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Yes in counter to the other thread - I think its good to focus on the other side of the coin too. What books have you loved from the Black Library - what are the must reads; the best stories; the most deep lore; the most wonderful and horrible and chaotic and mad characters. What's your favourites within the vast archive of stories?!

Eater of worlds has got to be up there.

Black legion, and talon of horus, aswell as the night lords omnibus, betrayer, and first heretic by ADB.

I really liked the buried dagger too... Showed a lot more depth to mortarion than most of the other primarchs in their coverage.

Scars is the loyalist focused novel that stands out to me too, they're probably the most interesting loyal legion.

ADB's Night Lords trilogy, along with his Night Lords short stories for hh. Simon Spurrier's Lord of the Night is also excellent. (Yeah I'm biased).

The first two of ADB's Night Lords trilogy, Betrayer, also by ADB, and Lords of Silence by Chris Wraight.

The original Eisenhorn novels are among my favorite fantasy novels, period. It's like cyber punk 40k. I routinely recommend those novels to non-40k fans and they love them.

The first three Horus heresy books are fricking great. I love the character and setting development. The humanizing of Horus and the primarchs is handled well. Some of them were actually in the nyt best seller lists.

Storm of Iron is probably my favorite stand alone story. It's a well done seige story with Marines and iron warriors. In sea of trash space Marines stories, this one's actually pretty good.

I enjoyed Ben Counter's grey knight trilogy. The Ravenor trilogy is also enjoyable.

Gaunts ghosts is a good series of you want to read imperial guard battles featuring infantry led by a commisar. I got bored probably into the third book.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Is Lord of the Night part of the night Lord trilogy? I loved that book. If it's part of that trilogy, i agree with everyone who says it's awesome.

Xenology

(Preferably the collector's edition, which included the twist ending)

 lifeafter wrote:
Is Lord of the Night part of the night Lord trilogy? I loved that book. If it's part of that trilogy, i agree with everyone who says it's awesome.

No, different authors. Zso Sahaal is mentioned in the trilogy but that's all. But if you liked it, and Night Lords in general, then I highly recommend ADB's trilogy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 harlokin wrote:
The first two of ADB's Night Lords trilogy, Betrayer, also by ADB, and Lords of Silence by Chris Wraight.

Didn't enjoy Void Stalker?

Gadzilla666 wrote:
Didn't enjoy Void Stalker?

It was good, but for some reason I couldn't get into it as much as the first two. I know that things can never end well for the boys in midnight clad, but still...

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:


I really liked the buried dagger too... Showed a lot more depth to mortarion than most of the other primarchs in their coverage.

Mortarion was good in that, but I was really disappointed in the origin of the plague marines. They get stuck in the warp. One of them gets sick. Then a bunch of them get sick. Then Mortarion is pledging himself to Nurgle. And what you read just now is about as much time as the book dedicates to all that.

To answer the original question, I think the Ahriman series has been my favorite. And I really enjoyed the siege of Terra book 2. Lost and the Damned?

 harlokin wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:
Didn't enjoy Void Stalker?

It was good, but for some reason I couldn't get into it as much as the first two. I know that things can never end well for the boys in midnight clad, but still...

Can't win em all. Grim dark and all that. But at least Zso Sahaal probably survived Lord of the Night. He's still my #1 hope for an actual Night Lords character in the game. With a Mita Ashen model in tow of course.

I'll echo xenology. I have both versions of that book. Love it. but I'm a sucker for biology.

I do like Eisenhorn, but I can't stand enuncia. Abnett has a bad habit of trying to insert his own stamp into 40k at fundamental levels that imo cause so much trouble later (CF perpetuals, no wolves on fenris, omegon etc). Enuncia screws with the metaphysics of 40k too much and entirely bypasses the risk of damnation for temporal power of psychic powers.


My favourite novels are execution hour and shadow point. Fun stories, interesting characters and imo the best Eldar in fiction. Tag Thorpe writes humans with pointy ears

Gaunt's Ghosts (soft spot for the first three, and Only In Death)

Know No Fear (the scene with the Antrodamicus? Ugh - lovely)

Betrayer (solid work on all fronts)

Knights of Macragge (making Cato Sicarius into a pretty cool character, and having de-powered Space Marines fight like knights through an army of feral Orks? Awesome).

15hrs- classic, memorable, enjoyable one and off novel.

Ciaphas Cain series- you can read them in any order and enjoy it. Cain is like Bond, get gak done in style.

Once I have read the NL series, it will probably be up there, as I have enjoyed all the NL short stories.

