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Right, exactly what it says on the tin: what are your three choices (in no particular order) for 40k books that you feel didn't get the recognition they deserved? Mine are:

1) The Siege of Castellax
2) Blood Gorgons
3) Priests of Mars

What are yours?

I would have to agree with you on Siege. Great book that kind of snuck up on me.

Mine would have to be The Chapter's Due. I typically dislike the Marine battle books, but man, the one was fantastic imo. It had (again imo) better set ups to the combat scenes so that you really felt like there was truly something riding on the battles instead of them just being bolter-porn.

Legion of the Damned.

It certainly doesn't have a lot of the ghostly Space Marines in it, but the story itself is very good and offers a good insight into the Sons of Rogal Dorn, especially the Feast of Blades.

Star of Damocles and Rogue Star by Andy Hoare. Really great books about a facet of the imperium (rogue traders) that isn't explored nearly enough.

The Bastion Wars series(Emperor's Mercy, etc.) were likable books. Redemption Corps also wasn't too bad, imo.

Can't remember its name but the HH one based on the assassin squad sent to kill horus. Everyone ive spoken to slates it. I personally loved it. It was nice to get away from the primarchs (kinda) and not have huge battles for one book.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Can't remember its name but the HH one based on the assassin squad sent to kill horus. Everyone ive spoken to slates it. I personally loved it. It was nice to get away from the primarchs (kinda) and not have huge battles for one book.

That would be Nemesis by James Swallow. I thought it was pretty okay.

That's the one. Just a nice change.

Lord of Night, almost never hear about it.

Legion of the Damned was a great book that I don't think gets much praise.

Did anyone read the BFG books by Gordon Renne? They were really quite good, imho. Almost got me interested in collecting BFG but there's no one to play with :(.

Masque The Vyle.

People dismiss it as a simple ploy for money with a small bad book, but its really good in fact and gives a great insight into a little explored part of 40k with the Harlequins and Solitaire. Not to mention the AMZING cover art, I was really, almost surprisingly happy with it.

Courage and Honor.

I've never read The Chapter's Due so I can't say anything about that one but this one if I recall correctly is part of the series. I've never heard this one talked about but personally, it's my favorite BL book.

Gunheads by Steve Parker.

A great story about a small IG force invading a Ork controlled planet. Features a ton of Tanks.

Eye of the Maelstrom- old book with multiple almost unrelated storylines until the end.

Draco-Inquisitor War series- ok its a trilogy but easily one of the best series of books in 40k, its from the wild west of 40k. When the Ordo Malleus was a secret subsect of the inquisition and not main stream inquisitors, an inquisitor hooks up with his Calidus assassin henchwoman, and squats still existed.

"Know no fear" *ducks for cover*

Seriously : "Prospero Burns"...Why ? People, resented Dan for leaving out the burning thing and making it look like "the songs of the young Hawser ", but for me. this book was epic....Abnett is epic...

I wasn't aware Prospero Burns, one of BL's most successful novels, was overrated, lol.

For me...

Helsreach: IMO ADB's best book, yet not talked about too often compared to The First Heretic or the Night Lords series.

Battle of the Fang: I have a love/hate relationship with this book. Chris Wraight writes very interesting and high-paced action scenes, and the book does have a few characters I am fond of, such as Wyrmblade. For the bulk of the novel, it is also fairly easy on the plot armour: An experienced sergeant that tries to fight five Rubric Marines gets unceremoniously executed, a single wounded Thousand Sons sorcerer and his pet Rubric Marine is far more than a match for a hardened Space Wolf scout, and sorcerers in general lay a serious hurting on many times their number of Space Wolves when they show up. The book also manages to avoid ADB-grade non-protagonist plot armour (Thanks for making Kharn a little bitch ADB) with a few moments that come to mind, like a Wulfen-enraged Blood Claw tearing through several times his number of Rubric Marines before being put down, and a heroic Navigator putting the hurting on a powerful sorcerer with a single use of his eye. Alas, the climactic battle with Magnus was so terrible it made me consider revising my opinion on the book entirely, but upon reflection, while having flaws, it is not the utter crap people sometimes think it is.

