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So, I had a wee search around but I didn't exactly find a topic like this around. If there is though, feel free to send it flying.

Ignoring any particular army bias, what, to you, are amongst the genuinely well written books out there in the warhammer universe?

And indeed which authors for you always stand out?

Perhaps conversely are there any books you've read from a favourite author that missed the mark?

I'm particularly keen to hear about more recent books as most of what I've read was some years ago.

We can perhaps exclude the obvious Dan Abnett books out of this, as they are particularly well known.

Personally, a book I just picked up was the Infinite and the Divine, apparently by a debut author, Robert Rath. I really enjoyed the comic tragedy of it. When I came back to the hobby I was fairly put off by the newcrons. But actually, this was a revelation. A book about two immortal murderers bantering through time and space certainly opened my heart to the fact that they have personalities now instead of being pure deathless killing machines.

Cheers,

Betrayer. I think it's one of the best in the entire HH series. A lot of people don't seem to like Angron's depiction in the novels but here I think he was done brilliantly. He is just hilarious from start to finish

I've always placed Gordon Rennie's BFG books Execution Hour and Shadowpoint very highly in my 40k book list.

Shadowpoint has the best depiction of an eldar avatar in fiction - which isn't saying much given how badly GW have treated them...

No list would be complete without Ian Watson's bonkers and well-written Space Marine (1993), despite toilet humour and the fact you need to keep a dictionary tab up while reading it.

Neither would any list of the best Warhammer books be complete without Matthew Farrer's Shira Calpurnia trilogy (Enforcer omnibus, 2003-2006), with an honourable mention to his Necromunda novel Junktion (2005). All of Matthew Farrer's works are carefully crafted pieces of worldbuilding, completely true to the bonkers, regressed spirit of the setting, with no amateur anachronistic Hollywood slip-ups. Check out his short stories as well.



Xenology is also among the better reads out there.

I'll have to give those a look KNC!

If we're excluding Abnett, then I would say ADB is my next favourite black library author. The Helsreach and Night Lords books are really enjoyable for me. Great take on Astartes as developmentally frozen children in monstrous, powerful bodies, driven by bizarre and strangely childish obsessions. He has a couple of other tropes in his novels that I really enjoy - there's always someone from the Mechanicum, there's always a cool space battle or two, and there's always a couple of badass normal humans around to enjoy. It's still schlock but it's a cut above the average and I can honestly say I've never read a book by him I didn't enjoy, which is actually more than I can say for Abnett.

Aside from that, I do genuinely enjoy the Sandy Mitchell Ciaphas Cain books. A bit tongue in cheek and light hearted but they are fun. The only downside is the prose gets a bit repetitive if you read a bunch of them because the same phrases get reused a lot.

I have to say apart from those I've not enjoyed a lot of Warhammer 40K fiction. Most of the authors are not very good.

 Karak Norn Clansman wrote:
No list would be complete without Ian Watson's bonkers and well-written Space Marine (1993), despite toilet humour and the fact you need to keep a dictionary tab up while reading it.

For sure No-where else will you read about buttock-branding and squats riding ambulls in 40k lore!

As a lesser well known book I would recommend 'Fifteen Hours' by Mitchel Scanlon. Really, really quite dark and brutal and gives an image of life as a Guardsman away from the Herohammer of a lot of other 40k books.

And ones I am sure you know but I think are probably some of my favourites would be the Night Lords trilogy by ADB. So much character given to the 'bad guys', think those books really raised the bar on writing fallen Legion stuff and especially adding some complexity and background to them as a concept.

 Da Boss wrote:


I have to say apart from those I've not enjoyed a lot of Warhammer 40K fiction. Most of the authors are not very good.

Yes this is my problem too, so I thought it would be great to compile some kind of list so that people can find some of the better books out there.

I first read Ian Watson's Space Marine not long after I took a break from WHFB and was pondering a 40k army. A friend of mine smiled and said "here's all you need to understand" he was only half joking! Ludicrous book but superb all the same.

I'm very interested in these Night Lords books, of all the traitor legions I liked them the most. (I seem to recall and old WD that had them driving rhinos covered in ultramarine corpses?)


Thanks for the recommendations so far folks, keep 'em coming!

@Pacific [DCM]: Don't forget Marine Scouts farting in each others' faces while climbing a vertical shaft or a Titan flipping the bird.

@Olthannon: You have a true and loyal friend there, in that case!

