Author Archives: Michael

Track of Words at 500

With this post, Track of Words is five hundred blog posts old. Five hundred. Wow.

In the three and a bit years that I’ve been running this blog, it’s grown from a personal project in discipline – a way of making myself stick to a task I’d decided to attempt – into an endeavour that’s far more public and considerably larger in scale. When I wrote and posted my first review (for Rohan Gavin’s Knightley & Son, if you’re interested) I had no idea that a little over three years later I would be writing my four hundred and ninety-ninth subsequent post, or that along the way I would have started interviewing authors, run a competition or be invited to contribute to a podcast.

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Forgotten Texts: The Dead Among Us by James Wallis

“You’re not the man you were. What have they done to you in that temple of ghouls?”

Set in the cold heights of Middenheim in winter, James Wallis’ short story The Dead Among Us is a bleak tale of death and dark magic in the Warhammer Old World. When the murder of an anonymous woman draws his attention, the man who was Dieter Brossmann – once a wealthy man, now a black-clad priest of Morr – sets out to discover her identity but finds himself facing something dark and insidious. Troubled by his past and determined to walk a grim, lonely path, he’s well placed to uncover the truth behind what’s happening in the City of the White Wolf.

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The Binary Succession – David Annandale

A little over seventy-five minutes long and with a nine-strong voice cast, David Annandale’s Horus Heresy audio drama The Binary Succession was described at a Black Library event as ‘Brexit with Titans’. That’s not far off; it takes place on Terra and deals with the growing tensions between the High Lords of Terra and the representatives of the Martian Mechanicum, who feel mistrusted and under-appreciated by the Imperium. Ambassador Vethorel, representative of Fabricator General Kane, has the difficult job of negotiating her way to a position of strength for the Mechanicum, while endeavouring to hold together her increasingly fractious fellows.

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QUICK REVIEW: Ordo Sinister – John French

A digital-only Horus Heresy short story by John French, Ordo Sinister is the first Black Library story to feature this particular Titan Legion, who have only recently been explored by Forge World in their book Inferno. Taking place during the Webway War, it sees a single Titan holding back an entire daemonic incursion on its own, for this is no ordinary Titan. Commanded by Prefect Hydragyrum, controlled and powered by…unconventional means, Borealis Thoon is a Psi-Titan.

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Black Library Weekly – W/C 20/02/17

Hello and welcome to the latest Black Library Weekly, my weekly look through what’s been happening in the world of Black Library. This week has followed a similar pattern to last week; Monday saw a fun new short story, but then nothing much happened until the weekend. As always, let’s start at the beginning and work our way through the week…

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Leman Russ: The Great Wolf – Chris Wraight (The Primarchs Book Two)

The second book in The Horus Heresy Primarchs series, Chris Wraight’s Leman Russ: The Great Wolf is, like David Annandale’s Guilliman novel, not an origin story. It does however deal with the origin of a key part of the Wolves’ background – their rivalry with the Dark Angels. During the Great Crusade, the VI Legion were tasked with the pacification of the Dulan empire, who refused compliance with the Imperium. In the final stages of the campaign Russ and his brother Lion El’Jonson famously came to blows, and now we get the story of why that happened…at least from Russ’ perspective.

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Forgotten Texts: Rites of Passage by Gordon Rennie

“The trap was set.”

Set in the darkest depths of the underhive, Gordon Rennie’s Necromunda short story Rites of Passage sees five young juves of House Orlock braving the dangers of Hive Bottom as part of a ritual that will see them emerge as men…if they emerge at all. Hidden amongst the shadows and bolstered by fearsome technologies, something is stalking the five of them, something much worse than the rival gangers that they expected to face. If any of them are to survive, it’s going to take more than just bravery and a loaded laspistol. Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: Hoppo’s Pies – Guy Haley

The latest in a growing line of new Blood Bowl fiction, Guy Haley’s short story Hoppo’s Pies focuses (perhaps unsurprisingly, considering Haley’s predilections) on the ‘Grotty Stealers’, a goblin team long past their prime. With an increasingly decrepit and ill-attended stadium, a team full of inept players, and rising debts, Coach Diglit mourns his days as a player even as he worries about how to keep the team going. Just as his fears seem about to come to fruition, a chance encounter leads him to a plan that might just save both the team and his own neck…involving pies.

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Slaughter at Giant’s Coffin – LJ Goulding

Slaughter at Giant’s Coffin is LJ Goulding’s first full Black Library novel, and it’s also the first ever novel focusing on the Scythes of the Emperor. As the title suggests, and its nature as a Space Marine Battles book, this focuses on a single action…the Scythes’ defence of the Giant’s Coffin bastion, on Miral Prime. Having lost their homeworld of Sotha to Hive Fleet Kraken, the battered remnants of the Scythes regroup in the Miral system, where the returning Chapter Master Thorcyra plans to rebuild the chapter. The shadow of the Kraken looms large however, and things look very bleak.

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