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I have taken, a couple times, chapters and read whatever I could get my hands on (40k and HH novels, short stories, audio dramas etc) back to back. So all of chapter x in one chunk, and then all of chapter y later when the mood hit. Who do you think comes out best overall when comparing bodies of work?

I'd say proably the ultramarines.

their novel count alone is above everyone else. and I gotta say the ultramarines focused HH novels have been fantastic

Helsreach did a pretty good job with Black Templars.

Space Wolves. Even in works where they are the antagonists (The Emperor's Gift) they still steal the show. Night Lords are a close second.

BrianDavion wrote:
I'd say proably the ultramarines.

their novel count alone is above everyone else. and I gotta say the ultramarines focused HH novels have been fantastic

What? The near majority of Ultramarine marines novels have just been quite frankly, slowed in the plot department, especially those by McNeil- they show the Ultramarines to be a group of utter morons whose response to a Captain breaking the Codex to save his Company and make it out with some marines alive and kill a whole Hive Splinter Fleet was to give him a choice between execution or a penitent crusade comprising of TWO INDIVIDUALS. If anything, the Ultramarines are quite likely responsible for almost all traitor Astartes in service of Chaos for being fething stupid and horribly mistreating their number and sending them on a suicide mission when they're completely capable of turning traitor.

Anyway, the best work for the loyalists it probably Nick's work on the Salamanders, specifically the Salamanders Omnibus, which is an excellent read I highly recommend. The Imperial Fists and Salamanders have heavily benefited from extensive works by the Black Library, and there's good collections of varied short stories on a collection of chapters. For the chaos legions, the Talos Trilogy and other works on the Night Lords are excellent and some of the best CSM fluff, and the books on the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus during the Great Crusade in the Horus Heresy series are excellent. Fulgrim is also a good read for the loyalist Emperor's Children and the natures of Slaanesh Astartes.

I was thoroughly impressed with A Thousand Sons and the Soul Hunter trilogy, and they inspired my army. They both portray legions generally regarded as bad guys and put them in a favorable light and really fleshed out legions generally forgotten by many.

Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus got a pretty good (comparatively) series at the beginning of HH. ADB's 'Talon of Horus' looks even better.

Happy days, for me at least.

I won't lie, I enjoyed McNeil's Ultramarines books. The only bad one was Killing Grounds, that book was a seriously irregular work of his.

Warriors of Ultramar was wicked, so was Courage and Honour, Dead Sky, Black Sun, and Chapter's Due was a fine ending. I bought the Uriel Ventris model and will probably re-paint my entire Company to the 4th's green heraldry.

He also did Black Templars pretty well (though not especially extensively) in the 'Of Mars' books.

All the Salamanders' material by Nick Kyme have been fun reads...and so far my favorite of the BL offerings outside the core HH.

I think Space Wolves have done exceptionally well through Abnett and Wraight.

Thousand Sons by McNiel (I think) also helped define the chapter in my mind.

I have heard that a lot of the earlier Ultrasmurf novels were poor in extremis but I have enjoyed the last few (catechism of hate and the Necron one)

If any one could recommend good titles for the other chapters it would be appreciated. I'm interested in any chapter but Dark Angels

Another vote for the Salamanders. I think Nick Kynes done a great job bringing that Chapter/Legion to life.

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
I won't lie, I enjoyed McNeil's Ultramarines books. The only bad one was Killing Grounds, that book was a seriously irregular work of his.

Warriors of Ultramar was wicked, so was Courage and Honour, Dead Sky, Black Sun, and Chapter's Due was a fine ending. I bought the Uriel Ventris model and will probably re-paint my entire Company to the 4th's green heraldry.

He also did Black Templars pretty well (though not especially extensively) in the 'Of Mars' books.

I notice that you don't mention Nightbringer in that list. You know, the first Uriel Ventris novel, where he chooses to save his own life at the cost of thousands of others by holding the Nightbringer's life to ransom instead of just detonating the damn grenade and burying them both.

Personally, I think the Black Dragons have had a pretty good treatment in their single novel.

Forget the Space Wolves. Blood of Asaheim was simply atrocious.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
I won't lie, I enjoyed McNeil's Ultramarines books. The only bad one was Killing Grounds, that book was a seriously irregular work of his.

Warriors of Ultramar was wicked, so was Courage and Honour, Dead Sky, Black Sun, and Chapter's Due was a fine ending. I bought the Uriel Ventris model and will probably re-paint my entire Company to the 4th's green heraldry.

He also did Black Templars pretty well (though not especially extensively) in the 'Of Mars' books.

I notice that you don't mention Nightbringer in that list. You know, the first Uriel Ventris novel, where he chooses to save his own life at the cost of thousands of others by holding the Nightbringer's life to ransom instead of just detonating the damn grenade and burying them both.

Personally, I think the Black Dragons have had a pretty good treatment in their single novel.

Forget the Space Wolves. Blood of Asaheim was simply atrocious.

I didn't mention Nightbringer because it simply isn't worthy of any note at all. It's not good, but it isn't the worst in the series. It's just the definition of mediocrity. The only reason I even read it back when it first released was because it was Ultramarines.

Outside the HH my favourite marine books have been the night lords trilogy.

The UM stuff whilst voluminous is pretty boring stuff rather lacking in character.

Best mix between volume and quality probably Space Wolves.

I see a decent amount of character in the Ultramarines, just less obviously then "YAR HAR HAR VIKING WEREWOLF SPACEMARINES!"

BrianDavion wrote:
I see a decent amount of character in the Ultramarines, just less obviously then "YAR HAR HAR VIKING WEREWOLF SPACEMARINES!"

Have you read the latest SW novel? I can't remember the title, I'm is what you mean with the yar har har stuff but I do enjoy it. I admit I'm not a huge SM novel fan anyway preferring guard or inquisition.

