Having recently finished my 1,5 journey through the fantasy world of Malazan it was time to dive into something new and entirely different. Having taken an interest in the universe of Warhammer 40,000 through video games lately I've known for a long time that the next few books I would read would be from this universe. One week later I've finished my first book; Xenos.
What is Xenos?
Xenos is the first book in a series set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. It follows the adventures and life of Gregor Eisenhorn, an inquisitor whose main task is to protect the empire of man from alien corruption and heresy. An inquisitor is basically a secret police that hunts down criminals of a specific nature and are authorized to do this by, close to, all means necessary.
The book is written by Dan Abnett and has been praised as a great starting point for those who want to get into the universe of Warhammer 40,000 by the way of books. What I learned beforehand is that the series is considered light reading among the several hundreds of other books set in the same universe. It doesn't use a lot of the deep terminology that a lot of other books in the universe does. The lore of Warhammer 40,000 is deep, vast and contains a lot of alien nouns.
A weeklong, joyful read
Having spent close to 18 months on the last series I read where it would take several days for my Kindle to increase the %-completion by even one point it was somehow freeing to read a book where I managed to get through 7-10%% in a single day. I mostly read on my commute to and from work and on bed before I go to sleep, totaling roughly 50-80 minutes a day. I started this book on a Friday night and finished it early Monday morning a little over a week later.
Xenos was a joyful read all the way through. I mentioned further up that the lore of Warhammer 40,000 contains a lot of alien nouns and terminology. I was afraid that I would have to stop and check a wiki for a lot of these throughout the book, but Abnett does a good job of explaining the deeper terminology or writing about them in a way that you get a rough idea about what they mean.
The book reads like a mixture of crime novel and an action hero novel with just a sprinkle of politics and mystery. The pacing was very well done and the overall writing style made me glued to every page and sentence. There were very few points throughout the book where my mind drifted away to think about other things which is always a good sign.
There's three more books in the series about Gregor Eisenhorn and I'm definitely finishing those. I've also learned through my research for this post that there's several trilogies also written by Dan Abnett about characters we meet in the books about Eisenhorn. I might be looking into those later.
I'm definitely not going to read all the 400+ books set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe but I will definitely be doing more research into the universe to see which novels might interest me. If anyone has any recommendations then please drop them down in the comments.
All images in this post are from the Lexicanum pake (wiki) for Xenos.
I absolutely love the lore of 40k, but yeah it can be insanely overwhelming when trying to figure out where to start. A few months back I read some of the more recent comics based on a few characters; I would jump into the books but they're next to impossible for me to find with the travelling I'm doing.
I do know that Warhammer+ is a thing and I think they have digital versions of it all for a little monthly fee. No idea if it's available to you where you are though.
I don't read physical books so I don't have to worry about procurement. Everything is always available everywhere on my Kindle. I will check out the Warhammer+ thing though to see if it has other interesting stuff. Cheers!
Dan Abnett is an amazing author! I am busy reading Horus Rising, the first book of the Horus Heresy series. The series is co-written by many Black Library authors but this one is his.
I have not yet had a chance to read Eisenhorn yet. Despite being involved in the universe for 20 years ans being a bit of a lore-fundi, I have not read them all!
I'm really liking his style. I will definitely be checking out more from him after finishing with Eisenhorn. I have been looking at Horus Rising as well but I think I'll try to learn some more about 40k befire diving into the 30k stuff.
Haha! Indeed.
And take your time. Like I say, there is so much, that's why they could start a whole publishing company to do all their books. Dan Abnett is great and there are many other great authors for 40k books.
I did a whole whack of lore posts on Hive at one stage. I play the tabletop so I do reviews in the datasheets/Armies/Detachments. I also post Battle Reports and posts about building and painting the miniatures.
My main army is the Space Wolves. 😁🐺
Lemme just boop this here so I can come back to it. My fiance says his favorite books in the Warhammer 40k Universe were Gaunt's Ghosts. May look into this?
Also took a peak at your stuff holy crap I followed you on Twitch and would love to see what you have instore for the other things you read. I'm currently painting warhammer figures with my fiance. Sisters of Battle make me so happy.
Big hugs to you thank you for covering this I have a TBR list 40k miles long faint
I've heard about Gaunt's Ghosts but haven't looked into them yet. I'm gonna have to go baby steps into this universe I think. I've never had any connection to WH40K before playing some of the video games lately. I hope I won't be bitten by the miniature virus...
Also thanks for the Twitch follow! My activity there is very on and off but I do appreciate it still.
Welcome to Hive 😄
Thank you very much! I've been really enjoying reading everyones posts! I'm looking into a DnD campaign to play here soon got invited too bad they aren't streaming this one but really excited to do it!
The writer did a good job in explaining the terminologies to the understanding of the people who read, and, it's very alright to have an inquisitor that protect a place.
Sounds like Xenos was the perfect bridge: straight action without losing depth. Does Abnett manage to maintain that balance between crime and sci-fi in the following books? 🚀 You tempted me with the accessible mythology thing? Would you recommend starting with Eisenhorn or is there another trilogy better for getting hooked on Warhammer?
Well as I say in the post this is my first foray into the books of Warhammer 40K so I can't really recommend any other trilogies or books.