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Z the IVth posted:Isn't Crowley a Goon? either rath or crowley, and i'm inclined to think it was crowley.
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Jan 3, 2024 17:55
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CottonWolf posted:Really enjoyed Fall of Cadia. Do people have recommendations for more 40K books in that style? As others have recommended Authors I'll take 'For style', i.e. massive campaign captured at all levels. That was the schtick of the old Space Marine Battles series. Now a lot of them weren't great. Looking at the list ADB's Helsreach is a must if you haven't read it, Wraights War of the Fang and Wrath of Iron are good, finally a book by Chris Dunn who's not so highly rated generally but I thought Pandorax was good.
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Jan 3, 2024 18:06
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Deptfordx posted:As others have recommended Authors I'll take 'For style', i.e. massive campaign captured at all levels. That was the schtick of the old Space Marine Battles series. if he's looking for battles with the focus on imperial guard, can't go wrong with gaunts ghosts series.. try reading the third in the series, Necropolis. you can find it for free on the internet somewhere, i can try to find it again if you can't. one of the best stories and basically a re-imagining of stalingrad. if you like that one then i'd recommend the rest of the series.
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Jan 3, 2024 18:14
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Necropolis is where GG really gets moving, the other books before it are short story collections.
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Jan 3, 2024 18:46
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CottonWolf posted:Really enjoyed Fall of Cadia. Do people have recommendations for more 40K books in that style? Gaunt's Ghosts, especially the later ones, are probably the most similar in terms of subject and also really good.
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Jan 3, 2024 19:30
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Ghosts is good. Volpine Glory is a fun little self contained story. Sprinkle in Caiphas Cain for some levity, but don't read to many Cain books at once or you'll get tired of some of the prose and plot twists. Also Commissar Severina Raine's books are decent, although they play everything COMPLETELY straight with how the Guard works according to fluff. For stuff more along the lines of just the Imperium: Watchers of the Throne is a good duology about Terra as the Eye of Terror became the Cicatrix Maledictum. It's told from the perspectives of a Custodian, a Sister of Silence and the top non-High Lord of Terra. For Chaos'y fun: "Talon of Horus" and "Black Legion" are a good pair, Aaron Dempskii Bowden (who I'm willing to bet plays chaos) writing about how the Black Legion came to be. "Lords of Silence" is a post-13th black crusade look at a Nurgle warband. And "smaller" situationally is the Ahriman books by John French. They never have massive space battles, instead the action is more played out as sorcerers using magic to go after each other. Random Pulpy Marines? Got you covered brother: "Dark Imperium" books. It's Guy Haley writing the tale of the Plague Wars that ends with Mortarion and Gullimane duking it out. It's a good primer for a lot of what "Modern" 40k is. The "Emperor's Gift" finally made it to Audible. It's Dempskii-Bowden (who's Black Legion duology I've previously suggested) looking at Grey Knights. It's set earlier than a lot of the other stories, but to say more kinda ruins a bit of the plot. "Apocolypse" by Josh Reynolds is a REALLY good look at Space Marines, and has incredible antagonists. It's probably the best I've seen of properly encapsulating each of the featured chapters and making EVERYONE feel like a threat. Older stuff that's probably hard to get and was written in the more lawless days of 40k books? I thought you'd never ask! Grey Knights and Soul Drinkers series from the early 2000's. Was some of the better books and the author, Ben Counter was having fun with different aspects of the setting. The main conceit of Soul Drinkers is a loyal Marine chapter, that happens to have been mutated by Chaos. Also the old Space Wolves books by William King. I haven't read them in a long time, but they were fun adventures that follow the main character from being a boy in a Viking Villiage to being a proper marine. Something that always stuck in my mind was that King always called ALL bolters "Bolt Pistols".
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Jan 4, 2024 03:05
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the Soul Drinkers books are loving awful.
