Category Archives: Reviews

QUICK REVIEW: Empra – Nate Crowley

Nate Crowley’s second Black Library short story, Empra offers a unique take on 40k and a rare perspective on the Imperium. Toa is a Shellmaker, daughter of the chief shaman; she and the tribe her mother oversees toil to forge great shells that they send up to the Body of Empra in return for food and protection from the poisons of their world. When Toa finds an Angel out in the manhills, her world is turned upside down as she learns that everything she had been told – about Empra, his servant Two-Bird and her entire religion – has been a lie.

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The Court of Broken Knives – Anna Smith Spark

The first book in Anna Smith Spark’s Empires of Dust trilogy, The Court of Broken Knives is a grand, sweeping, brutally violent and beautifully written tale of ambition, politics and power. In the city of Sorlost, heart of the once-mighty Sekemleth Empire, powerful men plan a bloody coup in the name of protecting their way of life against the growing boldness of enemies all around. The Free Company of the Sword, contracted to kill the Emperor, make their way through the desert to Sorlost, in their midst a young man fleeing from disgrace but destined for great and terrible things.

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Kal Jerico: Sinner’s Bounty – Josh Reynolds

With Kal Jerico: Sinner’s Bounty, Josh Reynolds takes the reins from Gordon Rennie and Will McDermott and reintroduces the suave bounty hunter for a new generation of Necromunda fans. Accompanied by put-upon partner Scabbs and sort-of-but-not-really wife Yolanda, Jerico is on the trail of Desolation Zoon, a Redemptionist zealot whose bold behaviour has roused the ire of the Guilders. With every other venator worth the name on the same trail, however, they must keep ahead of the competition and survive the many and varied dangers of the underhive – including a worrying number of muties on the move – if they’re to claim this bounty.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Iron Promise – Josh Reynolds

Josh Reynolds’ short story The Iron Promise, available from Black Library either as a standalone e-short or within the Warcry anthology, is a tale of twisted honour, oaths and bloodshed in the Age of Sigmar. Vos Stalis, Dominar of the Iron Golems, has been tasked with a dangerous mission, leading a small warband into the Bloodwind Spoil to assess the loyalty of a duardin forgemaster whose tithe to the Iron Golems has dried up. A test of his strength and loyalty as much as the forgemaster’s, it sees Vos venture deep into the forge and confront the danger that lurks within.

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QUICK REVIEW: Bonegrinder – Josh Reynolds

This story is currently only available within Inferno! Volume 3.

A sequel to 2018’s Death’s Head, Josh Reynolds’ Necromunda short story Bonegrinder continues to follow the exploits of smarter-than-the-usual Goliath ganger Topek Greel. Now a full member of the Steelgate Kings under the watchful leadership of Irontooth Korg, Greel is a dangerous combination of brawn, brains and ambition, and he’s got his sights set on consolidating his position through the manipulation of the Kings’ rival gangs. When Korg brings him along as a second in a parlay with an opposing gang leader, however, it begins to look as though Greel’s ambition might have got the better of him.

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Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter – Guy Haley

The twelfth novel in Black Library’s The Horus Heresy Primarchs series, Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter is Guy Haley’s third contribution and by a comfortable margin his most unconventional one yet. A twitchy, jittery collection of characters and plot threads, it sees Curze – twisted, haunted, damaged – spending the final hours of his life reliving some of the key events which led him inevitably to a moment he’d long foreseen. Crouched in the darkness, talking in his madness to a (literally and figuratively) distant father, his only thoughts are to justify his monstrous actions and find vindication in light of the Emperor’s own cold contempt.

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QUICK REVIEW: Hunger and the Lady – Peter McLean

In Peter McLean’s War for the Rose Throne series, one character of particular interest is Billy the Boy, the young orphan described with considerable understatement in the dramatis personae of Priest of Bones as “a very strange young man”. Featured in Grimdark Magazine Issue 18, the short story Hunger and the Lady offers the first opportunity to explore a little of Billy’s backstory. It’s the tale of an eleven year-old boy scraping a living in the ruins of war-torn Messia as enemy soldiers close in, a story about survival, about enduring hardship, and maybe even the presence of a higher power.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Weight of Silver – Steven B. Fischer

This story is currently only available within Inferno! Volume 3.

His second Black Library short story after debuting with The Emperor’s Wrath, Steven B. Fischer’s The Weight of Silver is another Imperial Guard story, this time featuring a young Cadian officer wrestling with questions of confidence and authority. The Cadian 900th are newly arrived on an embattled Imperial world, and newly-promoted Lieutenant Glavia Aerand faces dissent within the ranks of her platoon as well as the dangers posed by the enemy. After her first mission ends in disgrace she questions her abilities and the merit of her rank, and she’ll have to dig deep if she’s to survive and thrive.

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Blackshields: The Broken Chain by Josh Reynolds

The third in Josh Reynolds’ series of Horus Heresy audio dramas featuring ex-World Eater Endryd Haar, Blackshields: The Broken Chain sees Haar and his second in command – former Death Guard Erud Vahn – at the mercy of the Sons of Horus sent by the Warmaster to track them down. Betrayed, imprisoned and stripped of his weapons and armour, Haar languishes in chains while Vahn bargains with their captors, but the Sons of Horus want more than just prisoners. The Warmaster wants his weapons back, but the Blackshields’ loyalties and objectives remain unclear, while Haar knows he’s escaped from worse prisons in the past.

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QUICK REVIEW: Redemption Through Sacrifice – Justin Woolley

Established sci-fi author Justin Woolley makes his Black Library debut with Redemption Through Sacrifice, a Warhammer 40,000 short story featuring penal legionnaires, filthy heretics and the Inquisition. Ex-sergeant Marcus van Veenan, late of the Talissian 51st, joins thousands of other under-equipped cannon fodder – members of the Second Rapture Penal Legion, the ‘Meat Dogs’ – on Vandicius, tasked with shoring up the Imperial defences against a rampaging heretical cult. The disciplined days of his past in the Imperial Guard are gone, replaced by the chance to earn the Emperor’s forgiveness with his death, but van Veenan’s usefulness to the Imperium isn’t over yet.

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