Category Archives: Reviews

Pharos – Guy Haley

Please note, if you haven’t read The Unremembered Empire then this review will contain spoilers.

Mysteriously numbered as 34 in Black Library’s Horus Heresy series despite Deathfire coming in at number 32, Pharos by Guy Haley continues the wider Imperium Secundus arc, picking up plotlines from Dan Abnett’s The Unremembered Empire as well as Haley’s own short story A Safe and Shadowed Place (from Death and Defiance). While the new Emperor Sanguinius sits uneasily upon the throne, Guilliman continues to tend to the Imperium Secundus with the aid of the alien artefact discovered on distant Sotha, as directed by the unlikely pairing of Barabas Dantioch and Alexis Polux. Meanwhile the Night Lords have been watching from the shadows, and choose their moment to launch an attack on Sotha.
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The Realmgate Wars: War Storm – Black Library

Since the introduction of the Age of Sigmar, Black Library’s Warhammer output has been mostly shorter format releases, in the shape of short stories, novellas and audio dramas. War Storm, book one of the Realmgate Wars series, is the first full-length novel to be released for Age of Sigmar, except…it isn’t. While it’s packaged as a single book, it is in fact three novellas combined into one volume, from Nick Kyme, Guy Haley and Josh Reynolds. Each novella follows a different Warrior Chamber of Stormcast Eternals in the early stages of Sigmar’s campaign to retake the mortal realms from the forces of Chaos.
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The Unburdened – David Annandale

The second in the set of Black Library books released to coincide with the new Betrayal at Calth game, The Unburdened is the companion piece to Rob Sanders’ The Honoured and sees David Annandale delving into the darkness once more to tell the Word Bearers’ side of the story. Set primarily on Calth at the very beginning of the Underworld War, it actually takes things back much further to begin with, to Monarchia and the humbling of the Word Bearers by The Emperor and his XIIIth Legion. We meet Kurtha Sedd at a turning point in his life, taking his first steps on a path that will lead him to Calth and a fateful confrontation with Captain Aethon of the Ultramarines, a man he once called friend and brother.
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The Honoured – Rob Sanders

Released to accompany the new Betrayal at Calth Horus Heresy board game, Rob Sanders’ The Honoured is one half of a pair of short novels that tell the story behind the game, set on Calth in the aftermath of the Word Bearers’ surprise assault on Roboute Guilliman and his Ultramarines. As the Veridia star dies, irradiating the planet’s surface and forcing the remaining combatants of both sides underground, Ultramarines Captain Aethon rallies his troops in defence of what remains of Calth, facing off against his old friend Kurtha Sedd of the Word Bearers.
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I Am Slaughter – Dan Abnett (The Beast Arises Book One)

With the Horus Heresy series at 30+ books and counting the last thing anyone expected Black Library to do was to start a brand new headline series, but that’s exactly what they’ve done, with Dan Abnett’s I Am Slaughter providing the opening book in a 12-strong series entitled The Beast Arises. Set after the Heresy but thousands of years before the main 40K timeline, with an Imperium essentially at peace, it sees almost the entire chapter of Imperial Fists in action on Ardamantua against the xenos Chromes. With the Fists fully occupied and Terra left unguarded, Grand Master Vangorich of the Officio Assassinorum watches and analyses the Imperial Senatorum, concerned about the petty politics which he believes risk the safety of the Imperium.
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QUICK REVIEW : City of Ruin – Ian St. Martin

After a break for the 24 stories in Black Library’s 2015 Advent Calendar, the Deathwatch series continues with part seven, in the form of City of Ruin by Ian St. Martin. When Rodricus Grytt of the Imperial Fists leads his squad to their deaths fighting to clear an Imperial system of orks, he readily accepts a commission in the Deathwatch as his own form of penance. The reckless Marine soon finds himself butting heads with his new squadmates as they launch a mission to rescue a captured member of the Navis Nobilite from the clutches of the invading orks.
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QUICK REVIEW : Lord of the Cosmic Gate – Gav Thorpe

Black Library’s 2015 Advent Calendar comes to a close with Lord of the Cosmic Gate by Gav Thorpe, the twelfth and final Age of Sigmar short story in the series. Rikjard of the Many Numbers, mathemagician and sorcerer of Tzeentch, masses his forces within the bizarre, enclosed land of the Thousand Portals as he enacts a plan to draw forth the armies of the Slann and learn the final part of the Eternal Equation. With that arcane knowledge he hopes to open the Cosmic Gate and break through to the Crystal Labyrinth of Tzeentch, returning the Thousand Portals to their rightful place and raising himself up above even the Everchosen.
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QUICK REVIEW : The Staff of Asclepius – Graham McNeill

The final 40k story in Black Library’s 2015 Advent Calendar comes from Graham McNeill, who returns to the Ultramarines with the micro-short The Staff of Asclepius. Fleeing through his ship carrying the precious gene-seed of his fallen brothers, apothecary Isstvan Cantaro races against time to keep his cargo from the grasp of the Emperors Children fleshsmith Dzyban and his horde of cultists. With hope fading fast, Cantaro faces the possibility of failing in his duty to safeguard the chapter’s future.
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QUICK REVIEW : The Sacrifice – Graeme Lyon

Day twenty-two of Black Library’s 2015 Advent Calendar brings Graeme Lyon’s third contribution, the Age of Sigmar short story The Sacrifice. This time round events take place in the Shyish, the realm of Death, where the Tzeentchian sorcerer Arioso sacrifices a defeated vampire in order to summon a daemon and learn about his glorious future. Acting upon the information he acquires, he sets out to fulfil his destiny and reach the prophesied moment of his ascension, never considering the accuracy of the prophecy.
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QUICK REVIEW : Without Fear – Aaron Dembski-Bowden

The Ultramarines show up for day twenty-one of the Black Library 2015 Advent Calendar, in Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s micro short Without Fear. Brother Aeneas joins his squad in an aerial insertion to break the back of a Chaos force and reclaim a defaced relic, and we watch as he prepares himself for battle before (literally) throwing himself into the fray. With his weapons sanctified and his brothers around him, nothing is going to stand in the way of their victory.
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