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But not Dan Abnett.

I tried “First & Only” but find it almost unreadable. The over-use of adjectives makes it difficult to just follow what’s happening.

“His dark, cracked leather army boots squished and squelched loudly and energetically in the dreary, brown, murky mud as he took a deep, drawn, contemplative sight and slowly peered to the menacing, grizzly distant war torn towering sky line”

Whatever. I just made that up. I hear he has lots of fans so must be a capable writer. His style is just not for me.

So … a good 40K book for a relative noob?

My go-to recommendation nowadays is The Infinite and the Divine, by Robert Rath. It has good, compelling characters (Necrons!), an actual plot, and can be pretty funny. My favorite take on it by a Youtuber was "an intergalactic novelization of the Spy vs. Spy comics".

My favorite books at the moment are the Ciaphas Cain novels. They're light, fun, full of British wit and not particularly grimdark. The first one is For The Emperor, by Sandy Mitchell. They do get a bit formulaic in style, though. I would pick this over Robert Rath's work if you want the human perspective.

I love Dan Abnett and the Ghosts but he grew significantly as a writer from the first three Tanith books. But I've also read the Eisenhorn and Ravenor books and I'm not thrilled with those either. If you want to check out the Horus Heresy you'll need to give him another try because he wrote the opening book in the opening trilogy and those are quite good.

I’d second the Ciaphas Cain books. Light, fun and easy to read.

As for other recommendations, if you could give some examples of other non-40K fiction you have enjoyed it would be easier to steer you towards something you might like.

I really found Spear of the Emperor by Aaron Dembski-Bowden to be a fantastic read. I feel it does a good job introducing you to some of the best depictions of the most compelling themes in this universe.

Nightbringer.
Fire and Faith.
first Ciaphas Cain book.
Day of Ascension.

nicely go beyond lasers and explosions.

I think the best idea is to pick up a book about the noobs faction. So if he plays Space Wolves a book about Space Wolves is best to start.

Reading about other faction can be both boring and not very interesting, especialy if it is someones first w40k book.

Go to ebay/Amazon and pick up one of the old short story anthologies - What Price Victory, Let The Galaxy Burn, Planetkill, Fear The Alien.

I asked a friend to recommend me a 40K novel that felt sufficient "dark" and also felt (bear with me) a bit more "literary" in terms of not just being a simple action story. I had only read a few Horus Heresy books and a little bit of Dan A's stuff - and none of it really grabbed me.

Anyway, he recommended Fire Caste by Peter Fehervari. I wasn't disappointed - it was quite good. Felt a bit like a Heart of Darkness retelling in some ways. Anyway, it was solid and the author has a series of related books set across the same handful of planets. These are all sufficiently dark and grim to fit the setting well.

The recently released ork book "Warboss" by Mike Brooks is a pretty decent book that does not require a lot of prior knowledge about the lore/other novels in order to read.

It gives great insights on the "normal dudes" perspective from the (mostly) ork, imperial and eldar point of view. It even has an eldar Avatar actually doing what it is supposed to be doing and a grot revolution.

The Ciaphas Cain series. They give a good idea of how the Imperium operates from the perspective of an ordinary-ish person and Cain is probably the most relatable character in 40k fiction. They aren't just action scenes with some talking in the middle to explain why they're fighting. They're the only 40k books that have ever actually held my attention as all the rest of them feel far too procedural. I tried reading Eisenhorn and it felt like how my wife describes male authors writing of just listing off a series of events. Its weird because part of me wonders if the writing is like that because thats how Eisenhorn's writing is or if its just how Abmett's writing is. Either way it was boring.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

I tried “First & Only” but find it almost unreadable. The over-use of adjectives makes it difficult to just follow what’s happening.

