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1. Fulgrim
2. A Thousand Son's
3. Dark Apostle

Ciaphas Cain series. get the anthologies and choose 3.

Prospero Burns, Horus Rising, and A Thousand Sons.

1. Fulgrim because of how epically tragic it ends
2. A Thousand Sons because it shows us just how douche/hypocritical space wolves are
3. Storm of Iron for its grim darkness, and for a little non-horus heresy love.

1) Redemption corps (sneaker cult)
2) Fulgrim (emporers children)
3) gaunts ghost series.

Nom

Can't believe how much love there is for Fulgrim! I think it's one of the worst Black Library novels I've read. The characters are flat and dull and it totally fails to explain the insidious nature of Chaos, or how such.a powerful character as a Primarch would turn to the ruinous powers.

I thought Fulgrim was a pretty clear example of the insidious nature of chaos and showed pretty well how a powerful character such as a Primarch could fall to chaos.

1. Legion (Suddenly changed my opinion of alpha/omega they are not Chaos or evil but maybe through necessity to stop something worse.
2. A Thousand Sons (So tragically mis-understood)
3. A Short story (When the Emperor himself goes to Terra's last Church and talks to the last priest, brilliant exchange of opinion)

mattyrm wrote: I cant believe more people didn't say Legion btw, that book is all kinds of awesome.

Honestly, Legion was great imo. I really enjoyed a HH book that didn't have a lot of marine's in it. The other great thing was when the marines came in they didn't act like normal Space Marines.

But Helsreach and Titanicus just edge it out imo. As I said before anything that could get me to actually like the BT's has to be amazing. Titanicus wasn't great on the fist read, but once you learn to skip the crap parts it's great.


Aaron Dembski-Bowden and Dan Abnett know how to write 40k. Aaron also knows how to write 30k rather well and I can't wait tosee more from him. I would love to see him take on the Mechanicus or the Arbites.


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mwnciboo wrote:1. Legion (Suddenly changed my opinion of alpha/omega they are not Chaos or evil but maybe through necessity to stop something worse.
2. A Thousand Sons (So tragically mis-understood)
3. A Short story (When the Emperor himself goes to Terra's last Church and talks to the last priest, brilliant exchange of opinion)

@ #3 really? I liked the concept of the story, the big E has a chat with the last priest on earth and lays down his reason's for wanting to get rid of religion but his arguments where rather shallow and not convincing. I think the premiss of the story is spot on but the execution of it was flawed by Mr McNeill's bad writing. I would love to see someone else tackle something like this one day maybe with a more grown up opinion other then ' Religion is bad because I say it's bad....now burn...'

Horus Heresy book: Legion. I very nice look at the Alpha Legion
40k General: Storm of Iron. Great marine on marine action with some titans to spice it up.
40k non marine book: Double Eagle. A different perspective of the 40k universe.

1. Storm of Iron

2. Titanicus

3. Soul Hunter

For HH,

1. Thousand Sons

2. First Heretic

3. Fulgrim

I've been looking for 40k novels about conflicts with the Tyranids.

So far I've heard that there is at least one of the Cain novels an Ultramarines novel or two and "Desert Raiders" as well.

Can anyone who has read these give me any feedback on their quality?

@ #3 really? I liked the concept of the story, the big E has a chat with the last priest on earth and lays down his reason's for wanting to get rid of religion but his arguments where rather shallow and not convincing. I think the premiss of the story is spot on but the execution of it was flawed by Mr McNeill's bad writing. I would love to see someone else tackle something like this one day maybe with a more grown up opinion other then ' Religion is bad because I say it's bad....now burn...'

Well there are problems inherent in a human writing dialogue with a being superior to humans involved.

Anyways, for authors:

Graham McNeil is the best for grimdark (Except for the ultramarines series, the only one I like was the tau one)

Dan Abnett is the best in terms of actual writing, but tends to give his characters more plot armour than even the others.

Aaron Dembski Bowden is a very good writer, but doesn't really match DA's characters or GM's grimdark.


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Eldarain wrote:I've been looking for 40k novels about conflicts with the Tyranids.

So far I've heard that there is at least one of the Cain novels an Ultramarines novel or two and "Desert Raiders" as well.

