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Hi, I'm pretty new to the Warhammer universe. I'm an active reader, and film fan. Since this is an introduction forum I'll briefly explain how I stumbled onto Warhammer: I've been on a sci-fi kick these past few months. A few weeks ago I was watching Event Horizon there's a sequence in the film that captures my imagination (spoilers on the film to follow) The deals with a crew being tasked with tracking down the titular spaceship "The Event Horizon" Which is a ship outfitted with an experimental device that allows travel through subspace, allowing for faster than light travel. In the sequence I'm talking about, we are shown Event Horizon's original crew's test flight recordings. We're being shown all these perky and smiling scientists excitedly introducing themselves and talking about how much of an honor it is to be the first to embark on the first ship capable of FTLT. They throw the switch, and then it briefly cuts out, and then cuts back in to them upon their emergence out of slip-space to a horrifying sight. Something has driven all of them to horrifying insanity, doing things like self mutilation, murder, and some sort of sick orgy going on in the middle of all the gore, as well as a crew member yelling out some cryptic warnings in a dead language. Quick editing is used so most of these images are only briefly flashed on, so it leaves your imagination to fill in the gaps, which isn't necessarily any comfort.

While the movie is an okay watch, nothing revolutionary, as the creators have said many times they just wanted to create The Shining in space. it's the question of just what in the hell had happened to these poor people, that needled at me. I was looking the film up on TV Tropes when I saw a few mentions comparing subspace in that film, to the "Warp" In Warhammer 40K, so much so that people jokingly (and some not so jokingly) refer to the film as a distant prequel set in the same universe. Reading that piqued my interest so I started looking up info on it. Since then, I've spent a lot of time with the various wikis associated with the franchise. In fact, that's how I discovered this place. I noticed there were 2 separate wikis that would pop up whenever I did a Google search for anything 40K related. I wanted to know why, and what the differences were. The search results had a link to these forums with the consensus that the "Lexicon" Wiki was strict about only incorporating Official content, while the 40K Wikia was a bit more lax in that department.

I'm mostly just interested in the Lore ("Fluff" I think you guys call it) right now, not so much the table-top aspect, once I get a handle on things that may change.

On to the question in the thread title, I believe there are quite a few novels set in the 40K universe out there, right? I was hoping to get some recommendations on where to start, and this place seems like a good place to ask, at least, I hope it is.

As I mentioned earlier I've been reading through the wikis for a few weeks now, mostly leapfrogging from one topic to the next through internal links peppered throughout the articles.

I'll list below what I've gotten into detail about:


***(I'm not sure how much of this going to be considered spoilers, since I have no real frame of reference. To be safe, consider everything below to be a potential spoiler)***


I started with the entire entry for the Necrons and the Old ones, and a little bit about the C'tan (C'tan were a little confusing, because I can't really grasp their motivations, but I didn't read their whole entry)
Also the fall of the Eldar, but not in great detail, and not much on the Eldar race as a whole, just enough to know that their hedonism spawned Slaanesh and the subsequent forming of the "Eye of Terror" during that birth.
And I read all about Slaanesh himself (herself? ...itself?) Which is so far my favorite topic, I like idea that Slaanesh is "new" for a God, and how Chaos Gods are formed in general.

After that I started reading about the Horus Heresy:
Read all of Fulgrim's entry and some of the Emperor's Children entry.
Got into all of Lorgar and Kor Phaeron's entry, which I also really liked. The article makes mention of their home world "Colchis'" Religion as one that worshiped the Chaos Gods, but did so unknowingly as they had masked themselves as different deities entirely. And that Kor Phaeron manipulated Lorgar into actively seeking them out after the Emperor publicly and harshly embarrassed Lorgar for deifying him. What it did not make clear was just how much Kor Phaeron knew about the Gods of his previous religion (he was a priest in their church before his world was thrown into civil war over Lorgar's visions of the Emperor I believe) nothing is detailed about how their home world's religion even painted their Gods, were they portrayed as benevolent caretakers espousing a Christian-like morality code? Or were they just subtly evil and mysterious? Did Kor Phaeron know exactly who they were by the time he convinced Lorgar to go on his "Quest?" Does he still think of them as the same Gods from his home world? I hope one of the novels offers up more information on this, as it really piqued my curiosity on just how Chaos works.

I also read Angron's Entry all the way through, very sad read to be honest.
I only skimmed through Horus' and the Emperor's entries I want to save what I don't know about them for the novels, but I do know about the Kinebrach Anathame.
I have not read any entries on any of the specific battles fought during the heresy, just a few vague details about how it ultimately ended.

I've glossed over Khorne and Nurgle's entries. Have yet to look at Tzeentch.
I also glossed over the Tyranids, but did read the entire entry for Genestealers. The idea that the Tyranids are aliens from a different galaxy was really interesting, as well as how they've entered and attacked the Milky Way from different angles, suggesting they may have conquered several or possibly every other galaxy was fascinating and terrifying, none of the wikis went into much detail about that though, so I guess it's something left up to interpretation?
I know very little about the other Xenos races like the Orks and Tau, haven't gotten to them yet.

