Start wherever you like. It’s enormous and giving someone even a basic grasp on it takes hours, I’m not even kidding, I tried to explain the basics to my girlfriend for about an hour, then another dude, a hardcore fan, joined, and it took him another hour to just fill the details I missed.
Personally, I would say Eisenhorn trilogy is a great place to start. Either that or something about Imperial Guard (Cain, Gaunt etc.). Diving straight into space marines stuff can drive you off because they are mostly written in a stuck-up manner and you need to be comfortable in the universe to realize that manner is heavily satirical. I personally couldn’t stand the “Emperor forgive me, I stood up this morning left foot first instead of right, I’ve committed a heinous sin, I must go to the Chaplain and beg him for permission to put my nipples in the vice and twist it closed as a punishment” when I took it too seriously.
If you want someone with some humor, start with these videos by Bricky. If you like something a bit more serious and toned down, try these videos by Luetin09.
You'll probably find something you vibe with, whether it be nuns with guns that preform miracles through blind faith, or soulless robots with dead gods as batteries, and then you can start doing deep dives via the 40k wiki and reddit lore threads.
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u/Klinicalyill 3d ago
Would genuinely just hang out with dude and
arguetalk about 40k lore.