What Is Your Favorite & Least Favorite Horus Heresy Book?

[Proiteus]

I love the Horus Heresy series and I'm currently listening to "Scars" which is proving to be an very interesting novel. While I listen to the audio books on the way to work I still haven't had time to read all of the books so I decided to ask what people personally consider the best and worst of the Horus Heresy black library series. I thought about doing a poll but there too many options and I'd rather not separate them into two categories based on my own views.

My Favourite - Thousand Sons
I loved the Thousand Sons in the Horus Heresy artbooks and the novel practically had me jumping into making a pre-heresy army. It does a great job of introducing you to the legion and it's mysterous ways such as their tulary familiars and cults and telling the tale of their downfall with ending with the amazing battle of Tizca. A close 2nd would have to be Angel Exterminatus.


http://lh5.ggpht.com/_GrRBMt6-NvA/TdzDiHL0_hI/AAAAAAAAEH4/56AZSnFMinU/McNeill-HH-AThousandSons_thumb5.jpg?imgmax=800

My Least Favourite - Prospero Burns
With Thousand Sons being my favourite I looked forward to reading the other side of the story, but whilst Thousand Sons also told the story of the 3 remembrancers offering a human perspective to the legion, Prospero Burns focuses purely on the experiences of Kaspar Hauser, who for those who haven't read it isn't a space wolf but is excepted into the legion as a sort of remembrancer. Anyway I wasn't a fan of this single perspective, plus a dream sequence that is repeated thought out the novel got on my nerves.

So of the Horus Heresy Books you've read what is your favourite and least favourite of them all?

[Tyrendian]

I couldn't name a single favourite book - from a certain level of awesome on upwards it just starts to blur :) Into that category I'd put, in no particular order, A Thousand Sons, Fear To Tread, Angel Exterminatus and Unremembered Empire.
"Bad" for me were Know No Fear and Battle for the Abyss - never warmed to those, haven't even re-read the latter once

[Lord Asterion]

Battle for the Abyss, Nemesis and Decent of Angels are all pretty bad books, The Unremembered Empire, Legion, Betrayer are my favourites so far

[Blood Shadow]

Nemesis was the book I struggled with the most, but I did enjoy it, just a difficult read. Outcast dead as well, but the audio was one of my favourites.

The best book by far (can't remember the name) is the Loken vs. Abbadon show down, when Tarvitz bites it :(

Love the Garro series too....Wolf Hunt is great....it's all amazing to be honest...the last few books have been ace, unremembered Empire was awesome....

[Denzark]

I am a fan of Legion and Mechanicum - also Prospero gets smashed by angry Wolves. Worst so far? Both the Dark Angel ones. Add nothing to the series and are crap stories.

[DETHMOKIL]

The worst, that crap dark angel prequel. It really hurt my interest in the dark angles, and made lion Johnson look like an idiot. The only way that story line could possibly redeem itself, is if it comes out that the Lion, is in fact, a traitor and chickened out, then went back and killed of the true believers on Calban. I think that is the general player consensuses anyway.

Legion, Fulgrim, and Mechanicus are my favorites. Totally made me want a pre-heresy army. Vertical integration!

[Psychosplodge]

I'd have to reread them all, but I think the first dark angels one was definitely poor.
the wolves thousand sons pair and Scars were reasonably good but I can't think of any standing out tbh

[Dlatrex]

I've enjoyed all the books in the series so far. Within that spectrum of enjoyment, probably Battle for the Abyss could have been a novella, and Descent of Angels was just very confusing after the reasonably linear Books #1-#5.

At the top of the heap I love the Abnett books Legion and Prospero Burns. I also appreciated Angel Exterminatus for the change of pace with Eldar, and the illumination of Perturabo (finally!)

[Artein]

Favorite is Know no Fear. In my top there are also: Betrayer, The First Heretic, Legion, A Thousand Sons and.... Angel Exterminatus? Scars? Fulgrim maybe?

The worst? Nemesis? Battle for the Abyss? Maybe those.... or Fear to Tread, that was definately the biggest let down for me. Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment, I guess.

[Templar45]

I liked Betrayer, Angel Exterminatus, Prospero Burns, and Know No Fear

My major dislike: the audiobook (ABRIDGED) versions of Horus Rising, False Gods, and Galaxy in Flames. The series is rendered down to be astartes-only, nearly all of the remembrancer/saint storyline is cut out. Keeler/Oliton/Karkasy are never mentioned, and Sinderman only appears as Loken's "mentor".

