Welcome to November’s Monthly Roundup here on Track of Words, where I’m taking a quick look back over the last month in terms of what I’ve been posting on ToW, and what I’ve been reading. I’ve posted a review, interview or article every day this month, so hopefully there’s been plenty of interest – but I appreciate it might be tricky to keep track of everything! I’ve been making weekly ‘here’s what you might have missed’ posts over on my Ko-Fi page to help with that, but hopefully this article will be useful too. Of the 30 articles published in November (including this one) a few were covered in last month’s update, but otherwise the remaining 24 are all linked out to below.
I’d love to know what you think, so once you’ve read through the article, do let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see more or less of!
Reviews
Ten reviews this month, of which four were for short stories with the remainder all for novels – including one slightly more informal ‘A Few Thoughts On’ post. I’d be interested to know what you thought of that one, and whether you’d like to see more along the same lines – let me know either way. Click on the links below to read each review.
QUICK REVIEW: Five Candles by Lora Gray – another quietly creepy Warhammer Horror story from Lora Gray, who continues to explore interesting corners of the Mortal Realms. Click here for the review.
Day Zero by James Swallow and Josh Reynolds – two excellent authors team up for a brilliant modern, high-tech thriller. It’s technically a video game tie-in, but I’d say forget about that and just enjoy it for what it is. Click here for the review.
QUICK REVIEW: Duty Unto Death by Marc Collins – a short but sweet Warhammer 40,000 short story, with plenty of Adeptus Custodes action and an interesting allegorical angle too. Click here for the review.
Blood of the Everchosen by Richard Strachan – one of my favourite Age of Sigmar novels so far, offering a characterful and nuanced perspective on life in the Mortal Realms for the mortal followers of Chaos. Click here for the review.
Liberty & Justice For All by Carrie Harris – a fun, pacy X-Men prose novel featuring a couple of younger mutants (and also Sabretooth, who’s awesome) looking for their places in a world which doesn’t understand them. Click here for the review.
A Few Thoughts on From A Certain Point Of View – I absolutely adored this Star Wars short story anthology, and in this slightly different review – much more informal and subjective than usual – I talk a bit about why that is. Click here for the review.
QUICK REVIEW: Judge Dee and the Limits of the Law by Lavie Tidhar – what’s not to like about a short story in which a wise old vampire and his bumbling human assistant investigate an unusual mystery? So much fun. Click here for the review.
The Infinite and the Divine by Robert Rath – an instant Black Library classic, this millennia-spanning tale of two grumpy old (Necron) men and their lingering feud is a total joy from start to finish. Click here for the review.
QUICK REVIEW: Sacrifice by Danie Ware – a short but impactful Sisters of Battle story which sees Sister Augusta and her squad with their backs to the proverbial wall. Click here for the review.
Poison River by Josh Reynolds – a Golden Age detective novel in a fantasy/feudal Japan-inspired setting is a wonderful thing, and proves to be a deeply entertaining and satisfying story. Highly recommended. Click here for the review.
Author interviews
Ten interviews in one month might be a record for me, and I had a lot fun putting all of these together! I tried to get a nice bit of variety across these, so alongside the usual Rapid Fire interviews you’ll also find a couple of Author Spotlights, a longer piece tackling a really important question, and something a bit shorter as part of a cool Track of Words exclusive.
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: Justin Woolley – Justin’s first 40k novella (Prisoners of Waaagh!) was released this month, so I took the opportunity to get to know him a bit as an author, and find out more about the novella. Click here for the interview.
RAPID FIRE: Matthew J. Kirby Talks Geirmund’s Saga – I got the lowdown from the author on his new Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla novel – if you want to know more about this world (or just fancy some Viking action) then this novel should be up your street. Click here for the interview.
RAPID FIRE: D.K. Fields Talk The Stitcher and the Mute – book two in The Tales of Fenest is out now, and I spoke to the two authors who make up D.K Fields to find out more about the series, this novel, and their writing partnership. Click here for the interview.
Danie Ware Talks Sisters of Battle and Women in 40k – with Danie’s third Sister Augusta novella out now, I caught up with her to talk about writing Sisters of Battle, what happens in this instalment of the series, and what the situation is like at the moment for women in 40k. Click here for the interview.
RAPID FIRE: Anna Stephens, Liane Merciel and Jamie Crisalli Talk Covens of Blood – this one is a portmanteau novel comprised of a trio of novellas, so I caught up with all three authors to find out more about their individual novellas, and the overall story behind this book. Click here for the interview.
INTRODUCING: First Team by Robbie MacNiven – I’m delighted to have been able to exclusively announce Robbie’s next book (an X-Men prose novel at that!), and in this article I published the book’s synopsis and had a quick chat with Robbie about it. Click here for the interview.
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: Gary Kloster – another author spotlight, this time finding out more about Gary, his writing and his new Necromunda novella Spark of Revolution. Click here for the interview.
RAPID FIRE: Anna Stephens Talks The Stone Knife – the first book in a new series, The Stone Knife sounds absolutely brilliant…as you’ll see if you check out this interview! Click here for the interview.
RAPID FIRE: Josh Reynolds Talks Poison River – a Golden Age detective story set in the world of Legend of the Five Rings sounds brilliant (in fact it IS brilliant – see my review earlier), and I asked Josh for a bit more detail of what to expect from it. Click here for the interview.
RAPID FIRE: David Annandale Talks The Harrowing of Doom – here’s David talking about his all-time favourite Marvel character, who he’s written about in his latest novel from Aconyte Books. Click here for the interview.
