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As an ork player, I've been interested in the beast arises series, even though it obviously is going to end in orks losing - or, to be more exact, not taking terra, as orks can't lose.

Problem is, I've read some of the 40k space wolves books before, and they were just boring. A fellow player termed it 'bolter porn', which I find appropriate. I AM A SPACE MARINE AND I LOVE THE EMPEROR AND I SHOOT HERETICS etc etc etc, it didn't really click with me. I've heard good things about the beast series, though, and even though I assume it's from the point of the imperials, as long as it's a good story I could get on board. I don't recall why, I just was really turned off of 40k books by those space wolf ones I read.

Any rate - Beast arises. Bolter porn, or good reading? I've heard good things about Dan Abnett, but looks like he only wrote the first one.

I almost hope it is just bolter porn - I would almost be a little annoyed if it was awesome and I had to buy all 12 books Worse yet, don't seem to be any e-books versions, which I'm trying to switch to.

Then again, I really enjoyed the gotrek and felix books, and there were around 12 of them.

The only (modern) 40K books I like are the Night Lords series. They're plotless and sort of pointless, but they are fantastically well written for the most part. It is often hard to work out who's saying or doing what though - the author doesn't make things very clear.

To be honest, unless Aaron Dembski-Bowden wrote it, I'm not bothered about reading it, as only Abnett can match him for skill and Abnett's characters are annoying.

Sorry this isn't a very helpful reply

I really enjoyed the first one in the series. I have the second one but haven't gotten to it yet. It is from the imperial perspective, so far, but the Orks in it are as crazy and terrifying as I believe they were meant to be.

There are so many 40k novels out there, I definitely would not let a couple of them turn you off forever. They range widely from incredible to forgettable. That goes for Space Marine ones as well, some are pretty simple and straight forward, and others might stick with you forever.

Dan Abnett is an incredible writer. I certainly recommend giving some of his novels a chance. He has written for many fictional universes outside of 40k, as well, so he is well versed and experienced. I pretty much consider him the father of 40k lore, to be honest.

I challenge you to read Know No Fear, from the Horus Heresy series, and if you decide you don't like Abnett or still don't like Space Marine novels after that, then, I'd say your opinion is set in stone. Or, if you want to give the Space Wolves a chance to redeeem themselves, try Prospero Burns.

All of the 30k stuff seems to outshine the actual 40k stuff I've read, bar a few, such as the Night Lord novels NoPoet mentioned. The first one of those being Soul Hunter.

Next to Abnett is Graham McNeill. His novels tend to move a bit slower but most people come to appreciate him very much as well. James Swallow is also solid, and I really love and appreciate ADB's writing style, though sometimes he does some things in his novels that I am unsure about haha.

As an Ork player, you will be in the same boat as most Xenos players. You won't find many novels, if any really, solely from their perspective. There are good reasons for this, believe it or not, though I won't say its impossible to pull off.

Unxpekted22, it's interesting how different our perspectives are. I actually do like a lot of Dan Abnett's work. I've met him, and thoroughly liked him. If anything, he doesn't like me -- someone (I forget who) told me years ago that he didn't appreciate my Marneus Calgar's Barmy Army stories because they ripped on his characters. They were probably (hopefully) joking though, my work is nowhere near prominent enough to annoy TPTB.

I still regard Traitor General as one of the best novels I've ever read. However, even this bastion of awesome has two fatal flaws: namely, an Imperial Guard kill team infiltrates a Chaos stronghold and assassinates a warlord with zero or near-zero casualties (so much for the Guard's high death rate?), and said Guard kill team slaughters a squad of Chaos Marines in close quarters combat, again with zero casualties.

And that's par for the course with Abnett. He has made some outstanding contributions to the fluff but he frequently fails to understand the source material. We get craggy, unpleasant Space Wolves, not the boisterous "louts" they were originally supposed to be. We get Commissars who don't execute anyone, and are chased away by Guardsmen from other regiments. We get an Imperium that responds instantly to threats, with renegade Inquisitors finding their deadliest rivals waiting everywhere they go.

The Imperium has changed from a monolithic institution which takes years to respond to threats, if it even responds at all, to a lightning-fast and super-efficient hunter of foes which always seems to know who their foes are, what they're capable of and where they are. (Even the Night Lords novel makes this mistake.) Yes, major threats would be responded to more quickly than usual, but how can you get someone out there same day when you have to refer reports up various chains of command, across various worlds, across various sectors, where most such reports will end up getting mis-filed, misunderstood or simply not read?

This isn't exclusively Abnett's fault, it has become endemic now, but I believe it started with him.

I definitely agree that the Heresy writing is far superior to much of the 40K stuff. The Heresy-era Astartes are so much closer to being human, which makes them more sympathetic to the audience. The dialogue is better, the events are bigger in scale (Christian Dunn is doing way too much to maintain the status quo, although he is clearly being hobbled by the GW PTB here).

I will re-read Know No Fear, I enjoyed Unremembered Empire and I LOVED Legion, but I found the first Thousand Sons novel a bit of a chore (I respect that most people love it) and I didn't like the Space Wolf Heresy novel at all (but I will give it a second go).

After writing even a little of my own stuff based in the 40k universe, I can attest to the feat of keeping everything properly aligned and consistent in such a massive fictional universe, especially with so many authors coming in and out of it, and even codex books to deal with. I can't imagine the struggle of keeping it all straight for something like the Horus Heresy series. One thing that has been bugging me personally is the varying degree of power that the Primarchs seem to have.

I haven't read Traitor Guard, so I can't agree or disagree on that.

I think Gaunt's Ghosts is supposed to be another of Abnett's best works in the 40k universe. I should probably get that into my hands at some point.