Actually GOOD Black Library

Might get some flak, but skitarius and techpriest are probably my favorite books so far. They got me into collecting skitarii and AdMech and we're the first books I've owned.

fun little story about IG vs Nids

Capias cain imo is the best 40k series but it isnt exactly grimdark.
Gaunts ghosts are good with grimdark elements but the characters pack so much plot armour it gets boring.
Baneblade and shadowsword are good.
Macharius crusade series is my 2nd favorite 40k series.

I started reading that but it felt like there was a lot of plot armor going on for the main civilian character... seemed weird and not really needed.

Bumping with a little krieg short story

I like these short stories. Got any more?

unfortunately no. Some guy uploaded these in the last thread but I don't know where he got them.

This was surprisingly good.
Some parts you can tell the marketing department was literally standing over his shoulder but...
The description of the Nurgle horde, and interaction between Greater Daemons was awesome.
Also- Void Whale carcasses as troop transports. Too. Fucking. Cool.

Sorry I don't have the pdf, but this one was good.

Great characterization for Guilliman, Mortarion, and Calgar.

Just finished these. Dead Men Walking was fucking great, even with the downer ending. Any other Black Library stories about Kriegers?

Gaunt's Ghosts, Eisenhorn and The Gothic War Duology are the height of Black Library imo. Black Library went through a slump from like 2010 to 2016 where they published basically nothing of value, but that seems to be ending finally.
Dark Imperium, The Carrion Throne, and Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds are good recent ones I think.

A Thousand Sons was good. Talon of Horus was good. The first book in the Ahriman trilogy was good but the other 2 get worse and worse. The Magnus book was ok.

Try some of the links from the /40k/ general thread, there is a duplicate of the mega from /40krpg/ that still works and links to a variety of e-pubs.

Thanks my man, I'll go check that out now.

Y'all are giving me nostalgia from when my mom used to take me to the book store and I would always pick up the same Warhammer novel that was a bunch of different books put together (spanned thousands of pages). Shit I remember 15 hours and reading about some catachan niggas on a planet that was alive. Think the commissar got BTFO

I found the grammar lacking.

The possibility that 'the detail about the protagonists forefather getting the ticket being lost because the protagonist's father didn't remember it' getting overlooked was annoying.

The IG novel with the Catachans where Sly Marbo comes from? That book was okay.

I like all the pulp fiction Imperial Guard novels that I've read so far. They're not incredible but they were entertaining enough.

...

I wouldn't beat my worst enemy to death with a copy of Inquisition War. That series of books did not age well, and aside from the 40k aspect it's terribly written.

'Fifteen Hours' is basically an imperium version of 'Catch 22'. I read both books shortly after each other and it was fun to try and spot the similarities.

It's good, surprisingly depressing and tongue-in-cheek for a BL book.

I'd put Ravenor in Good tier, because Eisenhorn was just that bit better than the Ravenor series.

Also, where the fuck is muh A Thousand Suns?

It's weird seeing Night Lords ranked high in anything, but those books were legit great. What made them good?

...

I'm reading Skavenslayer right now and love it.

ADB hadn't yet succumbed to "Chaos is best stepdad" syndrome, so CSM were genuinely portrayed as fearsome and ruthless, but ultimately broken warriors. You felt their degradation, their ruination, even as you watched them fall on the loyalist dogs with murder in their eyes.

Nowadays he just puts out Chaos-wank with an extra helping of "muh diversity".

Normal dudes in shadows:
Eisenhorn is pretty much mandatory. Another hidden gem is Shira Calpurnia series by Matt Farrer and from the newer ones, do check Carrion Throne (do not be put of by Custard on cover).

Normal dudes in Guard.
Gaunts Ghosts is classic, especially from Necropolis to Sabbat Martyr. Lost ark was shit, but it got rapidly better in Victory ark. From less known but good stuff do read Rebel Winter, Imperial Glory and Commissar. And for Flashman in Space, Caiphas Cain.

Normal dudes in SPACE.
Gothic War man. It is a must. Also, Relentless is a forgotten but really good shit about the Navy.

Bit confussed. Is it about the Talon of Horus?

>ADB hasn't yet succumbed to "Chaos is best stepdad" syndrome
Nigger are you for real? Read master of mankind.

Suprisingly good list, most of them are sheit. I bow to you good gentleman, just question what the fuck is your beef with Rob Sanders, Redemption Corps is Acceptable-Good.

And really, stuff like Armageddon, Wrath of Iron, Legion of Damned and Death of Integrity all range from decent to damn good.

