Recently got into 40k thanks to Space Marine 2 and i wanted to get into the books and stuff, but dunno where to start or what are my options.
best not to. they're bad. will taint your enjoyment of the setting. that said, eisenhorn i guess.
>>25615917Anything krieg related. It's not high brow but I've always enjoyed them the most.
Does anyone else get WH40K vibes from reading the Second Coming, by Yeats?
Not literature, go ask another board
>>25616363where?
>>25615917Night lord omnibus, siege of helsreach, honsou stuff, horus heresy only if you gett into the setting and like it, otherwise stay on these kind of stuff.
>>25615917Cain for humour. Eisenhorn for everything else.
>>25615917Final DeploymentIf you want something that makes 40k look like childrens war comics. Read Sven Hassel.
>>25615917I honestly wouldn't recommened any 40k novels precisely by being a nerd myself; I realize now the time invested in reading Horus Heresy could have been spent reading better things, but with that said:the Eisenhorn trilogy, then maybe continue with the rest if you enjoyed that. I'm surprised at how much I liked The Magos novel and its associated short storiesGaunt's Ghosts is really good as a sort of "slice of life" story showing you how the life of most imperial guards go, but it's quite long. Best in the serie imo are Necropolis, Sabbath Martyr and Blood Pacti guess Abnett is a good writter after all>>25617362>Night lord omnibuspretty good, but I don't think it's for everyone
I recommend all the works by Simon Spurrier For novels:Lord of the Night (Night Lords)Fire Warrior (Tau)
>>25615917>>25617337/tg/ (the Warhammer board) would be a better place to ask about this
>>25615917I really enjoyed terrible book written by terrible author, that exists for some mystifying reason, I recommend it.
>>25617362Graham McNeill is an overrated author
>>25615917Don't start with the Horus heresy because those events are 10 thousand years before the current events. I'd start with the Imperial guard as they are the backbone of the Imperium, they are the most relatable and easy to follow. I'd start with The Fall of Cadia because it's the most important event in the 40k timeline as of the collapse of Cadia is what initiated the current era and current happenings. It will give you a rough estimate of what kind of enemy Chaos actually is and the basics of what the Imperium is up against.After that The Uriel Ventris Chronicles. The Ultramarines are the poster boys of space marines and are the most vanilla however they are a synonymy for loyalty and courage and they don't fuck around. You'll get a rough understanding of space marines and how they operate and it is mostly self-contained without requiring much knowledge of the lore, overall decent sci-fi military stories by itself.
>>25615917>>>/toy/
>>25622575>The Uriel Ventris ChroniclesIsn't that like 6 books? A single Ultramarines book is enough to get a taste of the poster boys.
Horror series have surprisingly decent titles though.
Start with Valedor
>>25615917Anything good starring a Rogue Trader?
>>25615917henry zou is the best 40k author
>>25624126Is he still writing?
>>25615920No one replied to you, but it’s true. I’ve tried reading a few Warhammer books lately, and the first thing that jumps out is that this much-touted "grimdark" boils down to the occasional mention of battlefield violence or someone being sentenced to death. Beyond that, it’s just your typical Star Wars, Mass Effect, or Halo fare. Dembski-Bowden is the closest to "grimdark," though he radiates a strong tryhard energy, mixed with some daddy issues. At the same time, I see a troubling trend, no doubt pioneered by late BioWare, now embodied by authors like Mike Brooks. I’ll admit, he’s actually quite good when he writes about Orks and only about Orks. Otherwise, he seems desperate to prove that every book needs a woman in a position of power, ideally a lesbian, to the point where this compulsion actually derails the book’s structure. For instance, in Warboss,which is about Orks storming a city, we get several brief, unnecessary subplots: a) a female Hive boss (a lesbian) who appears exactly three times for no clear reason; b) a female tank commander who ends up dying by accident during a clash with the Orks; c) a non-binary underground guide who simply vanishes once their role as a guide is fulfilled; and, as a little bonus, female leader of a small community who dies the moment we arrive at that community.At least Dembski-Bowden imbued them with a certain sex appeal, something that’s missing here, presumably because heterosexual tastes are considered patriarchal or something.
>>25627018The term Grimdark just means bleak and the overarching narrative is bleak and that's it. Any novel you open will start with “To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable.” Probably over 90% of the Warhammer fan base has never read a Warhammer novel, read through any codex or painted a miniature and probably never will. Most just consume media from video games and youtube reels. And compared to other (mainstream) franchises what would be something extremely fucked up is completely normal in Warhammer.The stories have been made much safer but the lore and setting itself however is still "grimdark". The Imperium abducts people (psykers) in black ships by the millions and sacrifice them to the Emperor daily who himself is dying as the Imperium is headed for a even worse crisis, a massive rift split the Imperium in half and half of humanity is in the dark, the average citizen lives a miserable life under a fanatical theocracy, indentured slavery is normal, being turned into a braindead robot servitor is a normal punishment, Orks and Tyranids are building up to be a biblical level threat, political commissars are free to regularly execute humans, etc.Consider that most space marines which are portrayed as heroes really have no facade of righteousness that is often applied to the Ultramarines. They couldn't give a single shit about humans and will not go out of their way to protect humans and they view them as collateral damage or as a resource to be spent. The Carchadorons raid isolated Imperial settlements, penal colonies and prison worlds to forcibly sieze thousands of which most will at best serve as slaves on their ship. Flesh Tearers decided to wipe out 300 billion humans in a nuclear holocaust to end a civil war quickly. Marines Malevolent will bombard civilian refugee camps just to kill Orks. Iron Hands are trans-humanists that get disgusted by flesh and so on
>>25615917I am a warhammer lit slop appreciator. 99% of the fantasy books I read are Warhammer.The best 40k book is storm of ironThe best 30k book is know no FearThe best warhammer fantasy book is skavenslayer (but all of Gotrek and Felix is worth reading desu.)
