Author Archives: Michael

You Sexy Thing – Cat Rambo

I love a good space opera, especially if it features a sentient spaceship, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a science fiction novel before in which food and cookery play such a big part as they do in Cat Rambo’s You Sexy Thing. A fun, action-packed SF adventure with a brilliantly diverse cast of characters and a pacy, page-turning plot, it opens on a remote space station with a group of ex-soldiers whose only way of escaping service to the Holy Hive Mind was to set up a restaurant and throw themselves into their new line of work. When TwiceFar station is destroyed, the soldiers-turned-restaurateurs escape on the aforementioned sentient spaceship (the titular You Sexy Thing, of course) only to find themselves in arguably even more trouble – involving a dead celebrity, a dubious food critic, pirates, an awkward ship and an unexpected new addition to the team.

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Day of Ascension – Adrian Tchaikovsky

Prolific, award-winning science fiction author Adrian Tchaikovsky makes his long-form Black Library debut with Day of Ascension, a Warhammer 40,000 novel which pits the cold, academic machine logic of the Adeptus Mechanicus against the insidious alien threat of a Genestealer Cult. Genetor Gammat Triskellian is an ambitious man, but the organic focus of his work is out of favour with the priestly hierarchy of the forge world Morod, and Triskellian is frustrated at every turn by his superiors. When he stumbles across evidence of a xenos taint lurking amongst the poorest inhabitants of Morod he sees an opportunity to further his own goals and undermine his rivals. To the downtrodden members of the Congregation of the Divine Union though, Triskellian is merely another oppressor to be endured and overthrown on the path to their destiny.

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Monthly Roundup – January 2022

Somehow another month has gone past and it’s already the end of January, which means it’s time for my first Monthly Roundup post of 2022. After the craziness of December when I kept myself incredibly busy with my Advent Calendar series, I deliberately toned things down a bit for January to give myself a bit of a rest, and while I’ve still put together ten articles and two new site pages, it’s been good to slow down a little. While I may not have written as much as I have done in previous months, it’s been a really busy month on the reading front, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time looking ahead and planning posts that I’m hoping to deliver later in the year.

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Why Reading Goals Are Great

I recently read an interesting article on the Tor.com site called Maybe Reading Goals Are Good, Actually, which suggested that for a lot of us reading is proving harder than usual right now, and that setting reading goals might be a good thing to do. I agree! I regularly set reading goals – you can read about my 2022 goals here. However, the article seems to be based on the assumption that reading goals are a sort of necessary evil, a last resort to turn to when the world gets in the way of everything else. This…I don’t agree with. I actually think that a lot of the article’s conclusions are pretty accurate, just maybe not its assumptions, so I thought I would write my own piece on the same subject to talk about it from a different point of view, reinforcing some of the same messages and offering alternate views on others.

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Ron Walters Talks Deep Dive

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, where today I’m chatting to Ron Walters about his debut novel Deep Dive, which is out now from Angry Robot! A science fiction thriller exploring virtual reality, video game development, the costs of creativity and the difficulties of juggling work and family, this promises to be a fascinating novel that I think will resonate with a lot of people. It’s out now from Angry Robot books, so read on to find out more about the inspiration and influences that went into writing it, Ron’s journey to being published, and the importance of featuring parental figures in SFF.

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW: T.R. Napper Talks 36 Streets

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview where I’m delighted to welcome the fantastic T.R. Napper back to the site, to talk about his debut novel 36 Streets, which is out now (in ebook/audiobook – paperback coming soon) from Titan Books. We’ve talked before about his phenomenal short story anthology Neon Leviathan, and since reading that I’ve been hoping for more…so a full novel is very welcome indeed (and let me tell you – it’s so, so good!). Fans of science fiction – and cyberpunk in particular – will find an awful lot to enjoy in 36 Streets, and in this interview we cover what to expect from the novel and how it fits in with the short stories in Neon Leviathan, and delve into some of the characters and themes of the book.

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RAPID FIRE: Justin D. Hill Talks The Bookkeeper’s Skull

Hello and welcome to this Rapid Fire author interview, where today I’m delighted to welcome Justin D. Hill back to Track of Words to discuss his new Warhammer Horror novel The Bookkeeper’s Skull. Alongside his excellent historical fiction (written under Justin Hill, without the D), many Black Library fans will be familiar with Justin for the excellent work he’s done tackling the Cadians (three novels, several short stories and counting), but The Bookkeeper’s Skull is in fact his fifth BL novel, and his first in the Warhammer Horror range. It’s available to buy right now in hardback, ebook and audiobook formats, so if you’re keen to explore the darker side of Warhammer 40,000 and life in the Imperium, then read on to find out more about this intriguing new novel!

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Preparing For Reign of the Devourer by David Annandale

Here’s a question: what connects Percy Bysshe Shelley, Howard the Duck, a vampire cow and a murderous surgeon? The answer is that they’re all influences author David Annandale drew upon in one way or another when writing his latest Marvel novel Reign of the Devourer, which is out now (in ebook) from Aconyte Books! After reading his recent guest post about the relationship between horror fiction and visual media, I thought it might be fun to ask David to talk a bit about the books, comics and movies that inspired and influenced him while he was working on Reign of the Devourer, and put together a sort of ‘primer’ for the new novel. If you want to get into the appropriate mindset for the latest (mis)adventures of Doctor Doom, these stories are exactly what you need!

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Volpone Glory – Nick Kyme

One of only a handful of non-Dan Abnett novels in Black Library’s Sabbat Worlds series (or is it maybe a setting now?), Nick Kyme’s Volpone Glory more than holds its own in this much-loved range – a gritty, powerful page-turner of a book that delves into the complex character of the Royal Volpone regiment of Imperial Guard. Set in 791.M41, so roughly the same time as The Warmaster, it sees the 50th Royal Volpone on Gnostes, bogged down in a protracted campaign attempting to push the Blood Pact out of an entrenched island chain, their vaunted pride dented by their lack of progress. As the prospect of victory hangs in the balance even while the archenemy develops its own devious plans for the war, politics within the ranks of the Volpone lead to division, mistrust and increasingly desperate tactics. Hope springs from an unexpected source, but will it be enough?

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Track of Words in 2022: Plans and Goals

As January is progressing quickly and time is ticking on, I think it’s time to talk about my goals for 2022, and my (loose) plans for Track of Words this year. I’m not really one for setting bold New Year’s resolutions or making too many commitments to big changes in my life, but I do enjoy challenging myself to goals that I can reflect on throughout the year. If you’re interested, you can check out the article in which I talked about my 2021 goals, and then another article in which I reflected upon how well I did meeting those goals last year. For the purposes of this article though, I’m talking about what I’d like to achieve in 2022, and in order to do that I’m going to split things out into three sections: a quick overview of where I see the site going this year, then specific Track of Words goals (i.e. what I’m hoping to specifically achieve on the site this year) followed reading goals (some of which may impact on ToW, others will not).

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