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And in them spirit of the season, what is the best GW novel?

Please note the use of the definite article here, we're looking for one book not a trilogy, not an omnibus, not a series, a single novel.

Have at it.

Only in death. Nice atmosphere and just couldn't stop reading it, if only to know what the smeg was going on.

Eisenhorn - Xenos.

I liked them all so it's hard to decide, but I chose the first one because the Ordos Xenos, and the Deathwatch, are cool. It's all kinda merged into one big book for me, and I can't remember which bits where in which book, so I have to pick from the little parts that I can actually pin-point.

I'm going to say the latest book in the Horus Heresy 'The First Heretic' is the best Black Library book ever...and I'm shocked to write that given that until I read this book I would have never thought I'd put anything except a Dan Abnett book up for this type of acclaim.

There is just so much awesome about the story it is hard to know where to start...but I'll say that I really appreciated a story where the 'fall' of someone into disgrace really felt well motivated to me, as opposed to something completely laughable and unmotivated like Anakin's fall from grace in the Star Wars prequels.

While we still don't know why the Emperor thought he could keep the nature of the Warp a secret from his Primarchs (or even why he thought keeping it a secret was a better idea than telling them about it and training them to combat its lures) once that conceit is accepted I really do feel like the fall of Lorgar is not only really well motivated but interesting to witness throughout the book.

Just having a Primarch who never wanted to be a warrior and in a way is a patsy following the orders of those who should be his subordinates is such a refreshing change from the rest of the stories in the Horus Heresy. Lorgar is deeply flawed and his chapter is deeply flawed and but that flaw is so much more subtle and interesting than the standard marine 'we have a flaw and it is our eternal shame that keeps us motivated' kind of thing.

And then there's the incredible massive core-shaking revelation about the whole history of 40K...if you choose believe it, of course!

Oh, and more information about the two missing Chapters than ever before?

I'm sold.


I recommend this book to everyone!

Ravenor, it is the one that got me back into 40k really. A nice blend of noir, cyber punk and good old pulp topped with good action, fun characters and one of the best intros ever.

Sadly the rest of the trilogy went a bit downhill from there.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:And in them spirit of the season, what is the best GW novel?

Please note the use of the definite article here, we're looking for one book not a trilogy, not an omnibus, not a series, a single novel.

Have at it.

Umm, what is yours?

Me? I don't have one really. The books are "meh" at most. I do enjoy the Gotrix and Felix novels though. My fav is prob Ork Slayer. It should be the one where Gotrix, Felix and some other dwarfs go to help recover a lost dwarf castle from orks. Only the orks arnt what they seem. Great story with lots of twists, interesting characters and great fights.

My favourite is First and Only, followed closely by Horus Rising. Then, probably Beastslayer.

"Soul Reaver" has to be my favorite. A.D.B. is the best of the lot right now, even better than saint Abnett imho. The portrayal of the Night Lords as renegades rather than chaos followers was very well done, and his style of writing is suspensfull, climatic, and awesome.

OoieGoie wrote:

Umm, what is yours?

If we were doing series the Einhorn books would win hands down, they have character development, mystery, action and even that rarest of flowers in the Black Library L-U-V. But we're not so they don't win.

I ask a couple of questions to myself. Self I say, have you read and reread the book? Cause if I haven't I have no business nominating it as the best of anything. Self, would you recommend it to a GW fan? And self, would you too recommend it to a non-fan? Self, what book could possibly meet all 3 tests?

And I have but one answer:



Drachenfels!

(I tried to find the original cover but couldn't find a good image, this one is just poo)

By Kim Newman (writing as Jack Yeovil).

It begins with a handsome prince and his mismatched band of heroes creeping into the castle of the evil wizard for a final showdown.
Most of them die before page 20.
Then it moves years into the future where the world's greatest writer is sitting in debtors prison after his latest play (a big-budget epic based on the life of Sigmar) flopped. And now the prince wants him to write the story of how he defeated the evil wizard.
And goes from there.
It's about myth vs reality, theater, commerce and art, black magic, lies, love and oh a Vampire Mary Sue. Vampire Mary Sue is usually the kiss of death for any book but somehow Newman makes her work.
The book is just fun.
I reread it every few years and still chuckle at some of the lines.

Genevieve Undead is a great series, with exception to the third novel, which was a bit of an odd duckling in the mix. But great series and with a happy ending for once!

