Basic HH story line question - Contains Spoilers (marked up)

[sibomots]

This entire post contains spoilers -- (to me they are spoilers) -- so if you want to avoid spoilers entirely, then skip this thread unless you have read both:

 

1. HH Book 1  Horus Rising, and 
2. The Solar War (which I believe comes after Book 54 if I am not mistaken.)

Disclaimer: I have not read books 2-54.

 

 

So, help me understand something (and DM if necessary because I do not want to ruin anything for anyone):

 

It takes 54 books from HH Book 1 to get to The Solar War where the defenses of the System are penetrated?

 

I have not read the HH 2-54 since most of the volumes are cost-prohibitive (unless I want to buy an Amazon Kindle aka Data-Slate in WH parlance).  I am not sure I am ready for e-Books.  I think I can still get books 2-3 retail OK, but book 4... then we start to go the route of second mortgage to actually acquire the reading material.

 

From the end of book HH 1 all the way to The Solar War -- was all build up?  I am very OK with this, I just am interested in getting the Cliffs Notes version of what happened between 2-54.  I will read the books; I will do the homework, I just need to figure out a economical plan to go from 2-54, if you catch my drift.

 

I thought HH-1 was fantastic.   I am enthralled with The Solar War.    

 

Thanks.

 

[Petitioner's City]

I think it's pretty hard without using ebooks to get anywhere near an affordable project. Here is a start of a rundown, assuming you are in the uk and buying in GBP (I noticed you are in the US, apologies!):

 

- False Gods - £4.53 used on amazon | £3.19 on ebay 

- Galaxy in Flames - £3.98 on ebay 

- Flight of the E - £47.50 + £12 shipping on abebooks | 6 books collection on ebay at £99

- Fulgrim - £19.49 on abebooks

- Descent of Angels - £5.99 on ebay

- Legion - £12.99 on amazon

- Battle for the Abyss - £2.99 on ebay

- Mechanicum - £8.99 on ebay

- Tales of heresy - £6.99 on ebay

- Fallen Angels - £5.49 on ebay

- A Thousand Sons - £8.99 on ebay

[.....]

 

But sometimes abebooks is a good shout rather than ebay or amazon, but overall, I can't imagine this being in any way cheap - unless, as a solution, one thing worth checking is your city/local library and (if not in their collection), their inter-library loans - would your library be able to source these books from other public libraries?

[Sothalor]

The reality is, getting all the books in physical format is going to be extremely difficult and cost-prohibitive.

 

I would go so far as to say if you really intend to read all of the HH books, and you're trying to get your hands on them all from scratch right now, doing so in ebook format is the only practical way to go about it.

 

 

In terms of the story contents of books 2-54, let me try to sum it up as concisely as I can:

 

It's a gigantic cluster:cuss of meandering plotlines powered by studio direction-shifts that drastically alter the driving narrative and influence what stories get told and why.

 

Put more charitably, the Horus Heresy was a seven-year long galactic-wide civil war spanning multiple fronts with a wide cast of characters and events. It is not a straight line from Horus Rising to the Siege of Terra.

[sibomots]

Thanks. 

 

I do not want to descend into a rabbit hole of "why this/that."     Suffice to say -- what has been communicated so far tracks with what I gathered. The answers so far confirm my understanding.  That brings some satisfaction.  Enough said.

 

Yea, the book-list is something to chip away at.  No worries.  I got a plan B.   Thanks..  

[Sothalor]

When it comes to getting your hands on the publications, I can only relate my own experiences.

 

Libraries can be very hit-and-miss, depending on your area and access (where I am, it's all miss all the time when it comes to anything BL in a public library).

 

If you want physical copies of stuff, I recommend checking used bookstores. They often have some of the old mass-market paperbacks sitting around in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section.

 

You may also want to check any Warhammer retail shops in your area, if you haven't already. Again, this may be extremely variable on how they stock BL stuff. The store closest to me is run by a cool dude who hates seeing books destroyed, so he's done his best to hold on to novels as long as he can. He's got a shelf of hardcover HH novels that are way out of print by now.

[Slave to Darkness]

Well you can skip Battle for the Abyss. Worse book I have ever read from GW and hardly anything happens in it. 

[DukeLeto69]

I know some folks want(ed) the Horus Heresy series to be a single story about how Horus got from A to B and there have been endless debates about how that could have been done.

 

It also comes down to whether you/we/I consider the HH as a story or a setting.

 

My best analogy would be if someone decided to publish the definitive book series about WWII (but then amplified that to be galaxy spanning with trillions of combatants rather than planetary spanning with millions).