Blog content
I published my first ever guest post on Track of Words this month, which I’m very happy with indeed. I’d love to know if you’d like to see more of these, so do let me know! I also put together a couple of (hopefully) useful 40k-related articles, and kicked off a charity raffle in which you can win a signed copy of a BL short story anthology…
Legacies: The Power of the Past – Matthew Ward Guest Post – Matthew kindly contributed this excellent post as part of the blog tour for his new novel Legacy of Steel, talking about the importance of history and legacies in fantasy fiction. Click here for the article.
From Humble Beginnings: 40k Short Stories That Deserve Their Own Series – there’s a long history of Black Library characters being introduced in short stories before going on to feature in novels and ongoing series, so I put together a few suggestions for recent short stories which I’d love to see developed into their own series. Click here for the article.
Win a Signed Book and Support Mind – For Better Mental Health – given how tough 2020 has been, it’s more important than ever for us all to look after our mental health. I have a signed copy of the Black Library Events Anthology 2019/20 that you can have the chance to win if you donate £5 or more to the mental health charity Mind. Click here for the article.
The Black Library Online Preview – Hopes and Predictions for 2021 – there’s an online preview next weekend for Black Library’s 2021 titles (seeing as there was no Weekender this year), and I’ve put together some predictions for what I think might be revealed, and some hopes for the new year. Click here for the article.
General update
As you can see from all the articles I’ve linked out to, it’s been another busy month for me in terms of Track of Words content. I’ve actually spent a bit less time reading than previous months (which I’ll talk about a bit more later on), but I can’t really complain given that I’ve still managed nine books…at least, that is if you count reading one new novel twice in the same month! More on that shortly. I’ll try to keep this section relatively short, both for my benefit (in writing time) and yours, but I want to quickly touch on a few points, including why I haven’t yet written a review for a book I was SUPER excited to read.
I’ve reviewed almost half of this month’s books already, with another review on my to-do list in the shape of Peter Fehervari’s new Warhammer Horror novel The Reverie. Regular readers will know how much of a Fehervari fan I am, so it’s perhaps not surprising that having finished reading it my next move was to immediately go back and start listening to the audiobook edition (yes, I budgeted for both the paperback and Audible editions!). It’s a book which deserves close attention, and rewards multiple read-throughs – I will definitely put together a proper review soon (I’ve only just finished the audio) but suffice to say it’s another fantastic addition to the Dark Coil…but perhaps not quite the book I expected it to be. That’s in a good way, by the way.
The Reverie notwithstanding, I’ve sorted out reviews for all but one of the other books that I read this month with a view to reviewing (you can find links above to my reviews of Blood of the Everchosen, Liberty & Justice For All, The Infinite and the Divine and Poison River), with just Gareth L. Powell’s novella Downdraught still on my list to review. You’ll notice that two of those are pretty new Black Library novels, and you might be wondering what the BL situation is given that I’ve talked recently about being made redundant and needing to cut down on buying new books (especially hardbacks). I’m very grateful to authors Richard Strachan and Robert Rath for sending me review copies of their novels (both of which I can say with hand on heart that I absolutely loved), two books that I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to get hold of for quite some time. Thanks Richard and Robert!
As usual I chose a couple more books to read purely for fun, and was very pleased with both of them. LJ Ross’ Lindisfarne-set crime thriller Holy Island was just what I wanted, although I hadn’t quite expected the romance angle to be so strong with it (nothing wrong with that, though). As a debut novel, and a self-published one at that, I was very impressed – a lot of work clearly went into it, and I can see myself enjoying more of that series. Meanwhile Jodi Taylor’s A Symphony of Echoes – which I picked up as an Audible daily deal – was a blast of time-travelling historical fun, even if it was surprisingly dark in places. I would probably say that the first book in the series just pipped it ever so slightly, but it was still very good indeed, and audiobook narrator Zara Ramm did an excellent job!
While I’ve very much enjoyed my reading time, I don’t think I’ve quite got my life balance right this month. I’ve been working really hard to have content to publish every day, which has been great…but it’s meant that I’ve often been too busy writing to have as much time to read as I’d like. I’m trying not to put too much pressure on myself, though – it’s become a bit of a Track of Words tradition to post something every day in November and December, but ultimately it’s a self-imposed schedule. So far I’m very much enjoying working on all this content so I don’t mind that my reading has dropped off a little bit, but I can adjust the balance if I need to as next month progresses.
In previous years another tradition has been to review the Black Library Advent series each day, but this year I think it’s going to be a bit different. Firstly, there are only 12 Advent stories rather than the usual 24 – I’m putting this down to Covid messing with BL’s schedule and the authors’ availability, which is fair enough. Secondly, while short stories are individually quite cheap, as a whole the Advent series is still going to be quite a lot of money for stories that will likely be collected together in anthologies in future…so I’m likely to just cherry pick the occasional one to buy and read, rather than getting the whole lot.
That being said, I’m still planning on publishing something – a review, interview or article – every day in December if I can, and fingers crossed I’ll manage it. Do let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see me tackle! I’ve got a few things planned already, including an author interview as part of an upcoming blog tour for a book I can’t wait to read, so hopefully there will be plenty of content to suit everyone’s interests. Alongside all of my Track of Words work, I’ll also be continuing with my job hunt, and preparing for whatever sort of Christmas is going to be possible this year. No real updates on the job front, but I’ll let you know as and when anything changes.
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I think that’s about it for this month. I’d love to hear about what you’ve enjoyed reading or listening to recently, what you think about the interviews and articles I’ve been publishing of late, whether you’ve read and enjoyed any of the books I tackled this month, and whether there’s anything you’d like to see in these roundup articles! Do drop me a line in the comments below, or get in touch on Twitter.
If you’d like to support Track of Words and help me to keep working on new content, you can leave me a tip over on my Ko-Fi page.
