A little bit of a thread-resurrection but no sense in making a new thread when a good one already exists.
I asked this over the the WH40K thread in Games but that's the wrong thread for it, really. I want to read some more WH40K novels. I started reading the Siege of Terra series, read the first two and then hit a problem - the third one is written by Gav Thorpe, possibly my least favourite WH40K author. Anyone read this series and how viable would it be to just cram wiki summaries of the novel and then skip the fourth? I want to get back to novels read by people like Chris Wraight. Or do I make like Perterabo and just endure the third novel for the sake of getting to the rest?
Alternately I might re-pick up the Caiaphus Cain novels (I've only read the first two, I thought they were alright but do they get better or worse?) or I might just try and find some good solo novels I've not yet read. Taking recommendations.
The First Wall is actually pretty enjoyable. I don't know if Thorpe was reined in rather a bit, and prevented from Thorpe-isms, but it's entirely enjoyable. There's at least one plotline which I suspect he was fed by one of the 'writers gatherings' during the Siege planning and writing process.
I would say, go ahead and read it, you will definitely get something out of it. I don't think skipping any of the Siege books is really worth it; there are enough little tie-ins amongst them all that you would really miss things if you skip one.
I will say that Abnett should have been reined in over the final novel: the pacing would be drastically better if he'd been told to keep to two volumes rather than three.
I will assume you've done the more recent Necrons stuff, Infinite and the Divine, the Twice Dead King duology. Absolutely those. Anything by ADB. Spear of the Emperor is grimdark as fuck (and hopefully to get a sequel in the fullness of time) and The Emperor's Gift has one of the most fucking grimdark reveals in all of Black Library grimdarkness.
They don't get anything. The thing with Cain novels is that they're more or less pulp, same story structures, same writing structures, same everything(that includes the one in the past before him meeting Amberly or the Valhallans). They're all fun, light hearted adventures where Cain bumbles into grave danger and then bumbles out of it.
You've read one you've practically read all of them and it's up to you whether you want more of it or not.
It's a few years since I read the first couple. I seem to recall them being... okay. Maybe I'll re-read the last one partially to refresh my recollection. I have the Flashman novels for military poltroons but I'm only after something to take my mind off things a bit that isn't ADHD-inducing like the Internet.
I'm not averse to mixing a little humour with my Grimdark. Though probably nothing will ever beat the heady heights of hilarity that was The Infinite and the Design [ispoiler["You idiot. You bought us box seat tickets to a coup! // "well in my defence, the reviews were nice"[/ispoiler]
The First Wall is actually pretty enjoyable. I don't know if Thorpe was reined in rather a bit, and prevented from Thorpe-isms, but it's entirely enjoyable. There's at least one plotline which I suspect he was fed by one of the 'writers gatherings' during the Siege planning and writing process.
I would say, go ahead and read it, you will definitely get something out of it. I don't think skipping any of the Siege books is really worth it; there are enough little tie-ins amongst them all that you would really miss things if you skip one.
I will say that Abnett should have been reined in over the final novel: the pacing would be drastically better if he'd been told to keep to two volumes rather than three.
I will assume you've done the more recent Necrons stuff, Infinite and the Divine, the Twice Dead King duology. Absolutely those. Anything by ADB. Spear of the Emperor is grimdark as fuck (and hopefully to get a sequel in the fullness of time) and The Emperor's Gift has one of the most fucking grimdark reveals in all of Black Library grimdarkness.
I actually have not read The Twice Dead King. Though absolutely I have read The Infinite and the Divine. I'll assume it isn't a comedy like tIatD, but if it's good I'll check it out.
I never felt any great calling to read the Lelith novel. Eldar are actually my favourite race in the setting but I've rarely found their treatment in the novels that good - and that's actually the big part of my distaste for Gav Thorpe. He took my favourite race and did a really lousy treatment of them in his Path novels. I actually found the treatment in the Owlcat Rogue Trader game to be surprisingly well written. (Shame about all the bugs).
But you have reassured me. I guess I will bite the bolter shell and tackle the Gav Thorpe installment of Siege. Thanks for the warning about the ending.
I actually have not read The Twice Dead King. Though absolutely I have read The Infinite and the Divine. I'll assume it isn't a comedy like tIatD, but if it's good I'll check it out.
Not a comedy at all, actually just a very good and thoughtful piece of writing. There are two volumes: Ruin, and Reign.