 

What would be the definitive WWII series? Where would the focus be? War in Europe? North Africa? Eastern Front? Balkans? War in the Pacific? Indochina? War in the Atlantic? Clearly if it is the definitive WWII then the series MUST cover ALL of this right? Not one of those theatres of war is unimportant. They all mattered.

 

Now if the brief was to write a series about a specific general (eg Rommel) or leader (eg Hitler), then clearly neither of those really needs to mention the War in the Pacific or Indochina. The focus would completely shift if the series was about MacArthur though!

[sibomots]

I know some folks want(ed) the Horus Heresy series to be a single story about how Horus got from A to B and there have been endless debates about how that could have been done.

 

It also comes down to whether you/we/I consider the HH as a story or a setting.

 

[ snip .. snip .. ]

OK that's probably one of the most concise ways of explaining it I've seen.   The A-to-B line involving several (dozen) perturbations?  No problem.  Fine.  Good.

 

In fact I'm sorta impressed that BL managed to pull it off.

 

I had just the slightest feeling that my question might open a can of worms.    *grin* 

 

my $0.02 -- I treat HH as a setting, personally.     Most of what I love about Warhammer 40K actually happened in the 30Ks.    I'm always searching for the setting details that give rise to the different allegiances between legions, 

 

And at the same time, I don't know why I bother looking for the allegiances.. I play Black Templar..   "Not good at parties."

[DukeLeto69]

I think part of the problem with HH series is that it started out as a story (the opening trilogy IS a story with consistent recurring characters) but morphed into a setting once GW realised they had a mega hit on their hands.

 

With the benefit of hindsight, there are multiple different ways they could have approached the HH. And I’m sure we would still be moaning LOL

[Petitioner's City]

But that wider setting happens with book six, pretty quickly into the project. Horus Rising was published in April 2006, that wider setting was solidified with Descent of Angels in October 2007, and Legion in March 2008, but arguably already felt likely given Flight of the E's introduction of Dorn et al and Fulgrim giving a wider focus, and even the appearance of Magnus in False Gods (forecasting a thousand sons novel many years hence) and even Erebus's confusing role in Horus Rising (who are these word bearers?).

 

Because there already were so many story prompts from the existing lore, even before the novel series, I don't know how it could ever have been "tight" without failing to address many legions. Heck, even with 60 books, we still didn't see legions and factions get their due. But a broad focus was the only way BL could reasonably encompass all the things that Visions, Index Astartes, white dwarf articles, Titanicus, etc, had mentioned to date.

 

But in aiming to do that, then with each new book, new ideas were created and some led to amazing things which never would have happened otherwise (including several commonly identified "best of the series" books, like everything with the Vth legion :D ).

 

If it had just been a narrow focus on the Sons especially, that would have been amazing (like a Gaunts Ghost series rather than a Sabbat Crusade setting series) but equally wouldn't have led to the diversity we got.

 

I definitely would have loved a purely Sons of Horus series for sure

[DukeLeto69]

I know this topic comes up from time-to-time but as said, there are a variety of ways they could have tackled the HH.

 

My personal preference (with benefit of hindsight) would have been that the HH was a setting from the beginning, like 40k and Necromunda.

 

That would have freed them up to have standalone novels, trilogies, mini series etc ie tell any story they want at anytime rather than have a numbered series that by its very nature implies a chronology.

 

So we could have had a mini series focused on Horus and the Sons of Horus from Ullanor to Terra. But also had a Thramas Crusade trilogy. An Ultramar/Shadow Crusade trilogy. The Odyssey of the Blood Angels (Signus Prime-Ruinstorm*-Terra) etc

 

*via Imperium Secundus? I don’t know. Depends on execution.

[Karhedron]

The Horus Heresy is many things but "tightly plotted" is not one of them. It is a sprawling, interconnected tapestry of stories where characters weave in and out. Many characters get written by multiple authors and so don't always come across as consistent in action and motivation.

 

Some of the best stories are ones that do not feel like major strands at the time. A personal favourite of mine is Pharos by Guy Haley which seems like a sideline story in terms of the Heresy but is very well written and actually ties in with some things that would become important in 40K.

 

I don't think there is a single source you can go to if you want to read the entire Heresy cheaply. I did it by a combination of borrowing from my local library (which had about half them) and filled in the blanks by buying the books second hand and them selling them on eBay after I have finished reading them.

[Jareddm]

My personal preference (with benefit of hindsight) would have been that the HH was a setting from the beginning, like 40k and Necromunda.