The Eisenhorn trilogy is pobably the overall best produced by Black Library in the 30K and 40K domain. The first three books of the Horus Heresy, the Night Lord trilogy and Gaunt's Ghosts complete the podium. I can say about Ciaphas Cain books since I read none of them.

I've never read any Fantasy/Age of Sigmar books so I don't know which one's are particularly good.

Crackedgear wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:


I really liked the buried dagger too... Showed a lot more depth to mortarion than most of the other primarchs in their coverage.

Mortarion was good in that, but I was really disappointed in the origin of the plague marines. They get stuck in the warp. One of them gets sick. Then a bunch of them get sick. Then Mortarion is pledging himself to Nurgle. And what you read just now is about as much time as the book dedicates to all that.

Well yeah but that was the plan, put in place by calas typhon. He orchestrated it, and it left mortarion with no choice but to accept

Problem wasn’t so much the plan as that it took all of two pages.

You mean besides Eisenhorn right? Cause like you don't even need me to tell you that Eisenhorn is the best damn thing they published.

Except maybe for Drakenfels and the the Demon Download series by Kim "Jack Yeovil" Newman.

The early books be Ian Watson are very much an acquired taste but I really like them and reread them.

Gaunts Ghosts has its rough edges and generally Abnett has problems finishing the books but are always entertaining.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
You mean besides Eisenhorn right? Cause like you don't even need me to tell you that Eisenhorn is the best damn thing they published.

Except maybe for Drakenfels and the the Demon Download series by Kim "Jack Yeovil" Newman.

The early books be Ian Watson are very much an acquired taste but I really like them and reread them.

Gaunts Ghosts has its rough edges and generally Abnett has problems finishing the books but are always entertaining.

Sorry you spelled "Night Lords Trilogy" wrong.

Ciaphas Cain series - dark and fun at the same time.
Helsreach - loads of creat characters and moments
Knight series by Andy Clark - 40k BattleTech in all the best ways
Deathwatch By S Parker - very very dark but good.
Imperial Glory - Orks are not funny in universe - very dark.
Gaunts Ghosts - Sharpe in space - whats not lot love
Storm of Iron - Dark and brutal.

Knights of Macragge (making Cato Sicarius into a pretty cool character, and having de-powered Space Marines fight like knights through an army of feral Orks? Awesome).

Just read and enjoyed

Both of Josh Reynolds' Fabius Bile novels.

Both give you an excellent insight into a slice of life in the EoT and the inner workings of how exactly CSM replenish their numbers with the introduction of The Consortium- Bile's university cum private army.

Bile himself is a combination of Rick Sanchez, people from r/iamverysmart and every insufferable atheist you have ever met. But it works. Reynolds nails the character perfectly.

The novels are littered with in and out of universe references that are nice joy to see.I've read both of these books twice and love every page of them.


Have to give a shout out to Storm of Iron too. Now, the book is getting a bit dated and long in the tooth nowadays but there is a reason it was regarded as one of the best. That reason (IMO) is because it bucked the trend of all other BL books at the time with CSM essentially being the protagonists of the novel.

Obligatory mentions for favorites: Night Lords trilogy, Ciaphas Cain series, Eisenhorn, Ravenor trilogies, and Pariah.

Big fan of Lukas the Trickster (Josh Reynolds). Lots of nice character work there.

The Emperor's Gift (Aaron Dembski-Bowden). Good denouement from the Ravenor series, and a wonderful example of the antagonists stealing the show.

Ben Counter's Soul Drinker series--the Soul Drinkers themselves are somewhat pat "renegades who think they're in the right" sorts, but the antagonists are some of the most poignant in all of 40k.

The Maccharian Crusade--Wonderful novel series! Great chance to see the "ground floor" of Imperium society. Also a good chance to see a grunt's-eye-view of things.

Finally, I'd say Isha's Lament (Thomas Parrott). It's just a damn fine story. Wonderfully plotted with great character execution.

Peter Fehervari's Requiem Infernal is not merely the best BL novel I have read. It's among the best pieces of fiction I have read regardless of format, setting or genre. I actually think he's wasting his talent writing exclusively for BL.

 Duskweaver wrote:
Peter Fehervari's Requiem Infernal is not merely the best BL novel I have read. It's among the best pieces of fiction I have read regardless of format, setting or genre. I actually think he's wasting his talent writing exclusively for BL.

That was a great book. It could easily have been a Warhammer horror novel as well. I love the way he can leave things unexplained, it adds to the tension of the story so much. His books don’t spoon feed you every last detail, which is something a lot of authors are guilty of when writing BL fiction.

