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It may be my imagination, but it seems as though all 40k psykers either
a)die horribly and fail epically, or
b)kick everyone's butt into the next millenium

I've not read all the books, just a few. And all the ones with psykers follow that trend;
Baneblade-IG Psyker possessed by Weirdboy and kills some guard commanders
Wrath of Iron-Librarian goes 1v1 with a DP and seals a Warp rift (then gets his soul eaten or something )
Deathwatch-Librarian kills a Broodlord and manages to infiltrate a Genestealer hive

I'm sure many psykers aren't like that, it's just a trend I've seen start to develop

Well statistically, if you are identified as a psyker in the IoM, you are most likely going to be a snack for the Emperor after a miserable journey on a black ship.

Good point, I was more referring to battle psykers eg Librarians, Primaris Psykers, etc but you're right. Makes the thought of being a Psyker FAR less enticing

It also has to do with what people want from the books (or what GW thinks they want). We don't usually get to see the guys that didn't make it, unless they're there to die just so the hero can seem even more badass. Character? It's character to run around slaying orks with a motorized chainsaw, right? Character development is when you graduate to slaying demons with a much bigger power sword instead.

Psykers are screwed no matter what... They're the best defence against chaos but also like catnip to demons. Bit of a double edged sword

And like stated above they'll probably just end up being eaten by the emperor anyway

Even the best psykers have to constantly be on guard against Chaos and Daemons.

I dunno that astropath in the outcast dead seems to buck the trend. saying that he's prolly one of my fav characters in the hh

I haven't read much hh so I'm glad to see that not all psykers are the same. @Spetulhu you're right I guess, GW only really want one or two kick-ass heroes and so they'll just bump off the rest (which in a psykers case is always pretty spectacular)

Books that include psykers often have them as minor, babbling imbecilic characters who are barely sane, or superbly willed people who don't seem to have any drawbacks for their psychic powers, neither of which, I feel, would necessarily be accurate for the "average" sanctioned psyker. Even among individual authors it's not consistent.

For the majority of authors, Melissia's assessment is quite correct.

For an author who is given a lot of crap by certain members of the community for his biased portrayal of certain factions in 40k, Sandy Mitchell does a pretty good job with the psykers. Most of them, the 'average' ones anyway, are portrayed as slightly creepy, fairly competent people, if somewhat distanced from the main characters. (I am not including the psyker in Inquisitor Vail's retinue in that, obviously. Inquisitorial henchmen are not, and probably shouldn't be, portrayed as 'average.')

If you want something where the psykers are competent but not all powerful, check out the Inquisitor ennealogy (that's a trilogy of trilogies!) by Dan Abnett. In particular, the Ravenor series. Gideon Ravenor, while powerful, frequently gets smacked around by more powerful psykers, more experienced psykers, or psykers that got the drop on him. There's a good deal of fair treatment for the psykers in the other books too, of course.

While they aren't technically psykers, navigators are kind of in the same ballpark. (They're like a subset of psykers, really. A mutant human subspecies that can mentally observe or control the warp. A subspecies that has the same set of powers, consistently handed down from generation to generation. So really, just a stable breed of psyker. Relatively stable, anyway.) And in that regard, Aaron Dembski-Bowden does a good job of showing navigators in a fair light in his Night Lords trilogy. (Dan Abnett, again in the Inquisitor ennealogy, also gives them pretty fair treatment.)

In any event, I hope this helps!

At last, an excuse to buy Eisenhorn/Ravenor/Pariah, I've been debating buying the omnibus' for a while and now I can. Cool word, new one on me I'll have to use it someday.

They are a glass hammer, very vulnerable but can be absolutely awesome at the same time. Just how it is.

Eisenhorn/Ravenor don't really depict psykers very well. It's more like the guy seemed to want to write a Jedi novel but was stuck with 40k. But psykers are decidedly NOT Jedi, and the Warp is sure as hell not the Force.

I mean FFS, the guy introduces a freaking lightsabre for Eisenhorn at one point.

The Sollex-pattern power sword? Well, why not?

I mean, if you can generate a matter-destroying field, which is what makes a Power Weapon nifty, why wrap it around a standard sword? Why not make the matter-destroying energy the business end of the weapon?

I'll give it a read, see if it fits with everything else I read. @Cliesthenes you've hit another nail on the head, they kick ass but they're vulnerable as heck

Yeah there is a 40k light saber equivalent, just that it is of limited usage, as it is powered by a plasma cartridge used as magazines for plasma pistols.

But yeah, Psykers are either borderline crazy (showing it or not) or iron willed that and super powerful that it borderlines on marysue-ism.

Granted I only read a few stories about Psykers (mostly Inquisitors) and it was so chukfull of over the top ridiculousness that I'll never have one of my Inquisitors being a Psyker. They all look like Professor Xavier not giving a f*k about nothing and anyone, all the while capable of everything.

Eisenhorn doesn't seem to have conquered the galaxy or exploded. Yet.

No, but he's still rather mary-sue-ish and ignroes the perils of the Warp entirely. He's basically just a pseudo-jedi, rather than a psyker.

The problem with Eisenhorn's power sword was that when the power field generator was knocked out, he was left without even a blade to fall back on.

Regarding Abnett's treatment of psykers, I don't think I'll ever get bored of the books but I can agree that Eisenhorn and Ravenor are rather casual when it comes to displays of power. I don't mind it for low-level stuff like telepathic chats, but it seems that when it comes to massive outbursts of power the main danger is exhaustion rather than being devoured by the warp.

I think the best psykers would be extremely strong-willed simply by having survived that long with such dangerous powers. However, what I think you'd find is that they'd also be much less likely to fling their power around casually, even Librarians. Lasting more than five minutes as a psyker means they'd recognise their own limits and know that sometimes, they're going to roll a double 1 (figuratively speaking).

Also it means that they realize that sometimes it's better to just whip out the bolt pistol and empty a magazine in someone's face than to zap them with warp-lightning.