“His dark, cracked leather army boots squished and squelched loudly and energetically in the dreary, brown, murky mud as he took a deep, drawn, contemplative sight and slowly peered to the menacing, grizzly distant war torn towering sky line”

Pretty much all of the Black Library writers are like this. The house style of almost all GW stuff is self-consciously baroque and tryhard. Abnett actually provides some of their most economical prose. That includes Gaunt's Ghosts stuff, but that stuff is also not his best, imo (but that's mostly down to military fiction being, universally, less interesting than more politicky, civilian stuff like Inquisitor-centric novels).

The (1st) Space Wolf trilogy isn't bad for a newcomer to the setting. Goes through Ragnar Blackmane's recruitment, training, and rising through the ranks of the Space Wolves. It's written from his perspective, and he's seeing everything in-universe as a newcomer - the Space Wolves are recruited from technologically-backwards essentially viking clans on Fenris, so the world of bolt guns and power armour is unknown to him at the start.

 Mezmorki wrote:


Anyway, he recommended Fire Caste by Peter Fehervari. I wasn't disappointed - it was quite good. Felt a bit like a Heart of Darkness retelling in some ways. Anyway, it was solid and the author has a series of related books set across the same handful of planets. These are all sufficiently dark and grim to fit the setting well.

I just read this one a few months ago, it did not disappoint.

A lot of novels here, so I figured I'd list am few short stories that I've really enjoyed: The Last Church (Horus Heresy) by Graham McNeil, Honour Among Fiends by Dylan Owen, Primary Instinct by S.P Cockwell. I also thought that Blood Games (Horus Heresy) was pretty interesting, but that's Dan Abnett, so you might want to pass on that one.

It would help if the OP would mention their faction of choice. I'm going to assume Guard, and if so, I'd recommend tracking down the various Guard omnibuses. The ones that include stories like 15 Hours and Gunheads. If the OP isn't picky about factions? Then the Night Lords Trilogy. Hands down the best that BL has to offer. Totally not biased on that.

Night Lords trilogy is indeed excellent. I thought the Word Bearers trilogy was very good too.

Crispy78 wrote:
I thought the Word Bearers trilogy was very good too.

Until the climax when the rules of the mcguffin just change in order to allow the protagonist to do Cool Thing™...

Also nobody was capable of adding Gehemanet (sp?) to their spell checker in book 1.

True, true. But niggles aside it's an excellent depiction of chaotic corruption.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
It would help if the OP would mention their faction of choice. I'm going to assume Guard, and if so, I'd recommend tracking down the various Guard omnibuses. The ones that include stories like 15 Hours and Gunheads. If the OP isn't picky about factions? Then the Night Lords Trilogy. Hands down the best that BL has to offer. Totally not biased on that.

Thanks for all the responses guys.

To answer the above question, I have never played WH40K, but a colleague and myself have both decided to build a small 500pt army to have some games and a few beers after work.

I opted for Space Marines (he chose Orks), and although I have not began painting yet (so options are still open), I'm more or less decided on a custom chapter of my own design. Nothing too out-there, just standard space marines. II just thought it would be fun to have my own chapter, colours, insignia and maybe a bit of lore.

 Vilgeir wrote:
I really found Spear of the Emperor by Aaron Dembski-Bowden to be a fantastic read. I feel it does a good job introducing you to some of the best depictions of the most compelling themes in this universe.

This. Seconded.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

I opted for Space Marines (he chose Orks),

For Orks you cannot go wrong with the Brutal Kunnin' by Mike Brooks.

I enjoyed the Night Lord Trilogy. I also enjoyed the first 5-6 books of the Heresy Series. The first one is Abnet but I thought it was very good and moved quickly.

Talon of Horus is a really good read, so is the sequel, Black Legion.

Storm of Iron was good too. Read that before you get into the Ultramarine books.

I thought Josh Reynolds was a great writer but he did more AOS than 40k. Reynolds was the main author for AOS and built out the vast majority of the setting before they canned him. He did get to finish the Fabius Bile trilogy but I felt they pushed him too much to finish book 3.

If you're interested in marines and orks, Helsreach is a pretty nifty story set in the Armageddon war. Also adapted into a gritty Youtube animation.