>"Lol Chaos already won Horus was a chump and the gods literally never cared about his rebellion,"
>"Hey look at this daemon isn't it cool even the Emperor can't touch this watch it posses Titans and kill Sisters of Silence like they were fucking guardsmen."
>"The Emperor literally never cared about any of his sons at all they were all just tools ignore the fluff that says otherwise. My daddy didn't love me so obviously no dad can."

mega.nz/#F!gaBiVTKI!HTOuNx5zzNxHqT-ny-AU3A

Is a lot of shit here

There's a separate ranking for HH series

Hey man, Fire Warrior was alright.
>with pride

Also I don't see the Night Lords books there

Wait, I;m just retarded about the Night Lords thing because I didn't recognize the cover

Are you retarded?
> wow, the lovercraftian entities won and there is no hope (what is like, the point of fucking setting)
> Emperor not being challenged by regular daemon, who is later broken over knee, such a shame. Also it get bound into a fucking sword later.
> Emperor being a a good daddy. Like read the motherfucking fluff you hippie.

Why dont you return to Star Trek, or League of Legends, or what are you playing these days.

>le foul-mouth midget
>le skinny nerd
>le big kindly bruser
>le fish out of water with a dash of grimderp

pic related, eisenhorn and perhaps ravenor are the best books to come out of any warhammer property

people are mad that ADB tends to portray CSM characters more sympathetically than usual, and Abaddon borders on anti-hero in Talon of Horus

In Master of Mankind ADB portrayed the Emperor as a cold bastard which caused a Veeky Forums-wide meltdown

Yeah I noticed. I actually think, that Emperors portrayal was quite nice. He is like personification of Human-Cthulhu and manipulates the shit out of everybody. I still think that people do not understand the "grimdark".

>Retcon the existing final battle where the Chaos Gods were backing Horus 100% and actually retreated from the Emperor's psychic attack because we can't ever have them scared or threatened by anything. Remove tragedy, wank Chaos.
>Super-speshul daemon created by the first human murder is somehow significant, and also not just Khorne's bitch (literally wrath and murder incarnate)
>Retcon all the old fluff that the Emperor loved Horus so fucking much he refused to kill him even as he was actively being murdered, now suddenly he's just a goddamn number and the Chaos Gods don't give a shit about him. Remove human elements and tragedy, replace with mindless Chaos-wank.

Cease your autistic screeching already. Whatever talent ADB had has been dragged into a back alley and shanked by his massive daddy issues.

Obligatory Eisenhorn mention. Ravenor was pretty good too but definitely a little slower. I loved Pariah and can't wait for the next but the book was confusing as shit for the first half and also had a really boring beginning.

>it was very predictable

Probably because it begins with an "unknown" someone mortally wounded wondering how many hours it's been, then one of the first things the main character hears once SHTF (and the cover of the book saying so) that most people die in the first 15 hours.

Still pretty enjoyable though.

So Eisenhorn seems to be universally recommended, so I'll check out that series next. I'm not a huge fan of Spess Mehreens, what are some other good reads in the "Ordinary guys operating in a galaxy full of horror" category? Also, are the Necromunda novels worth reading?

Death World

Everything you have been told is a lie. But do enjoy reading lexicanum-level fluff interpretations. I hope you will enjoy Dark Imperium and Guillies meeting with Big E.

People are mad because ADB takes out his very obvious father complex on the Emperor while simultaneously trying to make literal daemons and their baby-eating space terrorist henchmen into the good guys. And I say that as someone who plays the Black Legion, don't fucking insult me by pretending these men are anything but the vilest of monsters out to drown the galaxy in blood because they're ridiculously spiteful.

The Necromunda ones are hit and miss. I liked Junktion and Survival Instinct for different reasons, Salvation is kinda crap, the Jericho ones are decent if you don't mind a bit of saturday morning cartoon silliness.

Shira Calpurnia, also known as Enforcer. First book, Crossfire puts arbites Shira Calpurnia on the investigation of terrorist attacks, noble and Naval politics before an important Ecclesiarchy festival. Second, Legacy, throws her into the Rogue Trader bullshitpolitics and contains the best duel in 40k to this date and lets not spoil the third.

Necromunda? Try Junktion (by author of Shira Calpurnia), it is about a lamplighter in underhive.

This is the series where it has the disciple rising to the rank of Dark Apostle and they build a giant daemon tower on an imperial planet, steal an artifact from the Necrons, and take out a bunch of Word Bearer rebels?

Because that was a good trilogy.

It is. It also has WB Venerable Dread mistaking the Ubernecron Overlord for Emperor.

Newfag detected.

I enjoyed Sandy Mitchell's inquisition books. Scourge the Heretic and Innocence Proves Nothing.

Shame they did not finish, because of reasons (DH migrating to FFG). I was suprised on how enjoyable they were. Not really good, but truly enjoyable.

