"Top 5 GW novels...." Topic

Top 5 from the Warhammer, 30k, and 40k 'verses (including Black Library, naturally ).

I'm pretty limited having only read 30k novels but here's mine:

1) Betrayer (easily)
2) Galaxy in Flames
3) Horus Rising
4) False God's
5) Scars

I hear "Double Eagle" and "Deff Skwadron " are outstanding though!

Double Eagle was pretty good. WWI fighter pilots in the dark future. I don't know if I could do a list of 30K novels and not have Legion or A Thousand Sons on that list.

Damon.

Eisenhorn and Ravenor. I also liked Night Lords.

I think Legion tops my list. Not only one of my favourite 40k/30K novels but one of the better sci-fi novels I've ever read.

1) Legion
2) Fulgrim
3) A Thousand Sons
4) Galaxy In Flames
5) Know No Fear

Although to be fair, I have also only read 30K novels and not even all of them. So top 5 out of 20.

Drachenfels
Horus Rising
Know No Fear
Inquisitor

The Eisenhorn books (3 total---I think they would make great material for a 40k movie)

The one where the siege-y Chaos marines attack the backwater world that is, for reasons revealed later, defended by a whole regiment of guard and a detachment of titans

The Gaunt's Ghosts where they defend the big city and first take on foreign replacements to rebuild the regiment---wanna say book 3 or 4

I'm a huge fan of any of Abnett's books, love all of the Commissar Cain books, but really like the sadly underappreciated Shira Calpurnia series by Farrer.

storm of iron is my favorite.the Gaunts Ghost series also is pretty good

Gaunt's Ghosts! "Try it again" Bragg, the Colonel. I liked Eisenhorn too.

I've read a reasonably wide variety of GW books and generally they're of average-to-pretty-good quality for pulp sci-fi. However there are exceptions…

The three novels of the Eisenhorn series are by far the best GW novels I've ever read and probably some of my favorite sci-fantasy literature. They dig deep into the underside of the 40k universe and yet stand entirely on their own merits. After reading them all at least 3 times I actually recommend them to people who have no interest in 40k at all.

Continuing from there I'd either go with the first few Gaunts Ghosts Novels or the Ravenor series which follows Eisenhorn. Yes, all of these are by Dan Abnett. Ravenor in particular is quite unique, having a disabled main charachter who is esentially confined to an armored wheelchair for the entire series. This is the kind of outside-the-box thinking that Abnett excells at.

I've read several of the Horus Heresy books and found some quite good, and Ciapahs Cain is fun as well. but IMHO nothing is quite as good as Eisenhorn.

Double Eagle and some more of the Horus Heresy Books are on my too-read list, but it's a very big list now…

@Grignotage

Storm of Iron is the one you mean.

A very good 40k book. I recommend it.

The old "Inquisition War" trilogy but you can read just the first book and stop there. It gets super weird after that.

The first Gaunts Ghosts novel is quite good as military scifi.

The Warhammer "Angelica Fleischer" series (3 books?) is an excellent fantasy yarn.

Not sure where how I would rank them but I'm also a big fan of the Eisenhorn and Ravenor series.

There were plans to continue the story with an Elizabet Bequin trilogy but looks like that might have gotten derailed.

The first Gaunts Ghosts novel is quite good as military scifi.

Dan Abnett is a great writer, honestly. I have recommended his work to non-40k fans.

Please add as selections:

Eisenhorn: Xenos (by Dan Abnett)
Gaunt's Ghosts: First And Only (by Dan Abnett)
Gaunt's Ghosts: Necropolis (by Dan Abnett)
Fifteen Hours (by Mitchell Scanlon)

The first few Horus heresy novels were quite good too.
Once they stopped following the same characters, it fell off quite a bit.

They are so steeped in jargon that they're hard to recommend to non 40K fans though.

Any with a fair amount of warship time? Something for the BFG crowd?

Doug