Yes, author quality is my problem with Black Library publications as well. I've searched out previous threads, and launched one of my own, to pool reader experience and find the best 40k books. Excluding the obvious candidate of Eisenhorn is probably for the best, to keep the field open for all the lesser known works out there.

Oh, and I assure you all that part two of Matthew Farrer's Enforcer omnibus, namely Legacy, sports a piece that has Ian Watson's approval. I sent that good author, mr. Watson, a manually typed extract a little more than a year ago, and he responded thus in mail:

Ian Watson wrote:Oh yes, thank you very much for sharing this! Ingeniously tongue in cheek (though which kind of cheek?). The Spirit Lives On!!!!! Nay, the Legacy Lives On!

Pious exhortations to you, Acolyte.
Inquisitor Ian.

You have been warned.

The Lords of Silence by Chris Wraight is great. In fact, pretty much most of the stuff Mr. Wraight has written is great.

I'm pretty picky with Black Library books, but I've found the Siege of Terra to be phenomenal. Black Legion and Talon of Horus are really good, as is Helsreach. Really, anything by Aaron Dembski-Bowden is great. I also really liked Dark Imperium.

I've also been enjoying the Warhammer: Horror books. Great for a smaller scale look at the setting.

Nurglitch wrote:
The Lords of Silence by Chris Wraight is great. In fact, pretty much most of the stuff Mr. Wraight has written is great.

100% agree. Lords of Silence was great, and his Space Wolves books are great too.

Have a look through the Heresy series reviews on Good Reads too, I've used it as my metre on what ones to get and it's done me well, going to the author's profiles there can give you a good idea of what they're like.

Otherwise Dembski-Bowden is good, his Spear of the Emperor was one of the best ones I've read in a while. The serf's perspective + character arcs are great, and he manages to cultivate such a colourful and unique atmosphere.

I love Guy Haley, his verbosity sits pretty well with me and is a great fit for the Blood Angels, imo he does a great job putting some deeper thought into the 'human' side of 'superhuman'.

I read some of the Gaunt's Ghosts books when they first came out and I remember liking them a lot. I keep meaning to pick them up again to see how they've stood the test of time.

I did buy one of the Mephiston books recently and I was... not impressed.

Gaunts Ghosts are very entertaining. I especially really enjoyed First and Only and Necropolis, and then there are Guns of Tanith and Straight Silver that are mostly just good fun. The last one I read was Traitor General, and I felt that was a good, grimdark "end" to the series for me so I didn't look at any of the rest of them. I think the Inquisitor series are better, though there is some stuff in there I find a bit off putting (the descriptions of female characters mostly, you can really tell it's written for boys) but the world building and atmosphere are brilliant.

Not books so much but authors that I'll pick up without worrying about the quality of the book:

Chris Wraight
ADB
Abnett
McNeill
John French
Mike Brooks

Just echoing some of those mentioned:

Lords of Silence
Betrayer
Soul Hunter

From the more recent I highly recommend The Infinite and the Divine by Robert Rath. Very entertaining view into Necrons, both Trazyn and Orikan are hillarious.

The John French 'Ahriman' series

I can only agree that Chris Wraight is very good. His watchers of the throne series is a very enjoyable read. He is my favourite black library author right now, though you can't really go wrong with most stuff written by ADB or Abnett either.

Vojcek wrote:
From the more recent I highly recommend The Infinite and the Divine by Robert Rath. Very entertaining view into Necrons, both Trazyn and Orikan are hillarious.

100%, I saw a few people talking about it and honestly thought ahh it won't be that good but genuinely can't recommend that enough.

As for the others, most seem interesting and there's certainly a few I've not read.

A lot of the better books seem very Imperial/traitor focused.

What are the best xenos books going?

 Olthannon wrote:

Vojcek wrote:
From the more recent I highly recommend The Infinite and the Divine by Robert Rath. Very entertaining view into Necrons, both Trazyn and Orikan are hillarious.

100%, I saw a few people talking about it and honestly thought ahh it won't be that good but genuinely can't recommend that enough.

As for the others, most seem interesting and there's certainly a few I've not read.

A lot of the better books seem very Imperial/traitor focused.

What are the best xenos books going?

Of the two I mentioned xenos play an important part. Eldar corsairs in execution hour and both craftworlders and dark eldar in shadowpoint. Shadowpoint is almost more eldar book than it is imperial. It's my favourite eldar book.