PARCHMENT

Hello gamers, welcome to another post here on Games Knight with me Ciaran. Something a little different this week on Games Knight as I start what will be an on-going feature on Games Knight by me. Parchment will be a review of sci-fi, fantasy novels and Black Library publications that are in my vast library. In this first instalment I will run you through what I mainly read and some of my favourite reads.

The Horus Heresy.

As far a sweeping space opera’s go The Hours Heresy saga by The Black Library ticks all the boxes for me. What I like most about The Hours Heresy series is that although this is a story all die hard 40k fans know we still learn more about the events of the Heresy and the long road that led to the final battle at the Imperial palace.  Good story arcs are explored and nicely linked though short story collections and tie in nicely with either previous novels or future releases. This coupled with the amazing pool of writers the Horus heresy has on board in Dan Abnett, Graham McNeil, Ben Counter and James Swallows, just to mention a few means that the quality of the series is always of a high standard.  Stand out titles from this series so far for me have been ‘Fulgrim’ by Graham McNeil, ‘Legion’ by Dan Abnett, ‘Battle for the Abyss’ by Ben Counter, ‘Prospero Burns’ by Dan Abnett and more recently ‘Angel Exterminatus’ by Graham McNeil.

Star Wars.

As I am sure all regular viewers are aware by now I am a massive Star Wars fan so it will come as no surprise that I read the novels. The Star Wars novels are a vast collection so I just pick the titles that stand out to me and read them that way as opposed to trying to read them in order. The expanded Stars universe was created by the novels written after the original trilogy and has continued to do so till this day. I loved the Republic Commando series by Karen Traviss and was also a big fan of Joe Schreiber’s horror shows in both ‘Death Troopers’ and ‘Red Harvest’. I was also very impressed with ‘Scourge’ by Jeff Grubb which had a very good cast of characters in the story.

Halo.

I was and still am a massive Halo fan. The games totally blew me away with their cinematic narrative and left me craving to explore the halo universe which Eric Nylund in particular has done a fantastic job in bringing to life.  The ‘hard sci-fi’ element is used well in these novels as well when describing human tech and their expansion into space which sits nicely next to the back story of the Spartan Project. It is also fascinating to see writers delving into the world of The Covenant and exploring its hierarchy and social interactions between the different alien races that make up The Covenant.

Black Library Publications.

Being a massive 40k fan and a fan of narrative and storytelling, the Black Library enables me to explore the rich back story of the 40k Universe. Along with The Horus Heresy I have many 40k novels which help inspire me when painting models, writing campaigns and designing missions. This brings me to the reason why I am writing this article. We all got into war gaming because of things that captured our imagination when we were young. For me that was Star Wars, Star Trek and Marvel Super Heroes. Today, it’s the books I read that inspire me to do things with my hobby and keeps me keen for it as if I was still a 8 year old playing Hero Quest for the very first time.

On the next instalment of Parchment I will be reviewing ‘Reality 36’ by Guy Haley. Until then happy gaming and maybe happy reading too! Till next time.