I was made to feel a profound sympathy for cannibal robots. Nate Crowley, who wrote it, also wrote the short story Severed about Obyron and Zahndrekh, which is absolutely brilliant. It would still be brilliant if you knew next to nothing about the setting. If you've had family experience with someone with memory loss or cognitive decline... yeah, it hits there.
I have played Lelith so many years I thought, I'll read this book even though I don't know if I want to and, it could be worse but it wasn't good for me. I don't know. I don't think I could tell you what exactly I did want from a Lelith novel, but I know it didn't do it.
I enjoyed Robert Rath's Fall of Cadia, that's been out a wee while. It lacks comedy but it has plenty of Guard being adamantium-balled. The Emperor Fucking Protects is pretty much my favourite 40K trope.
I've got a theory that Gav actually is too fucking into the Eldar, and someone who gave fewer fucks about them would actually write them better. You get what I mean?
I do also hunt out the better amateur, fanwork-y kind of stuff. (NOT THE AO3 SEX STUFF NO NO NO DO NOT DISCHARGE THE FLESH BOLTER) There are quite a few people who publish shorter stories which are enjoyable. Vox in the Void tends to read a lot of that stuff so the descriptions in his videos are a good place to explore rabbit holes.
I feel like the whole Heresy was such a fucking Thing that a lot of the writers are a bit shagged out and we're kind of waiting for a Next Big Thing to happen.
I am less and less patiently waiting for Bequin 3. If the clues pan out the way we expect... that's a major fucking setting shift.
I enjoyed Chris Wraights Space Wolves books. Blood of Asaheim, Stormcaller and The Helwinter Gate. More the viking inspired side of the space wolves with titles like jarls, varangyr etc. instead wolf wolf this and that. Also i liked the emphasis on pack loyalty and the concept of brotherhood.
Not a comedy at all, actually just a very good and thoughtful piece of writing. There are two volumes: Ruin, and Reign.
I was made to feel a profound sympathy for cannibal robots. Nate Crowley, who wrote it, also wrote the short story Severed about Obyron and Zahndrekh, which is absolutely brilliant. It would still be brilliant if you knew next to nothing about the setting. If you've had family experience with someone with memory loss or cognitive decline... yeah, it hits there.
Ooof. I'll check those books out then. I in know way require or necessarily want comic 40K. And in fact my liking for The Infinite and the Divine is that it's very, very well done comedy rather than because it is comedy. That book had me genuinely laughing out loud. Some sub-par ork novel not so much. (In fact, best ork novel I've read in some ways is the one by C. L. Werner, The Siege of Castellax in which Iron Warriors face off against the greenskins as it really shows how terrifying the orks are from an outside point of view).
I have played Lelith so many years I thought, I'll read this book even though I don't know if I want to and, it could be worse but it wasn't good for me. I don't know. I don't think I could tell you what exactly I did want from a Lelith novel, but I know it didn't do it.
I've got a theory that Gav actually is too fucking into the Eldar, and someone who gave fewer fucks about them would actually write them better. You get what I mean?
I feel that's generous. I love the eldar too but I would write them better than he does. I feel the issue is that he is not smart enough to understand my favourite Space Autists. He writes them as more arrogant humans basically. Perhaps there's an element of what you say in that he just can't see flaws in them if that's what you mean but to me the glaring fault is he's not smart enough to write them. Cue that old line about Stephen Fry being an idiot's idea of a smart person. His path novels were like slaps in the face.
I enjoyed Chris Wraights Space Wolves books. Blood of Asaheim, Stormcaller and The Helwinter Gate. More the viking inspired side of the space wolves with titles like jarls, varangyr etc. instead wolf wolf this and that. Also i liked the emphasis on pack loyalty and the concept of brotherhood.
I read the first two of those (thanks for telling me there's a third one - I don't think I'd realised he'd written another, it was published six years after the first two) and think they're definitely some of the best Space Marine novels. But they're some of my less favourite Chris Wraight novels. Scars and Path of Heaven were both better imo as was Wrath of Iron which was pretty grimdark but very good. Iron Hands are one of the darkest of the "good guys" imo. And the Vaults of Terra trilogy I enjoyed though I don't really like the Great Rift stuff that GW did to advance the setting. I liked it as it was.
I re-read the first Caiaphus Cain novel as it had been years. And it was more or less as I remember it: Adequeate fair, fairly decent, not exceptional. Biggest flaw is the waifu inquisitor who doesn't feel believable to me and jars. Perky Inquisitor Babe feels more like someone's horny fan-art than proper 40K to me.
