Best AoS novels?

[123lac]

I've been reading Spear of Shadows by Josh Reynolds and it's been great so far, but today I learned that ol' Josh isn't writing the second or third books for the originally planned trilogy. This makes me a sad.

Does anyone have any recommendations for what to read next? I've heard Plague Garden is pretty good?

Thank you.

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

I've not read a huge number of the novels yet, but I loved Gloomspite. I'm not even that big a grot fan compared to some other factions, but I got it on a lark, and...it is seriously good. Also, creepy as hell. Moonclan Grots are now some of the most fearsome entities in the AoS setting for me.

[DarkWingDuck]

YMMV, but I really liked Gloomspite, Plague Garden, anything with Gotrek, Hallowed Knights: Black Pyramid.

I also liked the Callis and Toll and Shev Arcalis stories (so City of Secrets, Silver Shard, Thieves Paradise (Novella)). 

[Overread]

Depends a bit; one great thing about the AoS lore is that GW hasn't slaved themselves to a single faction so if there's a faction you want to read about there's likely a short story or two and perhaps a novel about them. Though I'd encourage you to get short stories in collected editions for the best value per purchase. 

 

As for what to read next its hard to say. I greatly enjoyed Pestilens by Josh Reynolds (get it as part of the Legends 1 Omnibus). I'd also strongly recommend the first novella collection for AoS, there are some great stories in there like WarQueen and Heart of Winter. You can also get the Gotrek audiobooks Realmslayer and Realmslayer Blood of the Old World before jumping into the book Ghoulslayer. There is a transcript version of Realmslayer which is a very fine book in its own right, but best as an accompaniment to the audio (where you get the mighty Brian Blessed as Gotrek) 

[Kalebkhaine]

Read all the Hamilcar short stories and the book. In my opinion they are the best aos fiction.

I also really like all of the hallowed knights saga. Mortarch of Night, plague Garden, and Black Pyramid.

And the Nefferata books are really good too.

[Greyshadow]

City of Secrets is by far my favourite. Shout out to Fury of Gork (love this one!), Spear of Shadows (great) and The Silver Shard (absolute cracker).

Edited May 5, 2020 by Greyshadow

[Khaedhras]

As @Overread mentioned, Pestilens is a very good one. It caught me from beginning to end. I also greatly enjoyed The Court of the Blind King. While it follows an Idoneth character, it explores several scenarios in the realms and the overall tone and ambience is very distinct from that of other novellas and books.

[Greyshadow]

I struggled with Pestilens - just couldn't finish it, didn't grab me.

[Kramer]

11 hours ago, 123lac said:

I've been reading Spear of Shadows by Josh Reynolds and it's been great so far, but today I learned that ol' Josh isn't writing the second or third books for the originally planned trilogy. This makes me a sad.

Does anyone have any recommendations for what to read next? I've heard Plague Garden is pretty good?

Thank you.

Plague garden is fun indeed. Some random top of mind suggestions. 

Soul wars - helps with the bigger picture as well. How the world changes. But also how the reclaming of the realms goes and how the races work together. 

Gotrek series - I liked him in the old world, still great fun in the new. 

Cities of secrets - great bridge between the micro and macro drama in the realms. Great characters with follow up stories. Which are definitely worth it as well.

Profits run - I love the KO. And this is it's best book. But may read the Iron dragon (I think that's what it was called) first. 

Thieves Paradise - Like indiana jones? Like Lara Croft? Like cats? This is the book for you. Great adventure book. It's also a follow up to a great book. But can't remember the name of it. Start there though. 

Gloomspite - First of it isn't what you think it is. But you'll be scared of fungus for weeks.

Scourge of Fate - Always felt like you could totally be vanguard knight? 

Heart of Winter - Pirates on Pirate fighting action. Great character which makes frequent appearances as well 

Hope this helps. 

[Beastmaster]

Currently waiting for Court of the Blind King to reappear in print. Tried the audiobook, but apparently my English is not good enough to follow the weird speech patterns the speaker gives the characters and recognize the Idoneth-specific words while driving my car 😢

[Chikout]

City of secrets by Nick North  is good and the sequel is better. There are two novellas and a couple of shorts stories all set in the same part of the the mortal realms. 

I would also recommend anything by Evan Dicken. He has a really interesting take on chaos. 

[Charleston]

I have only read Warqueen so far but have to say that I really enjoyed the book! It was a nice read that really dragged me into the story giving quite a nice view on the rather "unspoiled" followers of Chaos

[Gorthor21]

Anything by Josh Reynolds is good.  For me his stories really sold me on the stormcasts as protagonists with Gardus.  Like many have said city of secrets, Gloomspite, any of the chaos short story anthologies, the sylvaneth anthology, the eight lamentations are really cool how he ties his characters together with especially the 99 CRow guys.  My favorite stories are the early ones that establish how the setting works and introduces the stormcasts during the first few years of the game.  Please just catch up on your Hamilcar and you will see they arnt all Uriel Ventris riding a dragon.

[Fellman]

Warbeast is great if you want to know more of stormacast and wath a stormcast berzerker look like

[RandyRyan]

Spear of Shadows is my favourite AoS novel so far. I am a big fan of Dark Harvest and Black Pyramid also by Josh Reynolds, and Warbeast by Gav Thorpe is the book that made me give AoS a chance when I was a bit annoyed about Fantasy being killed off.

[Greyshadow]

I gave Warbeast a go for me under similar circumstances to @RandyRyan but it just didn't grab me and I couldn't finish it. Really early Age of Sigmar was still finding its stride so maybe Warbeast is not that good for new readers?

