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I was looking to pick up a few books over the holidays to further enhance my knowledge of 40k lore. What are some go to books with great warhammer stories? I've always heard about Eisenhorn, Gaunt's Ghosts, and hammer of the emperor as excellent reads. Also the iron warriors and word bearers omnibus's seem good. Any suggestions?

I would suggest a short story anthology that covers more than one subject, simply because (a) reading from multiple authors will offer you more than one interpretation of the setting and (b) different topics also means exploring many different facets of the 41st millennium. Perhaps you will discover something that, as of yet, you do not even know you'd be interested in!

I would have recommended "Dark Imperium", but since that is no longer being printed ... I suppose "Tales from the Dark Millennium" should be quite close to it, at least I heard it has a few of the same stories.

The Inquisitor novels are great for fleshing out the background, especially the Imperium. You really get a feel for the good and bad aspects of it.

Eisenhorn and Ravenor are both good; the Gav Thorpe Eldar books are a cross between obnoxious and decent (good writing, somewhat interesting characters, but some pretty big canon errors); the Dark Heresy rulebooks actually provide a lot of interesting information about the Imperium in general. I haven't read any books starring Space Marines since I've heard they vary in quality, but the Dawn of War 2 campaign is actually a fairly well-written portrayal.

I would say HH series for the whole heresy thing.

Imperial Guards life- Gaunts Ghosts, Last Chancers.

They're the main ones Ive read, aside from stuff in old rulebooks and white dwarf (old stuff, not today's garbage). If you look at almost any of the rulebook backgrounds, nothings ever really changed in the background stuff if you look at the forest and not the trees.

 Lynata wrote:
I would suggest a short story anthology that covers more than one subject, simply because (a) reading from multiple authors will offer you more than one interpretation of the setting and (b) different topics also means exploring many different facets of the 41st millennium. Perhaps you will discover something that, as of yet, you do not even know you'd be interested in!
I would have recommended "Dark Imperium", but since that is no longer being printed ... I suppose "Tales from the Dark Millennium" should be quite close to it, at least I heard it has a few of the same stories.

I agree with this, I enjoy anthologies because it gives me different views from different authors. You can also get a feel for different authors writing styles. Fear the alien is my favorite, great if you would like to learn more about xenos.

Eisenhorn and Ravenor are both amazing books. I would highly recommend them. I also really like the anthologies "Heroes of the Space Marines", "Legends of the Space Marines", and the 3rd which I can't remember.

 Lynata wrote:
I would suggest a short story anthology that covers more than one subject, simply because (a) reading from multiple authors will offer you more than one interpretation of the setting and (b) different topics also means exploring many different facets of the 41st millennium. Perhaps you will discover something that, as of yet, you do not even know you'd be interested in!

I would have recommended "Dark Imperium", but since that is no longer being printed ... I suppose "Tales from the Dark Millennium" should be quite close to it, at least I heard it has a few of the same stories.

I second Lynata but suggest Let the Galaxy Burn or What Price Victory.

Try Amazon for the OOP ones, they either have extortionate or very reasonable prices.

Also the Black Library website itself has a number of teaser .pdfs to tantalize your mince pies (eyes).

Id say Ciphias Cain books are great reads and i think display impiriums political situation great in the later books and the early books are just fun but tread lightly with these books.

Eisenhorn, Ravenor, and Pariah are a pretty good 'series'.
The Ultramarines and Iron Warriors omnibi are both really good series. The Horus Heresy is a good series for fluff.

Honestly though, anything by Dan Abnett is awesome. Just do a google search on some of his works and read all those.

Let The Galaxy Burn is the best anthology GW ever printed.

I would recommend NOT reading the Ciaphus Cain series until AFTER you have a working knowledge of the mythos.

To start off, I'd recommend the Gaunt's Ghosts series, and some "Battles of the Space Marines" novels.

I always suggest Eisenhorn (and Ravenor) as well as Gaunt's Ghosts because Abnett is my favourite 40k author. Some of his other Warham books haven't done it for me though.

Just finished Atlas Infernal by Rob Sanders. Apart from sci-fi, I love detective novels, so it makes sense that I like Inquisitor novels most of all - they are a mix of the two. If you like Inquisitors, definitely worth checking out.


edit: You mentioned the Iron Warriors omnibus. I recommend this, it is some of the better 40k fiction I have read.