I also liked the Vaults of Terra. And agree on with you on the great rift. Not that i hate it or the primaris stuff per se, but i try my best to avoid anything related to them. The first born marines are close to my heart since i collected and painted a Black Templar army about a 100 years ago. That is why i like to read books dating before the whole mess. Gaunt's Ghost, Ciaphas Cain, Space Marine battles etc. Just finished Rynns World and Hunt for Voldorius and i am in the middle of Wrath of Iron. Oh and to me the waifu inquisitor in the Cain novels always seemed to have a darker undertone like all inquisitors. As in when shit gets real the virus bombs come out and killing billions to protect the imperium is a tuesday to her. But that is just my view.
The Last Chancers Trilogy by Gav Thorpe is great, right up there with Eisenhorn. There is a standalone called 42nd Hour about a Guardsman who is dropped on a planet being invaded by Orks where the life expectancy is 41 hours, so the story unfolds in less than 2 days. It was very memorable, and the end is kind of a tear jerker.
I actually have a signed copy of the Last Chancers Omnibus from when I went to Games Day Baltimore in 2005.
40k? Really? Even looking past the cost associated with it, where are you gonna keep them all? Maybe start with a more reasonable number, like 200 books.
I read the first two of those (thanks for telling me there's a third one - I don't think I'd realised he'd written another, it was published six years after the first two) and think they're definitely some of the best Space Marine novels. But they're some of my less favourite Chris Wraight novels. Scars and Path of Heaven were both better imo as was Wrath of Iron which was pretty grimdark but very good. Iron Hands are one of the darkest of the "good guys" imo. And the Vaults of Terra trilogy I enjoyed though I don't really like the Great Rift stuff that GW did to advance the setting. I liked it as it was
Agree with comments on the First Wall re Thorpe reigned in or working from an existing framework than coming up with something new.
As for the rest of the Siege, I found Mortis more of a slog to get through but could've been down to how good Saturnine was, then Chris Wraight finishes off the arc of Scars/Path of Heaven with Warhawk, his Sanguinius: The Great Angel was very good and ties in well with the themes (but not essential for Siege) of the Heresy-Era Blood Angels that ADB's Echoes of Eternity explores as they prepare for the final stand at the gate, (taking aside my bias as BA player, Sanguinius's speech to the line prior to the final assault and how the viewpoint shift through all different loyalist troop and how they react to it is something else!) before you take on the End and the Death, which my only issue was had to wait for it to be released part by part, as much of the criticisms re pacing and style are lessened when reading it as one.
Would say Fury of Magnus is worth a read, merely as a little expansion to a plot line set up and never seen in the main, but can't remember off the top of my head what Siege book it's set after, either Saturnine or Mortis but definitely before Echoes.
Although set in post Great Rift, Wraight's Sea of Souls in the Dawn of Fire series is a good grimdark feel and doesn't necessarily require reading of the previous ones, due to the way the series works itself. Also The Lion: Son of the Forest by Mike Brooks. Think most of his stuff is decent, enjoyed the Orks novels as the contrast with their simplicity against Mechanicium and then Dark Eldar in the next, his Alpharius: Head of the Hydra was an interesting take on things too.
Thanks for all the recommendations. Several in people's suggestions that I've missed. I think I will read Book Three of the Siege of Terra following multiple positive comments here. I wont get my hopes up too high but if it's serviceable, I'll live. I think first I'll take a detour into some of the others I haven't read yet that people have recommended here.
If I still played WH40K (it has been a looong time), I would make a Blood Angels army purely so that I could actually make it a Blood Ravens army as they look similar from a distance. Just for the meme potential when people looked closer and realised the truth.
Thanks for all the recommendations. Several in people's suggestions that I've missed. I think I will read Book Three of the Siege of Terra following multiple positive comments here. I wont get my hopes up too high but if it's serviceable, I'll live. I think first I'll take a detour into some of the others I haven't read yet that people have recommended here.
If I still played WH40K (it has been a looong time), I would make a Blood Angels army purely so that I could actually make it a Blood Ravens army as they look similar from a distance. Just for the meme potential when people looked closer and realised the truth.
