Category Archives: Reviews

The Art of Asking – Amanda Palmer

Musician, street performer, TED speaker, blogger, Twitterer, couchsurfer, crowdfunder – Amanda Palmer is all these and more, and in her book The Art of Asking she offers up a brutally honest insight into her life and career as she gives her thoughts on what it means to ask for, and accept, other people’s help. She has made a career out of doing things her own way, from choosing to work full time as a living statue to fighting her way out of a major label record contract, and she is now rightfully recognised as a leading creative thinker in the modern, digital, social climate.

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The Water Knife – Paolo Bacigalupi

In his first novel, The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi created a bleak future world with which to highlight issues around sustainability and genetic modification. Continuing the theme of big issues, in his latest book, The Water Knife, he turns his attention to water scarcity and how America would cope without a plentiful supply of H2O. Another bleak, alternative world, where drought is the norm and individual States battle to maintain their grip on the few sources of water still remaining, it’s a powerful and scarily believable concept.

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Meduson – Black Library Anthology

Of all the ‘exclusive’ products Black Library have released, perhaps the one most likely to rouse the anger of fans is Meduson – a venue-specific Horus Heresy anthology that can only be purchased in person from Games Workshop’s headquarters in Nottingham. Released to celebrate the re-opening of Warhammer World and the dedicated Black Library shop within, it’s a move designed to draw out the diehard fans and encourage visitors, but is bound to annoy those fans not willing or able to make it to Nottingham. Exclusivity aside, any new Heresy release is always going to be of great interest to fans of the series, and this is no exception. With a selection of brand new stories from some of Black Library’s most respected authors, this review is a little longer than usual in order to give as clear a picture as possible of the anthology.

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Assassinorum : The Emperor’s Judgement – Joe Parrino (audio drama)

A recent trend in Black Library’s releases is for a linked audio drama to accompany a novel, novella or short story – in this case Joe Parrino’s novella Assassinorum : Execution Force is accompanied by The Emperor’s Judgement, a 75-minute audio drama centered around Klara Rhasc, the Callidus assassin from the novella. A direct prequel to the novella, this sees Rhasc tracking down a crazed Eversor assassin who beat her to a target and took the kill for himself. With new mission parameters and no time to lose she must find a way to subdue the Eversor while avoiding death at his hands.

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QUICK REVIEW : Ironfire – Rob Sanders

Once again proving that no Horus Heresy story stands alone, Rob Sanders’ latest release – Ironfire – sees the return of Idriss Krendl, the antagonist in The Iron Within. This time he’s front and centre as this story’s protagonist, having been put back together after the disaster at the Schadenhold, and he’s aiming to redeem himself in Perturabo’s eyes by road testing a new, risky siege-breaking strategy of his own devising. Determined to prove that it’s only in body that he’s broken, not in mind, he’s prepared to risk everything, including the lives of his minions and his supposed allies.

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Assassinorum : Execution Force – Joe Parrino

While Black Library’s raison d’être has always been to provide tie-in fiction to expand upon the worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k, some books tie in closer than others with new Games Workshop releases. One of those is Assassinorum – Execution Force, a novella by Joe Parrino which accompanies the new board game of the same name. It follows the progress of a team of Imperial Assassins, dispatched in a rare show of force and cooperation to stop a sorcerer of the Crimson Slaughter from enacting a ritual that could spell doom for the Imperium.

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Lemartes : Guardian of the Lost – David Annandale

David Annandale’s latest Black Library release is Lemartes : Guardian of the Lost, a novella in the Lords of the Space Marines series. Having already looked at the only Blood Angel ever to conquer the Red Thirst (in his previous Mephiston novella), he now turns his attention to the only one ever to contain the other of the Blood Angels’ curses – the Black Rage. Roused from his stasis to lead the Death Company into battle on Phlegethon, a world consumed by madness and anger, Lemartes must cling tight to his tenuous grip on reality as the Blood Angels face a dark mirror of themselves in the form of blood-hungry traitors.

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Adeptus Mechanicus : Skitarius – Rob Sanders

Continuing a recent trend of books released to tie in with new Games Workshop miniature ranges, Rob Sanders’ latest novel – Skitarius – is the first Black Library release to feature the new Adeptus Mechanicus forces. It follows the impersonally-named Alpha Primus Haldron-44 Stroika (largely referred to as just Stroika, or occasionally the even more impersonal Stroika-unit) as he leads his Skitarii cohorts into battle, enacting the wishes of his distant Adeptus Mechanicus masters. After a new discovery leads to the invasion of a Dark Mechanicus forge world, Stroika finds himself battling daemon engines and twisted machine cultists in an increasingly desperate battle for survival.

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I, Lucifer – Glen Duncan

Ever wondered what it would be like if the devil could tell his side of the story? Well look no further than I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan, a darkly comic novel in which the Fallen Angel is offered one last chance at redemption. Justifiably suspicious of the offer, he agrees to a month’s trial period, which he spends inhabiting the body of one Declan Gunn, a down-at-heel writer whose last acts before Lucifer’s introduction were to purchase a pack of razor blades and run a hot bath. With Gunn’s body at his disposal, Lucifer proceeds to make the most of his time on the corporeal plane, with varying results, and sets out to tell his side of the story while he’s at it.

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Ack-Ack Macaque – Gareth L. Powell

While science fiction as a genre can occasionally take itself too seriously, with Ack-Ack Macaque Gareth L. Powell has shown that he understands how important it is for books to sometimes just be fun. Set in an alternative future where Britain and France are about to celebrate the centenary of their political and economic union, it follows a journalist hunting her ex-husband’s killer, while hosting a backup of said ex-husband inside her brain, and the British Crown Prince trying to extricate himself from a life of tedious duties in favour of the quiet life as a student. All the while the titular Ack-Ack Macaque, a violent, foul-mouthed monkey, is beginning to question the world around him as he battles German planes from the cockpit of his Spitfire.

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