[Carter Beard]

Favorite - Fulgrim, Thousand Sons, Nemesis. Fulgrim was such a complete book and so well written. Goes to show you how Dan Abnett has influenced the other 40k writers and how far he has pushed them to do better. I am a long time 1k player so how could I not love A Thousand Sons. My only qualm is that not enough was said about the trial of Nikea, like how Magnus left before the Emperor and how that was completely out of character for any of his sons. And I liked Nemesis because it showed the players behind the scenes and how far Malcador is actually willing to go to.
Least Favorite - Prospero Burns. This is the only book in the series that I couldn't read. Flash backs; Dreams; False Memories; not getting to Prospero till the end of the book...yeah no thanks. Very surprising that Abnett dropped the ball on this one so spectacularly.

[Proiteus]

nearly all of the remembrancer/saint storyline is cut out. Keeler/Oliton/Karkasy are never mentioned, and Sinderman only appears as Loken's "mentor".

I thought that was the case when listening to the Flight Of Eisenstein audiobook and suddenly 2 women was with Sinderman and Cruise.

[Takerukau]

(Let me open this by saying how great the first three were) I think that my favorite has to be Fear to Tread, because it focuses on the betrayal between Horus and Sanguinius (they who were the closest friends among the primarchs). It shows how much Horus fears Sanguinius and what lengths he would go to - even deny the will of the gods of chaos - out of envy. Every book in the series points to how Sanguinius is who they all look to as an example and how they feel he will take the reigns, but that is the first time we get to really see him and the Blood Angels in action, and they don't disappoint. A Thousand Sons is my second favorite, and I liked Know no Fear and Unremembered Empire quite a bit too. I never liked Ultramarines until I read those (though they still aren't my favorite). I must agree though that the Dark Angel books were not very good. I don't feel like they added much to the heresy as a whole. I also didn't really like Legion that much. The stuff about John Grammaticus and the Cabal was interesting enough, but it took too long to get there. Fulgrim is good, but a bit messed up (Slaaneshi nonsense is uncomfortable to read, but the subtle fall to chaos was well executed).

[Meph]

Yeah,; the two Dark Angels novels I found very, very boring and they add nothing to the series. Battle of the Abyss, while not badly written seemed to be too 'small scale' compared to the whole series.

My favourite ones by far were Thousand Sons & Prospero Burns. I understand how Prospero Burns seemed a bit odd at first but I really liked the exploration of the nature of the Space Wolves.
Fear to Tread and The Unremembered Empire follow closely in 3rd and 4rth place.

Some novels read a bit easier than others, some have a slightly diffeferent style than others but basically I found most of the series to be good to excellent, with the only one in the mediocre category being Battle of The Abyss, and the bad category being populated by the Dark Angels Novels. Seriously, I got a better flavour of the Dark Angels from their secondary role in Unremembered Empire than the entirety of the two whole DA novels...

[SuperDann]

The Dark Angels novels get no love at all, do they? I enjoyed them, but maybe that's because I'm a DA fanatic. The twist at the end of Fallen Angels is still one of my favourites in the series, even if it isn't the most impactful (i.e. it only affects those characters, not the galaxy as a whole)

In terms of my favourites: A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns are both joint first for me. I know the latter gets a lot of dislike from some parties, but I'm sure that's mostly because they wanted Space Wolves talking about Space Wolves and more emphasis on the burning of Propsero itself. I actually wrote a university level discourse analysis piece on that book, because it is so rich from a linguistic perspective. The use of point of view and the associated language of the characters. The recurring dream sequences and foreshadowing. Non-linear narrative. And especially the part at the end where Kasper is telling the story to the Vlka Fenryka. Dan Abnett did an amazing job creating a culture for the Space Wolves that wasn't just Power-Armoured-Vikings-in-Space! As to the sister novel, nothing is more tragic, in my opinion, than the fall of Magnus and the Thousand Sons. You know it's going to happen, but the whole way through you are both rooting for them and wanting to say "No! Don't do it Magnus!" I can re-read both of those books again and again and enjoy them both each time. They are so good at blurring the good-guy/bad-guy dichotomy and are prime examples of both Abnett's and McNeill's writing talent.

Least favourites: I just felt that I had to read Nemesis out of loyalty to the series, and for completeness. The idea of sending on of each assassin as some kind of super team felt a bit cheesy, and in the end I don't think the events had a lasting impact on the rest of the series. Mark of Calth was a bit dull, up until the last couple of short stories, but then it was an anthology rather than a novel, so it can be a bit more hit and miss.

[Brother Sutek]

Legion was great and made me even more excited about the Alphas than before, all of the DAs books were horrible and made me think that Gav just wants to make the DAs chaos and this is his not so subtle way of getting that done. There was a huge amount of potential for those books to be great but they were just a huge let down.
@DETHMOKIL: You hit the nail on the head, excellent points all around.

[SuperDann]

...all of the DAs books were horrible and made me think that Gav just wants to make the DAs chaos and this is his not so subtle way of getting that done. There was a huge amount of potential for those books to be great but they were just a huge let down.

You do know it was Mitchel Scanlon and Mike Lee that wrote the first two DA books and not Gav Thorpe, right?