BrookM wrote:Genevieve Undead is a great series, with exception to the third novel, which was a bit of an odd duckling in the mix. But great series and with a happy ending for once!

I'd like to read those at one point.

My favourite is Mechanicum.

But I've always been a big fan of the AdMech anyway.

Hard to say...

Each Black Library book I pick up seems to be my favorite once I get to reading it...

A couple that really stand out for me are Lord of the Night and Fifteen Hours.

I'm predicting Soul Hunter will become my favorite as soon as I get to reading it. I'm a fan of ADB even though I have yet to read any of his work other than his blogs.

Drachenfels is excellent, Xeno from the Esienhorn books is excellent, but for me the best is Horus Rising.

Really gives you everything that the WH40k universe is about in one book, from a point at which you could almost be simpathetic to the Imperium. It is a pity that they did not have Abnett write all of the "main story" books of the HH, because most of the others suffer in comparison. (some even show up in the "worst BL books" list)

Necropolis in the Guant's Ghosts series. It was the first defining point for gaunt and essentially set the series on the road it is currently on. Also great in the fact that it showed several other good guard regiments like the Roane Deepers and the Narmenian Armored Brigade.

I have to say First Herectic. First honest to god Black Library novel that I felt was written to a truly good standard. I'm spoiled in my sci-fi writers as there are some out there right now that are downright amazing and this was the first one that doesn't just trump BL but actually is a well written book against other sci-fi for me. I was rooting up until the end for a certain someone to basically be another Loken and turn away...he never did

Oh, and most of Abnetts stuff, especially ones like Necropolis do stand out amongst the the rest of BL. Add in a fair amount of Graham's stuff and there are some pretty good reads but First Heretic is the first, for me, to stand up there with some of my other favorite authors in writing style and development. And that's with me hating Lothgar (sp?) with a passion for being such a...sissy...I did love the bit where Kurze calls him on being a beotch and saves him from Corax

yakface wrote:
I'm going to say the latest book in the Horus Heresy 'The First Heretic' is the best Black Library book ever...and I'm shocked to write that given that until I read this book I would have never thought I'd put anything except a Dan Abnett book up for this type of acclaim.

There is just so much awesome about the story it is hard to know where to start...but I'll say that I really appreciated a story where the 'fall' of someone into disgrace really felt well motivated to me, as opposed to something completely laughable and unmotivated like Anakin's fall from grace in the Star Wars prequels.

While we still don't know why the Emperor thought he could keep the nature of the Warp a secret from his Primarchs (or even why he thought keeping it a secret was a better idea than telling them about it and training them to combat its lures) once that conceit is accepted I really do feel like the fall of Lorgar is not only really well motivated but interesting to witness throughout the book.

Just having a Primarch who never wanted to be a warrior and in a way is a patsy following the orders of those who should be his subordinates is such a refreshing change from the rest of the stories in the Horus Heresy. Lorgar is deeply flawed and his chapter is deeply flawed and but that flaw is so much more subtle and interesting than the standard marine 'we have a flaw and it is our eternal shame that keeps us motivated' kind of thing.

And then there's the incredible massive core-shaking revelation about the whole history of 40K...if you choose believe it, of course!

Oh, and more information about the two missing Chapters than ever before?

I'm sold.


I recommend this book to everyone!

I felt the same way, a very pleasant surprise for me, and I enjoyed reading it quite a bit. Runners up for me include Storm of Iron, Soul Drinkers series and the classic Ian Watson books for pure Nostalgia.

I'll start by describing my criteria. I don't read Black Library stuff as novels.

I do devour them, though, for their gothic, grotesque,over-the-top imagery -- for the way the best of them evoke a chilling atmosphere of "weird" in the 1930s pulp sense of the term. I hunt through them for ideas, for visual descriptions, for villainous "mwu-ha-ha-has!" I read for for "oooh," or for "eww."

For scenes like McNeilll's description of a Space Marine's ascension to daemonhood in Storm of Iron. Or Counter's depiction of a princess of Slaanesh tormenting an imprisoned daemon of Khorne in Daemon World. Or Abnett's imagining of the interior monologue of a half-crazed, deeply demented Hellblade pilot in Double Eagle.

Using this criteria, I think I'd chose Traitor General, in which Abnett strands Gaunt and a few of the Ghosts on a world seized by Chaos for basically the whole tale. Wonderful stuff just oozes out of everywhere in that story.

For me it is a tie between Descent of Angels and Sons of Fenris.






