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[JuntaJoe]

It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the human Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the Gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that mankind may never die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battle fleets cross the daemon infested miasma of the warp. The only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defense forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war.



So begins the cover page in half the books made by an entire publishing company.

That company being the Black Library, which publishes the Warhammer 40000 universe and its fantasy sibling universe simply called Warhammer.

What started as an ambitious table-top game from the days of pen and paper rpg's has grown into an entire industry in its own right. Computer games, comics, the still growing table game, and now an immense literature font.

For those who love science fiction, especially military science fiction, like I do then you have an entire army of writers devoted to a single theme. Every book you read touches with every other one in some small or large way, gradually filling your mind with the details of an entire universe that no single writer could even begin to fill in a lifetime.

Do you enjoy following a writer's series of novels on a theme?

Then imagine dozens of writers devoting their lives to a single theme!


It is a stark and brutal theme of the far future. Mankind is vast in the cosmos and been there so long that it threatens the hegemony of all other and far older species around it. Millions of human worlds press their will against veritable god-like alien intelligences that mercilessly smash back against humanity. Entire planets of millions are routinely sacrificed in the brutal calculus of war and barest hint of heresy. There are no liberal concepts in this extreme vision of our future. Diversity, tolerance, patience, and compassion are signs of taint to be exterminated with extreme prejudice. Technology is so old that it borders on mythology that is administered by science priests in sacred halls. The zeal of man is held strong by the Inquisition. This black and arcane group brooks nothing but complete and utter obedience to the sanctity and supremacy of man. To merely question their cause is a capital offense that is summarily dispensed with no thought given to potential innocence. The concepts of the book 1984 would be considered inept, cowardly, and slothful to the Inquisition.

But this is merely the backdrop of the themed universe. The focus is on two organizations. The bio-engineered supermen called the Space Marines and the immense billions in the Imperial Guard.

Ever book is filled with blistering an relentless combat that never ceases, mirroring the insane reality these protagonists live in. Some books are in-depth military sci-fi with quality foundations in warfare theory. Others are high order space opera filled with content that stretches the limits of incredulity.

No matter the type you are drawn in because further readings keep building the fictional universe in your mind. Some writers are amazing, while others are merely good. But none are bad and all keep adding to your mental picture of this future theme.

Want to get lost in a fictional concept? You could even lose years of reading to this fictional universe!


Where to start? It doesn't really matter as all the books lead you there eventually.

The 40K library can be found at your local bookstore, Amazon, and their direct site: http://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer40000.asp

If military sci-fi is your favorite then the Gaunt's Ghosts saga of almost a dozen books is a great start.

A safe bet for those who love high cast space opera would be Ultramarine's trilogy or the Space Wolves half dozen.


Have I been quiet lately? Well, I've been reading a lot. A whole lot! :wink:

[JuntaJoe]

I'm still consuming this stuff like mad. I'm into like my 40th book from this publisher.


But one series really stood out and keeps growing. The writer is Dan Abnet. Writes a lot for comic book companies too and a host of other things. The amount of grit, strife, and blood he can pack into these things is amazing. And yet his are the best "realism" books in the whole program.

Imagine WW1 with a bit of Gothic horror and laser weapons mixed in!

Here's the whole series:


Gaunt's Ghosts

The Founding
-First And Only
-Ghostmaker
-Necropolis
-In Rememrance *

The Saint
-Honour Guard
-The Guns Of Tanith
-Straight Silver
-Sabbat Martyr

The Lost
-Traitor General
-His Last Command
-The Armour Of Contempt
-Only In Death

The 3 groupings are subsets of the series. The first 2 groupings, The Founding and The Saint have been made into affordable omnibuses. The asterisked on the first omnibus is a short story only found if you buy the omnibus. Otherwise as individual books there is only 3 to the first set.

The last subset The Lost is still in individual books right now, with the very last one Only In Death still at trade paperback stage. That should shake loose to mass market in a few months. Eventually I expect yet another omnibus for this 3rd set.

Will that cap it off? Dunno. He took many years off from the series to do other work after the end of The Saint series and just got back to this last group a couple years ago. The subsets tend to run 3 or 4 books. So this next one coming should close out the set. Yet unless he truncates a lot of stuff to close it out, I really don't see the plot line ending so abruptly given what the main characters are currently doing.

Who knows, maybe he's got a 4th subset cooking in the back of his mind. The books haven't gotten stale at all. The fan base for this series grossly transcends the publisher's genre and theme universe. He has tons of readers that totally ignore the rest of the Warhammer 40K stuff.


If you like military scifi and don't follow this series then you are missing almost 5000 pages of rip snorting action with the baddest soldiers ever to grace a pulp novel!


As a side note, there is another book attached to the series called Double Eagle that doesn't feature the main character group. It was a bit of a spinoff. The main series is about a light infantry regiment. This one is an aerial adventure that has that same WW1 feel, but in the air! Only with scifi toys! Nasty dogfights from the pilot viewpoint. If you get into this series and like it then this book is a natural addition while you wait for Abnet to grace us with another book in the series.

Amazon has all of his stuff, or you can get it direct from the Black Library too.