That would have freed them up to have standalone novels, trilogies, mini series etc ie tell any story they want at anytime rather than have a numbered series that by its very nature implies a chronology.

Yep. By book six it was clear that the authors had dropped the idea of numbered books internally, but it never seemed to have made it to sales and marketing. Edited February 8, 2022 by Jareddm

[sibomots]

I do appreciate the very insightful remarks about the original (OP) question.   Part of me feels a bit guilty that I do not yet possess the internal knowledge of the HH setting as it appears many  of you do.   That's something I am going to remedy.   (As I pointed out, I am going to do the homework.).  In the mean time, I hope the thread does contribute to some better understanding -- but at the same time I don't want to raise the hackles of the Moderators who are (perhaps) a bi on edge to cut this off before it gets far field.

 

I'm picking off the books as I find them, and will embrace the goal of doing what I can do.  In the mean time I'll bias towards making models for now, read a story when I can acquire it, and move forward.  I got my own brand of Fluff to write for my Crusade anyway...  Which is incidentally a huge part of the hobby for me also:  Making things up as I go along.

 

So again, thanks for the insights.  Precisely what I was hoping for.  I just hope it wasn't too much to ask.

 

-sibomots.

[Sothalor]

Hey, you need not feel the need to apologize for asking questions in good faith.

 

This forum is one of the best places for discussions about everything Black Library, and it's not elitist about how much or little anybody knows about anything. Everybody's welcome!

[Karhedron]

but at the same time I don't want to raise the hackles of the Moderators who are (perhaps) a bi on edge to cut this off before it gets far field.

Don't worry, we're a pretty friendly bunch in the main and we don't usually shut down threads opened in good faith.

 

It may seem to newcomers that we have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the fluff but everyone starts somewhere. Someone just starting the series today could be tomorrow's Mod.

[DukeLeto69]

Many of us have been on the HH ride since 2006. A long time and a lot of words!

 

I can’t imagine how daunting it must feel to be wanting to start now and be faced with that huge mountain of content!

 

Good luck!

 

P.S. Not checked but is the BL print on demand thing only ever for a limited period? Shame if so as there are clearly folks who would like a collection in paper book form!

Edited February 9, 2022 by DukeLeto69

[Karhedron]

I started in 2016, 10 years after the series launched and it was not too daunting with a mix of library, eBay and the odd second hand find.

[Brother Zeal]

I just need to figure out a economical plan to go from 2-54, if you catch my drift.

 

I jumped aboard the Heresy Train well after the dust settled on Isstvan (about '08 or '09, I think) and I've read quite a few of the books, but nowhere near all of them. By supplementing those I have read with nuggets of lore gathered from wandering the Warhammer warrens of the YouTube rabbit hole, my knowledge about the events of the Heresy is thus functional but far from encyclopedic.

 

If you're interested in following the "main" path of the Heresy, I'd suggest the following reading order:

 

First Heretic

Horus Rising

False Gods

Galaxy in Flames

Flight of the Eisenstein

Vengeful Spirit

Wolfsbane

Master of Mankind

Solar War and the other Siege novels

 

I'm sure our more lore/BL savvy brethren here on the B&C can supplement the list with any relevant novels I've overlooked, as well as the various short stories that tie in to the suggested storyline. I know there's a couple that are basically mini prologues/sequels to the books above.

 

I place First Heretic at the beginning of the reading order because... well, the title isn't subtle. Horus Rising is an excellent and subversive introduction to the setting of the 31st Millennium, but Horus himself wasn't the first domino to fall. Neither Horus nor the XVI Legion feature much in Master of Mankind, but I'd highly recommended reading it before properly starting the Siege books as it really sets the tone for what's to come, both in terms of the books and for the setting in general.

 

After all that, you can dip in and out wherever you feel inclined or interested.

 

Want to know how Jaghatai, Shiban and the other White Scars found their place among Terra's defenders? Check out Scars and Path of Heaven.

Surely the valiant and unyielding Ultramarines will foil Horus' plans? Nope - Know No Fear, Betrayer, Unremembered Empire and Pharos cover the disasters that kept them on the sidelines for most of the decade-long war.

 

Did Magnus really do anything wrong? Look at the situation from both sides in A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns, and decide the truth for yourself...

 

 

Hope this helps! As I said, I'm sure our fellows can provide additional guidance to get you from A-Z without breaking the bank.

[sibomots]

 

I just need to figure out a economical plan to go from 2-54, if you catch my drift.

 

[ snip... snip...]

 

Hope this helps! As I said, I'm sure our fellows can provide additional guidance to get you from A-Z without breaking the bank.

