Oh yes, Ciaphas Cain is a barrel of laughs. OP, the first six novels of the series are also available in 2 omnibus editions. If (weirdly enough) you ever wanted to read the self-aware memoirs of a shifty, lazy coward who unwittingly and unwillingly bumbled his way to the position of a universally praised hero of the Imperium, then Ciaphas Cain is for you!rcs619 said:The Ciaphas Cain series is also a lot of fun. It's actually a comedy series that treats the 40k setting like the silly thing it inherently is.
Basically, the general rule with 40k novels is to avoid the ones that are actually about space marines (which I think is the majority of 40k literature at this point). Space marines can be fine as supporting characters in other books, but as main characters, there's just not a lot of ways to make them interesting. They're just big dumb guys who live to beat aliens/demons/heretics over the head while yelling about how holy they are
And regarding Space Marines, I agree in part - some of those stories really are boring. It often depends on the author and if they manage to flesh out their characters beyond archetypes, which is why I tend to favour marines from the traitor legions. Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Night Lords trilogy is, in my humblest opinion, an unequivocal masterpiece from start to finish. ^^