Seeing the mention of the Ravens, forgot to mention Warhammer Crime range is worth a look. All set in one world, more a look at the "ordinary" people in the lower parts of the world, where Xenos are treated as myth by some, it's detective stories, crims and cutthroats with good hearts and conspiracies abound. Couple of compliations and novels, again Chris Wraight's Bloodlines is worth a go.
@isalaide I read Ruin and Reign which you recommended and it left me with a new appreciation for the Necrons. Poor things, I just want to give them all a big hug. It's funny how half-way into a novel you're now rooting for the monsters who want to exterminate your species. You were right - very well written.
It's fun to contrast this with The Infinite and the Divine, an equally well-written Necron novel. I think which one prefers says more about the reader than the writers. Infinite... is one of those rare books that actually got me laughing out loud. Trayzn and Orikan are very vividly drawn characters who are at once both very original and feel so familiar that even when they surprise you, it fits with your expectations. But in some ways I prefer the Twice Dead King novels because I enjoy well-written tragedy and it's so hard to find that in modern writing.
That said, the treacherous Death Mark in the Twice Dead King novels got a few laughs out of me as well as did that poor old soul with his monoliths.
I had a couple of bonkers theories after reading the novels, one of which turned out to not be that bonkers.
So my first was that when travelling through the Ghost Wind dimension, Oltyx went back in time and is in fact the original Ghoul King and actually is the person he set out to find. Turns out that's not so bonkers as it's a semi-popular theory. Cool! I love that it's not explicitly set out one way or another but hinted just a little.
The other one occurred to me but I've not seen anywhere else. So the crusade manages to follow them into the Ghost Wind dimension. That's not explained anywhere that I recall. The Ghost Wind dimension is also a total void where Necron dimensional transition technology does not work. I had this mad idea that the Necrons had actually (and finally) made it into the warp through the Ghost Wind technology but it's just an utter void to them as they have no psychic presence. It would explain how the humans were able to follow them into the dimension, The Necrons don't understand the Ghost Wind or what it is. It's the Warp, but they're deaf, dumb and blind to it.
Probably doesn't work, just a bonkers idea I had whilst reading it.
I also got a laugh when Oltyx found out just how the humans were actually tracking the fleet with his gold plating made out of their sacred saint's internment ship prow. Poor Mentep. Though I think he wanted to die, maybe.
From one end of the WH40K novel quality to the other, I did in fact read the third Caiaphus Cain novel (Traitor's Hand). It's just so repetitive. Not just from novel to novel or even from chapter to chapter, but with a few pages of each other I get over and over the "Of course, if he had any idea what this would actually lead to, he'd have run screaming in the other direction." Or close variations. Seriously, that same line dozens of times over. And there's only so many times you can have him forced to be brave for the sake of appearances before I just ask - well then, isn't he just brave? And if that is the point then I'm afraid the joke wore off before the end of the second novel.
It's funny to contrast that in The Twice Dead King novels the author re-purposes lines from Shakespeare and T.S.Elliot (although erroneously seeming to think Elliot was British) and the author of the Cain novels lifts directly from sitcoms. (I spotted the line "That would be an ecumenical matter" purloined from Father Ted being used for example). And I liked Father Ted, fwiw, but the difference in inspirations is notable.
The ghost novels are really good just keep in mind abnett likes murdering his characters for no reason other than a shocking and he also forgets things and starts pulling really stupid plot twist out of his *** to cover his ***
The Inquisition War trilogy by Ian Watson for the ultimate Rogue Trader to early 2nd Ed. experience. It has so much lore in it that has either been retconned to death or which just got squatted (speaking of squatting, a character in the protagonist's retinue is a Squat). SPOILERS The story follows Jaq Draco, Psyker Inquisitor, and his retinue (a Callidus Assassin, a Squat and a Navigator) unveiling an Empire-wide conspiracy orchestrated by the Eldar and the Ordo Malleus. It adds an Imperial Fist in its second book to the retinue, who is the protagonist from Ian Watson's other 40k book, "Space Marine", which is also excellent. I love these to death and have reread them countless times over the years, "Space Marine" just last month. Watson also wrote some short stories that tie in with the Inquisition War, most notably one that tells the backstory of the Callidus Assassin Meh'lindi and how she ended up getting experimental Genestealer-Hybrid implants.
I've really been enjoying the character/chapter omnibuses (omnibus'?) that have been coming out. A good way to get novels and shorts in print and stuff that has been out of print for awhile.
I'm currently going through the Yarrick omnibus and having a GREAT time.
