Board Thread:Warhammer 40k Novels/@comment-5.65.81.205-20131006085739/@comment-58.106.22.61-20151009114548

The books can be divided into two basic categories: the ones that move the story forward, and the ones that don't. The first four books were nice, tight, focussed. Then, as the series continued, not so much. When you get through Vengeful Spirit and Damnation of Pythos, you too may well be pythed off and wondering what you did to deserve the whole Dragon Ball Z and WH40K gaming power creep approach to the series. I mean, seriously, I'm just waiting for Horus to leap off a planet, into orbit, explode and wipe out entire loyalist fleets along with a solar system, on his own, then reintegrate beside a bunch of other traitor primarchs, one of whom says "I didn't know we could do that." There are now 30 books, and it's beginning to feel a lot like making money is more important than telling a story. Really not impressed with the failure to include the Garro series in print before Vengeful Spirit; it left the reader feeling like they'd missed something. As for the contradictions within the series, as well as the other literature predating it over the decades (yeah, we get it, the company is trying to recreate WHFB and WH40K history), I find them to be actually quite engaging. You get the impression that there's a twist in the tale that hasn't been revealled yet. A major one is how only five loyalists of the first wave actually managed to get off the surface of Istvaan (or Isstvan) V, and yet this included several thousand Raven Guard... Given the confusion, misinformation and propaghanda used by loyalists and traitors alike, the anomalies add to the narrative. That being said, some of the books, while well written, were real clangers, but in the spirit of "no spoilers" and sharing the pain, I give you no warning other than the two named. And maybe Battle for the Abyss. *Cough!* Descent of Angels and Unremember Empire *Cough!*