Author Archives: Michael

QUICK REVIEW: The Emperor’s Architect – Guy Haley

A companion piece to the Primarchs novel Hammer of Olympia, Guy Haley’s short story The Emperor’s Architect is an interleaved tale combining glimpses of Perturabo’s earliest days with a Crusade-era story of two Remembrancers attempting to write the definitive history of the Iron Warriors’ primarch. Until now the Lord of Iron’s story began on the Phyrgean cliffs, but here we see Perturabo’s first days on Olympia and his earliest, almost-forgotten interactions with humans. Meanwhile Olivier and Marissa LeBon’s unusual mission provides a personal drama tackling faith, relationship troubles and different perspectives on the truth as they delve into Perturabo’s complex and challenging character.

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Black Library Weekly – W/C 05/02/18

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. It’s been a week of not-quite-new releases, both on Monday and at the weekend, although as it’s the first full week of February it’s also brought with it another month’s worth of upcoming releases. Starting at the beginning as always…

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Black Library at the Horus Heresy and Necromunda Weekender 2018

The weekend of the 3rd and 4th of February saw a few hundred Warhammer fans descend upon the Nottingham Belfry for the sixth annual Horus Heresy Weekender event, except in 2018 the mould was broken with the addition of Necromunda. While you could look at this as the first step towards a future Forge World Weekender, covering all of the different games created and supported by Forge World, this year’s event it was officially labelled the Horus Heresy and Necromunda Weekender. It’s a bit of a mouthful – doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue – but there you go.

As always, Black Library were in attendance with a range of guests to support their Horus Heresy fiction line, and also to talk about upcoming Necromunda releases. As you might expect, that was the main draw for me at this event – I do like the miniatures and the games, but my main interest is always the fiction, so I focused my attention for the most part on that side of things over the weekend. Unlike the Black Library Weekender I’m not going to do quite such a comprehensive write up looking at individual seminars, but I do want to talk a little bit about the event overall, and relay some interesting Black Library-related information I picked up while I was there.

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QUICK REVIEW: Shadow of the Past – Gav Thorpe

A rare post-Heresy Primarchs story, Gav Thorpe’s Shadow of the Past takes place on a moon in the Eye of Terror, where Dark Apostle Kalta-Ar of the Word Bearers supervises the building of a grand monument to the dark gods. Protected from the dangers of the warp by ritual means, the Word Bearers nevertheless find themselves under attack by something that bleeds out of the shadows to rend and tear. When they at last bring their monstrous attacker to bear only to find their weapons useless, Kalta-Ar entreats the daemon primarch Lorgar to aid him and his surviving warriors.

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QUICK REVIEW: Mercy of the Dragon – Nick Kyme

In his Primarchs short story Mercy of the Dragon Nick Kyme tackles the introduction of Vulkan to the Great Crusade in a tale of two interwoven strands. In one we see the Emperor explain Vulkan’s place amongst the primarchs to his son, attempting to convince the lord of drakes to leave Nocturne and take his place alongside his brothers. In the other we’re offered glimpses of Vulkan’s first engagement as part of the Crusade, observed by the Emperor and Ferrus Manus. Between them, both strands demonstrate Vulkan’s character and his value to the burgeoning Imperium, and his primarch brothers.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Abyssal Edge – Aaron Dembski-Bowden

A slow, quiet tale of perspectives and choices, Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Primarchs short story The Abyssal Edge features two primarchs and two First Captains, but is told from the perspective of a crippled human archivist. Desk-bound after a terrible crash, former fighter pilot Orthos Ulatal finds the tedium enlivened by a report implying conflict between the Night Lords and the Thousand Sons. His investigations lead him to the threatening company of Jago Sevatarion, the truth of what happened between Konrad Curze and Magnus the Red, and a glimpse behind the facade of the ongoing Great Crusade.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Passing of Angels – John French

A typically thoughtful and evocative John French short story, The Passing of Angels – included in the Primarchs anthology Sons of the Emperor – takes a close look at Sanguinius’ understanding of the role he was created to play. Leading the Blood Angels’ Destroyer Host into battle against a human world which deployed proscribed weaponry against the Imperium, he takes upon himself the burden of unleashing such devastation, while allowing his sons to absolve themselves of the deaths they cause. Across a non-linear story we get a few glimpses of what Sanguinius and those around him think of the nature of angels.

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Monthly Highlights – January 2018

It’s February already – we’re a full month into 2018, and in that first month I’ve posted no fewer than sixteen reviews of books, short stories and audio dramas on Track of Words. I thought it might be fun this year to take a regular look back at what I’ve read each month, and pick out some highlights – for the time being I’m just going to call this Monthly Highlights but I’m open to suggestions for a catchier title! I’ll try to keep things reasonably brief, focusing on the one story each month which I feel was a particular highlight, as well as a couple of notable mentions.

For this, the inaugural Monthly Highlights for January 2018, I’m going for an audio drama, rather than a book – Titans’ Bane by Chris Dows. Click on this link or the image below to check out my review.

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RAPID FIRE: Laurie Goulding Talks The Burden of Loyalty

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 Laurie Goulding about the latest Horus Heresy anthology – The Burden of Loyalty, which is available to order right now. As most of you will probably know, Laurie was until recently the series editor for the Horus Heresy at Black Library, and this is the final anthology that he edited while he was in that role.

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