I may be forgetting a few, but for the most part that's how far into things I am at this point. It seems so little when I list it, yet it's taken me several days to just get this far. I do get sidetracked easily sometimes, like looking up images if a wiki doesn't provide one, so that may factor into things.

To swing things back around to the topic, I don't know how to approach the Novels, which to start with, which to avoid, things like that. I'd like to start Chronologically if possible (as to the in universe timeline, not the order in which the novels were released.)

I'm also interested in the PC games, so if you can recommend any of them, it would be a nice bonus. I recently played through the Space Marine game, and while it was entertaining, I was a bit disappointed with how little they went into detail about the 40K universe. And then doubly so when I found out the game takes place in a parallel universe separate from the actual game, so I'll probably never learn just why and how Titus was able to resist warp energy.

Any help is appreciated, there's so much information out there that it gets pretty overwhelming most of the time. Thanks!

You're gonna need a bigger boat!

Welcome to 40k mate, there's a hell of a lot more to read but I'd get the rulebook first mate, that will give you a good grounding in what's going on, more than half of it is fluff and its got a bunch of stuff in chronological order.

Most of it is set in the future, the Horus heresy is 10k earlier and shows what the imperium used to be like.

They've never really been chronological though, most just deal with a set of events or a faction, although within the, they might be. I always recommend starting with gaunts ghost and going from there. They give you a human perspective and introduce some of the factions so you can go from there.

Good luck mate, but remember, it's a big game and universe and you will not be missed...

Get the Eisenhorn omnibus. Great read and a great deal.

I second the Gaunts Ghosts novels are good too.

Hello, and Welcome to DakkaDakka!

Hi,

Welcome to Dakka

Eisenhorn and Gaunts Ghosts (at least the first 6, don't worry, you will burn through them). After that, I would pick up a bargain copy of Horus Heresy: Collected Visions.

Starting general fluff of the current 40k universe is best. I recommend regular rulebook or wiki fluff, or Guants ghosts, which are spectacular, especially for a guard player. Don't start with the horus heresy because It is way to complicated (from my point of view) to read or enjoy, without first having an appreciation for the current state of 40k. Then read a book about your chosen faction and get the idea from their point of view, after that read HH. So try and make HH second or third on your list. Trust me, it will make the whole story feel a lot more epic. Kind of like watching a movie that leaves you questions, and then being satisfied by the prequel, rather than less exciting linear sequels.

There is a lot of fluff out there, but in my opinion, 40k is the most interesting universe and storyline there has ever been, just because of the great mix of technology and archaic antiquity.

Good luck with all the fluff and novels

-Color Sgt. Kell

Thank you all for the warm welcome, and the suggestions!

I'm going to start with Gaunt's Ghosts, since they do look like a good deal and should keep me busy for a little while. Once I'm done I'll move on to the next suggestion, again, thank you!

Welcome to Dakka.

Welcome to Dakka my friend.

I love the event horizon movie! Cracking film.
If I were you, I'd start with the Horus heresy books, certainly the first trilogy. I used to collect the hobby back in my early teens and stopped after sometime, flash forward to me being around 23 and a friend recommends the heresy novels to me. I'm an avid reader like yourself and the stroy soar rounding Horus rising interested me so went out and bought it. A week later I found myself buying false gods and so on.
If you just want a general action packed book I'd go for brothers of the snake, it's an excellent book and you don't have to really into the universe to grasp it.
I just want to say a friend of my has read the gaunts book and Eisenhorn and apparently they are very good also, I didn't want to take away from the other guys input, hope this helps.

Hello and welcome to Dakka Dakka!

 Darkmoonlight wrote:
Welcome to Dakka my friend.

I love the event horizon movie! Cracking film.
If I were you, I'd start with the Horus heresy books, certainly the first trilogy. I used to collect the hobby back in my early teens and stopped after sometime, flash forward to me being around 23 and a friend recommends the heresy novels to me. I'm an avid reader like yourself and the stroy soar rounding Horus rising interested me so went out and bought it. A week later I found myself buying false gods and so on.
If you just want a general action packed book I'd go for brothers of the snake, it's an excellent book and you don't have to really into the universe to grasp it.
I just want to say a friend of my has read the gaunts book and Eisenhorn and apparently they are very good also, I didn't want to take away from the other guys input, hope this helps.

I love the Horus Heresy series as well, but there are just too many books with a large spectrum of author ability. The first three are brilliant though. That is why I suggested the Collected Visions book. It has the complete story in a shortened form, so you get all the fluff for less time investment.

 Darkmoonlight wrote:
Welcome to Dakka my friend.

I love the event horizon movie! Cracking film.
If I were you, I'd start with the Horus heresy books, certainly the first trilogy. I used to collect the hobby back in my early teens and stopped after sometime, flash forward to me being around 23 and a friend recommends the heresy novels to me. I'm an avid reader like yourself and the stroy soar rounding Horus rising interested me so went out and bought it. A week later I found myself buying false gods and so on.
If you just want a general action packed book I'd go for brothers of the snake, it's an excellent book and you don't have to really into the universe to grasp it.
I just want to say a friend of my has read the gaunts book and Eisenhorn and apparently they are very good also, I didn't want to take away from the other guys input, hope this helps.

Very helpful! Thank you.

welcome to dakkadakka :-)