April is upon us, and we’re more than a quarter of the way through 2018 already! Once again I’m taking a look back through the last month’s worth of books, short stories and audio dramas to pull together my highlights for March; choosing a favourite story out of the eighteen that I reviewed in March was tricky, but I’ve just about managed it. As with the last couple of Monthly Highlights posts I’ve chosen a single story as the main highlight, plus a couple more for notable mentions.
For my top pick in March I’ve gone for a novel that I had been looking forward to for a long time – Lukas the Trickster by Josh Reynolds. Ever since listening to the hilarious audio drama The Art of Provocation I had been keen to see Josh tackle the character of Lukas once more, which he did first with the short story A Trick of the Light but has now done in brilliant style with this new novel. You can have a read of my review here, or if you’d like to hear from Josh then check out my Rapid Fire interview about this book.
If you’re not already familiar, Lukas is a Space Wolf character who first appeared in a Codex many moons ago but hasn’t (until now) really had much attention in terms of Black Library stories. That’s probably because unlike Ragnar Blackmane or Logan Grimnar, he’s not exactly your usual Space Wolf – otherwise known as the Jackalwolf or the Strifeson, he’s at once an absolute asset to the Chapter, and also a complete pain in the neck for the Wolf Lords to deal with, considering his penchant for practical jokes and abject lack of respect for authority. These are traits that you don’t often see in Space Marines, or arguably in 40k fiction at all, but they feel very much at home in Josh Reynolds’ style of writing and make for a book that’s a little different to most that you might read.
That’s not to say that this is an outright comedic book, because – unlike The Art of Provocation, which is hysterically funny – it very much isn’t. There’s humour aplenty, but don’t go into this expecting it to be funny in the vein of Ciaphas Cain, for example. If you’re familiar with Reynolds’ style, however, you’ll immediately recognise the thread of black humour running through this, as it’s present in pretty much everything Josh writes…it’s just a bit more prominent here. It helps that Lukas is inordinately cheeky, and he makes for a hugely entertaining protagonist to read about, whether he’s laughing his way through battle, imparting some of his hard-earned wisdom to his younger Blood Claw brothers, or winding up one of the Wolf Lords with another prank.
Lukas isn’t the only character to impart some humour to the story either, with the main antagonist being a perpetually-bored Dark Eldar corsair named Duke Sliscus. If you’re familiar with Lukas’ backstory then you’ll know that Sliscus has a big part to play in one of the great stories surrounding Lukas, but thankfully he’s not just a generic enemy there to provide someone for the protagonist to fight. Instead he’s beautifully fleshed-out, constantly battling his own crushing sense of ennui as he casually manipulates his fellow Dark Eldar, and he proves to be a thoroughly entertaining character in his own right who nicely complements Lukas and very much holds his own.
So, then – it’s a book filled with black humour but not necessarily what you’d call a ‘funny’ 40k story, and it’s populated with characters who maybe don’t quite fit the standard template for 40k. It’s also an intriguing exploration of the Space Wolves through the eyes of a character who sees the Chapter as both an insider and an outsider at the same time. There’s a lot here which builds upon recent depictions of the Wolves, and will be very familiar to anyone who’s used to reading stories about them, but it’s a slightly different perspective which feels like a valid viewpoint which you can choose to agree with or not depending on your own opinions. There’s an awful lot to enjoy here, and I can certainly say that I wasn’t disappointed after waiting to read this for so long!
As usual I’d like to pick a couple more stories to mention as well, which I particularly enjoyed this month. First up is Knightsblade by Andy Clark, the sequel to Kingsblade in the tremendously enjoyable Imperial Knights series. I absolutely loved Kingsblade, and had high hopes for the sequel…which very much lived up to expectations. If you haven’t yet read any of Andy’s books then you might want to have a read of my Spotlight on Andy Clark article, but essentially what you get with his writing is stories which are just really, really good fun – and when those stories feature massive armoured Knights duking it out with ridiculous weapons, falling from the sky in drop-keeps (yep…drop pod castles) and generally kicking ass…you know they’re going to be good. This one felt like a logical next step for the characters after the first in the series, and also a satisfying development in Andy’s writing – it’s definitely worth checking out. You can have a read of my review here.
Last but not least I want to mention Mercy by Danie Ware, a new Sisters of Battle short story that’s Danie’s debut Black Library story. You can check out my review here to read a bit more about what I thought, but the gist of it is this – Sisters of Battle, or Adepta Sororitas, are fundamentally awesome. What’s not to like about heavily armed and armoured nuns kicking ass and taking names? Well…the problem is that (in my opinion) they’re often portrayed quite poorly, and come across as easily disposed-of cannon fodder or one-dimensional cutouts. Thankfully, in Mercy they’re portrayed as brutally efficient and entirely kickass, but at the same time almost worryingly fervent in their beliefs. There’s a moment towards the end which is SUPER dark, but brilliantly appropriate. It’s a real action-packed story that doesn’t go too heavy on the real character development, but when it’s such a good depiction that isn’t really a problem. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of the Adepta Sororitas from Danie Ware in due course.
So that’s it, my Monthly Highlights for March – Lukas the Trickster as my top pic, as well as honourable mentions for Knightsblade and Mercy. I’d love to know what you thought of these stories if you’ve read any of them, so let me know in the comments below or on Facebook or Twitter. I’ll write another one of these posts at the start of May, looking back at what I’ve read and reviewed in April!