Also have to admit I've surprised myself by enjoying UM HH fluff, unremembered empire was great. It's the early McNeill stuff put me off. Perhaps I need another look at them.

Not claiming the best job from BL, but th dark angel chapter deverve a weird mention in producing the best and worst novels for a chapter.

How so?

Fallen Angels and Decent of Angels are only so-so on the HH series, but will blow your mind off if you read those and then Pandorax

Then there is The Purging of Kadillus, only so-so, then came the mind blowing Angels of Darkness! then another so-so follow up on Ravenwing.

Knockagh wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
I see a decent amount of character in the Ultramarines, just less obviously then "YAR HAR HAR VIKING WEREWOLF SPACEMARINES!"

Have you read the latest SW novel? I can't remember the title, I'm is what you mean with the yar har har stuff but I do enjoy it. I admit I'm not a huge SM novel fan anyway preferring guard or inquisition.

Also have to admit I've surprised myself by enjoying UM HH fluff, unremembered empire was great. It's the early McNeill stuff put me off. Perhaps I need another look at them.

definatly look at the newer stuff, I'm not saying they're good, but no one expects Tolkien when they read 40k.

and I'm also not saying Space Wolves are bad eaither just that, their culture and personality tends to be anything but subtle.

I find in comparisons of stuff like that people tend to miss the subtle differances in other less extreme groups.

Space wolves series by William king hands down ny favorite 40k novels even if the bad guys were the same through the whole series.

I would be very disappointed if I picked up 40k and got Tolkien.

Tolkien was an atrocious novelist. The Hobbit was enjoyable, but The Lord of the Rings read more like an anthropological study, and the Silmarillion was an anthropological study. Ugh. Tolkien was no Lewis or Austen, that's for sure.

LEGION

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I would be very disappointed if I picked up 40k and got Tolkien.

Tolkien was an atrocious novelist. The Hobbit was enjoyable, but The Lord of the Rings read more like an anthropological study, and the Silmarillion was an anthropological study. Ugh. Tolkien was no Lewis or Austen, that's for sure.

I think some ways this is what I would have liked with the Heresy, or at least a book or books done this way. Cut out the crap and get to the chase. It's why I prefer Blighs Heresy stuff to the Black Library stuff in general.

I didn't enjoy The Hobbit, but loved LotR and Silmarillion.

The Iron Warriors have had pretty fair props, Storm of Iron is probably one of the best BL books ever written.

Night Lords by far(its a legion not a chapter but whatever).

The Space Wolf books (Battle of the Fang, Prospero Burns, the first half of Scars, the Emperor's Gift and the pair of Ragnar omnibuses mostly) are have yet to dissapoint me at all.

In fact, most of those books are great and among the best I've read.

I'm not a fan of Nick Kymes Salamanders, honestly. I was a bit doubting when there's crying Space Marines in literally the first or second chapter, and the build up in the first book bored me to tears.

The Hunt for Voldorious and Scars portrayed the White Scars pretty well to me and I thoroughly enjoyed both.

I want to thank everyone for the discussion so far. I liked immersing myself in one chapter at a time, and was looking to do it again. So I am listening intently to what everyone has to say. I have a list of five or so that I came in interested in next, have seen most of them mentioned, but I'm still open to the others. So keep it up if you have anything to add

For what its wort, here are the two I've done so far:

Salamanders: Middle of the road. The Sallies have been my chapter for over a decade, so it would be near impossible for a writer to match what I've built in my head already. That being said, I still found the Tome of Fire books pretty bad. The HH appearances have been ok, but I don't think that is going to last. The short stories, novellas, audio dramas and shorts, however, all have been very good. I guess that balances the total body of work to average.

World Eaters: Not the featured players a whole lot (probably for good reason), and don't pop up as extensively as even some of the Chaos legions, but there is enough to make a block out of. I have really enjoyed the World Eaters. It seems as the writers and performers understand them to be mostly flat characters, are ok with that because those people exist in real life to, and then sprinkle just enough depth and interesting seasoning on them to enhance their flavor, knowing that it will go a long way. It probably won't be shocking to anyone to hear I think the HH stories showing their start and fall are the most interesting, but there are some good 40k bits too, and World Eater voicework is the best.

If you like the world eaters and Kharn, I recommend Trials of Azrael. Kharn basically wipes the floor with Azrael in CC and it is fun to listen to how calm he can be despite worshiping Khorne (especially since most people assume he sounds something along the lines of a Tusken Raider from star wars)

 Mr Nobody wrote:
Helsreach did a pretty good job with Black Templars.

Too true - awesome book.

Its a really good depiciton of the other factions as well - Salamanders, Mechanicus, Stormtroopers

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Mr Nobody wrote:
Helsreach did a pretty good job with Black Templars.

Too true - awesome book.

Its a really good depiciton of the other factions as well - Salamanders, Mechanicus, Stormtroopers

Except the Sororitas, who aren't mentioned at all despite being the major military force at Helsreach.

 Mr.Omega wrote:


I'm not a fan of Nick Kymes Salamanders, honestly. I was a bit doubting when there's crying Space Marines in literally the first or second chapter, and the build up in the first book bored me to tears.

Ha, that was one onf the most pathetic moments in BL ever.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Mr Nobody wrote:
Helsreach did a pretty good job with Black Templars.

Too true - awesome book.

Its a really good depiciton of the other factions as well - Salamanders, Mechanicus, Stormtroopers

Except the Sororitas, who aren't mentioned at all despite being the major military force at Helsreach.

er have ypou read it recently - they fight alongside Grimaldus and the others in the final chapters - they are led by Prioress Sindal of the Order of the Argent Sroud