Author Archives: Michael

Monthly Highlights – August 2018

September is upon us, and it’s officially – technically – Autumn, so it’s time for me to take a look back at the stories I’ve read and reviewed in August and pick out a few highlights. Whether Autumn is really upon us or not, last month brought with it Black Library’s annual Summer of Reading campaign, and I’ve picked out two of the short stories from that campaign as my honourable mentions for August. It wasn’t hard to pick an overall highlight, however, even if I did cheat a little bit and consolidate three stories into one for that choice.

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Ravenor – Dan Abnett

The first book in Dan Abnett’s second Inquisition trilogy, Ravenor is another stone-cold Black Library classic, a smart and hugely enjoyable story in its own right but also a neat continuation of characters familiar to anyone who’s read the Eisenhorn trilogy. Set some time after his reappearance towards the end of Hereticus, it sees Gideon Ravenor – now a full inquisitor in his own right – and his entourage on Eustis Majoris, investigating the illicit trade of a strange narcotic. As they unravel the mystery of what this drug is and where it comes from, the scale of what’s really happening is revealed to be bigger than they could have possibly expected.

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Black Library Weekly – W/C 27/08/18

Hello and welcome to the latest instalment of Black Library Weekly, my regular look at what’s been happening in the world of Black Library. After last week’s Summer of Reading campaign things have returned to normal with a handful of releases and just a snifter of news during the week, although with tickets going on sale for the 2018 Weekender there’s lots to look forward to!

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RAPID FIRE: Sandy Mitchell Talks Choose Your Enemies

Welcome to this instalment of Rapid Fire, my ongoing series of quick interviews with Black Library authors talking about their new releases. These are short and sweet interviews, with the idea being that each author will answer (more or less) the same questions – by the end of each interview I hope you will have a good idea of what the new book (or audio drama) is about, what inspired it and why you might want to read or listen to it.

In this instalment I’m delighted to have spoken with legendary Black Library author Sandy Mitchell about his latest 40k novel Choose Your Enemies, and the long-awaited return of Ciaphas Cain. It’s available to order right now, but before you do that here are the questions and Sandy’s answers…

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I Miss the Days When Special Editions Were Special

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about how much money I’m spending on books, a line of thought which inevitably arrives at one of my biggest expenses over the last few years – special edition Black Library books (variously called Special Edition, Limited Edition, First Edition…). I’ve been planning to blog about special editions for a while now, but I’ve been finding it tricky to work out how to get my thoughts down into sensibly and thoroughly, so what I’m going to do in this post is take a look at just one issue that’s been bugging me for a while – the fact that special editions don’t really feel special any more. I might wright up some wider thoughts at some point, but for the time being I’m going to try and stick to this one point.

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Black Library Summer of Reading 2018 – Roundup

Black Library’s Summer of Reading campaign is a regular fixture on the calendar, a week full of brand new short stories released one a day. Now that this year’s campaign is over, and I’ve published my reviews for all seven short stories, I thought I would take a quick look back at the whole thing, and provide a single place to look for reviews and links for all of the stories. If this is the first you’ve seen about the Summer of Reading, don’t be put off by the distinctly not-very-Warhammer header image – it’s a bit bright and happy for Black Library, but that doesn’t reflect the tone of the stories!

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QUICK REVIEW: Prologue to Nikaea – David Annandale

As you can probably tell from the rather ominous cover, David Annandale’s Horus Heresy short story Prologue to Nikaea focuses on Malcador the Sigillite, the perils of the warp, and psykers…lots of psykers. Set during the Great Crusade, it sees Malcador searching for the origin of a great storm in the immaterium, desperate to understand what it portends and whether its influence stretches to the physical plane as well. What he finds, on a world recently wracked by rebellion, promises to haunt him for long years to come and have a profound impact on the future of the Imperium.

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QUICK REVIEW: Lightning Run – Peter McLean

Peter McLean’s second Black Library short story, Lightning Run is an Imperial Navy (Aeronautica Imperialis in modern parlance) story which, while not quite as grim as Baphomet by Night, is still a powerful demonstration of the bleak realities of 40k life. On the corrupted world of Elijan III, Flight Officer Salvatoria Grant finds herself tasked with a mission vital to the flagging war effort. Piloting her Valkyrie towards a distant Imperial base and a faint glimmer of hope, she trusts to her own skills and her faith in the Emperor to see her through to survival and Imperial victory.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Learning – David Guymer

David Guymer’s second Idoneth Deepkin story, The Learning takes a look at the cold, pitiless way in which their nature forces them to behave. Born with a rare pure soul, Ubraich is removed from his family at an early age and taught to manipulate powerful magic to hunt down the monsters of the deep ocean. The work of an embailor offers great prestige within idoneth society, but it’s difficult and dangerous work. Aiding his master in the breaking of a particularly stubborn beast, Ubraich learns an important lesson in how to survive and thrive, but will it come back to haunt him?

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Black Library Weekly – W/C 20/08/18

Hello and welcome to the latest instalment of Black Library Weekly, my regular look at what’s been happening in the world of Black Library. This week has been a little unusual in that there’s been very little in the way of BL-related news, but instead there’s been a load of new releases with the latest ‘Summer of Reading’ campaign. Let’s get straight into that, shall we?

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