Horus Heresy series and Rynn's World are definitely worth reading. Meanwhile others, like CS Goto's Dawn of War books, are to be avoided like the plague. Here's a quick list of books I recommend:

- Ciaphas Cain series by Sandy Mitchell - Follows a charismatic rat bastard commissar. These books are pretty funny and reminiscent of Flashman.

- Cadian Blood by Aaron Dembski-Bowden - Imperial Guard vs. Nurgle zombies. I just started it but I like what I've read so far.

- Storm of Iron by Graham McNeil - An Iron Warriors siege of an Imperial planet. Very cinematic, often over the top, but a lot of fun, and good characters.

- Rynn's World by Steve Parker - A well crafted story about the Crimson Fists fighting the Orks. Desperate struggles, characters getting killed left and right, and lots of typos. Still one of the best BL books I've read though.

Anyway, there's a wall of text for ya - hope that helps!

I just want to throw a quick shoutout for the Space Wolves novels. They're very well-done, and extremely entertaining (one scene in Ragnar's Claw involves him and his teammates getting into a buggy race with a bunch of Orks).

And yes, the grand majority deals with the Imperium, either through Space Marines, Inquisition, or Guard. I've heard wonderful things about the Gaunt's Ghosts series, so look into those. Avoid anything by C.S. Goto, though, unless you're just looking for laughs. Complete inability to follow the codices (I believe he once has Eldar surfing on Wave Serpents, and Space Marines using multilasers).

As for the Horus Heresy, I'd really only look into it if you're a diehard reader and Space Marine/Chaos Space Marine fluff fan. They are very dry novels, and most of them are very slow to get to anything Chaos-y. (1/3 of the way through Fulgrim, and the most we've seen is Fabulous Bill doing experiments on Marines) The intro trilogy, however, is very good, and the scene where Horus turns to Chaos is quite dramatic.

I liked the first 3 Space Wolves books, but after that I couldn't read any more William King. I couldn't even finish Wolfblade.