original thread had gaming relevance :
https://lemmy.world/post/38269946
If this is hated on I’ll delete the thread (EDIT) I guess not.
That was me with the Jack West Jr. Books by Matthew Reilly. Interesting premise and the first couple of books were great, but the later books I purely finished out of my commitment.
Even the worse ones are still enjoyable and you get to dive in deep into the lore and special aspects of it. I’m reading #16 atm. Still enjoying the series (and I don’t even play or paint - only books and video games).
Having read one of them, he’s right: They’re not good. The writing is very basic. There might be a cool story in there, but it’s not executed well.
I dunno the series and the picture quality isn’t great, but it looks like there are duplicates of the same book several times in there. As far as I could see from the wiki page, there are 64 books listed and only one (The End of Death) has the same title for a 3 volume series. Yet in the picture there are multiple copies of First Heretic, Outcast Dead, Tales of Heresy, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Horus_Heresy?useskin=vector#Titles
As someone who is all about the 40k lore, have no clue how to play the game, don’t have any miniatures, you really gotta take it all in small doses as there’s so much of it or let someone on youtube explain it for you.
It’s good lore, it’s insanely deep lore, and it’s all over the place. Keep in mind it all takes place of the span of 10s of thousands of years. there will be entire novels of the most mundane Astartes chapter/legion. There’ll be legions/chapters you have no clue about because no one has written about them or they get shoved off to the side. I know a lot of the lore but I honestly couldn’t tell you anything about the twin Primarchs Alpharius and Omegon nor their Alpha Legion.
I got lost in the 40k wiki for a bit. I’ve tried reading the books a few times. They weren’t bad , just not great. Awesome world building, mediocre story telling. Thus far…
I’ve found the same thing. a year or so ago there was a humble bundle for a whole bunch of 40k e-books so I got it and tried getting into them. a lot of them were just “meh”. The Salamanders book was alright but man does it just trudge along.
I played a small bit in the late 90s, it was fun chilling with my roommate and painting miniatures. Think I spent more time painting than playing though. They never lookrd great but was space marines in red with yellow accents, the odd things you still remember a 1/4 decade later.
They are such good memories. I remember as a kid in the cold winter huddled up to my desk lamp, that got super warm and was the only source of heat, painting my Catachan armoured column…
why yes, I did not understand how to use the Catachans as a jungle army, how could you tell?
Once you read the first page, the OCD kicks in, and you can’t quit. All you can do is be glad you didn’t open the phone book.
Funny thing is, I’m pretty sure there are way more books they missed.
This is just the Horus Heresy, there are WAY more books
60+? 70? I don’t even remember
42 in the image, 65 in the series. I think the whole of the 30k/40k universe is up to more than 300 books now though, it’s insane.
Accurate, although there are exceptions. Betrayer + First Heretic come to mind, those were fun.
Not Horus Heresy, but I’ve also been having fun with the Fabius Bile Omnibus by Josh Reynolds and The Night Lords Omnibus by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. In general, heretic novels, at least the ones I’ve read, have a higher quality on average than the loyalist ones. Xenos ones can be fun too, Infinite and Divine, Twice Dead King, Ghazghkull Thraka, and Brutal Kunnin’ were all fun. The best loyalist one I’ve found so far was The Fall of Cadia, but even that’s mostly just big good guy shoots big gun at big bad guy. Might as well read Ork books at that point, they’re at least having fun. Actually, that’s not quite right, The Great Work is also a good loyalist one, although I’d have preferred more Cawl and less Primaris Marines.
Yeah, I don’t remember the specific books but there is a specific thing that I thought was brilliant. One book follows an Astartes that starts to suspect heresy in their ship and he escapes it, he approaches another ship and recognizes the Astartes on the other end of the radio and confides in him about his suspicion and he lets him onboard. Then in another book you follow the story of that other Astartes, who starts to suspect heresy in the fleet and when the radio call comes it confirms his suspicions.
Not the greatest thing ever, but it was a cool thing that I don’t think I’ve seen any other book series do something similar.
