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One of my friends, as a present, got me the book Dead Man Wlaking as a
present for my birthday. I read the book, and it was really, really, REALLY bad...
A number of things stood out to me, like the style of the writing, the blatenly obvious contrasting to
the Necrons and the Death Korps of Krieg, the plot, the charaters, the plot, and the ending.
The writing style was pretty bad. It was very descriptive, but at the same time it managed to explain almost nothing.
The ending was terrible, It was like the writer had wrote himself is a corner, and decided to end it with some sort of ... type pf
ending.

I loved it as a gift though, It gave me around 4 hours of entertainment.

Is their any good warhammer novels?

Almost all warhammer books are only good for reading on the train or what have you. Try anything by Dan Abnett, his are a step above, quite good pulp fiction really.

My two favourites are Titanicus and Battle of The Fang.

Titanicus has epic titan fights and a conflict of faiths. Battle of the Fang is an epic battle between Space wolves and Thousand sons for vengeance.

The two Night Lords books by Aaron Dembski-Bowden are very excellent reads.

Other than that, Gaunt's Ghosts is a pretty solid series. So is Ravenor and Eisenhorn, some of the HH novels, Brothers of the Snake, and the Henry Zou books.

The HH series has some really good books in it, and Dan Abnett is a really good author to check out as well.

Lord Solar Awesome wrote:The HH series has some really good books in it, and Dan Abnett is a really good author to check out as well.

+1

I've read other 40k and WHFB Black Library novels before. I just finished reading Horus Rising and was blown away. Abnett is definitely as good as they come in BL and it was awesome to be so vividly experiencing the actors and events related to the most pivotal part of the 40k universe. And this was only the first book in the series; can't wait to pick up the next one

Anything by Aaron Dembski-Bowden.

Mr Nobody wrote:My two favourites are Titanicus and Battle of The Fang.

Titanicus has epic titan fights and a conflict of faiths. Battle of the Fang is an epic battle between Space wolves and Thousand sons for vengeance.

I second Titanicus...I actually read it twice!

Hückleberry wrote:

Mr Nobody wrote:My two favourites are Titanicus and Battle of The Fang.

Titanicus has epic titan fights and a conflict of faiths. Battle of the Fang is an epic battle between Space wolves and Thousand sons for vengeance.

I second Titanicus...I actually read it twice!

Me too!

I found Hell Forged the last Soul Drinkers novel to be pretty good.

Hammer of Daemons was okay in my opinion.

Anything Abnett writes is worth reading. The Eisenhorn Omnibus should be picked up by any self-respecting 40K fan.

Aaron Dembski-Bowden's also impressing me. Helsreach was a good read, as was Cadian Blood.

The first three or four of the Horus Heresy are quite solid. Gets a little hit-or-miss after that.

Second the Abnett calls. Other than that Henry Zhou's work is...interesting. He generally has good plots, and a great take on the 40k Universe, though the writing style of Blood Gorgons irked me.

Also, the Enforcer Omnibus by Matthew Farrer (which I just finished today) was a good 40k take on Sci-Fi Crime.

Anything by Dan Abnett, Arron Dembski-Bowden, or Graham McNeil. They really are the three stand-out novelists. Most books are good, a few exceptions, but anything by the three are good books on their own.

iproxtaco wrote:Anything by Dan Abnett, Arron Dembski-Bowden, or Graham McNeil. They really are the three stand-out novelists. Most books are good, a few exceptions, but anything by the three are good books on their own.

Agreed, they would probably be the best writers for 40k fiction. Henry Zou is also very good

The outstanding books I read were the gaunts ghosts series, Blood gorgons, The 2 Night lord books by Arron and probably Titanicus, but I havent finished it yet. None of them are long, prob 4-6 hours worth of reading each

Anything mentioned in the 500 other threads on that topic.

Mr Nobody wrote:My two favourites are Titanicus and Battle of The Fang.

Titanicus has epic titan fights and a conflict of faiths. Battle of the Fang is an epic battle between Space wolves and Thousand sons for vengeance.

+ 1 for Titanicus.

I am still waiting to get my hands on Battle for the Fang though.

Rynn's World was quite good. And the Second Space Wolves omnibus was gripping as far as endings are concerned.

And Hagir was awesome.

Grab the three Gaunt's Ghosts Omnibii (sp?), they're very good. Eisenhorn is good as well.

Well the best I've read is probably Ben Counter's Daemon World...

Lots of interesting mysterious twists threw out the story leaves you with a lot of questions even in the end of it. I liked the fact that he really didn't have a solid view point of a 'Chapter' or 'Group' it was just kind of a book thrown together using certain groups and elements of what life is like within the eye of terror as well as the history and the past of things involving a planet.

It involves a Word Bearer's Special Op's group that is on a man hunt for a rogue Sorcerer. The other storyline involves some barbaric tribesmen fighting the persecution of a Slaanesh city capital that oppresses the local inhabitants. Some conflicts happen all caused by this Sorcerer whom is pretty interesting character for what you find in the novel but I loved the read on it very low key and more mysterious then some of the honor bound / fighting books. Rather slow at first and you are wondering were Ben is going with the write but it picks up well the deeper the story gets the more the whole thing comes into focus all revolving around this Sorcerer.