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Jan 4, 2024 08:59
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Calax posted:
For more Chaosy fun - definitely look at the Nightlords trilogy
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Jan 4, 2024 13:20
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I'm finishing up the Fabius Bile trilogy, and it's got some neat stuff. My main complaint with them is about scale, but not in terms of there being too few people or too little distance. Instead, it's timescale - I can't tell when all of this is happening and how long it's taking. Part of that can be explained by warp time fuckery, but it's part of the problem with having so long between the Horus Heresy and 42K. Fabius will piss off the Dark Eldar and they'll take over a century to come for him? And his pack of unreliable underlings and allies of convenience won't shift much from century to century? All these deeply hosed up traitor marines who are happy to kill each other somehow manage to go millennia without killing each other?
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Jan 4, 2024 15:13
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Ardent Communist posted:either rath or crowley, and i'm inclined to think it was crowley. Pretty sure Mike Brooks is one too. Calax posted:Also Commissar Severina Raine's books are decent, although they play everything COMPLETELY straight with how the Guard works according to fluff. There was more than one Raine book? All I can remember is Honorbound and a bunch of short stories. Also found Honorbound way too formative at parts. It relied too much on "Introduce someone, then kill them show that poo poo just got real". It happens like 4 times throughout it. My suggestion/recommendation is try to track down older anthologies. Let the Galaxy burn is a good starter point, lots of stinkers in it, but there's also some really good stuff by authors that never did anything else after that.
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Jan 4, 2024 15:33
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habeasdorkus posted:I'm finishing up the Fabius Bile trilogy, and it's got some neat stuff. My main complaint with them is about scale, but not in terms of there being too few people or too little distance. Instead, it's timescale - I can't tell when all of this is happening and how long it's taking. Part of that can be explained by warp time fuckery, but it's part of the problem with having so long between the Horus Heresy and 42K. Fabius will piss off the Dark Eldar and they'll take over a century to come for him? And his pack of unreliable underlings and allies of convenience won't shift much from century to century? All these deeply hosed up traitor marines who are happy to kill each other somehow manage to go millennia without killing each other? I think one of the main appeals of hanging around Fabius Bile is that a) you're not going to be able to kill him so most people don't try b) if you can suppress the innate desire to betray each other long enough to hang around fabius bile and not die you're probably going to not immediately try and kill each other and c) if you've been hanging around fabius bile long enough to learn from him you're probably also pretty hard to kill and anyone dumb enough to try gets weeded out
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Jan 4, 2024 15:57
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:the Soul Drinkers books are loving awful. Some of the worst that BL has put out
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Jan 4, 2024 16:05
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habeasdorkus posted:I'm finishing up the Fabius Bile trilogy, and it's got some neat stuff. My main complaint with them is about scale, but not in terms of there being too few people or too little distance. Instead, it's timescale - I can't tell when all of this is happening and how long it's taking. Part of that can be explained by warp time fuckery, but it's part of the problem with having so long between the Horus Heresy and 42K. Fabius will piss off the Dark Eldar and they'll take over a century to come for him? And his pack of unreliable underlings and allies of convenience won't shift much from century to century? All these deeply hosed up traitor marines who are happy to kill each other somehow manage to go millennia without killing each other? Yeah, I recently finished this omnibus and had similar feelings. It's a weird set of stories, in a lot of places it's weird in a good way but in some it's weird in a not-good way. I really couldn't tell what the point of the trilogy was supposed to be, like what Reynolds was trying to show and what story arc was being described. I guess I'm spoiled by stories like Twice-Dead King where there's a clear arc with a payoff for the audience. The author's take on Chaos is very different than everyone else's, too, it seemed to me. Overall I liked it but it seemed out of sync with the vast majority of other 40K fiction. Gravitas Shortfall posted:the Soul Drinkers books are loving awful. Turns out Ben Counter also posts in this thread 
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Jan 4, 2024 16:17
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Improbable Lobster posted:Some of the worst that BL has put out Yeah they’re absolutely insanely garbage. I try to button my lip a lot itt when people recommend poorly written schlock because this is genre tie in fiction and we’re grading on a curve but recommending someone read the soul drinkers books is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. in other news I’m doing a HH reread and it’s striking me how incredibly bad False Gods is too. It reads like Horus Rising fanfiction. I remember a lot of these books as being bad but this one is even worse than I remembered and if it’s representative this is going to be a painful slog.
