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I know a large portion of the story and universe thanks to lexicanum and wiki and have an understanding of the majority of events during the Horus Heresy and 40k, however wiki only gives you a brief overview so I'd like to read some of the books to experience it better.

So which 5-10 books would you say are essential 40k/Horus Heresy reading?

I'm a Blood Angels player interested in finding out more about the chapter and its primarch so if that could be considered in your response I'd appreciate it.

Thanks!

The First Heretic
Horus Rising
False Gods
Galaxy in Flames
Battle for the Abyss (just kidding. Don't read this under any circumstances)
Flight of the Eisenstein
A Thousand Sons
Know No Fear

That's pretty much all you need. The other books are extraneous, and vary from good to painfully mediocre.

Optional reading would be:
Prospero Burns if you have a hard-on for Space Wolves and want to read Dan Abnett rewrite The Thirteenth Warrior in 40K.
Fulgrim
Mark of Calth (some decent stories, but not required reading)
Fear to Tread (if you absolutely must have Blood Angels)

Avoid:
Battle for the Abyss
Vengeful Spirit
Damnation of Pythos
Deliverance Lost
Descent of Angels
Fallen Angels
Vulkan Lives

I would also recommend Angel Exterminatus and Betrayer.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Avoid:
Battle for the Abyss
Vengeful Spirit
Damnation of Pythos
Deliverance Lost
Descent of Angels
Fallen Angels
Vulkan Lives

I really like Descent of Angels... has a very Dark Souls vibe to it. But it has nothing to do with the Blood Angels and more to do with Caliban and the Great Crusade than with the Horus Heresy. So yea, I guess you could avoid it if you're not into that.

I'll disagree on the "avoid at all costs" for Vengeful spirit. the novels not a bad read if you read the first triology and find yourself wanting to revisit the characters from it a bit. it's not a great read but it;s certinly no battle of the Abyss. I'd also suggest unremembered empire once he's read everything else as it ties a lot of stuff together and will clearly be a "launch off" point for a lot of future material

I didnt read deliverance lost and the primarchs did i miss any thing cool.

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Avoid:
Battle for the Abyss
Vengeful Spirit
Damnation of Pythos
Deliverance Lost
Descent of Angels
Fallen Angels
Vulkan Lives

I really like Descent of Angels... has a very Dark Souls vibe to it. But it has nothing to do with the Blood Angels and more to do with Caliban and the Great Crusade than with the Horus Heresy. So yea, I guess you could avoid it if you're not into that.

Same here. Of course, the Dark Angels themselves bear even little relevance to the entire Horus Heresy. They had their own side-show for the most part and had little contact with all of the factions. I like Descent and Fall, but there's little point to read them unless you love the space monks.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Avoid:
Battle for the Abyss
Vengeful Spirit
Damnation of Pythos
Deliverance Lost
Descent of Angels
Fallen Angels
Vulkan Lives

I really like Descent of Angels... has a very Dark Souls vibe to it. But it has nothing to do with the Blood Angels and more to do with Caliban and the Great Crusade than with the Horus Heresy. So yea, I guess you could avoid it if you're not into that.

Same here. Of course, the Dark Angels themselves bear even little relevance to the entire Horus Heresy. They had their own side-show for the most part and had little contact with all of the factions. I like Descent and Fall, but there's little point to read them unless you love the space monks.

For Descent (I haven't read Fall), I find it to end too abrutly. The story is really interresting and suddently it finishes on something like "That is that and you'll get no explication. The end."

I recommend the first four books of HH :
Horus Rising
False Gods
Galaxy in Flames
The flight of the Eisenstein

Fear te thread is about the BA but I cannot say if I like it or not as I haven't read it yet.

For the "avoid" part, it depends on the taste of the person who reads them.

 Flo wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Avoid:
Battle for the Abyss
Vengeful Spirit
Damnation of Pythos
Deliverance Lost
Descent of Angels
Fallen Angels
Vulkan Lives

I really like Descent of Angels... has a very Dark Souls vibe to it. But it has nothing to do with the Blood Angels and more to do with Caliban and the Great Crusade than with the Horus Heresy. So yea, I guess you could avoid it if you're not into that.

Same here. Of course, the Dark Angels themselves bear even little relevance to the entire Horus Heresy. They had their own side-show for the most part and had little contact with all of the factions. I like Descent and Fall, but there's little point to read them unless you love the space monks.

For Descent (I haven't read Fall), I find it to end too abrutly. The story is really interresting and suddently it finishes on something like "That is that and you'll get no explication. The end."