Angel Exterminatus: feth I love this book so much, and I'm not even finished with it. One of the best in the Horus Heresy series.

Both Dark Angels HH novels. They suffer from some very noticeable flaws, notably the prose (Particularly in Fallen Angel), some bland stretches in the books, and some plot elements just plain being less interesting than others, but I found the overarching story in of itself very interesting, Luther and Zahariel compelling characters, and I particularly enjoyed some of the insights into Lion El'Jonson's very nonstandard loyalist Primarch character. Who'd have thought the Primarch of the Dark Angels was a sociopath?

Fear to Tread: Why is this book not talked about more often? Better than most of Abnett, ADB, or McNeill's work, including some of their contributions toward the Heresy.

Fulgrim: I really don't understand some of the hate this book gets, to be honest, nor how they missed the fact that Fulgrim wasn't just lolmindfucked into being a clown car, but that the Daemonsword didn't have any power over Fulgrim until he let it. The revelation being that Fulgrim always had the capacity for such depravities, that he was a mentally unbalanced, immature, and neurotically psychotic man, just as off his rocker as Angron or Curze, but with the self-control to conceal it. The entire story was a metaphor for excess, the Daemonsword continuously pushing him to partake in greater and more insane indulgences, until Fulgrim was under its control entirely. But I guess people were too distracted by the homoeroticism, blood orgies, and gak paintings to notice that, lol.

I really enjoyed Atlas Infernal.
Also the audio book 'The Dark King' its just a shame it wasn't full length and the other half of that cd is the lightning tower which I'm not so fussed about considering its about Rogal Dorn bricking himself.
Savage Weapons is also one of my favourites.

In Fear the Alien there is also a story from an Ork POV - I can't remember its name but I thought that was fantastic - I loved how the humans in that story just completely didn't understand the ork mindset - it definitely brought home the differences between humans and orks.

Edit:the short story is called Iron Inferno

 PredaKhaine wrote:
I really enjoyed Atlas Infernal.

I've actually never heard of people disliking Atlas Infernal. It's not very well-known though, so still, your point stands.

Counting non-novels... Deff Skwadron. This is one of the single best pieces of Ork fluff I have ever seen, yet I never hear it come up, only Melissia occasionally references it from what I've seen.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 PredaKhaine wrote:
I really enjoyed Atlas Infernal.

I've actually never heard of people disliking Atlas Infernal. It's not very well-known though, so still, your point stands.

Counting non-novels... Deff Skwadron. This is one of the single best pieces of Ork fluff I have ever seen, yet I never hear it come up, only Melissia occasionally references it from what I've seen.

I never see it mentioned anywhere

More people should read that book.

Fear the alien should've had more spotlight too.
(bar faces or whatever it was called - the eldar short with the harlequin masks was just meh)

 Void__Dragon wrote:

Fulgrim: I really don't understand some of the hate this book gets, to be honest, nor how they missed the fact that Fulgrim wasn't just lolmindfucked into being a clown car, but that the Daemonsword didn't have any power over Fulgrim until he let it. The revelation being that Fulgrim always had the capacity for such depravities, that he was a mentally unbalanced, immature, and neurotically psychotic man, just as off his rocker as Angron or Curze, but with the self-control to conceal it. The entire story was a metaphor for excess, the Daemonsword continuously pushing him to partake in greater and more insane indulgences, until Fulgrim was under its control entirely. But I guess people were too distracted by the homoeroticism, blood orgies, and gak paintings to notice that, lol.

