Author Archives: Michael

QUICK REVIEW: Immersion – Aliette de Bodard

Winner of both Nebula (2012) and Locus (2013) awards for Best Short Story, Aliette de Bodard’s Immersion is a powerful, thought-provoking story that belongs to her Xuya series – science fiction stories set in a world of Vietnamese culture-inspired alternate history. On Longevity Station, Quy spends her free time watching the spaceships arrive bringing Galactic tourists to the station, feeling caught between happy memories of her student days and the realities of her life now. When she’s called in to her family’s restaurant to help with negotiations for a Galactic couple’s wedding anniversary plans, she finds herself faced with the shocking sight of a woman who’s so lost in her attempts to fit in that she’s forgotten who she truly is.

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Priest of Gallows – Peter McLean

Book three in Peter McLean’s phenomenal War for the Rose Throne series, Priest of Gallows delivers another gripping tale of gangsters, intrigue and espionage, family bonds, harsh justice and escalating danger. Picking up where Priest of Lies left off, it begins with Tomas Piety – army priest, businessman, Queen’s Man – in the uncomfortable position of governor of Ellinburg. When word arrives of the Queen’s untimely death, however, Tomas returns to Dannsburg with his closest companions, where he finds himself pulled ever deeper into the murky world of the Queen’s Men. Under the orders of Provost Marshall Dieter Vogel, Tomas sinks further into the role of Queen’s Man while rising higher in Dannsburg society, but even as he does so he’s forced to consider how far he’s prepared to go in the pursuit of respect, power and authority.

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Aconyte Books Roundup: April 2021

Welcome to my latest Aconyte Books roundup, where I’m taking a look at a couple of brand new novels alongside a recap of the last couple of month’s releases. April brings with it a pair of brilliant-sounding new books – the latest Arkham Horror novel, and the first full KeyForge novel – which between them, if my maths is right (not a certainty), take the total number of published books from Aconyte up to 20! Huge congratulations to all the team at Aconyte for hitting this landmark, and doing it during a pandemic too! I say this every time, but if you haven’t yet taken the plunge and checked out some of the brilliant books Aconyte are publishing, I would really recommend you remedy that very soon…

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RAPID FIRE: Denny Flowers Talks Fire Made Flesh

Welcome to this instalment of my Rapid Fire series of author interviews, where today I’m talking to Denny Flowers about his debut novel for Black Library, Fire Made Flesh. Denny has already written a novella and various short stories as part of BL’s Necromunda range, but this is his first full-length novel – and it promises to be a great read for Necromunda fans, not least because it explores some of the Necromundan guilds in ways we haven’t seen before! Fire Made Flesh is available to order in paperback via the book trade (i.e. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones etc.) right now, and is due to be available direct from Black Library/Games Workshop at some point in May, in paperback and ebook formats.

Without further ado, let’s get straight on with the interview!

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Sistersong – Lucy Holland

Retelling a traditional murder ballad in the shape and style of an epic fantasy, Lucy Holland’s Sistersong is a fascinating, evocative and at times shockingly dark tale of family, magic, faith and suppressed voices set in post-Roman Britain. In the kingdom of Dumnonia, the three daughters of King Cador each search for their place in life and in their family, while war gathers on the horizon and their father’s connection to the land and its magic wanes as the Christian church gains power. As the danger of Saxon invasion grows and the fortunes of the kingdom fade, the sisters are each faced with choices that will have significant consequences for themselves, their family and their people.

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Network Effect – Martha Wells

After four excellent novellas, Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries series gets its first novel-length instalment with Network Effect, which offers everything that makes this series so much fun…just more of it! Their research mission completed with only one minor incident of life-threatening drama, Murderbot and its human charges return to Preservation space, only to come under attack from a mysterious enemy ship. When several of its humans – including members of Dr Mensah’s family – are kidnapped during the attack, Murderbot puts its media consumption aside and goes immediately on the offensive. Passing through a wormhole and encountering both suspiciously alien-like enemies and the unexpected presence of an old sort-of-friend, Murderbot quickly finds that the situation is stranger and much more uncomfortable than it could possibly have expected.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Tilean’s Talisman – David Guymer

Long before tackling the Doom of Gotrek Gurnisson in Kinslayer and Slayer, David Guymer’s first contribution to the saga of Gotrek and Felix was the short story The Tilean’s Talisman. First published in Hammer & Bolter Issue 14, and then in Gotrek & Felix: The Anthology, it sees devious skaven Siskritt attempting to steal a magical item of great power – the titular talisman – from a Tilean merchant, while the tavern around him burns. It’s a plan of typical skaven brilliance, using a bigger assault on the human city as cover for Siskritt’s own agenda, but the one thing he didn’t plan for was the presence of a certain belligerent dwarf Slayer and his human companion.

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Elsa Bloodstone: Bequest – Cath Lauria

Part of the Marvel: Heroines series from Aconyte Books, Cath Lauria’s Elsa Bloodstone: Bequest is a madcap thrill-ride full of monster battles, jet-setting and bickering siblings. Elsa Bloodstone – badass monster hunter, daughter of the famed Ulysses Bloodstone, definitely not a team player – is quite content with her life spent travelling the world, slaying assorted horrors for money. When a simple monster hunt is interrupted by mercenaries wanting her bloodstone shard, however, it seems as though her life is about to get a bit more complicated, an impression only reinforced by the appearance of a previously unknown half-sister asking for help in recovering her own, recently-lost bloodstone. Begrudgingly, Elsa agrees to help Mihaela, and the two of them set out to track down whoever’s behind the bloodstone theft.

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Monthly Roundup – March 2021

Welcome to my Monthly Roundup for March 2021, here on Track of Words. For me, March was one of those strange months that seemed to both go on for ages, and fly past rapidly – weird. I’ve mostly settled into my posting schedule of four per week (albeit I only managed three, one week), which continues to keep me feeling busy but in a manageable way, but I had a couple of tough weeks where I really struggled to get into reading. I’ll talk a bit more later about why and what I did to get my head back in the right place, but suffice to say I did actually end up reading plenty, and I think I’m back on the right track now.

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40k Reading Order: Sister Augusta – Danie Ware

Welcome to this 40k Reading Order article, where this time I’m taking a look at Danie Ware’s Sister Augusta series of Adepta Sororitas stories. This is part of an ongoing set of articles where I’m looking at a range of Black Library series and providing recommended orders in which to read the various stories. At the time of writing there are three novellas, one novel and a range of short stories available in the Sister Augusta series, and with a little help from Danie I’ve put together two reading lists – one for a recommended reading order, and one for the chronological (in-universe) order in which the stories take place. If you’ve ever wanted to read this series but haven’t known where to start, then look no further than this article!

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