Well if you want some good books to read I would recommend the Horus Heresy novels. They are episodic and introduce the lore and characters one book at a time. There are even some GREAT audio books out there I can recommend. Heart of Rage, Ravens Flight, The Dark King/Lighting Tower, Butcher's Nails, and Chosen of Khorne. I realize there are A LOT of lore details for every faction. Just don't let it frighten you or destroy your interest. Just take your time and enjoy the ride. OR better yet, if you have STEAM you can get the game Dawn of War. It was what introduced me into the lore.
I was about to mention the space wolf books too.. Not only as that was what got me into the hobby. But that it explains some of the deeper things of Marines. Most notably the transformation from human to Astartes. Oh and if you are gonna read some more and wish to know the deeper background. I suggest the Horus Heresy series. Start with the first three (Horus Rising. False Gods. Galaxy in flames) and go from there . The easy thing about the HH series is that it is really easy to go from book to book. Though some things will become more clear if you read them all.. xD
Woah! Thanks a lot fellow brothers, you are a helpful bunch! <3 I never completed Dawn of War 1, maybe I should grab that too. (Yup, do have Steam account!)
The Horus Heresy and Space Wolf series are my choice for books because in my experience there are a lot of bad 40k novels both in terms of writing quality and lore cohesion which will only confuse you. There's not a lot you can't learn from skimming the wikis anyway. PS Death to the False Emperor
Glad we could help ya out man. Yeah enjoy the Dawn of War 1 games and it's expansions. I think you'll really enjoy Dark Crusade, as it plays out seven factions and their story arch through the campaign.
I can easily say that two good series to start with is eighter Ciaphas Cain (There are currently two omnibusi you can start out with) if you're into a bit of comedy in the grimdark future. It also got some "editorial notes" which explains some terms in them. Eisenhorn is a good series that was followed by Ravenor and now by the Pariah book, it goes into a lot of things but might be a bit overwhelming as the first read, but overall one very good book that shows a lot. I've heard Gaunts ghosts is good in a Band of Brothers-type of way but i cannot confirm as i have yet to read them.
I'm not much of a book reader, to be honest I found out most of the Lore from the 40K wiki, my Chaos Space Marine Codex, and all the Dawn of War/Dawn of War 2 PC games, oh and also talk with the group I play tabletop 40K with every week about Lore, so imo knowledge of 40K doesn't always have to come from books , no offense to anybody suggesting books though, just saying.
