While The Dark Angel books follow an order.

An example of this is Prospero Burns(Space Wolves) and Thousand Son's being the same event told from the different sides. They do not become so referential that you need to read them in a certain order, however a few of the books are sequels or paired with others. The other books in the all have different styles and flavors. ' The first three Heresy books are the opening 'arch' of the Hersey and it's purpose is to set up the context for the events that follow. Hope this Yeah pretty much my thoughts too. The Cain books contain great characterization and are a good way to slowly ease into things, as they involve much of the 40k universe without burying you in terminology and story that you have neither a connection to nor understanding of. The magic of the Cain series is that Commissar Ciaphas Cain is, first and foremost, a human being with all of the selfish and conceited traits that you'd expect. Most will say the Horus Heresy or Eisenhorn, but those can be both dense and perhaps too specific for a newcomer. If you feel like the story is bloated at this point, I'd partly agree with you, but also say that you are probably missing some of the finer details that may only come to light with further insight into the Heresy itself, which can mostly be acquired through further reading of the series.Īnyway, to chip in my two cents to an old-ass thread, if you are going to start with the Warhammer 40,000 books, I would recommend either reading the Gaunt's Ghosts series (from the beginning!), or picking up any of the Ciaphas Cain books. It's a long story to be told, with many individual facets that each have their part to play in the bigger picture. Later on the stories become much more individual in nature, focusing on very specific aspects of the Heresy as it unfolds, and touching on events happening throughout that are common for all of the books. At least for those books, the action is fairly good so it contains the building tension while being in general a handful of good 40k novella.

It takes a few books to get through, but it ascribes an important shift in thinking that, otherwise missing, would make Horus' turn seem like a snap judgement without any real purpose behind it. The beginning of the Horus Heresy series starts at a very small scope, focusing on the slow turn of Horus himself and those Legions around him.

Warhammer 40k horus heresy novels