>>25627706>storm of ironIs that a WW1 fanfiction under the guise of W40K
>>25627713No, despite the name it bears no resemblance to storm of steel.
>>25624908He was blacklisted for plagiarism iirc
>>25615917>>>/tg/roguetradersquats
>>25627733lfmao
>>25627300If modern Warhammer novels are "grimdark", Halo is too. I think all cool and really dark elements come from years 1989-2006, after that there was only Marvel.
>>25622400>>25627736I mean yeah, should've make the thread in /tg/ but got the feeling it's gonna be like asking for shows on /co/ You're not gonna get a good or decent answer.>>25615920>>25627018Honestly didn't responded because i got confirmation biased, specially after asking some randos and friends where to start and like anon >>25627300 said.>Probably over 90% of the Warhammer fan base has never read a Warhammer novel or read through any codex and probably never will.It's frustrating/disheartening to see the same response everytime. The only good response i got was a friend who's into battletech and straight up told me "warhammer sucks, the minis are expensive and the lore is disjointedly weird in a way"I'm just gonna try what to read the fall of cadia and see where i go from there.
>>25628393We regularly have W40K threads anon, search the archive and you will find a lot of recommendations
>>25628393You got your answer: Rogue Trader.
>>25628474Isn't rogue trader super old or does it hold up?
Ive been trying to read the first book of the Horus Heresy, Horus Rising, and it's kinda just ass. Marines go somewhere and end some conflict in 5 minutes and Horus walking around saying ho ho ho and being charismatic. Everyone has names that sound like out of some teenage 2-wolves-inside-you badass epic fanfic and the character interactions are just them being epic wise warrior men giving epic wise warrior advice to each other.
>>25629259Were you into Warhammer prior to reading it?
>>25615917There’s a very old Gordon Rennie imperial navy duology that’s very good. Follows the lives of a ship captain, a ship slave, a fighter pilot, and a cop all swept up in a massive chaos invasion. It’s been years so maybe they don’t hold up but I remember enjoying them immensely. You’ll have to find used copes because GW is allergic to reprints and prefers spamming:>this novel introduces new lore or answers old lore questions that change everything!!! (It changes nothing)Other than that, read the first ciaphas cain book. It’s good. No need to read the others though.
>>25629282These two?
>>25629297Yeah
>>25629259Wait until you get to the daddy issues.
>>25628474>>25629148Tried reading and i don't get it, it's just a game manual.
>>25630109>taking a namefag seriously
>>25622575>published 2023So are you telling me Black Library still prints decent books?
>>25615917It's all I have. Marines are boring and probably gay, so I avoid their novels.I'm looking forward to Da Red Gobbo's Reckoning and Cold Covenant.
>>25631178How do you rate Dark Coil?
>>25631226The best book ever published by Black Library. Fehervari is the only one trying to do something that may be closer to literature rather than licensed genre fiction.
>>25631178>marines are boring and probably gay>proudly posts a photo with books written by Black Library's biggest trannylovers Mike Brooks, Nate Crowley and Robert Rath
>>25627713nta, it's the only wh40k novel I ever read and I liked it (I am a simple man). It's just chaos Iron Warriors besieging an Imperial Fists fort and some other Imperial dudes iirc. My friend who actually played wh40k said it wasn't good so make of that what you will.
>>25616226No
>>25616226The overlap of readership between these two is one (You).
>>25628409Mate 40ktards post about their slop on every board. That doesn't mean it's on topic. Every 40ktard says /tg/ was created as a warhammer board (despite having zero evidence for this claim) so why don't they fuck off and stay there?
>>25631590This is a literature board and this particular thread is about a certain group of sci-fi/fantasy books. It's perfectly on topic, unlike so many other threads that regularly infest the board catalog>b-but some retard said to me once that-I don't care, just hide the thread and fuck off
>>25627300>You don't get it bro it's so dark in the looooooore! Why not read a sci-fi series that's actually unapologetically dark and fucked up? Also comparing warhammer 40k books to literal video games is just amazing. The setting can't be compared to science fiction lit from the same era because that just exposes how tepid and unoriginal warhammer is.
Sex with Horus
>>25627018Right, Warhammer apes the edgy aesthetic of Elric but past the surface it's all just branding and marketing.
>>25631590>people are discussing novels they are interested in on /lit/? NOOOO STOP THIS AT ONCE
>>25631655Critics, defenders of culture, are oh so very necessary, even if their spheres of influence are small.
>>25631655>>25631660And don't you think the entertaining of bad art is a moral failure? Elitism is an effort, however small, to save you.
>>25615917Ciaphas Cain series
>>25631660>>25631665By all means, start a new thread about how certain books series and/or literature genres are bad for the brain. It would be a welcome change from the AI-generated DFW image spam threads
>>25631655Warhammer is more like a lifestyle brand than a game or a book series. Whereas a fan of Asimov might also read Heinlein or Edgar Rice Burroughs, 40k fanboys take pride in buying big stacks of books and minis that they'll never open, watching endless lore videos and playing 40k slop video games. They stay in the ecosystem and don't leave it. What's worse is GW's history of plagiarism and filing frivolous lawsuits against authors for using ideas they themselves ripped off. With all that in mind I think you're kinda a goy if you aren't annoyed about this slop getting shilled everywhere and displacing independent writers.