So you believe what Big E told the astropath at the end of Outcast Dead?

I prefer the Emperor as a cold calculating schemer who nonetheless has humanities best interest in mind (a less selfish Dr. Manhattan lets call it) so it didn't bother me much. The old "the emperor loves you all" stuff makes for depressing propaganda 10,000 years later

That being said I did find him lacking in Master of Mankind, though the first flashback of him in his childhood village was pretty good

Emperor not really loving the Primarchs isn't some new thing ADB invented. Appears as far back in the series as False Gods, which came out in like 2007. Appears again in First Heretic, A Thousand Sons, Unremembered Empire, and Vengeful Spirit albeit not as blatantly.

Hell the very first story in the HH universe, Last Church, intentionally portrays him as an ass

Any good 40k novels about ship combat? Really enjoyed the one bit in Gaunt's Ghosts where right before a Chaos splinter fleet jumped into a system and there was a whole chapter told from the point of view of several officers on one of the defending battle cruisers.
I've also been watching a lot of Star Trek.

I need more ship combat. Suggestions?

Eh, Betrayer has Angron stepping on a child and Lorgar sacrificing civilians. I don't think he tries to portray Chaos as good.

First Heretic was before the legion's fall and Black Legion is CSM vs. CSM mostly so you can make a lesser of two evils argument, Abaddon has always been more noble a character than disgusting emperor's children anyway.

It still works on those with too small of mind. I kinda like the idea, that Emperor appears what he wants to appear and everybody, inclouding the metanarrators see him differently.

Yeah, I also do not think that Emperors portrayal in MoM was that great (Last Church, that was the shit), but it was a decent read with some truly memorable moments (the villige, trolling the dying World Eater, how 1000 souls a day come to be, or Arkhan Land), so I do not understand all that childish hate.

One of the Beast Arises books, The Emperor Protects, has a really entertaining space battle in it. Probably the best put to paper in BL. Highlight of an otherwise mediocre series.

Wolf King in the HH series has a decent space battle in it too.

The comic Macragge's Honor is all about a duel between an Ultramarines and Word Bearers battleship, inspired by the battle between the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia in the Civil War. Pic related is a bit from that.

Gothic War is THE series you need. Then Relentless.

For quick masturbation watch this
>youtube.com/watch?v=M3w3XeHpsis

I went the other way around, I read Cain first liked it, then heard Gaunt was also good and found it to be drivel. I think the difference is that Gaunt's Ghosts takes itself so much more seriously, so 'they get purposefully bombed by their own side, then sneak into the enemy base, ride a chu-chu train and blew it all up before the enemy can react whilst a rival colonel twiddles his mustache and shouts "I'll get you next time peasents who actually wear cammo"' comes off as grating, "whilst whoops you demons can't touch me I'm near a blank, time to jump in this necron teleport gate, bang an inquisitor, and duel a bezerker whilst arguing about my favourite sports team" just add to the comedy (although I wish he'd stop using variants of the phrase "and if I knew what was coming I'd have prefered jumping into the eye of terror armed only with a rusty spoon" so damned often)

There's a lot of attachment to the old lore, which was written as satirical in-universe propaganda. The Emperor being a loving saint who could do no wrong and was the collective human good is something that was made to be mere Imperial propaganda, from the early Rogue Trader days.

The two next most details about the Heresy/era of the Emperor (Index Astartes and Collected Visions) tackled the actual events of the Heresy without being bold enough to go into the Emperor's mindset and motivations. The HH book series avoided the question a bit for a while as well, but ADB finally was assigned to handle it.

The result was different from the old "the emperor loves you" lore and it caused the same kind of backlash that Midichlorians did in star wars.

Personally I do hope it is shown the Emperor does love horus deep down though, even if he himself denies it. Would be good character development. The book that will handle Horus vs. the Emperor is still fairly far off (albeit apparently not as much as people think, according to BL) and supposedly they're trying to get Dan Abnett to write it. So we'll see.

Are there any good Tau books?

Fire Caste is excellent. Tt also contains a very few Tau.

Lexicanum:

> states that the Emperor was born to mortal parents on Terra in the 8th Millennium BC[3a] manifesting his powers as a youth. One account of the Emperor's origin goes so far as to say that he had mortal brothers and sisters and details the time and location of his birthplace - eight thousand years before the first millennium, in a primitive village along the banks of the Sakarya River. While a young adolescent, the Emperor's father was murdered by his uncle. While preparing his fathers body for a primitive funeral ritual, he received a vision of his murder. Later, the boy who would become the Emperor calmly approached his uncle and stopped his heart with his psychic abilities, displaying neither sorrow or malice. According to the Emperor himself, this was the moment he realized that humanity needed law, order, and the guidance of a ruler.

