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ADB's Helsreach is one of my favorite books, let alone GW books.

Any of the Ciaphas Cain rates as the best 40k fiction to me.

ADB is an amazing writer, probably the best the Black Library has, but he's ignorant of the finer points of the setting. And since we're rating it as 40k fiction, and not fiction in general, he's tied for second* in my mind.

*tied with Gav Thorpe. Unequivocally the most knowledgeable author, and pretty good at putting it all together in a good story as well.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Any of the Ciaphas Cain rates as the best 40k fiction to me.

ADB is an amazing writer, probably the best the Black Library has, but he's ignorant of the finer points of the setting. And since we're rating it as 40k fiction, and not fiction in general, he's tied for second* in my mind.

*tied with Gav Thorpe. Unequivocally the most knowledgeable author, and pretty good at putting it all together in a good story as well.

Need to disagree on the Gav Thorpe comment - I find his writing to be overall mediocre, especially with his Dark Angels stuff. I tried to read The Purging of Kadillus a few weeks back and in my mind it reads as a bad piece of fanfiction - atrocious, cringe-worthy dialogue being the worst offender. I do like a few of his books, but he seems so inconsistent as far as quality goes, and I'm always wary seeing his name on a book.

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Any of the Ciaphas Cain rates as the best 40k fiction to me.

ADB is an amazing writer, probably the best the Black Library has, but he's ignorant of the finer points of the setting. And since we're rating it as 40k fiction, and not fiction in general, he's tied for second* in my mind.

*tied with Gav Thorpe. Unequivocally the most knowledgeable author, and pretty good at putting it all together in a good story as well.

Need to disagree on the Gav Thorpe comment - I find his writing to be overall mediocre, especially with his Dark Angels stuff. I tried to read The Purging of Kadillus a few weeks back and in my mind it reads as a bad piece of fanfiction - atrocious, cringe-worthy dialogue being the worst offender. I do like a few of his books, but he seems so inconsistent as far as quality goes, and I'm always wary seeing his name on a book.

Gav Thorpe can be very hit n miss, I've found. Purging of Kadillus was OK, but not amazing. His newer work is pretty good though, and I like where he's taking the 40k Dark Angels. 30k stuff is... Ok. Master of the First is pretty good.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Any of the Ciaphas Cain rates as the best 40k fiction to me.

ADB is an amazing writer, probably the best the Black Library has, but he's ignorant of the finer points of the setting. And since we're rating it as 40k fiction, and not fiction in general, he's tied for second* in my mind.

*tied with Gav Thorpe. Unequivocally the most knowledgeable author, and pretty good at putting it all together in a good story as well.

I'm curious what you mean when you say finer points of the setting?

I've only recently started reading the novels. I enjoyed the first few HH books, so Galaxy in flames, False Gods, and Horus Rising. I thought they were tight, tense and everything a new book series needed to kick it off. The HH series has drifted in focus too much since then though, they really should have kept to little trilogies for each legion detailing and building up to Istvaan or other events like prospero. In some respects they have, in others they have gone a little off course.

I really enjoyed Fulgrim, as others have said it was just brilliant. Mechanicum has been one of the high points too, but not as good as Galaxy in Flames for me. I also enjoyed the two Dark Angels books I've read, Descent of Angels and Fallen Angels, though I think Johnson is a bit of a Dolt.

The short story omnibus was pretty good, the one that contained The Last Church, that gave a great insight into the early days of the Imperium and the Emperors view of the world and his plans for humanity, and a grim window onto the world of our future. It's actually my favourite piece of writing in the series so far I think. I'd love to see some John Blanche artwork for that story

As for 40k I haven't delved much into it, I recently read a short story about the grey knights called "Sacrifices" and that was really interesting, it detailed the different processes and sacrifices people go through to make the armour and bullets the Grey Knights use etc. Was pretty awesome. I'd recommend it.

Next I'm likely going to read either Eisenhorn, or A Thousand Sons. Haven't decided yet.

Legion, The First Heretic and Betrayer are my top three

After those it's Fulgrim, Horus Rising and A Thousand Sons

Outside of the HH my favourite is Talon of Horus but I haven't read too many BL books outside of the Heresy