I recommend the first four books of HH :
Horus Rising
False Gods
Galaxy in Flames
The flight of the Eisenstein

Fear te thread is about the BA but I cannot say if I like it or not as I haven't read it yet.

For the "avoid" part, it depends on the taste of the person who reads them.

Stop tricking people into reading Descent! That's plain mean! The main character doesn't actually have a single flaw!

And don't read Fear to Tread. Just... don't.

However, I kinda liked Deliverance Lost, so I'm presuming my vote doesn't count....

The forge world Horus heresy books are excellent sources of background material on the legions. Super expensive of course.

I've found the heresy so addictive that not getting a book is annoying. Of course now BL are realising overpriced limited edition novellas just to annoy me.

I quite liked vengeful spirit bit it'll annoy blood angel fans.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The dark angel books ... dire.

For the Heresy series I can't really suggest anything contrary to what has already been said. Fearfully and carefully tread about some of the books that aren't Horus Rising, Know No Fear, First Heretic, Galaxy in Flames, Flight of the Eisenstein or False Gods, etc.

Also, people seem to be forgetting Betrayer. Its probably my favourite book in the Heresy series, sitting next to Know Fear. Large scale battles and plot, intrigue and unique and flawed characters.

For regular 40k, the Gaunts Ghost series is really worth looking into, even if you don't like the idea of the guard on the surface. There isn't a Black Library series with better character development to be honest, and the combat and stories are consistently entertaining. I started reading them in the Summer and I've just started the last book, to give you an idea of how much I've enjoyed reading them.

In general, 40k books I really like are:

The Emperor's Gift
Sons of Fenris - I never really read any of the other Ragnar books but this one is pretty memorable
Gunheads - Large battles, tank warfare, sense of peril.
Deathwatch - Looks at the universe in an appropriate and fitting way, quite an interesting read. A lot of build up towards the last 100~ ish pages.

I recommend:

Horus Rising
False Gods
Galaxy In Flames
Flight of the Eisenstein
Fulgrim
Legion
A Thousand Sons
Nemesis
The First Heretic
Scars
Fear To Tread
Know No Fear


Avoid:

Nothing, really. I don't think anyone should be able to tell you what books are good or bad, this thread itself is testament to the fact that different readers like different books. YMMV

Good reads:
The Primarchs (The Serpent Beneath is good)
Shadows of Treachery (I liked The Crimson Fist)

Okay reads:
Deliverance Lost
The Age of Darkness (The Last Remembrancer being a highlight)
Treacheries of the Space Marines
Legion (might be poor)

Poor reads:
The Unremembered Empire
Descent of the Angels
The Seventh Serpent
Fear to Tread

For me, the short stories are better written. They don't try to spread the plot over 500 pages when 50 will do, and they won't go OTT with the adjectives and descriptions.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Avoid:
Battle for the Abyss
Vengeful Spirit
Damnation of Pythos
Deliverance Lost
Descent of Angels
Fallen Angels
Vulkan Lives

I really like Descent of Angels... has a very Dark Souls vibe to it. But it has nothing to do with the Blood Angels and more to do with Caliban and the Great Crusade than with the Horus Heresy. So yea, I guess you could avoid it if you're not into that.

Same here. Of course, the Dark Angels themselves bear even little relevance to the entire Horus Heresy. They had their own side-show for the most part and had little contact with all of the factions. I like Descent and Fall, but there's little point to read them unless you love the space monks.

But they're monster-slaying pseudo-medieval warrior monks in a sci-fi meets dark fantasy setting... in space! and rituals and secrets!

 Flo wrote:
For Descent (I haven't read Fall), I find it to end too abrutly. The story is really interresting and suddently it finishes on something like "That is that and you'll get no explication. The end."

Yea but I enjoyed the stuff on Caliban so much I didn't really care. Maybe it's because of how introspective and philosophical the story is, instead of just describing events. I'm also into history and this kinda touches on that (basically what can 5000 years of isolation do and what happens when an overpowering outside force shows up).

 ChazSexington wrote:
Stop tricking people into reading Descent! That's plain mean! The main character doesn't actually have a single flaw!

I genuinely think it's a good read! The intro was enough to win me over!

Mr.Omega wrote:Also, people seem to be forgetting Betrayer.

Nah. I thought Betrayer was too long. The first part with the battle is stupid, the middle part with a lot of growing is poorly characterized, and the ending, which is the only part of the story that actually matters, just seems like another excuse to have a primarch fistfight where everyone lives to fight another day. Betrayer would have been much better if it was a novella, and didn't have the Ultramarines in it at all, just Lorgar and Angron going home to his home planet.

