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. We’re now in the first full week of April, if you can believe it, which means another month’s worth of new releases (although there’s more than usual to talk about in relation to that) along with the usual cool new stuff this week. Let’s have a look at what happened…
The very first Space Marine Battles novel, published back in 2010, Steve Parker’s Rynn’s World kicked the series off in style with an action-packed story of Crimson Fists battling a vast ork invasion. Despite the apparent folly of attacking a Space Marine home world, the Arch-Arsonist Snagrod’s unusual tactics surprise the Crimson Fists, resulting in huge numbers of orks landing onto Rynn’s World. When a million-to-one accident sees the Fists’ ancient and treasured fortress-monastery destroyed and the majority of their warriors slain, a determined defence turns into a desperate fight for the survival of the Chapter itself.
Conquered long ago by the Shuriman Sun Empress, the Kingdom of Icathia has for a thousand years desired its freedom from Shurima. In his short story Where Icathia Once Stood, Graham McNeill tells the story of Icathia’s long-awaited uprising, the brutal response from Shurima’s vast armies, and the lengths the Icathians were prepared to go to for freedom and survival. Told through the eyes of Axamuk, a young artisan-turned-soldier, it’s a nonlinear narrative that both details the events and repercussion of the uprising, and illustrates one man’s very personal response to what takes place and what it ends up meaning.
Ben Counter’s short story Rise is a modern Black Library tale with an old-school feel, a quest story where the final goal isn’t necessarily what the protagonist thinks it’s going to be. Skanis is a kabalite down amongst the blood and darkness of Commorragh, who commissions a haemonculus to sculpt him into a new form – that of a winged Scourge – so that he can rise above his old life and start again. Waking to an unfamiliar body, he ascends through the myriad dangers of a Commorite spire intending to reach the pinnacle and leap into the unknown, free and complete.
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.
The second audio drama in John French’s Agent of the Throne series, part of the wider Horusian Wars arc, Truth and Dreams once again finds Ianthe in reflective mood as she relates the tale of another mission. This time she’s on the trail of Silas Norn, a rogue psyker capable of horrifying manipulation if he can get close enough to touch. When her hunt results in both Ianthe and Norn being imprisoned in the same high-security facility it becomes a contest of wills as much as anything, between the powerful Norn and the ferociously driven, determined Ianthe.
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. It’s the final week of March, but there have actually been quite a lot of BL-related goings on worth talking about, which is nice. Starting at the beginning as usual…
Book seven in Black Library’s Primarchs series of short novels, David Guymer’s Ferrus Manus: Gorgon of Medusa provides a rare long-form glimpse of the Iron Hands’ primarch. In the middle stages of the Great Crusade, when three primarchs are still to be found and rumours of the Emperor’s future plans are just beginning to circulate, the Iron Hands and Emperor’s Children are performing joint exercises when they hear of the 413th Fleet’s difficulties bringing the Gardinaal empire to compliance. Instead of waiting for reinforcements, Ferrus decides to take Gardinaal himself and send a statement to his brothers and father.
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 spoke to John French about his latest 40k audio drama, Agent of the Throne: Truth and Dreams, the second in that series after the excellent Blood and Lies. You can order this in MP3 or CD formats right now.
Originally released in audio drama form as part of Thorn and Talon, Dan Abnett’s short story Regia Occulta sees a young Eisenhorn, not long qualified as a full inquisitor, working as a sort of temporary travelling magistrate-slash-investigator. Stranded on the dreary world of Ignix, he braves the weather and the strange electrical storms to investigate a series of killings which at first have all the hallmarks of cult activity. It quickly becomes apparent that the culprit is not a cult after all, but Eisenhorn’s continuing investigation proves dangerous all the same.