>>510279096
>Sadly 40k fans are the absolute worst captive audience I've ever seen.
They really are the worst. I don't even like modern 40K at all, but there is a special place in my heart of Sandy Mitchell's Caiphas Cain series and Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts books.

Both series managed to completely capture the true essence of classic 40K from vastly different perspectives. Mitchell takes the Flashman formula George MacDonald Fraser perfected and places it in the setting making one of the funniest series of books I have ever read. Gaunt's Ghosts is basically Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Rifles series in the 40K setting. Both authors are standing on the shoulders of giants, but they pulled off what they were trying so well that it resonates and makes the setting feel real and vibrant.

I highly recommend you check them out. I wouldn't bother with anything else in the Black Library, but those two series capture everything that was good about the setting. Dark, violent, cruel, and capricious but leavened with moments of humanity, stoicism, and braggadocios courage. In particular there is this one Gaunt's Ghost book which is just a collection of short stories. One of the stories contained therein is of the company's sniper sitting alone in his perch waiting for the chance to assassinate a traitor serving the ruinous powers. He had sustained a major head injury earlier in the series and had started to go insane. While he is laying prone in his spot for days waiting for the chance to take his shot he has a complete mental breakdown and envisions an angle who talks him through his psychotic episode and bolsters his spirit. The way it was written is so subtle and, for lack of a better word, gentle that it feels so human and real you begin to suspend disbelief. He becomes actual human and not simply a character