Hello and welcome to the latest instalment of Black Library Weekly, my regular look at what’s been happening in the world of Black Library. It’s the first full week of December, which means Black Library’s Advent Calendar is fully up and running, so I’m going to slightly change the usual format of this article to cover all of the Advent stories first, before taking a look at what else has been happening during the week. As always there’s lots to discuss, so let’s crack on…
Evan Dicken’s second Black Library short story, Acts of Sacrifice takes a similar approach to his debut The Path to Glory and tells a tale set before the Age of Sigmar. This time it takes place during the Age of Chaos, as the Order of the Ardent Star faces total destruction at the hands of a horde of Khornate ravagers. With the Order’s fortress besieged and its Master dead by the blade of the horde’s champion, Sir Anaea leads a handful of her remaining knights out in search of a more defensible holdout, hoping to find safety and a chance of survival.
Welcome to this instalment of Rapid Fire, my ongoing series of quick interviews with Black Library authors talking about their new releases. These are short and sweet interviews, with the idea being that each author will answer (more or less) the same questions – by the end of each interview I hope you will have a good idea of what the new book (or audio drama) is about, what inspired it and why you might want to read or listen to it.
In this instalment I spoke to the ever-busy Guy Haley about his latest Horus Heresy novel Titandeath, the 53rd book in the series – which is available to order right now!
Welcome to another Monthly Highlights post on Track of Words, where I’m taking a look back at what I’ve been reading and listening to over the last month and pulling out a few top picks. It’s almost the end of 2018 (somehow!) and the Black Library release schedule is showing no signs of relenting, so it’s perhaps not surprising that all three of my choices for November are BL stories – I’ve gone for two novels (although I’m cheating a bit with one as I’ve read it but not yet reviewed it) and an audio drama…and what an audio drama it is! To be fair, all three of these stories are pretty damn spectacular, and I’m confident that most Black Library fans will enjoy each and every one of them as much as I did.
A rare Horus Heresy short story featuring entirely new characters, David Annandale’s Abyssal takes place deep in the bowels of the Black Ship Irkalla. Aveth Vairon has lived his whole life driven and influenced by visions of a singular rune. Even after being taken from his home world and imprisoned within the Black Ship, Vairon clings to his belief that the rune is guiding his path, and follows the route it lays out for him. Tormented by the horrors of the ship and the terrifying Sisters of Silence, Vairon follows the rune’s imperatives, trusting it to see him to safety.
There’s room in the Mortal Realms for all kinds of stories in all sorts of locations, and with his short story The Deeper Shade CL Werner gives us a classic villainous tale of deceit and treachery, set on a desolate stretch of haunted coastline. The Tzeentchian sorcerer Thalinosh of Charr has led his warband to the shores of Gharn in search of a lost artefact of great power, which he intends to reclaim and exploit. Putting his magics to good use, Thalinosh ventures deep beneath the water despite the threat of a horror that even the wild creatures fear.
Guy Haley’s Blackstone Fortress short story Man of Iron focuses on the intriguing character of UR-025, and offers a short but entertaining insight into what goes on behind the blank facade of this ‘Imperial Robot’. We’re first introduced to UR-025 through the eyes of Rein the ratling, before the robot joins with a party of Adeptus Mechanicus tech-priests and heads into the Fortress in search of archeotech. Once within the shifting halls of the Fortress the priests are reliant upon UR-025 for both directions and protection, all the while unaware of its real reasons for choosing to accompany them.
One of several excellent 40k short stories featuring Commissar Severina Raine and the 11th Antari Rifles, Rachel Harrison’s Fire and Thunder is a bleak and powerful examination of the grubby, confused horror of war in the 41st millennium. Raine and the Antari are redeploying from the cathedral city of Whend when they find themselves under heavy fire and cut off from Imperial lines. With walking wounded and no chance of extraction, their only hope is a dangerous forced march through enemy-held territory, but with ammunition running low and enemies pressing in all around, the odds are heavily set against them.
A standalone Age of Sigmar short story, Gav Thorpe’s Blood Gold features the Zharrthagi fyreslayers, an unusual clan who can trace their lineage back to before the Age of Chaos. With their mountain lodge besieged by Chaos worshippers, the Zarrthagi march out to confront their enemies. At the behest of one of his warriors, runefather Ungrimmsson Drakkazak looks back to the clan’s earliest days as he tells the tale of the Zarrthagi curse, relating the actions of the clan’s original runefather and the events that led to where and what they are now.
Hello and welcome to the latest instalment of Black Library Weekly, my regular look at what’s been happening in the world of Black Library. This week I’ve been CRAZY busy both in terms of Track of Words and everything else that’s going on at the moment (sadly I do have a full-time job as well as running ToW, plus as a feeble attempt at an actual life) but I’ve somehow managed to still post something every day this week. It’s actually been a pretty darn exciting week in Black Library terms, with a lot of releases or news of upcoming releases, so let’s have a look at what’s been going on.