Got into 40K last month and jumped right into Horus Heresy series using that handy reading order chart, wanted to get to Thousand Sons as fast as possible so I could learn about my army and read about the nothing Magnus allegedly did wrong.
Loken’s books were all a solid good time. A bit rushed feeling, book 2 stood out as a drop in quality. Horus felt less like a centuries old wizened war god amongst men and more like big dingus to make the plot happen, as if it couldn’t happen with a character who uses his brain. Book 3 and Eisenstein came back to the fun time.
Thousand Sons though is painfully bad. I’ve powered 60% through, normally I put down a book at 25% if I’m not feeling it and I reeeeaaaally wasn’t feeling it. Have to get through it for the dudes though. I don’t know the nothing he did wrong yet, but I’ll say he and his sons are definitely guilty of being the dumbest and most annoying self proclaimed “geniuses” in the galaxy. Not expecting Hugo Award level quality from this series, but a little effort would be nice.
So the question: which series among the heresy are the best and which are to avoid? Should I bother continuing 1K sons in hopes it improves, or switch to some other dudes?
I would just not continue the Horus Heresy series, it has some gems but your time is probably better spent on non-Black Library series, or at least other 40k series. The only two I’d endorse of what I’ve read are Betrayer and Prospero Burns, though you may not be a fan of the latter since it’s Space Wolves focused, and Leman Russ is probably one of the least consistently written primarchs throughout the heresy even though he’s decent in that book. If you do continue then I’ll at least pass on the advice I’ve heard to avoid any Salamanders or Vulkan focused novels because they’re supposed to be extremely poor.