Category Archives: Black Library

QUICK REVIEW: The Price of Duty – Matt Smith

A standalone Imperial Guard short story by Matt Smith, The Price of Duty takes a familiar setup – a straight-laced commissar serving with an ill-disciplined regiment of Catachan Jungle Fighters – and delivers a slightly different take to usual. For young Commissar Jasper Nevin, serving under a Lord-Commissar whom he idolises is a dream come true, however the soldiers of the Catachan 64th don’t seem to hold him in much regard. Surrounded by warriors of strength and fortitude, Nevin finds his own skill and bravery lacking, but to survive he’s going to have to find a way to earn at least someone’s respect.

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Vaults of Terra – The Hollow Mountain by Chris Wraight

Book two in Chris Wraight’s Vaults of Terra series featuring Inquisitor Crowl and Interrogator Spinoza, The Hollow Mountain picks up pretty much straight away after the end of The Carrion Throne. Though disaster was averted on the throneworld, Crowl believes that the powerful people behind the conspiracy to bring a xenos creature to Terra are still at large and need to be brought to justice for their crimes. Despite Spinoza’s misgivings, they continue to investigate – albeit in secret, fully aware of the dangers involved in doing so – even while Terra seethes in a worrying atmosphere of unusual friction and unease.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Spirit of Cogs – John French

A short story in John French’s ongoing Horusian Wars series, The Spirit of Cogs is a sinister little ghost story told by Glavius-4-Rho to Severita while the ex-magos is working on a repair. Casting his machinic mind back to his first experience on a true forge world, Glavius-4-Rho tells a tale of his younger self being recruited into a mysterious project, swathed in secrecy, which requires his expertise. He and another magos throw themselves into their work, despite the strange phenomena plaguing their efforts, but before long they start to question the consequences of the Mechanicus’ thirst for knowledge at all costs.

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QUICK REVIEW: Blessed Oblivion – Dale Lucas

Dale Lucas is an established fantasy writer, and for his Black Library debut – Age of Sigmar short story Blessed Oblivion – he delivers a fresh, assured look at the cost paid by the Stormcast Eternals for their Reforging. Klytos is a Liberator of the Celestial Vindicators, bound by brotherhood and duty, his Stormhost tasked with protecting refugees fleeing through Shyish from the predations of rampaging Khornate hordes. Before each battle he holds tight to his few remaining memories from his first life, and when an unlikely alliance offers the opportunity to reclaim his memories in full he can’t help but put himself first for once.

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Coming Soon via Black Library Live (June 2019)

Saturday the 1st June saw 2019’s Black Library Live event take place at Warhammer World in Nottingham, and I was there to enjoy a day of seminars, signings, chatting to authors and editors and generally just hanging out with and other Black Library fans. In the end I only went to two of the seminars (plus the final one), and I didn’t find time to visit the Editors’ Corner section, as I was busy talking to authors and having fun catching up with friends – but for me half the fun of these events is getting to spend time with other people who are as enthusiastic about Black Library as I am!

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Black Library Monthly – May 2019

Welcome to Black Library Monthly for May 2019, in which I’m going to take a look over the key pieces of Black Library-related news which arose over the last month, as well as talk about the month’s new releases and what I’ve been reviewing. As always there’s been lots to talk about, even though it feels like Black Library have been a little quieter than usual in terms of the news and information they’ve been providing. Still, with lots of new releases – including loads of new short stories – there’s no shortage of interesting topics to look at. As usual, I’ll kick off by taking a look at the month’s general BL-related news before moving onto a couple of more specific topics and then the month’s releases.

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The Wicked and the Damned – David Annandale, Phil Kelly and Josh Reynolds

One of the first batch of releases published by Black Library under the Warhammer Horror label, the Wicked and the Damned is a portmanteau story – a collection of three loosely linked novellas, by David Annandale, Phil Kelly and Josh Reynolds. On the mist-shrouded cemetery world of Silence, three strangers – a commissar, an officer and a priest – are brought together seemingly by random, surrounded by the dead with only each other and the sinister mortuary-servitors for company. Confused and unsettled, to try and understand what’s going on and why they’ve been gathered together they each tell the story of what they remember last, and what led them to Silence.

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QUICK REVIEW: Out Caste – Peter Fehervari

Peter Fehervari’s Out Caste is a very brief (i.e. micro-short) prequel story to the wonderful novel Fire Caste, focused on the character of Jhi’kaara, a scarred and battle-hardened t’au Fire Warrior. Nominally set sometime before the events of Fire Caste, it sees Jhi’khaara in reflective mood, looking back on her path through life and the events – some positive, others profoundly painful – which led her to where she’s ended up. It’s a story about identity and the specific importance which that concept has for the t’au, shown through the lens of a warrior looking from the outside in.

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Black Library: Spotlight on Ian St. Martin

With the general release of Angron: Slave of Nuceria, as I went back over my review I realised that I had read and reviewed every single Ian St. Martin story that’s currently available from Black Library (the only exception being the short story Better Angels, which is at present only available in the event-exclusive Scions of the Emperor anthology). With that in mind I thought it was only appropriate to pull all of those reviews – as well as several interviews – together into a single post. Whether you’re thinking about picking up the new Angron novel and fancy finding out a bit more about Ian and his style, or you’ve read Angron and are keen to check out more of Ian’s Black Library stories, this is the place to come!

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Scourge of Fate – Robbie MacNiven

Robbie MacNiven’s first full Age of Sigmar novel, Scourge of Fate is a Chaos-focused tale of the lengths one man is prepared to go to in order to join the ranks of Archaon’s Knights of Ruin – the Varanguard. The Black Pilgrim Vanik, a powerful warlord in his own right, is one of two aspirants competing against each other to claim a single place among the Fifth Circle of the Varanguard. Tasked with killing a great hero of Order, to stop a prophecy and prevent a threat to the Varanspire itself, Vanik raises a great host of warriors and marches on Helmgard in the Realm of Chamon.

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