That and ultimately it's not relevant to the bigger story.I mean sure, we get to see Angron turn into a Daemon Prince, but we never saw that before and it still made sense in the Horus Heresy story.


As far as Unremembered Empire, I often call it Unremembered Novel. Partly because it's completely forgettable and nothing interesting happens in it, but secondly because if you were to never read it, you would literally miss nothing in the story. It starts with Guilliman and Lionel talking about Sanguinius's impending arrival, and ends with him arriving, making it the longest segue ever written.

Weell it does have the semi-permanent death of a primarch, so thats important. And the whole unremembered empire itself is an important ploy point, but the book doesn't develop it much.

Also, it subtley tells you why the tyranids attacked the eastern fringe!

The Inquisitor trilogy (Xenos, Malleus, Hereticus) are some of the absolute best books in the 40k universe, and personally one of my favourite sci-fi series in general.

I second gaunts ghosts as well - fantastic books, very entertaining.

13th Legion is another favourite of mine.

Legion was another great read for me, I was never really partial to the Alpha Legion before that book. Gave me a whole new perspective.

If you can get your hands on it, the Words Of Blood short story compilation is another of my favourites.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Weell it does have the semi-permanent death of a primarch, so thats important.

He semi-perma-died in Vulkan Lives too, lol.

But really, I just figured it out. If Prospero Burns was Dan Abnett rewriting The Thirteenth Warrior (well, Eaters of the Dead) with Space Wolves, and Double Eagle was Dan Abnett rewriting old WW2 fighter squadron serials like Black Sheep Squadron, Unremembered Empire was Dan Abnett rewriting Samuel Beckett's classic absurdist/transcendentalist play Waiting for Godot. That clever bastard...

Well that, and Hamlet Act I, Scene i in the very beginning with the Iron Warrior ghost..

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Weell it does have the semi-permanent death of a primarch, so thats important.

He semi-perma-died in Vulkan Lives too, lol.

But really, I just figured it out. If Prospero Burns was Dan Abnett rewriting The Thirteenth Warrior (well, Eaters of the Dead) with Space Wolves, and Double Eagle was Dan Abnett rewriting old WW2 fighter squadron serials like Black Sheep Squadron, Unremembered Empire was Dan Abnett rewriting Samuel Beckett's classic absurdist/transcendentalist play Waiting for Godot. That clever bastard...

This made my day. I'm a bit of a Dabnett fanboy, lol

If you wanted to read books that have "the story" or Blood Angels in them, you would just look up Blood Angels on the Black Library website.

As for actually learning anything about Blood Angels, it's possible that there is nothing informative about Blood Angels or "the story" in any of them. Like you can finish reading them and know absolutely nothing you didnt know before. If you want information like what happened when and how many space marines are in the fourth company, you should read a codex or something else that has a timeline and a set of diagrams. Don't read a novel for that.

If you want to know anything about the Blood Angels, you should read a list something like Daemon World, Honor Guard, Lord of the Night, and Riders of the Dead. Those books are actually informative about what someone like a Blood Angel can bring to the table, and what they have to deal with. If you just need it to have Blood Angels in it, you pretty much can't do any better than a codex and a box of models.

 EngulfedObject wrote:
I genuinely think it's a good read! The intro was enough to win me over!

Spoiler:

Also, isn't it implied that the narrator is Cypher/Zahariel? He also gets sent back with Luther and slowly falls under his wing. Isn't that pretty flawed? He also deals with some internal struggles throughout the story.

 ChazSexington wrote:

 EngulfedObject wrote:
I genuinely think it's a good read! The intro was enough to win me over!

Spoiler:

Also, isn't it implied that the narrator is Cypher/Zahariel? He also gets sent back with Luther and slowly falls under his wing. Isn't that pretty flawed? He also deals with some internal struggles throughout the story.

Spoiler:

It is Zahariel. There's not much struggle though, because he doesn't ever mess up and everything always works out for the best.

Fear To Tread is a great BA read if you can deal with mustache-twirling chaos douchery

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Flo wrote:
For Descent (I haven't read Fall), I find it to end too abrutly. The story is really interresting and suddently it finishes on something like "That is that and you'll get no explication. The end."

Yea but I enjoyed the stuff on Caliban so much I didn't really care. Maybe it's because of how introspective and philosophical the story is, instead of just describing events. I'm also into history and this kinda touches on that (basically what can 5000 years of isolation do and what happens when an overpowering outside force shows up).

What bothers me in the end of Descent is

I enjoyed Unrememebred empire for what it was. if you're looking for a story fulla bolter porn yeah it's proably not gonna be your thing, but it was a fun look inside the head of gulliman. I think the novels purpose was to basicly fill an interlude.