I would also recommend reading a wikipedia article about the heresy in general ( this seems pretty good) because it will give you the main timeline and events of the heresy. You will enjoy the Heresy books a lot more if you have an understanding of the later developments of the Imperium of Man as things are a bit different between the time periods (apart from the constant warring that is ). The Emperor of Mankind, interred in an eternal coma on his Golden Throne, is worshiped as a God in the 40th millennium, the society has turned ultra-religious, and innovation and new technologies are feared (in general). IMO, the reason you shouldn't start with the Horus Heresy series is that you really should understand the 40k main timeline stuff and universe to be able to fully appreciate the events of the 30th millennium (Horus Heresy series). Also one of the best out there is Storm of Iron by Graham McNeill, which is basically one novel with the bad guys as main characters. the 40th millennium onwards), which contains stuff like The Gaunt's Ghosts Series, Eisenhorn (my personal favorite by far, but somewhat atypical as far as 40k novels go), Ravenor, etc. Various bookstores often do 3-for-2 deals on them quite frequently as well.Īs a 40k reader and on/off player of about 10 years, I'd seriously recommend you start with the 'main timeline' stuff (i.e.

Note that, aside from the HERESY, all the other series mentioned are available in handy omnibuses, none of which are as big as an Erikson book, so they're easy enough to collect and get through. It may be more effective to read other books first and come to that series (which is still ongoing) later on. THE HORUS HERESY may be a little confusing, as it's the grand backstory of the 40K setting.

Chronologically the order is EISENHORN-RAVENOR-GAUNT'S GHOSTS-CIAPHAS CAIN, even if there isn't a huge amount of crossover between them. I'd personally go with GAUNT'S GHOSTS first and then the two Inquisitor trilogies or the CIAPHAS CAIN books. There's a minor character in the EISENHORN trilogy who shows up later in GAUNT'S GHOSTS (people in the 40K universe live for centuries, Inquisitors even moreso), but the EISENHORN and RAVENOR trilogies (RAVENOR is the sequel to EISENHORN) were written later, so you can read them in either order.

Best warhammer 40k novels to start with