Author Archives: Michael

Legacies: The Power of the Past – Matthew Ward Guest Post

Hello and welcome to the first ever Track of Words guest post – The Power of the Past – in which the fantastic Matthew Ward discusses the importance of legacies in storytelling. With the second novel in Matthew’s Legacy Trilogy just released via Orbit, I’m delighted to present this guest post as part of the Legacy of Steel blog tour, alongside some fantastic bloggers and SFF websites. I’ll link out to all the other stops on the tour at the end of this article, and I would highly recommend you check out all the reviews, interviews and guest posts that make up the tour.

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Danie Ware Talks Sisters of Battle and Women in 40k

Hello, and welcome to ‘Danie Ware Talks Sisters of Battle and Women in 40k’, in which I’m chatting to the fantastic Danie about her Adepta Sororitas fiction for Black Library, and her thoughts on the importance of female authors and characters in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. With her third Sisters of Battle novella – The Rose in Anger – just released, there’s no better time to find out more about this particular story, the Sister Augusta stories overall, and what it’s like being a woman writing badass 40k fiction!

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW: D.K. Fields Talk The Stitcher and the Mute

Welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, in which I’m talking to D.K. Fields – the pseudonym for collaborative authors Katherine Stansfield and David Towsey – about their new novel The Stitcher and the Mute, which is book two in the Tales of Fenest. It’s published on the 12th November by Head of Zeus, in hardback and ebook formats, and ahead of its release I asked Kath and Dave to give us a rundown on the series, some details of the new novel, and what it’s like writing as a pair.

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Day Zero – James Swallow and Josh Reynolds

Veteran authors James Swallow and Josh Reynolds team up for modern, high-tech thriller Day Zero from Aconyte Books, a prequel novel to the Watchdogs: Legion video game. Trouble is brewing in an alternative but worryingly believable London, with organised crime rife, private military contractor Albion muscling in on the Met, and hacker collective DedSec leading an underground resistance. Tensions begin to escalate when a spate of shootings rock the East End, and players from all sides – local government, DedSec, Albion, the brutal Clan Kelley crime family – step up their efforts, as a deeper mystery starts to come to light in the battle for control of the city.

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Matthew J. Kirby Talks Geirmund’s Saga

Welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, in which I chat to author Matthew J. Kirby about his new Assassin’s Creed novel, Geirmund’s Saga. Written to accompany the launch of the new Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla video game from Ubisoft, this is only being published by Aconyte Books in the US and Canada, with the ebook due out on the 10th November and the paperback following in March 2021. Expect Vikings, Anglo-Saxons and all manner of adventures…

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Author Spotlight: Justin Woolley

Welcome to this instalment of my Author Spotlight series of interviews, in which I’m chatting to author Justin Woolley about his background, his approach to writing and some of his published work to date. We’re also taking a look at his latest release in particular – Prisoners of WAAAGH!, Justin’s first novella for Black Library, which is available to order right now and looks like being a lot of fun! Read on to find out a bit more about this 40k novella, and get a few hints about what Justin’s working on for publication at some point in the future.

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QUICK REVIEW: Five Candles – Lora Gray

Lora Gray continues to explore the quiet, melancholic fringes of the Mortal Realms with their Warhammer Horror short story Five Candles, a tale of Aqshian fire and dark, troubling death magic. Having grown old when all her friends died young, Havisa now lives by herself, scorned by the youthful inhabitants of the nearby village. When disaster sees her humiliated even further, she unexpectedly finds the old fire of her Aqshian spirit burning once more, and alongside a kind but mysterious stranger she embarks on a mission to warn the village of dark tidings to come in the wake of Nagash’s necroquake.

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Monthly Roundup – October 2020

Welcome to October’s Monthly Roundup here on Track of Words – I hope you had a good month, in spite of the continuing craziness! For this month’s article I’m continuing to play around with the format, to try and figure out what works best. I thought it might be interesting to use this article as a way of collecting together all of the content that I’ve recently published here on Track of Words, so you can take a look through and see if you missed anything. With that in mind, I’ll quickly run through the reviews, author interviews and blog posts that I posted since my last roundup, then talk a little about what else I’ve been reading before giving a quick life update to follow on from last month.

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Legacy of Ash – Matthew Ward

Matthew Ward’s The Legacy Trilogy opens with Legacy of Ash, a 240k word behemoth of a novel which sets out Ward’s stall for the series and emphasises the epic in epic fantasy. Fifteen years after a failed Southshire rebellion, the Republic of Tressia is still mired in internecine conflict, its ruling Council divided on how to deal with their troublesome southern subjects. When the looming threat of the neighbouring Hadari Empire becomes too much to ignore, it falls to the Council’s champion Viktor Akadra to rally the Southshires in defence of the Republic, while siblings Josiri and Calenne Trelan – whose mother led the failed rebellion – face difficult choices as they confront both the lasting implications of their mother’s actions, and Viktor’s role in her death.

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November’s 2020 Releases From Aconyte Books

Have you checked out any of Aconyte Books’ cool new tie-in fiction yet? Last month I put together an article showing all of the new novels coming out in October from Aconyte, and I’m going to keep banging the drum for this great new publisher with another article along the same lines. While not quite as hectic as October’s release schedule, it looks like November is still going to see a fair few new Aconyte novels, for four different IPs, so there’s lots of cool stuff that’s going to be available to read very soon. I’ll do a quick recap of October’s releases, then take a brief look at all of the upcoming titles for November – including links to author interviews where appropriate.

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