I am one of those that wasn't particularly fond of Fulgrim and not for the reasons you mention . For me the Daemonsword seemed a bit of a poor excuse for Fulgrim falling and cheapened his descent into being a pretty loathsome character. I think it would have been far more impacting if Fulgrims fall was off of his own back, rather than from the coercion of a talking sword. But I agree with you and you have got it pretty much spot on, that it was Fulgrim all along, with the whisperings of the Daemonblade egging him on, so was the sword really needed at all. I think Horus would have been the straw that broke the camels back in the end.

The revelations of The Reflection Crack'd and Angel Exterminatus make Fulgrim a better book.

Oh yeah I know that the perceived cheapness of the fall is the reason for why it is something of a base breaker, I was just (half-jokingly) suggesting that the reason no one noticed the over-arching metaphors and themes within the writing was because they were distracted by McNeill's love of gay Space Marines, snuff films, and talking poop to notice.

Yeah, was glad to see The Reflection Crack'd at least partly validate my own interpretation of the book.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
...McNeill's love of gay Space Marines, snuff films, and talking poop to notice.

That painting was talking.
It was made of poop (one ingredient anyway)

Therefore - Talking poop...

I never thought of it like that before.

I really like Angels of Darkness and Descent of Angels, the latter in particular gives a fething good background on where it will all go wrong and why. Yet a lot of people bemoan it for having almost nothing to do with the Great Crusade.

Descent of Angels was good, but I really loved Legion. I cannot put my finger on why, but I found the idea of supersneaky manipulaton mixed with huge armoured superhumans very interesting.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
I wasn't aware Prospero Burns, one of BL's most successful novels, was overrated, lol.

I was talking about fan recognition....sheesh...Did you even read what the OP asked ?

 Muhr wrote:
Right, exactly what it says on the tin: what are your three choices (in no particular order) for 40k books that you feel didn't get the recognition they deserved? Mine are:

 Shadowbrand wrote:
Lord of Night, almost never hear about it.

This right here.

Lord of the Night is one of the best books in the BL, and quite possibly the greatest rendition of "grimdark" in the whole Library.

But who can blame people for looking over the book when it's cover looks like this:



Another underrated book is Flight of the Eisenstein, I think.

When I signed in, it turned out everyone I was going to reply to is on ignore.

I think the standard reply to this thread is Lord of the Night? So Lord of the Night, I guess.

Daemonworld is probably the most important book that is actually about the background or is useful for understanding "the setting."

Conversely, I think the reason people do not like Soul Drinker is that they think it is about the background, or that the background matters, or that trilogy/series trainwrecks have any worth as unitary bodies. Soul Drinker is just a good book.

How does a man with only 92 posts have so many on ignore already?

 PredaKhaine wrote:
I really enjoyed Atlas Infernal.
Also the audio book 'The Dark King' its just a shame it wasn't full length and the other half of that cd is the lightning tower which I'm not so fussed about considering its about Rogal Dorn bricking himself.
Savage Weapons is also one of my favourites.

In Fear the Alien there is also a story from an Ork POV - I can't remember its name but I thought that was fantastic - I loved how the humans in that story just completely didn't understand the ork mindset - it definitely brought home the differences between humans and orks.

Edit:the short story is called Iron Inferno

I you haven't read it read engine of Mork great Ork fluff as good as Iron inferno even if its only 30 pages

If there is ever a novel written from the Ork point of view i want Guy Haley to write it


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Muhr wrote:
Right, exactly what it says on the tin: what are your three choices (in no particular order) for 40k books that you feel didn't get the recognition they deserved? Mine are:

1) The Siege of Castellax
2) Blood Gorgons
3) Priests of Mars

What are yours?

1) The Siege of Castellax

The book was good but Werner overdid it with the evil Iron Warrior bit. Yes we know that they are evil you dont have to depict them randomly killing slaves every few pages. Honsou is a far better developed character then the entire Iron Warrior cast from Siege.
2) Blood Gorgons

Good book
3) Priests of Mars

I have no interest in in books about the Mechanicum especially books written by Graham McNeill on the subject he should stick to space marines.

My choice is hammer of Daemons loved it but is very underated by alot of people.