Category Archives: Reviews

QUICK REVIEW: Dreams of Unity – Nick Kyme

Nick Kyme’s Horus Heresy story Dreams of Unity shines a bleak light on some forgotten heroes of the Imperium. In the poverty-stricken underbelly of the Imperial Palace, a handful of surviving Thunder Warriors – the tattered remnants of the proto-Astartes legions with whose help the Emperor unified Terra – eke out a brutal existence as gladiators despite their ageing bodies and troubled minds, forever defined by their loyalty to an old notion. As Horus nears the Throneworld, even these abandoned warriors are affected by the approaching conflict.

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QUICK REVIEW: Heart of Decay – Ben Counter

An unusual tale of a rarely-depicted chapter, Ben Counter’s short audio drama Heart of Decay sees two brothers of the Relictors interrogating a captive warrior of the Death Guard in the hope of learning his secrets. Captain Vidarna and Apothecary Achaon are keen to find out what mission the diseased warrior Urbaar had been undertaking before they interrupted it, but in order to do so they must to expose themselves to his corrupting influence. There may be a high price to pay for the knowledge they seek. Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: The Witch Takers – CL Werner

Evoking faint memories of his Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter series, CL Werner’s The Witch Takers takes place in the Realm of Chamon with two Sigmarite witch hunters on the trail of something monstrous…and Chaotic. When an ancient tomb is looted and a powerful artefact accidentally unleashed, triggering a series of grisly massacres, witch hunters Esselt and Talorcan hunt for survivors through the sands of Droost as they attempt to destroy whatever relic is causing such carnage. Though their order is feared rather than welcomed by the inhabitants of Droost, they may be the only hope of preventing further massacres.

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QUICK REVIEW: Now Peals Midnight – John French

A quiet, measured short story that could only have come from John French, Now Peals Midnight is the calm before the storm, in which Rogal Dorn and the loyal defenders of Terra take a last, deep breath before the Siege of Terra begins. As the ever-present unrest in the Sol system fades away leaving an eerie sense of quiet, Dorn orders the final preparations knowing that Horus is only hours away. Across the breadth of the Imperial Palace, defenders wait…from conscripts huddled in the darkness to Primarchs standing proud on the walls. At last, the wait is almost over.

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Fabius Bile: Clonelord – Josh Reynolds

Josh Reynolds’ 2016 novel Fabius Bile: Primogenitor provided an unexpected injection of variety into Black Library’s 40k output, which is continued with the sequel – Fabius Bile: Clonelord. Picking up a fair amount of time after Primogenitor, we catch up with Chief Apothecary Fabius just as he’s about to set out for a darkened spur of the Webway in search, as always, of knowledge. When his exploration of a long-abandoned Craftworld is interrupted by familiar, if unwelcome, faces he ends up drawn closer to an old brotherhood than he’d really like, and persuaded to risk much…for great reward.

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Renegades of Elysia – Chris Dows

The second instalment of Chris Dows’ three-part Elysian Drop Troops audio drama series, Renegades of Elysia follows on from Scions of Elysia and continues the story of Sergeant Zachariah and the 158th Elysians. This time around Zachariah is ordered by the power-hungry Captain Bandrac to ramp up the speed and intensity of the regiment’s training, in order to recover from losses incurred in the previous mission. After clashing with Bandrac over supposed accidents during training, Zachariah and Adullam are tasked with leading an inexperienced squad of Elysians on a reconnaissance mission with little chance of success or survival.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Assassination of Gabriel Seth – Andy Smillie

With the short audio drama The Assassination of Gabriel Seth, Andy Smillie adds another piece to his slowly-growing jigsaw of Flesh Tearers stories. A distant sequel to A Son’s Burden, it returns to Nekkaris as Chapter Master Gabriel Seth comes to pay his respects to the men he left behind to die. In the quiet corridors of a shrine built to remember their sacrifice, Seth is confronted by an assassin sent by powerful enemies to remove him from the head of the Chapter, using his own rage against him.

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QUICK REVIEW: Magisterium – Chris Wraight

Following on from events of The Master of Mankind [SPOILER WARNING], Chris Wraight’s Horus Heresy short story Magisterium tackles the Adeptus Custodes as they regroup following the appalling losses incurred in the Webway War. It follows one of the few survivors, Samonas, as he comes to terms with the changed status of the Custodes, watching on while Constantin Valdor clashes with Rogal Dorn over their place in the war to come. Interspersed with recollections of the fighting on Prospero, it’s a powerful story of the differences between the Custodes and the Legiones Astartes, and the preparations taking place on Terra.

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QUICK REVIEW: Gods’ Gift – David Guymer

David Guymer is slowly building up a collection of Age of Sigmar short stories featuring Hamilcar Bear-Eater, Lord-Castellant of the Astral Templars, of which Gods’ Gift is the third. It’s a typically garrulous tale, told in Hamilcar’s brash, immodest first person voice as he and his men hunt unusual prey in the Realm of Ghur. Something has been terrorising the local human population of the Gorwoods, but in the process of hunting it down Hamilcar receives an unusual, unexpected vision that leads him closer to the beast he hunts…and to something that might trouble even the mighty Hamilcar.

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QUICK REVIEW – Ahriman: Key of Infinity – John French

Two years after Unchanged capped off his trilogy, Ahriman is back in a new audio drama from John French, Ahriman: Key of Infinity. This time Ahriman has caught himself a necron Cryptek and, accompanied by Ignis and Credence, sets out to understand the powerful time-altering technology it possesses. To the Cryptek, Setekh, the interrogation provides all the time it needs to carefully arrange an escape, but then perhaps it hasn’t reckoned with the sheer power the Thousand Sons sorcerers possess.

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