-Sincerely Viri

I thought the Ciaphas Cain novals were very exeptional. The whole idea behind them was great. I really enjoyed how they were written as if it were Cains autobiography, and the footnotes by Amberly Vail were a great touch.

**Personal Opinion Warning**

I love anything by Sandy Mitchell, Aaron Dembski Bowden, or Dan Abnett, and here's why: The latter two have a better grasp of the mechanics of writing than some other Black Library authors. Mitchell is just funny, honestly. His work isn't as deep as Bowden's or Abnett's, but it is very entertaining. I like my stories to have some crunch. To that end, I also enjoy Nick Kyme. He seems like he is still getting his chops as a writer, but his work is very good. A bit more action, but it still has enough depth to satisfy me.

If you don't mind excessive, terrible, hip deep typos, then you can probably stomach Ben Counter. If you are one of those who view the Chaos Marines as the 'real' protagonists, then you would enjoy his work. Personally, I find that Graham McNeil and Gav Thorpe tend towards the 'military action' side of things. Lots of action, not so much on the subtlety or depth end of the spectrum. I won't read McNeil anymore, but that is a personal grievance over his handling of Fulgrim (by far the worst 40k book I have ever read).

I have never read anything by CS Goto, but I am given to understand he's terrible. I've been told this often enough to give the opinions enough weight not to buy his stuff.

What I would recommend is this: buy a couple of the books of short stories. (Fear the Alien, Victories of the Space Marines, and Legends of the Space Marines are all good. Let the Galaxy Burn is phenomenal, and offers a huge body of works to pick from.) That gives you a good idea of who writes what kind of stories, so you can seek out the authors you like, rather than going on the opinion of a well-meaning Dakkaite who may have a totally different taste in reading material than you.

Hope this helps.

Yeah try to avoid CS Goto's work I made the mistake of reading Warrior Coven. The entire book was a big WTF.

Path of the Warrior is very good too!

I actually enjoyed the DoW series(probably get flamed for that). and I have to disagree with the OP, I actually loved Dead men Walking, I thought it was very entertaining and I really liked how the DKoK came out.

As for good books, I loved the first four books of the HH series....started reading fulgrim and lost interest(but I've picked it back up). I'm very biased towards IG books, so I enjoy almost any of them. Rebel Winter, Ice Guard, Cadian Blood, Fifteen hours....especially Fifteen Hours, I loved that book. Ive only read one Gaunts Ghost's book and that was the first one, First and Only and it was pretty good also.

Rebel Winter and Fifteen Hours were the shizzle, so I'll let you off with that DoW series comment.

Gavo wrote:Grab the three Gaunt's Ghosts Omnibii (sp?), they're very good. Eisenhorn is good as well.

+1

The Gaunts Ghosts omnibus are brilliant, definitely read through the first one as a minimum.

If you don't mind Fantasy novels, the Gotrek and Felix novels by William King are pretty good. Not sure about the later ones with a different author, seeing as I haven't read those yet.

On the 40k side, Sandy Mitchell, Dan Abnett and Aaron Dembski Bowden are the bomb.

Ben counter all the way, his ideas about the Imperium being the corrupt, hypocritical monstrosity that it really is is completely spot on

All of the Soul Drinkers books and all of the Grey Knights books are masterpieces

The Crusader Of 42 wrote:One of my friends, as a present, got me the book Dead Man Wlaking as a
present for my birthday. I read the book, and it was really, really, REALLY bad...
A number of things stood out to me, like the style of the writing, the blatenly obvious contrasting to
the Necrons and the Death Korps of Krieg, the plot, the charaters, the plot, and the ending.
The writing style was pretty bad. It was very descriptive, but at the same time it managed to explain almost nothing.
The ending was terrible, It was like the writer had wrote himself is a corner, and decided to end it with some sort of ... type pf
ending.

I loved it as a gift though, It gave me around 4 hours of entertainment.

Is their any good warhammer novels?

Judgin from your sig i reckon your playing DE. Id recommend that you read novels concerning the race you have picked or maybe others that dont concentrate to a particular army of the 40k environment(if such exist)
As an IG player maself have read the IG omnibus vol 1 and I amm about to finish Dead Men Walking and i must admit that they are great books that allow you to go in-depth with the army you play and get to know them better.

I know everybody hates Goto's writing, but the guy is actually really good at one thing:

Setting up a cinematic scene. Wow, can the guy ever set up a dramatic and evocative scene. He's really not a bad WRITER, he just knows close to nothing about the 40K back-story, and so all of his dialogue comes out as really wooden and trite... "I iz a spase marein! I talk liek a spase marein!"

Poor guy sets up a great set-piece scene, full of dramatic tension, only to have the characters fall flat on their faces due to stupid dialogue...