Author Archives: Michael

RAPID FIRE: Dan Abnett Talks Penitent

Welcome to this instalment of my Rapid Fire series of author interviews, where today I’m delighted to be talking to the legendary Dan Abnett about his new Warhammer 40,000 novel Penitent, the second book in his Bequin trilogy for Black Library. It’s been nine years since the first book in the series – Pariah – was released, but the wait is finally over, with Penitent available to pre-order today in all the usual formats! For those who aren’t already familiar with the whole ‘Inquisition Cycle’ I’ve asked Dan to talk a bit about the whole thing first of all, before giving us the lowdown on what to expect from Penitent.

Continue reading →

QUICK REVIEW: Salvation’s Crucible – Denny Flowers

Currently only available in the Black Library Events Anthology 2019/20, Denny Flowers’ Necromunda short story Salvation’s Crucible is a brief but fiery tale of the Promethium Guild, or Mercator Pyros. Lord Silas Pureburn has sworn to bring the light of the God-Emperor to the settlement of Under Pipe, and has contracted a gang of hive scum as guides and protectors. Not all of the Underhive’s denizens are fans of the guilds though, and standing in Lord Pureburn’s way are the Waylanders gang, who run their own operation providing light and power to Under Pipe, and don’t intend to relinquish their territory without a fight.

Continue reading →

These Lifeless Things – Premee Mohamed

The first title released as part of Solaris Satellites – Rebellion Publishing’s new direct-to-reader range of novellas – Premee Mohamed’s These Lifeless Things is a strange, unsettling, ambiguous tale of the costs of survival and the difficulty of piecing history back together. One of a handful of survivors from when They invaded, Eva ekes out a rough living in the city, avoiding the terrifying sentinels and all the other new dangers, and keeping a journal of her days. Decades later, young Emerson finds Eva’s journal on a research trip to the city, recognising it as a rare opportunity to gain an insight into what actually happened in the years following the invasion.

Continue reading →

A Guide to Dan Abnett’s Inquisition Series

Dan Abnett’s trilogy of Inquisition trilogies – the Eisenhorn, Ravenor and Bequin novels – are among the best that Black Library has ever published, and certainly some of my personal favourites. With the upcoming release of Penitent, the second Bequin novel, there are now more than twenty individual stories across the overarching Inquisition series, with the nine novels (with at least one more still to come) accompanied by a dozen or so short stories. As with many Black Library series, the tricky part is knowing where to start if you’re keen to check out these stories, or where to go next if you’ve read some of them and are keen for more!

Continue reading →

QUICK REVIEW: Judge Dee and the Three Deaths of Count Werdenfels – Lavie Tidhar

The second of Lavie Tidhar’s supernatural, Golden Age-esque mystery stories for Tor.com, Judge Dee and the Three Deaths of Count Werdenfels is another tale of feuding vampires and the implacable justice of the titular Judge Dee. While travelling through the Alps with his put-upon human assistant Jonathan, Judge Dee is summoned to the Duchy of Bavaria to investigate the murder of a vampire. When they arrive at Castle Werdenfels, the Judge and Jonathan find no fewer than three potential culprits, each one claiming to have murdered the Count and proclaiming themselves the inheritors of the castle as a result.

Continue reading →

QUICK REVIEW: The Lives of Ferag Lion-Wolf – Barrington J. Bayley

First published in issue 14 of Black Library’s Inferno! Magazine way back in 1999, Barrington J. Bayley’s short story The Lives of Ferag Lion-Wolf is very much an ‘old 40k’ story – it’s still in keeping with the setting in tone, even if some of the details are a little out of place these days. Tzeentchian champion Ferag Lion-Wolf – traitor Space Marine, slayer of monsters, ruler of five worlds in the Eye of Terror – is on the cusp of ascending to daemonhood. As he greets a rival with honeyed words and false smiles he can’t help but boast of his prowess and god-given favour, but the Changer of Ways is a fickle master.

Continue reading →

RAPID FIRE: Graham McNeill Talks The Swords of Calth

Welcome to this instalment of my Rapid Fire series of author interviews, where today I’m talking to veteran Black Library author Graham McNeill about his new novel The Swords of Calth, the long-awaited return of Uriel Ventris to 40k. Whether you’re a long-term fan of the series or this is your first introduction, read on to find out more about Uriel Ventris, who this character is within 40k, and how he fits into the changing universe! I also asked Graham for a series reading order, so anyone who wants to check out the whole thing can do so in chronological order.

It’s been over a decade since the previous book in this series was released, so it’s great to see such an iconic character return – The Swords of Calth goes up for pre-order on the 20th February, in Special Edition hardback, standard hardback, ebook and audiobook formats.

Continue reading →

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 – P. Djèlí Clark

Set in the same world as his short story A Dead Djinn in Cairo, P Djèlí Clark’s novella The Haunting of Tram Car 015 is another slice of alternate-world urban fantasy, full of characterful storytelling and vibrant world building. Agent Hamed Nasr of Cairo’s Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, along with his younger colleague Agent Onsi, are called to Ramses Station to investigate a haunting in one of the city’s trams. When it transpires that it’s the tram car itself which is haunted, what Hamed assumed was going to be a simple task becomes much more complicated, as the agents attempt to identify the spirit and coax it out of its mechanical host…to varying degrees of success.

Continue reading →

Last One at the Party – Bethany Clift

The debut novel from Bethany Clift, Last One at the Party takes a classic sci-fi trope – the sole survivor at the end of the world – and strips it back to its core, delivering a powerful, emotional story of a regular woman in a recognisable world gone wrong. In a very near future, even the lessons learned from the Coronavirus pandemic are no use when a new, horrifyingly virulent virus ravages first America and then the rest of the world. There’s no hope for a cure, yet in London one woman – the nameless protagonist here – finds herself still alive in the ruins of her life, with everyone she ever knew now dead and gone. At first she loses herself in drink, drugs, raids on Harrods and the lingering luxuries still on offer in the city, but it’s not long before loneliness compels her to seek out other survivors or, failing that, some remaining reason to keep going.

Continue reading →

Monthly Roundup – January 2021

Welcome to my first Monthly Roundup of 2021, in which I’m taking a look back over what’s been going on with Track of Words this January! As usual I’ll link out to all of the reviews, interviews and blog articles that I’ve published over the last few weeks, and then talk a bit about the month as a whole. After two months of posting something every day at the end of 2020 (in fact I managed 73 days in a row) I’ve slowed back down to a comfortable four posts per week, which is roughly what I’m going to aim to maintain for the majority of 2021. I might throw in an extra post here and there (potentially in the week I’m publishing this article, in fact), and maybe try for one a day again in November and December, but for the most part I think this is going to be the shape of things to come.

Continue reading →