 Duskweaver wrote:
Peter Fehervari's Requiem Infernal is not merely the best BL novel I have read. It's among the best pieces of fiction I have read regardless of format, setting or genre. I actually think he's wasting his talent writing exclusively for BL.

Yup anything by the author is pretty great, I recommend you read cult of the spiral dawn next if you haven't. It will be an interesting read after Requiem Infernal. That man has a rare talent to draw in people who have NO interest in warhammer in general and he captures the setting so very well, he makes both Xenos and Chaos absolutely creepy and terrifying, Black Library is sleeping on him.

Reading his works has essentially spoiled me because now nothing is up to par. If he wrote a cosmic horror novel separate from warhammer? I would buy it.

If you haven't read his books, pick up Fire Caste, Requiem Infernal or Cult of the Spiral dawn. All of his stories and short stories are connected in some way.

shinros wrote:

 Duskweaver wrote:
Peter Fehervari's Requiem Infernal is not merely the best BL novel I have read. It's among the best pieces of fiction I have read regardless of format, setting or genre. I actually think he's wasting his talent writing exclusively for BL.

Yup anything by the author is pretty great, I recommend you read cult of the spiral dawn next if you haven't. It will be an interesting read after Requiem Infernal. That man has a rare talent to draw in people who have NO interest in warhammer in general and he captures the setting so very well, he makes both Xenos and Chaos absolutely creepy and terrifying, Black Library is sleeping on him.

Reading his works has essentially spoiled me because now nothing is up to par. If he wrote a cosmic horror novel separate from warhammer? I would buy it.

If you haven't read his books, pick up Fire Caste, Requiem Infernal or Cult of the Spiral dawn. All of his stories and short stories are connected in some way.

I have a sample sitting on my Kindle will have to check it out. Has to be better than the Celestine book which at this point I'm only reading because I paid $10 for it.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

shinros wrote:

 Duskweaver wrote:
Peter Fehervari's Requiem Infernal is not merely the best BL novel I have read. It's among the best pieces of fiction I have read regardless of format, setting or genre. I actually think he's wasting his talent writing exclusively for BL.

Yup anything by the author is pretty great, I recommend you read cult of the spiral dawn next if you haven't. It will be an interesting read after Requiem Infernal. That man has a rare talent to draw in people who have NO interest in warhammer in general and he captures the setting so very well, he makes both Xenos and Chaos absolutely creepy and terrifying, Black Library is sleeping on him.

Reading his works has essentially spoiled me because now nothing is up to par. If he wrote a cosmic horror novel separate from warhammer? I would buy it.

If you haven't read his books, pick up Fire Caste, Requiem Infernal or Cult of the Spiral dawn. All of his stories and short stories are connected in some way.

I have a sample sitting on my Kindle will have to check it out. Has to be better than the Celestine book which at this point I'm only reading because I paid $10 for it.

In my opinion Andy Clark can't even touch Peter. Most BL authors can't in my opinion.

I'll add one vote for Lord of the Night, it was indeed awesome.

I found the Path of the Dark Eldar trilogy surprisingly enjoyable too (and a nice change of pace from the human-centric stories).

 Duskweaver wrote:
Peter Fehervari's Requiem Infernal is not merely the best BL novel I have read. It's among the best pieces of fiction I have read regardless of format, setting or genre. I actually think he's wasting his talent writing exclusively for BL.

I must admit I found it hard going and not sure I understood the ending....in contrast I really enjoyed Fire Caste and most of Spiral Dawn although it did vere into Chaos marine Bolter porn....

I'll add one vote for Lord of the Night, it was indeed awesome.

I found the Path of the Dark Eldar trilogy surprisingly enjoyable too (and a nice change of pace from the human-centric stories).

Oh yes good call - loved Lord of the Night

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Duskweaver wrote:
Peter Fehervari's Requiem Infernal is not merely the best BL novel I have read. It's among the best pieces of fiction I have read regardless of format, setting or genre. I actually think he's wasting his talent writing exclusively for BL.

I must admit I found it hard going and not sure I understood the ending....in contrast I really enjoyed Fire Caste and most of Spiral Dawn although it did vere into Chaos marine Bolter porn....

I'll add one vote for Lord of the Night, it was indeed awesome.

I found the Path of the Dark Eldar trilogy surprisingly enjoyable too (and a nice change of pace from the human-centric stories).

Oh yes good call - loved Lord of the Night

On the End of Requiem Infernal.



Someone was nice enough to make a chart somewhat of how all the books connect, of course spoilers.

Thoroughly enjoyed the Night Lords trilogy.
Would certainly recommend them.