The Alien Beast Within

W40K Fiction at its best

Ian Watson is a expert at using archaic language and disjointed prose to create a fully unique, almost visual description of the dark gothic universe of Warhammer 40k. Many writers hired to produce W40k fiction just write stale 'boltguns and heroic supermen save the day' fiction with various dramatic deaths interspersed throughout and don't contribute anything unique or meaningful to the established story lore. Watson, writing in the early 90s, went all in and subsumed himself in the sparse and abtract Games Workshop background at the time, drawing from historical examples of human history when ignorace and fear controlled the massess, and translated it into a horrific and opressing far off future so alien to modern readers that every lurid description sounds too fantastic to be plausible yet given the context makes perfect sense.

As a bonus, this is the only W40k fiction that actually includes genestealers as characters with dialogue and carrying on conversations with the protagonist. Space Marines and Imperial Guardsmen make up 90% of published W40k books, so a great writer doing something different is a breath of fresh air.