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Jan 4, 2024 16:21
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:in other news I’m doing a HH reread and it’s striking me how incredibly bad False Gods is too. It reads like Horus Rising fanfiction. I remember a lot of these books as being bad but this one is even worse than I remembered and if it’s representative this is going to be a painful slog. The first three Heresy books follow such an impressive downward arc that it's amazing more got made at all.
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Jan 4, 2024 16:26
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I read CREED: Ashes of Cadia by Jude Reid recently. I liked it: Ursarkar Creed's estranged daughter, Ursula Creed (lmao), has to go on a secret mission tied to her late father. No spoilers, that's basically what's on the back of the book. Relatively low-scale action, with potentially large stakes? I liked it and I'm hoping for more.
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Jan 4, 2024 17:02
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Hey all, what are some other fun books along the lines of Ciaphas Cain and Infinite and Divine? Been really enjoying these lately.
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Jan 4, 2024 17:11
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CFox posted:Hey all, what are some other fun books along the lines of Ciaphas Cain and Infinite and Divine? Been really enjoying these lately. Absolutely check out Rites of Passage from Mike Brooks. The main character is "what if we combined all the golden girls into one hilarious crochety old lady and put her in charge of a navigator house". It's really good and has the type of funny banter Infinite and The Divine had and has a fairly interesting chaos plot as well. My dream book would be the main character vs Trazyn.
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Jan 4, 2024 17:18
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CFox posted:Hey all, what are some other fun books along the lines of Ciaphas Cain and Infinite and Divine? Been really enjoying these lately. Check out Mike Brooks's Ork books Brutal Kunnin' and Warboss if you want more of the fun side of 40k with perhaps a bit more emphasis on the slapstick.
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Jan 4, 2024 17:26
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Kylaer posted:Turns out Ben Counter also posts in this thread It was nice he named the protagonist Sarpedon. I mean if he considered the reference to greek mythology and didn't just pick the name out of a hat.
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Jan 4, 2024 17:32
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MariusLecter posted:It was nice he named the protagonist Sarpedon. I mean if he considered the reference to greek mythology and didn't just pick the name out of a hat. Does it mean anything as a reference? I thought Sarpedon (king of the Lycians in the Iliad) isn't particularly a complex story. He's just a noble man, Zeus' son, shows gentlemanly courtesy to Diomedes, gets killed by Patroclus. I'm struggling to see any symbolism linking him to a forgettable renegade space marine protagonist.
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Jan 4, 2024 17:42
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It's insane that they gave the most pivotal moment in the Heresy (if not the 40k universe in general) besides the end, to Ben Counter.
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Jan 4, 2024 17:43
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Black Griffon posted:It's insane that they gave the most pivotal moment in the Heresy (if not the 40k universe in general) besides the end, to Ben Counter. The Black Library bench was really shallow back in 2006. We're truly in a golden age right now in terms of skilled authors willing to write 40K. Speaking of that, I heard something about Christian Cameron signing up to write something for BL, did anyone else hear about that? Was anything written about the battles of Istvaan outside of the actual book? By a better author preferably? In Betrayer there were scenes where Argel Tal was thinking back to Istvaan and it made me wonder if that ever got written in one of the short story collections or something. Kylaer fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jan 4, 2024 |
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Jan 4, 2024 18:21
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There's a bunch of flashbacks to Istvaan spread throughout the books involving the shattered legions, but none of them are very interesting tbh.
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Jan 4, 2024 18:28
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There’s certainly stuff in the raven guard books and the shattered legion about isstvan after the battle but yes it’s bizarrely undercovered in the novels. I also would like to see one book address the thramas crusade. The Lion/kurze arc seems to start with their death duel.
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Jan 4, 2024 18:38
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Black Griffon posted:There's a bunch of flashbacks to Istvaan spread throughout the books involving the shattered legions, but none of them are very interesting tbh. Yeah maybe a handful are actually worth reading out of the dozens of Istvaan flashback shorts
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Jan 4, 2024 19:04
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Kylaer posted:Was anything written about the battles of Istvaan outside of the actual book? By a better author preferably? The drop site massacre happens in Fulgrim IIRC.