Okay. So the real answer is Legion.


Take care

Horus Rising is probably my fav of what I've read, albeit I admit I haven't tried Eisenhorn yet.

Storm of Iron but since First Heretic came out it's a close second.

Storm of Iron was the one novel i had with me on my 8 week European backpacking excursion and absolutly love it.

yakface wrote:
I'm going to say the latest book in the Horus Heresy 'The First Heretic' is the best Black Library book ever...and I'm shocked to write that given that until I read this book I would have never thought I'd put anything except a Dan Abnett book up for this type of acclaim.

There is just so much awesome about the story it is hard to know where to start...but I'll say that I really appreciated a story where the 'fall' of someone into disgrace really felt well motivated to me, as opposed to something completely laughable and unmotivated like Anakin's fall from grace in the Star Wars prequels.

While we still don't know why the Emperor thought he could keep the nature of the Warp a secret from his Primarchs (or even why he thought keeping it a secret was a better idea than telling them about it and training them to combat its lures) once that conceit is accepted I really do feel like the fall of Lorgar is not only really well motivated but interesting to witness throughout the book.

Just having a Primarch who never wanted to be a warrior and in a way is a patsy following the orders of those who should be his subordinates is such a refreshing change from the rest of the stories in the Horus Heresy. Lorgar is deeply flawed and his chapter is deeply flawed and but that flaw is so much more subtle and interesting than the standard marine 'we have a flaw and it is our eternal shame that keeps us motivated' kind of thing.

And then there's the incredible massive core-shaking revelation about the whole history of 40K...if you choose believe it, of course!

Oh, and more information about the two missing Chapters than ever before?

I'm sold.


I recommend this book to everyone!

I completely agree with Yakface. First Heretic was absolutely awesome.
I only had 2 qualms with it: Underwhelming ending for the custodes and Lorgar and Argel Tal are still idiots for siding with Chaos.

For me, it's definitely one from the HH series, however I'm not sure as to whether it's Horus Rising, The First Heretic, Legion or possibly Mechanicus...

I was rooting for Argel Tal to break from chaos the entire time....so sad that he fully turned. Also yeah, the custodes didn't go down in that heroic of a manner. I get it. They built up their awesomeness and prowess throughout the book to show how truly beasty Argel Tal and his buddies were when they went all possessed but it still sucked to see them go down like chumps.

Titanicus. Easily.

albinoork wrote:For me it is a tie between Descent of Angels and Sons of Fenris.

Sons of Fenris was my first Black Library book... I'll have to check out the Descent of Angels.

Im currently reading through Nightbringer, now dunno if its the best one... but this novel is pretty frakk'n sweet!

Well, what I've learned from this thread is that tastes vary...and I definitely need to go buy First Heretic.

Even though it's part of the Horus Heresy Series, I'm going to say Prospero Burns. I freaking loved this novel. Dan Abnett always generates a lot of "background" in his novels (just little turns of phrase, 40K trivia, etc.) but this one takes the cake. Almost every page or two is some little gem that had me freaking out:

"Why, just the other day, I heard that we now have complete texts for all three of Shakespire's plays!"

Heck, most of the book doesn't even have Leman Russ in it, and it's still awesome.

I think it was kind of misnamed, in that so little of it actually deals with Prospero, but I'm not going to fault an awesome novel for an odd title selection. Just fantastic.

My big re-read stand-alone book is probably Gunheads

Everything else I enjoy and re-read constantly is part of a series..

Because of my literary OCD when a new book in a series comes out, I feel the need to re-read the vast majority of the series to get up to speed, and THEN read the newest.. so the HH series gets read frequently as well as Ciaphas Cain.

(Of course.. this really takes up some time when Terry Pratchett releases a new Discworld book... sigh.. )

Lord of the Night.

Really lets you get in the head of a Chaos Marine who had true purpose in his actions, able to see from the perspective of a victim.

No love for Commisar Cain?

He's a Hero of the Imperium!

He's adored by his men. admired by his superiors, and desired by women! Some of whom are also Daemons!

He's also quite possibly the only truly sane and rational character in any of the 40k books I've read. Which means he spends a lot of time trying desperately to stay alive and sane while simultaneously looking good enough not to be executed.

In other words, he's a perfect foil for the ridiculously over the top grimdarkness of the 40th millennium.

My favorite Cain novel is Traitor's Hand, though Death or Glory is close.