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..and was thinking what would be an ideal starting point to jump in at, without being absolutely oblivious to most events leading up the events of said Trilogy.

Should I start reading from the first book in the "Siege Of Terra" series, and progress from there to TEATD? Or am I good just jumping straight into the Trilogy itself..

For context, I do know a fair bit of 40K lore, but 30K lore, notsomuch.. I havent been a fan of BL books since Ian Watson's Inquisitor I read as a teenager, a lot of that stuff just doesn't interest or inspire me like. At all. But I do want to know how the Emperor of 40K "finally came to be", after all, I have grown up with this setting and the Big E's final battle with Horus is something I have to read in depth about, even if I otherwise dont fancy reading Bolter pr0n..

thanks

Everything in the Siege that came before EatD was better than all 3 EatD books.

Each to their own but I heartily disagree. I started re reading the Siege books and now enjoying EatD more than before.
I think they're good books but some will like them and some won't. I think the problem is some people went in and didn't like the way the story didn't agree with the way it panned out.id recommend the whole siege series but others won't it depends what you like.

Thanks for your thoughts. So, I take it this means I should read the whole Siege Of Terra series for TEATD to make the most sense (and acknowledging that even then some old grudges and past events might not be familiar to me)

These books are cheap enough as PDFs, so will just start plowing through them.

I already accept the fact that the books might not be to my liking. But hey, it's sort of official lore or something, I at least want to know all the deets

I've heard quite a bit of negativity about the final books, are they really that bad?

I suspect much of the negativity stems from the last "book" being three separate volumes. I would have much preferred if they had kept the release time between the first and second volumes as short as they did with the second and third, but besides that issue of it being multiple books with releases spaced out too far, whether or not one would otherwise enjoy them seems to be very subjective. I am in the same camp as Jaxmeister and overall was not unpleased with the ending we got. Yes, there are some things that I would have liked to have seen play out differently but as a whole I was fairly happy with the capstone to the Horus Heresy that was presented.

I enjoyed the Siege series, and I think the quality is better than the Heresy overall. That said, there are some individual Heresy books I like more than any Siege book.
I would recommend reading the entire series first, it's not that long and it's quite enjoyable. I think you can probably skip Lost and the Damned and The First Wall, though I did enjoy both. Many disliked the Solar War, but I quite liked it, and Saturnine and Warhawk are really good. Mortis and Echoes and Eternity are also good.

I am disappointed by the ending though. My reasons are:

Even though I was disappointed overall, I still mostly enjoyed reading them, they're good page turners and they're alright. If you like the stuff I didn't like and the prose style doesn't bother you I'm sure you'd have a good time with it.

 tauist wrote:
Thanks for your thoughts. So, I take it this means I should read the whole Siege Of Terra series for TEATD to make the most sense (and acknowledging that even then some old grudges and past events might not be familiar to me)

I recommend reading the main SoT books (the smaller side books like Fury of Magnus are much less required but do have some interesting bits) to get a better understanding of all the main players and events leading up to TEATD. Adding at least the first three Horus Heresy books could also be worth doing to get a better idea of the origins of the Heresy itself as well as insight into key characters and their relationships. Diving into the whole HH series is definitely not necessary, but the opening trilogy really establishes the foundation for all that follows.

I made a reading list for Horus Heresy that sorts it into 5 mostly self contained trilogies. So you could read any or all of these that interest you:
Trilogy 1: Horus Rising, False Gods, Galaxy in Flames. First book is really strong, the second two are not great but do set up important plot stuff. Sets the stage and gets the ball rolling.
Trilogy 2: First Heretic, Know No Fear and Betrayer (Optional: Unremembered Empire) All three really good reads, First Heretic is a must read and the rest is about the battle between Loyalist and Traitor forces on the eastern side of the galaxy and how they prevented Earth from being supported.
Trilogy 3: Legion, Praetorian of Dorn, The Solar War. Espionage focused, Alpha Legion sneaking around and Imperial Fists trying to stop them. Introduces the Perpetual plotline, which I don’t like that much, but which does run through the Siege books if you want to read those.
Trilogy 4: A Thousand Sons, Prospero Burns, The Crimson King: Does the Thousand Sons and Space Wolves, and has some important stuff in for the broader plot. Prospero Burns is a better book than the other two but they’re all readable.
Trilogy 5: Scars, Path of Heaven and Master of Mankind: Scars and Path of Heaven are just really good reads, and Master of Mankind is good too and shows you the situation on Earth just before the siege.

That is indeed a great list for anyone interested in dipping into the HH for just the choicest bits, and would second that if one is going to read at least the first trilogy then probably should add First Heretic too, because it really is worth it.

Good that you put this up because I was also thinking about reading this.

I read maybe the first 7 HH books and the Dark Angels ones but that's all. I'd like to read some of the end books but I wanted to know how many I had to read to get the gist and what I can skip.