Category Archives: Reviews

Crusade – Andy Clark

Essentially an introductory story for readers new to Black Library’s Warhammer 40,000 fiction, Andy Clark’s Crusade is a straight-up action tale of Ultramarines taking on Death Guard in the still-new surroundings of the Dark Imperium. Forced into real space by a harrowing warp storm, Lieutenant Cassian’s strike force of Primaris Space Marines reach the Imperial world of Kalides Prime only to find it besieged by the Death Guard. Determined to rejoin the Indomitus Crusade, the Ultramarines aim to fight their way through the traitor lines to a vital Imperial emplacement and get word out about the plight of Kalides.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Path to Glory – Evan Dicken

For his Black Library debut, Evan Dicken takes us to the end of the Lantic Empire in The Path of Glory, a pre-Age of Sigmar short story that’s set just prior to the Age of Chaos beginning. In the realm of Chamon, a great human empire is crumbling under the weight of Chaos invasion, and it falls to three champions to try and wrest some kind of victory from the jaws of defeat. Between Captain Sulla of the Lantic Legions, the mage Kaslon of the Gilded Order, and de-facto Emperor Livius, a little hope still remains for victory or vengeance.

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Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix – Josh Reynolds

Josh Reynolds’ novel Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix makes it four traitor-to-be primarchs in a row in Black Library’s The Horus Heresy Primarchs series. For this, the sixth book in the series, we see the primarch of the Emperor’s Children embark upon his first solo compliance mission, to Twenty-Eight One, or Byzas. Though ostensibly welcoming of the Imperium, Fulgrim knows he must still work hard to bring Byzas and its people to compliance. Stung by perceptions of him and his legion, he sets out with just seven of his sons to demonstrate his methods and prove his worth to his brothers.

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Corsair: The Face of the Void – James Swallow

Taking place (largely) well away from the usual characters and locations of Warhammer 40,000, James Swallow’s audio drama Corsair: The Face of the Void is a bold adventure story featuring Rogue Trader Santiago and her crew of misfits taking on pirates, aliens and even Imperial authority. Closing in on a pirate ship carrying a valuable bounty, when her prey is strangely becalmed Captain Santiago leads a boarding action to retrieve and claim the prize only to find unexpected dangers lurking in its depths. It soon becomes clear that this is no ordinary bounty they’ve been sent to claim.

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QUICK REVIEW: Veil of Darkness – Nick Kyme

Following on from his Space Marine Battles novel Fall of Damnos, Nick Kyme’s short story Veil of Darkness sees Captain Cato Sicarius of the Ultramarines return to Macragge in defeat after his humbling by the necrons. Waking from a sus-an coma to find he’s been summoned before the Chapter Master to account for his actions, he wrestles with both his anger at having been defeated, and a strange sense of darkness that lingers on the edge of his perception. Preparing for his audience with Marneus Calgar, he begins to wonder whether anything else returned from Damnos with him.

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Castellan – David Annandale

The second of David Annandale’s Castellan Crowe novels, Castellan follows on from Warden of the Blade and brings the series right up to the current 40k timeline. Picking up immediately after the end of Warden, we catch up with Crowe and his fellow Grey Knights as they look to finish the job on Sandava III, which seems simple enough until the Cicatrix Maledictum splits reality apart and engulfs the Sandava system, all hell literally breaking loose. Meanwhile Canoness Setheno (remember her from Death of Antagonis?) hunts Emperor’s Children on Angriff, a world with powerful meaning to another Grey Knight – Justicar Styer.

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Dead in the Water – Sandy Mitchell

Released back in 2011, Sandy Mitchell’s Dead in the Water is the first of two Ciaphas Cain audio dramas (so far, at least), and in common with the productions of the time is performed (pretty much) by Toby Longworth alone. It’s a classic Cain tale of accidental heroism and unsuccessful self interest, as he finds his quiet posting on the backwater world of Archipelaga unwelcomely enlivened when he’s backed into leading a search mission for a missing squad of Vostroyans. In typical fashion, what begins as a simple task quickly turns dangerous for Cain, Jurgen and co.

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QUICK REVIEW: Four Thousand Days – David Guymer

In David Guymer’s Age of Sigmar short story Four Thousand Days, a Fyreslayer lodge sets off on an epic quest in search of war, and a return to their ancestral lands, in a journey that will take – as the title suggests – a really long time. Among their number is Dunnegar who, having survived the Trial of Wrath to become a Grimwrath Berserker, hurls himself into the thickest fighting in their numerous battles. As the years pass and their numbers dwindle, the lodge’s identity and purpose is slowly worn away.

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Titans’ Bane – Chris Dows

Chris Dows is developing a fine reputation for writing Imperial Guard, and with his audio drama Titans’ Bane he turns his attention away from Elysians and towards Cadians, with a story focusing on the crew of a Shadowsword super-heavy tank. Having taken a beating by the forces of Nurgle, Lieutenant Quiller and the crew of Titans’ Bane limp back to Imperial lines, desperately trying to repair their wounded tank even as its machine spirit ails. To make matters worse, frictions within the tank threaten to boil over as Quiller attempts to integrate two non-Cadian replacements into her veteran crew.

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Nagash: The Undying King – Josh Reynolds

Harking back to some of Josh Reynolds’ earlier Undead-focused Warhammer stories, Nagash: The Undying King is an Age of Sigmar novel set in the Mortal Realms long before the actual Age of Sigmar. Available as a Warhammer World-exclusive hardback before its Christmas Day 2017 e-premiere release, it looks at the Rictus clans of Shyish, Nagash-worshipping human tribes being driven out of their lands by the inexorable forces of Nurgle. Tamra ven Drak leads what remains of her clan north in search of survival, following two of Nagash’s Mortarchs whose plans she finds herself increasingly bound up in.

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