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Jan 4, 2024 19:11
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AnEdgelord posted:Check out Mike Brooks's Ork books Brutal Kunnin' and Warboss if you want more of the fun side of 40k with perhaps a bit more emphasis on the slapstick. Seconding this. I finished Brutal Kunnin' about a week ago and it absolutely slaps.
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Jan 4, 2024 19:21
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Thanks all, definitely going to check those out.
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Jan 4, 2024 19:35
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Kylaer posted:The Black Library bench was really shallow back in 2006. We're truly in a golden age right now in terms of skilled authors willing to write 40K. Speaking of that, I heard something about Christian Cameron signing up to write something for BL, did anyone else hear about that? yeah, i feel like people kinda forget that not too long ago, the best written stuff was like well written boltor porn like cadian blood. there is quite a bit at the end of first heretic.
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Jan 4, 2024 19:49
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moths posted:The drop site massacre happens in Fulgrim IIRC. Fulgrim is the best book McNeill ever wrote (low low bar) largely because his work tends towards the ludicrously melodramatic and that’s a perfect tonal fit for Fulgrim and his boys
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Jan 4, 2024 19:53
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Fulgrim is a really mediocre book that nonetheless has some absolutely incredible standout moments in it. The concert in particular is the highlight of the book.
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Jan 4, 2024 19:57
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My imagination cast young Vincent Price in a wig as Fulgrim, and I highly suggest doing that. The whole legion is a big delicious ham, and the end even parallels The Fly with a little trapped portrait saying help meeeee in an empty amphitheatre.
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Jan 4, 2024 20:32
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AnEdgelord posted:Fulgrim is a really mediocre book that nonetheless has some absolutely incredible standout moments in it. The concert in particular is the highlight of the book. I wish Ferrus had a novel or two beforehand for to help characterize him a little more
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Jan 4, 2024 20:56
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AnEdgelord posted:Fulgrim is a really mediocre book that nonetheless has some absolutely incredible standout moments in it. The concert in particular is the highlight of the book. I like the deranged emperor’s children dude nutting as he gets his dick cut off by an iron hand, which freaks out the hand long enough for the emperor’s children marine to kill him this is a real thing that happens in the book
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Jan 4, 2024 23:31
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0konner posted:There’s certainly stuff in the raven guard books and the shattered legion about isstvan after the battle but yes it’s bizarrely undercovered in the novels. I also would like to see one book address the thramas crusade. The Lion/kurze arc seems to start with their death duel. There's a lot of stuff in the 'mid-Heresy' arcs that feels very disjointed like that. When I did a Heresy reread the other year I kept thinking I'd missed a book somewhere on the Lion/Kurze stuff. Looks like there were some books from Forge World that had a bunch of lore in them, I think it was covered there. Has anyone read any of those - worth a look?
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Jan 5, 2024 01:32
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You thinking of the HH “big black book” rulebooks maybe? Crusade was centered on Thramas and a bunch of the DA/NL stuff there. Probably not worth what you’re going to pay for them on eBay these days, but if you can “acquire” them somehow, somewhere, they’re definitely worth a read for the lore.
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Jan 5, 2024 01:42
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:
Ah, the old "Iron Handjob." Also I do not know how I missed this.
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Jan 5, 2024 02:07
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Proper capitalization makes the difference between getting your dick cut off by an iron hand and getting your dick cut off by an Iron Hand 
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Jan 5, 2024 02:12
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Dapper_Swindler posted:yeah, i feel like people kinda forget that not too long ago, the best written stuff was like well written boltor porn like cadian blood. Also the rules were a lot looser. It's the only reason I mentioned Coulter's works. It can be jarring to go back 20 years (  ) and read what was put out. Now they have a lot tighter editorial control to ensure that the books are at least following their own rules (The old Grey Knights books featured the main character working close with local authorities for example... in a time where even knowing about the knights would technically lead to the person being killed). Those early works are what defined what we know now as the World of 40k.In the same vein is the James Swallow Blood Angels and Sisters of Battle books. If you truly want to torture yourself, go back and read the OG dawn of War novelization, or anything by CS Goto. Which gave us this gem 
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Jan 5, 2024 02:29
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