Flight of the Eisenstein is pretty good too. But… none of the HH books have ever really grabbed me. 40k has some truly good pieces of science fiction (The Infinite and The Divine (probably the best warhammer book, I don’t even think that’s a contentious claim), Ruin/Reign, Flesh & Steel, Assassinorum: Kingmaker), but I was always kinda underwhelmed by the 30k stuff… idk what it was. Maybe the inevitability of the setting?
Dont forget all the fun Ork/Red Gobbo books. Mike Brooks is a treasure. Definitely agree on Infinite and Divine too.
But yeah a lot of HH is pretty meh even if youre into it.
Oh jeeze yeah, Brutal Kunnin’ was so much fun. I still have yet to pick up most of the other Ork ones, I remember Prophet of the WAAAAGH! being another one that’s just a genuinely good piece of sci-fi. Still have yet to read the Red Gobbo books, really need to get around to that one of these days. Savoring the good fiction, I suppose…
I only started reading Horus Heresy because the first novel is by Abnett. Took me until like the 15th to realise the rest of them suck.
Yeah, I really respect what a literary undertaking it was but… jesus christ, when the recommended reading order has to come in the form of charts like this maybe you should prune down the number of entries in the series guys.
This image keeps crashing my phone’s browser from the sheer size, which just makes your point even funnier.
You won’t know it, until you read (or played it). Also opinions can change after time. Especially if the last episode and ending was a slog, it can change the view of the entire franchise for some. If you read fast enough (or watch), then your brain does not have enough time to process everything and does not build relationship with early stuff, but with the last stuff. What I mean is, if you watched Star Wars in the 80s, then you had plenty of time to be fan and reject the new Disney films. But if you watched all films back to back from beginning to last Disney film for the first time, then you maybe hating it.
Oh neat, I bought them all one night and only have about 25 left to go so they should be fun
I’m a huge fan of Dan Abnett’s warhammer books. The Ravenor trilogy is my favourite, I just wish there were more!
Ravenor is so much fun!
This hits home for me… Once I start a series I have to finish it. Sometimes it’s VERRY long to finish the more boring ones…
I’m the opposite. Life is too short for bad books. If I’m not into a book within the first few chapters, I drop it.
I was getting into Warhammer 40k lore on YouTube and tried the first Horus Heresy book. I noped right out of there. I read the Sun Eater series instead, and I’m so glad I did.
Stephen King’s “Gunslinger”. Can’t do it.
Same, stopped at the end of book two. Just felt empty to me
Uggh, yeah, I read em just to be sure that I don’t enjoy his writing, and sure enough it was not worth it.
Evidently, that was one of his first ever books and the writing isn’t nearly as good as his later writing.
‘On Writing’ was a great look into his mind and process.
Yeah, my partner is reading it right now and I am tempted to do likewise, it seems much more enjoyable.
That’s a strength a wish I had :) Kudos to you
I picked up a used copy of Horus Rising that I’ve been reading off and on. It’s the first warhammer book I’ve read (I don’t play the game), but I’ve played some of rogue trader and read several memes about the emperor on his throne, so it’s all making me anticipate a twist that I’m not sure will happen.
The first five or six books of The Horus Heresy are fantastic IMO. After that it’s a lot of hit and miss titles, and a load of short stories which also vary in quality.
I may be skewed because I’ve been into warhammer for more two thirds of my life though.
As I understand it the original plan was to cover the Heresy over like 10 books or something like that but then it just kept ballooning. This resulted in issues like Fulgrim falling to chaos really fucken fast and for stupid reasons only for him to more or less jack off for the rest of the Heresy which while fitting for a Slaaneshi champion is still kinda disappointing.
Yeah, I would actually like a few books set during the great crusade, it would be interesting to learn more of the before everything went to complete shit.
Just like in the practice cages
For anyone who likes Warhammer, check out Stephen Baxter, Xeelee series
I felt like that after watching all 10 series of Benidorm
Granted, covid was a big part, but there are more than 30 seasons of NCIS across all the series and I’ve seen every damn one of them. Are they good? No