 

 

 

I did exactly what you warned about --  To dip my ceramite armor covered toe into the pool of YouTube and found some interesting things.

 

Oculus Imperia (An individual who reviews the history (the records) in an solemn tone and ties up loose ends)

 

Richard Boylan  (made a remarkable video rendition of the Helsreach story, and since I make BT models, and have read this series, I found it to be refreshing way of looking at the setting)

 

If this analogy works, I hope this can explain -- if the HH could be imagined as a 'flip-book', the key-frames so far might provide the reader (me in this case) the ability to understand what is important.  But, as others have pointed out it depends if the HH is treated as a setting or treated as a story.  I'm biased on the setting-aspect in order to make sense of it.    

 

Digging into this even further, there are truly large branches in the tree.  Just the Eisenhorn series alone (Abnet) as an example.   It is as if there is a void to fill -- "The Reader's Guide to HH" (TRGttHH)     I think that type of guide is obtained from asking questions and piecing together the highlights from YT/Blog sites.       

 

When I was in high school, we used these things called "Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature" -- which was a fancy way to say "look up a topic, and here is a list of magazine articles related to it.  They were books.  They were three inches thick. And there were dozens of them along the shelf. This helped to find the articles with data/facts/opinions which may relate to the writing assignment at the time.

 

In the case of HH, I would be interested if GW decided to keep an online Readers Guide to the HH (online because it changes every quarter when a new book is published... no need to use ink and paper for the Guide).

 

One of these days, perhaps an enterprising Brother will come up with this..    Assign a team of 10-20  readers, allocate books to each reader, their goal is to produce the virtual index.  Then, collect the data up, stuff it into MySQL, bolt on some UX interface and voila,  TRGttHH. 

 

I digress.   Thanks again for the comment.

 

-sibomots

Edited February 11, 2022 by sibomots

[jaxom]

The spoiler free cliff notes version of 54 books:

 

Hidden Content

The Horus Heresy was originally presented as a mad dash to Terra once the traitors had revealed their true colors; most of the stories about it focused on the Siege and how specific legions were prevented from getting to Terra. The Black Library series expanded the Heresy into a true galactic-scale all-hands-on-deck civil war. This led to an expansion of the timeline. The traitors had to secure supply lines, reinforce flanks, capture or destroy fortress worlds between them and Terra, etc. This also meant that the legions who originally missed out on the siege, because they couldn't get there in time, needed new narratives explaining why, having roughly seven years to get past whatever hurdles Horus initially set them up with, they did not make it to Terra.

[Karhedron]

Praetorian of Dorn should arguably be slotted into the path to the siege list.

Very truebut if you add that to the "must read" list then you also have to include Legion or you are getting just the 2nd half of the story.

[Knockagh]

Brother Zeal certainly has the best list of ‘essential’ HH books I’ve seen. It’s impossible to create a perfect list. The best you could do is to avoid the novel’s altogether and just read the forge world black books. Although you probably want to read novels! Sadly the black books seem to have dried up. I’ve no idea where FW would take them anyway. The game is bound to be almost dead given the rule changes and I can’t see them reissuing an updated version. But they still have all the best and essential fluff. Sticking to them you could get to the siege with very little pain, but only if they actually finish them… which I admit is looking pretty unlikely in the short to medium term.

[sibomots]

What started out as a query of 'Gee, really?   It takes 54+ books to go from "Horus is bummed out, man" to uh.. whatever we call "Warmaster's are bad idea, mmkay?" '   -- ended up as a thread over reading lists.   Helpful, sure.  (Again, thank you, no doubt. Thank you).   

 

The more I dig into HH and the offshoot threads and branches of the story, it is just as daunting as trying to hypothetically manage the Imperium of Man.   Is this how the Emperor thought?  "Too many sons, too many chances for trouble."   'But think of the book royalties, my Emperor!   Chaos is the gift that keeps on giving!'

 

Ah well.  Time to unwrap some cellophane and see what new plastic there is to build.    I am tempted to look at these Solar Auxilia models, why do they beckon me?   Another thread, Highlander!

[Petitioner's City]

And frustratingly the Solar Auxilia barely are covered in the BL books - although John French (who worked on other black books and was close to the FW team, and playtested the campaign in their introductory book) does make sure to feature copious amounts of Solar Auxlia in one of the later heresy novels, Praetorian of Dorn, a very good novel set in the second half of the heresy. They came "late" in that sense, like volkites and other ideas born from the designers (Edgar Skomorowski designed the minis and the rules & lore as written by Bligh, Hoare and Wyllie in Conquest). Edited February 13, 2022 by Petitioner's City