[LoopyZebra]

My favorite series would be anything with the Hallowed Knights, especially the Steel Souls. There's a few Realmgate Wars books, as well as Plague Garden and Black Pyramid. Although each story stands alone, I'd recommend going reading from their early adventures in the Realmgate Wars.

Favorite standalone novel would be Shadespire. 

Honorable mention for Warcry anthology.

Warbeast is a popular recommendation. I liked it but did not love it. 

[mikethefish]

Oh yeah, Shadespire is by far the best AoS novel I've read.

[123lac]

Thanks to the recommendations in this thread I've started on Plague Garden.

It's by the same author as Spear of Shadows so I'm sure it'll be good...but I must admit I find Stormcast to be a bit on the dull side.

Might try the Idoneth book after this one, or maybe Gloomspite as quite a few people have been recommending that.

Edited May 12, 2020 by 123lac

[Greyshadow]

I found the Stormcast really engaging in Fury of Gork and Soul Wars. I know I am mentioning a lot of Josh Reynolds but I have been a fan of his stuff since Spear of Shadows and that has led me to seek out more of his books.

[michu]

29 minutes ago, Greyshadow said:

I found the Stormcast really engaging in Fury of Gork 

Zephacleas Beast-Bane and his duel with orruk were the best.

[Baron Klatz]

On 5/4/2020 at 2:37 PM, 123lac said:

but today I learned that ol' Josh isn't writing the second or third books for the originally planned trilogy.

Note that he still did a continuation of that with the War Claw audio drama which is quite good:

https://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/eight-lamentations-war-claw-mp3.html

(I also like to listen to the extract for Grungni's chant, it's really catchy. They should remix that)

On 5/5/2020 at 7:08 AM, Gorthor21 said:

My favorite stories are the early ones that establish how the setting works and introduces the stormcasts during the first few years of the game.

Same.

My favorites are "Warstorm" which is a nice slice of several good action stories that expand on the Stormcasts and the state of the realms during the Age of Chaos (like at one point the Stormcasts feeling sorrow for the chaos knights they had to fight because many were regular people pushed into service to protect their families from their chaos overlords) and "Hammers of Sigmar" which looks like a by the numbers Stormcast vs Khorne story on the surface but goes pretty deep between showing how inexperienced the Stormcasts were at the time, ground view from a mortal priestess who has to witness the horrors her people are put through as the lands are nightmarishly twisted(a little spilt blood is all it took for Aqshyian manticores to swarm you like sharks) and even jumps over to Shyish and undead elements with one ex-vampire knight (he starved to "death" and became a wight of sorts while doing a guerilla war against chaos with his teleporting castle)who acts like a wide-eyed/socket Stormcast fanboy when he hears tales about them giving hope to the realms and wanting to fight alongside them.

I'd say definitely worth a read.

[Gorthor21]

@Baron Klatz I completely agree.  Reading the newer stories is cool especially when it opens up new perspectives like the court of the blind king.   I know a lot of people want to say they are like space marines but they deal with more metaphysical topics like life and death and the nature of dreams and memories from a mystic outlook.  Like 2+tough said it’s really all about the nature of self and the primary motif of identity that really makes stormcasts something else entirely.  I think they did a good job with it as an aside from the perspective of mortal beings but in all honesty it feels like they are still trying to cling onto what little humanity they have left like some space marines but in a far more relatable.  
 

Also they get major points for being einherjar from Norse mythology with Sigmar being Odin.  Really that and the way they described them fighting was really cool all working in cohesion.

[Chikout]

I'll just stick this in here too as it bears repeating. This week's 99p audiobook/ebook is Callis and Toll: the silver shard. It is the sequel to city of secrets and a much better book in my opinion. It is probably my second favourite AOS novel after Spear of Shadows. 

[Baron Klatz]

45 minutes ago, Gorthor21 said:

@Baron Klatz I completely agree.  Reading the newer stories is cool especially when it opens up new perspectives like the court of the blind king.   I know a lot of people want to say they are like space marines but they deal with more metaphysical topics like life and death and the nature of dreams and memories from a mystic outlook.  Like 2+tough said it’s really all about the nature of self and the primary motif of identity that really makes stormcasts something else entirely.  I think they did a good job with it as an aside from the perspective of mortal beings but in all honesty it feels like they are still trying to cling onto what little humanity they have left like some space marines but in a far more relatable.  
 

Also they get major points for being einherjar from Norse mythology with Sigmar being Odin.  Really that and the way they described them fighting was really cool all working in cohesion.

Indeed.  

Really they're chaos knights of order, still human but magically enhanced so they have divine gifts to oppose their gods enemies (and indeed Order is so strong in them that their lightning blood can fight chaos corruption that touches their bodies, the Hallowed Knights are especially known for this so they can increase their resistance) but still have emotions of fear, doubt, sorrow and love/romance so they can take spouses. And a big plus is they're huge on diversity and want to bring even greenskins and undead into their alliance.

Also a interesting twist on their cost in humanity is it manifests in different ways. Some can become colder and emotionless to better serve as powers of pure Order, some can become literal shells as lightning golems but gain vast power they desired to achieve their goal but other paladins like in "Sacrosanct and Other Stories"(big recommend read here) can suffer by losing their memories and sense of self so they're a completely different person even though they remain charismatic, caring and full of human emotion after countless reforgings. The reforging instead pushing forth what it needs from them in other areas. Sometimes a pure warrior, a force of nature or a compassionate scholar.

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Baron Klatz