That saga currently stands at 59 novels, which doesn’t include the vast amounts of original novellas, short stories, and audio dramas that supplement it.
#BEST WARHAMMER 40K NOVELS TO START WITH SERIES#
The series differs from other major franchises in that it is penned by multiple authors, each contributing their work towards the saga. Many years later in 2006, the Black Library – the publishing arm of Games Workshop – decided to expand this short story into an ambitious novel series that hugely elaborated upon the original premise. The bare bones of heresy were assembled in 1987 as little more than a short back-story to add flavour to a Games Workshop campaign setting. Set 10,000 years before those events, the start of the series finds the Emperor at the height of his power, ushering in a golden age for mankind dubbed ‘ The Great Crusade ‘. The Horus Heresy foreshadows the dystopian, war-torn narrative of Warhammer 40,000, where the immortal Emperor of Mankind sits clinging to life as a mangled and broken corpse upon the Golden Throne of Terra (an archaic device powered by constant human sacrifice). It doesn’t register on most radars but manages to dwarf the aforementioned in terms of longevity and scale. There is one series however, that is often overlooked, despite having multiple books frequently hit the New York Times bestseller list over the years. Although the books in this series are actually from the Warhammer 30K collection of novels (because they take 10 years before the 40K books), they can provide the reader with the setting and background information they need to fully understand the universe.The above share the fact they are long-running narratives, describing beautiful and immersive worlds, steeped in lore and character development. In our opinion, the best way into the Warhammer universe is by starting with the Horus Heresy series. What we can do, however, is to give our readers a path into the Warhammer universe by covering some of the series contained within the overall library. That’s because the novels in this series are just too numerous. It’s almost impossible for us to provide our readers with a complete list of the Warhammer 40K books. An Incomplete Look Into The Books Of Warhammer 40K As such, this universe has taken inspiration from J.R.R Tolkien, H.P Lovecraft, Paradise Lost, Dungeons & Dragons, 2000 AD, and Dune. It’s a universe that relies heavily on science fiction elements, but it also has fantasy and horror elements. This setting takes place some 39,000 years in the future-at about the turn of the 42nd millennium. The setting of this game is a stagnant human civilization that is beset on all sides by malevolent supernature monsters and aggressive aliens. The first edition of its ruleset was published in the fall of 1987 and it quickly became one of the most popular miniature war games in the world, with it being the most popular in the U.K. Warhammer 40,000 started as a miniature wargame that was created and produced by Games Workshop. Although this guide might not be as comprehensive as some people think it should be, we think it has more than enough information to get readers into the Warhammer 40K series of books. That’s why we’ve decided to give our readers a little bit of a roadmap with this guide. This is because the universe isn’t a seamless series, but is several different book series that are coupled with anthology collections, lore, and codexes. For people who haven’t already begun reading the Warhammer 40K books, or who aren’t familiar with the universe, then deciding on a place to jump in can be somewhat daunting.