original thread had gaming relevance :
https://lemmy.world/post/38269946

If this is hated on I'll delete the thread (EDIT) I guess not.

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[–] 28 points 7 months ago (7 children)

Accurate, although there are exceptions. Betrayer + First Heretic come to mind, those were fun.

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

    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?

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 44 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 10 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    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...

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    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?

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure there are way more books they missed.

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago (8 children)

    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…

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  • [–] 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (7 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    Stephen King's "Gunslinger". Can't do it.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Uggh, yeah, I read em just to be sure that I don't enjoy his writing, and sure enough it was not worth it.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, my partner is reading it right now and I am tempted to do likewise, it seems much more enjoyable.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    Strongly recommend "On Writing" if you're either curious about him specifically or interested in writing in general. I read it over a decade ago for the first time and I still regularly refer to it when talking to people about writing.

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  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago

    Oh neat, I bought them all one night and only have about 25 left to go so they should be fun

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  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago

    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).

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    There are 42 books in the picture. Seven months is about 210 days, which works out to a book every 5 days. That seems like an insurmountable challenge for me. I'm such a slow reader.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    I too have always been a slow reader, so i cheat. I throw epubs into a reader that uses Google tts as a form of audio book. I typically go through about a book aday now. Definitely a learning curve since i have to teach it to pronounce certain words differently. But after a few years it has me having read over 1500 books. And that does not include rereads.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago

    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

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  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    I'm a huge fan of Dan Abnett's warhammer books. The Ravenor trilogy is my favourite, I just wish there were more!

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    I felt like that after watching all 10 series of Benidorm

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    For anyone who likes Warhammer, check out Stephen Baxter, Xeelee series

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    Hah. I get that.

    I’m reading a book series that’s more like a serialized tv show than a novel set. They’re not good, but they’re certainly good enough to grow on me. I think I’m on book 32 or something and actually waiting for the next one.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    This is me and Battle Mage Farmer

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