Warhammer 40,000 Novels

[gavinrad]

Originally Posted by Tabris

Gavinrad, Gryeyes is referring to some very old fluff that was originally published in Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned, which stated that the Emperor was a reincarnation of thousands of ancient shamans who sacrificed themselves to be reborn in a "perfect man" that could guide humanity's destiny in the future. The book was published over 20 years ago and many of the topics discussed in it have been de-canonized over the years.

yeah, I had forgotten about those books because they were pretty quickly shoved under the rug as they attempted to market the game to a younger crowd.

So yes if you consider those books to be canonical, they completely invalidate pretty much all the foundation of the Horus Heresy. The Sensei are canon however, which pretty much makes it impossible to preclude the existence of the Emperor being born in pre-history on Terra.

[Tabris]

One of the problems with the Warhammer 40k universe is that GW has taken the stance that all of their published fluff is canon, even though a lot of it conflicts. The explanation they have taken is that just like real life, there are conflicting versions of stories, and so any number of them might be true or not true.

It's frustrating because it's a cheap way out of having to explain what's really going on or keeping close track of canon. Some topics such as the Star Child and the Emperor's origins are clearly de-canonized now, but then again you see things like the Inquisition War Omnibus still being out there and wonder if they'll really ever all make sense.

[Gryeyes]

Originally Posted by gavinrad

yeah, I had forgotten about those books because they were pretty quickly shoved under the rug as they attempted to market the game to a younger crowd.

So yes if you consider those books to be canonical, they completely invalidate pretty much all the foundation of the Horus Heresy. The Sensei are canon however, which pretty much makes it impossible to preclude the existence of the Emperor being born in pre-history on Terra.

The sensei are introduced in the same damn book that says the emperor was born on earth in 8000 BCE. As was the entire concept of the horus heresy and chaos powers. The age of strife was caused mostly due to pskers reappearing in human society and going around unchecked. Which means they are almost assured to go insane and become possessed by daemons allowing them to enter the world. At the same time slaneesh being born isolated most of the planets.

Towards the end of the Age of Technology psykers first appeared within humanity. While persecuted in many human worlds as witches, in enlightened and progressive societies these psykers were at first protected and accepted. The intolerance of psykers would seem prescience, as many human worlds fell to the dominance of daemons and other warp creatures using possessed psykers as gateways. Only worlds which had rigorously suppressed psykers survived.

The Age of Strife followed the Age of Technology, as human civilisation collapsed in widespread insanity, daemonic possession, anarchy and inter-human war.

And yes the theme of 40k is ignorance. But we are not speaking about that time period. We are talking about BEFORE that period. So lets pretend the realms of chaos books dont exist. The emperor was alive during the age of strife. Ya know the age where mankind is being torn apart by psykers getting possessed and blowing shit up. He would also be alive when slaneesh was born.

Eventually, an immensely powerful human leader and psyker known as the Emperor divined that the final birth of Slaanesh was nearing, as well as the effect this birth would have and began to accelerate his preparations for this galaxy-changing event. From the beginning of the Age of Strife the Emperor had no longer been content with guiding humanity from the background and if his species was to survive, he would have to take charge himself.

[gavinrad]

Originally Posted by Gryeyes

The sensei are introduced in the same damn book that says the emperor was born on earth in 8000 BCE.

uh...yeah, pretty sure this is the point that I just conceded...

[Gryeyes]

Originally Posted by gavinrad

uh...yeah, pretty sure this is the point that I just conceded...

haha sorry your wording confused me.

[gavinrad]

Yeah, in retrospect it's a little bass-ackwards.

So yeah, while continuity is a bit fucked, as long as they stay consistent with this new stuff it's not that big of a deal. The book I've been waiting for this whole time is due out in August, and thats all I really care about.

[gavinrad]

MAJOR BUMP! WOOO!


Soo apparently Hammer of Daemons got released in America a bit early, I'll be picking it up this weekend. For those people who haven't read any of them yet, Ben Counter has a series of books about the Grey Knights chapter of space marines. Grey Knights, Dark Adeptus, and now Hammer of Daemons. For those of you who are familiar with it,

When the forces of the Imperium suffer a crushing defeat by Chaos, Grey Knight Alaric is captured and taken back to a daemon world in the Eye of Terror. Stripped of his armour and weapons, he is forced to fight as a gladiator for his daemonic masters, who worship their god Khorne with endless slaughter. His only chance of escape is to find a legendary weapon with the power to destroy the forces of Chaos that imprison him, before he is killed or worse, forces to submit to the Blood God and become a monster himself.

Ben Counter is the author of Galaxy in Flames of the Horus Heresy, and the Soul Drinkers series, in addition to the Grey Knights. Definitely on my top three favorite black library authors with Dan Abnett and Graham Mcneill.

[Gryeyes]

Originally Posted by gavinrad

MAJOR BUMP! WOOO!


Soo apparently Hammer of Daemons got released in America a bit early, I'll be picking it up this weekend. For those people who haven't read any of them yet, Ben Counter has a series of books about the Grey Knights chapter of space marines. Grey Knights, Dark Adeptus, and now Hammer of Daemons. For those of you who are familiar with it,




Ben Counter is the author of Galaxy in Flames of the Horus Heresy, and the Soul Drinkers series, in addition to the Grey Knights. Definitely on my top three favorite black library authors with Dan Abnett and Graham Mcneill.

