It seems like only yesterday that I was writing my first Monthly Highlights post, looking back at the stories that I’d read and listened to in January 2018 – but somehow it’s the very end of 2018 and I’m now looking back to choose my highlights for December! It’s hard to believe that 2019 is so close! I’ve spent a lot of December reading and listening to the various stories released as part of Black Library’s annual Advent Calendar collection, but I’ve talked a lot about those stories elsewhere so I’ve deliberately chosen three different stories for this month’s top picks.
I’m sticking with Black Library, though, and going for one novel and two novellas – between them they cover Age of Sigmar, Blackstone Fortress and Necromunda, so there’s lots of variety! I think that’s one of the things I enjoy so much about reading Black Library fiction; there’s almost always plenty of action and excitement to be had, but there are so many different settings, characters and locations available for authors to write about that there’s pretty much endless variety available. These three stories are certainly very different, even though they share a certain sense of adventure and pace.
In no particular order, I’m going to start with the underhive and Mike Brooks’ excellent Necromunda novella Wanted: Dead, which is the longest Necromunda story released for over a decade! As if that wasn’t enough of an accolade, it’s also (to my knowledge) the first Black Library story of any sort to feature an openly lesbian protagonist – considering that it’s about an Escher gang, I’d say that makes total sense. I sometimes hesitate about putting facts like that front and centre, as I don’t want to suggest that this is a book which is ‘about’ a lesbian relationship – it isn’t, it just features that in a natural, ordinary way – but I think it’s important to point out that while Black Library fiction isn’t necessarily the most inclusive, there are clear signs that this is changing for the better.
Anyway, back to the story…which is fabulous! I wrote in my review (which you can find here) that this is a book about family, and I think that’s what really appeals to me here. There’s all the action, excitement and adventure that you want from a Black Library story, but this isn’t dealing with soldiers who fight because that’s what they do…it’s about ordinary people who fight because that’s what they have to do to survive. There’s loads to enjoy in terms of exploring the underhive as a location, and the plot is great fun and hugely satisfying, but what really makes this work is the way Brooks makes the relationships between the different Escher characters feel absolutely natural, human and relatable. It’s clear that a lot of thought has gone into the characters’ motivations, and the realities of life for them in terms of both living in the underhive and being part of a matriarchal society like House Escher. If you’ve even a passing interest in Necromunda then this is an absolute must read!
Next, let’s go from the underhive to the fringes of the Imperium with Darius Hinks’ novel Blackstone Fortress. This was released to accompany the brand new Warhammer Quest boxed game of the same name, and offers the first real glimpse of what goes on inside the Fortress and what draws adventurers of all types to seek their fortune there. There’s something intrinsically 40k about a Rogue Trader, so Janus Draik makes a perfect protagonist for this story, which is like a classic dungeon-crawl adventure mashed and mangled up with a bonkers exploration of all the weird and wonderful (and dark and creepy and dangerous) creatures and characters who inhabit the shadowy corners of the Imperium. It’s also a companion to the game without being a slavish novelisation of that story, which means Hinks has free reign to take the characters who you can see in the beautiful miniatures and do what he wants with them.
What he wants…is to put them through hell, and tell a story that’s tremendous fun to read. There’s just so much to enjoy here, whether that’s spending time with characters who are cracked and damaged and watching them learn to work together, or exploring the bonkers locations from the wild, (almost) lawless space station known as Precipice to the mind-bending interior of the Fortress itself. It’s one of those rare stories which feels like 40k…but at the same time not like 40k…and pulls that off. It’s rooted in the earliest incarnation of the setting, and by taking place far away from the big battlefields (for the most part) it’s able to dig deep into the weirdness of the setting without feeling like it doesn’t belong. It’s not perfect, sure, but if you enjoy a good bit of swashbuckling AND a decent dose of weirdness then there’s an awful lot to enjoy. You can have a read of my review here.
Last but not least, I’ve picked another novella – this time an Age of Sigmar story: The Red Hours by Evan Dicken. Evan has written a couple of short stories set in the ages before the Age of Sigmar, and as I mentioned in my review of this story it feels like he’s particularly interested in exploring characters and locations at the fringes of the setting rather than writing about the massed ranks of Stormcast Eternals or the machinations of Chaos warlords. To be honest, that’s great for us! There are plenty of books out there dealing with the big stuff, and more than enough room for smaller stories like this which focus on more human, relatable characters chipping away at their lives out in the remote corners of the Mortal Realms.
What Dicken does with this story is throw a disgraced Freeguild soldier into a mixing pot alongside a handful of similarly down at heel characters – a classic mixture of duardin, aelf and human warrior priest – then stir them together, add a pinch of grisly murder, and see what happens. What happens is that trust quickly dissipates leaving the characters to try and find a way to work together and survive the horrible fate that’s coming for them…and what’s not to like about that? It’s a classic setup really, just mixed up with plenty of typically Warhammer elements, and makes for a story that’s fast-paced and compulsive, and deceptively cleverly constructed. It gradually feels more and more like a classic Warhammer story as the plot progresses, and leaves you with that brilliant sense of being ever so slightly unsettled while at the same time having enjoyed every minute. On the basis of this and his other short stories, I can’t wait to see what Evan writes next!
So there we are, my top three picks for December’s Monthly Highlights – in no specific order Wanted: Dead by Mike Brooks, Blackstone Fortress by Darius Hinks, and The Red Hours by Evan Dicken. I read plenty more fantastic stories in December – including all of the Advent Calendar – so do have a look through the latest reviews as well. 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.