Oh cool, thanks! I've been looking for decently-written stories in the universe. Unfortunately the over-the-top nature of, well, everything makes it tough. There's only but so many superlatives you can use in a paragraph before things start sounding really stilted.
Gotcha, and thanks for the suggestions. I started the first book in Abnett's take on the Heresy (Horus Rising), and while it wasn't bad, it was still super repetitive without any interesting characters. I can appreciate that he was trying to show Horus's fall as a more gradual thing (rather than him just waking up one day and deciding to be the Devil), but again it just felt like it went in circles too much. At the end of the day, I'd say I actually find the Space Marines to be about the least interesting characters in the universe. I really enjoy the Imperial Navy, but the only book I could find (some pirate ebook someplace) was pretty meh. I'm also fascinated by some of the Space Marine-adjacent groups, such as the Arbites. I also think Navigators are super cool, and could make for a good story source in themselves (if anyone has done so).