Some are thrilled and some are not, and so commences an epic tale filled with Space Marines, Lunar Wolves, fascists, suspicion, manipulation, and betrayal.
The series starts with Horus Rising, in which the Emperor of Mankind retires and places his son Horus (genetically engineered) in charge as Warmaster. In this fictional universe, the Golden Age utopia took a serious turn into the Dark Age, with the threat of human extinction, during the throes of a galaxy-spinning civil war.
This massive series-more than 50 novels, plus novellas, short stories, audio dramas, and spin-offs-is set 10,000 years before the far future of Warhammer 40,000. Kind of an obvious pick.Welcome to the 31st millennium in this grim, action-packed series about war, honor, loyalty, and betrayal spanning the galaxy. They cover the ‘fall’ of Horus and his initial moves against the Emperor. These are the first three books in the series and they all link together into a trilogy of books that truly set up the heresy. Horus Rising, False Gods & Galaxy in Flames That isn’t to say other books in this series aren’t great, but they don’t necessarily advance the over-arching plot. These are the books that I have tried to pick for my ‘must reads’ here. Hell, I haven’t read Dune.īut with the huge size of the series, it’s fair to say that some books advance the overall plot of the Horus Heresy more than others. I’m certainly no gate keeper and would never say, for example, that someone isn’t a real fantasy fan because they haven’t read Lord of the Rings or a sci-fi fan because they haven’t read Dune. I’m not usually a person who says there are any ‘must read’ books. Resentment and jealousy begin to sow the seeds of discontent that will reap a bloody harvest…Īll sounds pretty awesome right! ‘Must Read’ Books
He has been named Warmaster and now has the full might of the Imperium’s armies at his command.Īnd yet all is not well. Organised into vast legions that number in the tens of thousands, these Space Marines and their Primarchs spearhead the conquest of the galaxy in the Emperor’s name.Ĭhief amongst these god-like beings is Horus, the Emperor’s favoured son and Primarch of the Luna Wolves legion. Genetically enhanced and armed with the finest equipment that the Tech Priests of Mars can produce, it is said that each is worth a hundred normal human soldiers. The Space Marines which follow in the Primarch’s footsteps are the finest warriors available to mankind. Magnificent beings of awesome and terrifying power, they are the pinnacle of the Emperor’s genetic manipulation programs. Gleaming statues of marble and gold are erected across a million worlds to celebrate the Emperor’s many conquests, the spreading of the Imperial Truth and the victory of science, logic and reason over superstition and religion.įirst amongst the legions of mankind are the Primarchs: super human beings who have led their armies to victory after victory. The vast armies of the Emperor of Mankind have conquered the galaxy in a great crusade – myriad alien races have been destroyed by his warriors and wiped from existence.Ī new age of supremacy beckons for humanity. Now I didn’t want to just copy the official introduction, so I have used it as a base to write the following… I wondered how I would cover this and then realised this has been done for me. Honestly, with the setting there is quite a lot to unpack. I’ll cover some basic setting information and which books I think are ‘must reads’. So, what will I cover in this ‘beginner’s guide’? Well, that is a good question dear reader.
And that seems like a perfectly good reason to write this. It is more books than I would read in a whole year!īut why make this post? Well, some people have asked about how they would go about getting into this series and which books would I recommend following my reviews. Now, that is way too many for most people to have read realistically.
So, I mentioned in my review for Flight of the Eisenstein (link here) that there are a lot of Horus Heresy books – 54 in fact.