I dont mind the Grey knights books but they read like fan fiction. But so does a majority of the black library stuff. And how is not ian watson on that list. Space marine and inquisition war trilogy are such good books

[gavinrad]

Eh, it's hard enough to write about space marines as it is, I don't know how you could write about Grey Knights without it sounding like fanfic. I mean, they literally are the elite of the elite, the most badass supermen in the Imperium, I would be impressed if someone could write some really high quality fiction about them. As it is, they've been my favorite Imperial group since the old days when they were just an absurdly twinked out terminator squad that you could add to your army.

I'll give the Ian Watson stuff a try, I'll admit that Ben Counter is definitely a distant third on my list behind Mcneill and Abnett. I actually didn't like Mcneill very much until I read Fulgrim, which is just an absolutely horrific tale of corruption.

I'm reading through the first seven Gaunt's Ghosts books to celebrate that I finally found a copy of Traitor General in a local bookstore. Dan Abnett is probably the first author who actually stirred very significant emotions just from reading his books, as I was making it through 'The Saint' series of the Ghosts, I honestly wanted to choke the life out of him.

[...]

man I love the ghost series. I need to find and re-read them again. I tell you what, abnett sure made me hate the fuck out of Cuu. Creepy bastard.

Oddly enough I got the fat Eisenhorn book (some one ran of with Xenos ) and my girlfriend expressed interest and is reading it now. she said she really likes it, which is amazing. she doesn't like gaming or scifi settings or basically anything awesome.

[Bizanich]

Originally Posted by ...

man I love the ghost series. I need to find and re-read them again. I tell you what, abnett sure made me hate the fuck out of Cuu. Creepy bastard.

Oddly enough I got the fat Eisenhorn book (some one ran of with Xenos ) and my girlfriend expressed interest and is reading it now. she said she really likes it, which is amazing. she doesn't like gaming or scifi settings or basically anything awesome.

I also got that big phat book previously in this thread and thought Eisenhorn did a great job of being in the 40k universe and seeming "real". Granted, book 3's a bit out there (it seems all the trilogies go nuts at 30), but they were primarily detective stories with big guns/daemons/etc.

[...]

Ravenor is good too, I'm gonna try get her to read it next. I also Highly recommend "double eagle" it's a stand alone abnett book set in the sabbat world crusade about fighter pilots.

It's some of the same characters from an earlier ghost book. The same one's from...uh...the one Ghost novel from that world that had all the cities situated on mountain tops, toxic gas at low altitudes...the airships and all that. Mkoll falls on a rail and is missing half the book... I forget the name of the book.


----

also, speaking of books. Dark Heresy (the 40k tabletop RPG book) came out, and it has some pretty sweet lore in it. If tabletop RPG's aren't your thing, you can probably find a PDF of it to read just for the lore

[Gryeyes]

Originally Posted by gavinrad

Eh, it's hard enough to write about space marines as it is, I don't know how you could write about Grey Knights without it sounding like fanfic. I mean, they literally are the elite of the elite, the most badass supermen in the Imperium, I would be impressed if someone could write some really high quality fiction about them. As it is, they've been my favorite Imperial group since the old days when they were just an absurdly twinked out terminator squad that you could add to your army.

I'll give the Ian Watson stuff a try, I'll admit that Ben Counter is definitely a distant third on my list behind Mcneill and Abnett. I actually didn't like Mcneill very much until I read Fulgrim, which is just an absolutely horrific tale of corruption.

I'm reading through the first seven Gaunt's Ghosts books to celebrate that I finally found a copy of Traitor General in a local bookstore. Dan Abnett is probably the first author who actually stirred very significant emotions just from reading his books, as I was making it through 'The Saint' series of the Ghosts, I honestly wanted to choke the life out of him.

Dan abnett is the best of the fan fiction for sure. Its just the setting is so diluted and pussied up to appeal to im guessing teenage men.

Space marines are supposed to be brainwashed tools of death and destruction. Psycho indoctrinated from inception to obey and to kill. Yet in the novels they behave like normal people with super powers. Space Marines also get their minds wiped after fighting chaos. Normal soldiers like the IG are straight up killed or imprisoned for the rest of their lives if they encounter chaos for any reason. The warp is a huge secret and the inquisition kills you if you have any dealings with it.understood by anyone but those that have been trained by the Machine cult.

Just read Ian Watsons stuff then compare the setting to now. Its dark and fucked up. Vast majority of the current stuff reminds me of Star wars books.

Christ eisenhorn has a light saber he uses to deflect bullets ffs. He flies in a ship that has no navigator (servitor navigators arent possible) which is a big deal.

[Taloo]

So through some retardation on my part I managed to skip Galaxy In Flames and went on to Flight of the Einstein(ordered False Gods and Flight because store didnt have it and just went on to Einstein without thinking). Miss anything important? Reallllly don't want to backtrack after reading flight

Also fuck these books. Getting tired of $9 for one sitting.

[Gryeyes]

Originally Posted by Taloo

So through some retardation on my part I managed to skip Galaxy In Flames and went on to Flight of the Einstein(ordered False Gods and Flight because store didnt have it and just went on to Einstein without thinking). Miss anything important? Reallllly don't want to backtrack after reading flight

Also fuck these books. Getting tired of $9 for one sitting.

Sorry you gotta go back and read it.