40K wiki:

>One account of the Emperor's origin goes so far as to say that He had mortal brothers and sisters and claims that He was born in the 8th Millennium B.C. in a primitive Neolithic village along the banks of the Sakarya River in Anatolia. While he was still an adolescent, the Emperor's father was murdered by his uncle. While preparing his father's body for a primitive funeral ritual, he received a clairvoyant vision of his murder. Later, the boy who would become the Emperor calmly approached His uncle and stopped his heart with a slight use of His telekinetic psychic abilities, displaying neither sorrow nor malice for the deed. According to the Emperor Himself, this was the moment He realised that humanity needed law, order, and the guidance of a ruler to reach its full potential.

It's hilarious how 40k wiki still plagiarizes from lexicanum but thinks they're not by simply changing the wording ever-so-slightly

Fire Warrior was pretty good little book even though it didn't break any genre rules and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.

a fire warrior killing a daemon prince is pretty gay

dunno if that happens in the book, but it does in the game

Does anybody have Crimson King audiobook by chance?

Some characters in universe suspecting the Emperor doesn't really love his sons isn't the same as the man himself saying "nope, they're all just numbers and I don't give a shit". Moreover, it goes against the original characterization of a man who loved his favorite son so much he literally let him tear him to pieces. The Emperor is stuck on the throne because he loved too much. that's tragedy. Him being some mega-autist is not, it's just stupid.

>Emperor being megautist
Maybe, between being Jesus and the Unification Wars, Emperor he visits /tg...

desu we still don't have definitive answers yet. The Emperor could very well be acting like a cold, calculating tech-priest becaues he was trying to impress one.

Just like he deliberately acted like a brawling drunkard who engaged in eating contests around Russ.

I liked the recurring bits in the HH novels that human psykers who look directly at the Emperor usually find him *horrifying*.
And just that generally everyone who catches a glimpse of what he really is is revolted and horrified. "The Last Church" was a little disappointing for the fact that it boils down to a fairly standard theist-vs-atheist debate, but the preacher killing himself when he sees the look in the Emperor's eyes as he burns down the church is pretty fucking fantastic.

Ravenor/Eisenhorn/Bequin is pretty top tier.

If you can track down the old Inferno! magazine short stories in whatever form they may be now, some of those were damn good. I believe there was one called "Cross the Stars and Hope For Glory" about a press-ganged crewman on an Imperial ship who discovers one of his bunk mates isn't entirely human, and there was a rather sad story about a preacher for a mutant congregation. This was back when they were explicitly trying to explore the odds and ends of their universe, rather than just pop out more books about different colors of Space Marine.

I found the first three HH books to be decent, and Legion was fun.

Ciaphas Cain is funny, but I found the joke started to wear a little thin, especially because as the series goes along Cain tends to act like a genuine hero while thinking of himself as a coward, and I was hoping we'd see him do a few more Blackadder-esque shenanigans when no one is looking.

Generally, if you want decent writing and someone who actually cares about characters having CHARACTER, Abnett is your man. He doesn't always hit, but there's a reason he basically fleshed out half the 40k verse.

I really like this story, it captures the true horror of a tyranid invasion and how futile fighting them is when you're just a man. The part where they see the Lamenters get absolutely BTFO hit hard. Especially since what really shook the guardsman wasn't space marines getting killed, but space marines falling back.

I remember the second one. The mutants had legit grievances and wound up purged on trumped up charges or after being pushed too far, if I recall

He does, but he wasn't supposed to. The Daemon Prince totally kicked his ass and broke his mind, and it was only when our downtrodden protagonist loses his last fuck and gives up that he pulls a nice little throwback to earlier in the book. Of course, he's broken, and so ends the book in what is effectively a padded cell holding a fractured piece of a poem his father sent him about martial pride. He follows the old trope of being an -ok- soldier, and not excelling enough for the approval of his highly-decorated General father. Now trust me on this next part; the obligatory angst is appropriately used and stays in the background when it's not relevant instead of the one and only drive of the story. Kais wants approval from his father, but he wants to be a Good Soldier first with his squadmates and shas'ui instructor, and completing his mission objectives satisfies both, so that's what he does. He starts as a nervous but motivated recruit and by the end he's a grizzly veteran with a thousand yard stare. Even the part where he buddies up with a Spess Muhreen is brief and ends when it needs to, unceremoniously. He even helps to kill a few of them on the Tau ship before the clusterfuck of chaos incursion changes things.

The stages of the game are handled well by the book, I would actually say that the book does it a lot better.

Anny good book with tyranids?