Can anyone who has read these give me any feedback on their quality?

There was an nice short about some Scythes of the Emperor aboard a tyranid bio-ship...quite liked it.

Also, there are tyranid-things in the 2nd BA omnibus.

wizardofgore wrote:
40k non marine book: Double Eagle. A different perspective of the 40k universe.

Completely loved that book, a very human perspective, The Apostles was a clever twist on WWI flyers and it also ties in with Gaunts Ghosts nicely.

Legends of the Space Marines - 2nd to Last Short story is about Scythes of the Emperor. It's very unusual, about Tyranid Boarding OPS. It actually has inspired me to become a bit of Scythes fan, I think Deathwatch Sternguard in a Scythes Force would look awesome.

Cadian Blood
Helsreach
Gaunts ghosts

only ones i have read are the salamander trilogy and they are quite awesome if i do say so myself.

Eldarain wrote:I've been looking for 40k novels about conflicts with the Tyranids.

So far I've heard that there is at least one of the Cain novels an Ultramarines novel or two and "Desert Raiders" as well.

Can anyone who has read these give me any feedback on their quality?

Cain has quite a lot to do with 'nids. In fact, one of my few complaints about the series is Sandy Mitchell's thing for Genestealers. I've now read 7 books and 5 short stories on Cain. 3 of the books and 3 of the short stories had Genestealers as the enemies. The only novel to feature full on hive fleet action is 'Duty Calls' though.

I loved the Battle of the Fangs the most, then the book Death World and all of the Space Wolf Omnibus after that.

1. Legion. The depth and end of the story were just great.
2. The Last Church. Whilst not a novel, it deserves a place in this list.
3. A Thousand Suns. ALL IS DUST.

EzeKK wrote:1. Legion. The depth and end of the story were just great.
2. The Last Church. Whilst not a novel, it deserves a place in this list.
3. A Thousand Suns. ALL IS DUST.

Me and you are cut from the same Cloth...

JohnnoM wrote:only ones i have read are the salamander trilogy and they are quite awesome if i do say so myself.

Those were my least favourite 40k books. The last one was dragonball-z esque.

d-usa wrote:I thought Fulgrim was a pretty clear example of the insidious nature of chaos and showed pretty well how a powerful character such as a Primarch could fall to chaos.

But it didn't though, it was just a case of "These guys went to a temple, now they're all chaos dudes, even the primarch!"

And then he painted a picture and he was the picture and he did kinky things with a jeweled sword and then picture was him because he is perfect and then he killed the sculptor guy and watched his marines play sonic metal and kill all the audience with sound.

Yeah. *hairflip* Can't touch this.

The only thing i felt fulgrim was lacking was a greater description of how the deamon took over fulgrim.


Nom

Just read Phalanx, and it was one of the absolute best 40k novels I have read, very well executed and thought out...and Lysander.

Kaldor wrote:

d-usa wrote:I thought Fulgrim was a pretty clear example of the insidious nature of chaos and showed pretty well how a powerful character such as a Primarch could fall to chaos.

But it didn't though, it was just a case of "These guys went to a temple, now they're all chaos dudes, even the primarch!"

I thought the progression was there. From the predisposition of the Emperors Children due to their drive towards perfection even before encountering the temple (not just in war, but also in the arts). I think the natural enjoyment of things that stimulated all their senses made it pretty natural that they would fall to the temptation of that particular chaos god.

Their drive towards perfection, and then the realization that they would never meet the perfection they were feeling in that temple, is what drove them further and further towards Chaos. I do agree that there was not any great "we pledge to Chaos" moments in there, it all happened in very small increments. More perfection, jealousy taking hold over who is more perfect, why can't I be more perfect. I do think it was there, but it was not as clear and open as many of the other books.

The demon taking over was very fast and rushed though.


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Talking about the nuances of one particular book is probably OT though...

d-usa wrote:
Talking about the nuances of one particular book is probably OT though...

True enough, so i started one Here


nom

Coming to 40k from the wasteland that is D&D 4th edition novels, I found most 40k stories to be adequately engaging. The one series that stands out to me, however, is Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain novels.

It not so much that the story is amazing. It's that Cain is a believable character and the IoM isn't portrayed as fifty megatons of grimdark to the face.