Category Archives: Reviews

Black Legion – Aaron Dembski-Bowden

The long-awaited sequel to The Talon of Horus, Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Black Legion continues where its predecessor left off in terms of tone, style and characters. Once again narrated by Iskandar Khayon, it picks up some time after The Talon of Horus and sees the burgeoning Black Legion asserting their strength within the Eye of Terror. While rival warlord Thagus Davarek opposes them at every step, despite Khayon’s assassination attempts, Abaddon’s gaze turns to a power that will set him on his fateful path. A path that leads, inevitably, out of the Eye and to a confrontation with an old enemy.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Battle of Tyrok Fields – Justin D. Hill

The third of Justin D. Hill’s Creed short stories, and the longest of the three, The Battle of Tyrok Fields tells the story of a particularly dark moment in Cadia’s history, at the beginning of Abaddon’s thirteenth Black Crusade. Gathering en masse at Tyrok Fields, the armies of Cadia are caught unprepared when the newly-arrived Volscani regiments treacherously open fire. Having survived the initial exchange, Creed reacts quickly to pull together a coordinated response and lead the Cadians in a desperate defence of their own world.

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The Realmgate Wars: Bladestorm – Matt Westbrook

Book eight of Black Library’s Realmgate Wars series for Age of Sigmar, Bladestorm is immediately notable for two things – first that it was originally serialised as seven individual short stories, and second that its author, Matt Westbrook, is in fact a pen name. It’s the continuation of Thostos Bladestorm’s story, picking up where we last saw the Lord Celestant in Ghal Maraz, a changed man after his reforging. He and Lord Celestant Mykos Argellon lead their chambers to destroy a Chaos-held fortress and reclaim a vital realmgate, a mission which must succeed for the next stages of Sigmar’s plan to proceed.

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QUICK REVIEW: Lost Hope – Justin D. Hill

One of three Ursarkar E. Creed short stories by Justin D. Hill, and the second to be released as a standalone e-short, Lost Hope sees Creed looking for a new way to win the war he’s embroiled in, desperate to return to Cadia. When he and Sergeant Kell head to the ice world of Lost Hope in order to conscript its population of penal workers, what appeared to be a straightforward mission quickly becomes far more dangerous as they stumble upon evidence that the enemy is already ahead of them.

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Vaults of Terra: The Carrion Throne – Chris Wraight

Some of Black Library’s earliest and best-loved books tackled the mysteries of the Inquisition, away from 40k’s usual battlefields, but for a while it seemed those sorts of stories had fallen out of favour. Chris Wraight’s Vaults of Terra: The Carrion Throne offers a welcome return, featuring Inquisitor Erasmus Crowl and Interrogator Luce Spinoza as they work to root out a dangerous cult deep within the heart of the throneworld, Terra itself. As the sacred festival of Sanguinala approaches and Terra swells with countless pilgrims, can Crowl and Spinoza cut to the heart of the unfolding events in time to prevent disaster?

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QUICK REVIEW: The Flesh Tithe – Miles A. Drake

The Flesh Tithe represents the Black Library debut of Miles A. Drake, a dark and powerful short story which pits Sister Hospitaller Lucia against the horrors of an invading necron army. In the dark reaches of the Ghoul Stars, the Imperial world of Sygera is rapidly falling to ruin as its defenders are scattered and massacred. As guardian of her city’s cathedral, Sister Lucia rallies a few surviving soldiers in a desperate attempt to hold out as long as possible in the midst of the chaos, although even with some unexpected allies there appears to be little hope of survival.

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The Furthest Station – Ben Aaronovitch

Thanks to Subterranean Press and Netgalley for the digital advance copy in exchange for this review.

The first novella-length story to be published in Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series, The Furthest Station sits somewhere between Foxglove Summer and The Hanging Tree in terms of the series’ timeline. As with the various graphic novels, it deals with a story that runs at a tangent to the series’ main arc, in this case taking a closer look at how Peter’s cousin Abigail is fitting in with things. After a rash of sightings on the Metropolitan Line, Peter, Jaget and Abigail head off up the line to find out what’s causing ghosts to start joining the rush hour commute into London.

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Lucius: The Faultless Blade – Ian St. Martin

If you’d like to read more about Lucius: The Faultless blade, check out this quick interview with the author Ian St. Martin.

As the title suggests, Lucius: The Faultless Blade by Ian St. Martin features Lucius the Eternal, Champion of Slaanesh, in a surprisingly rare non-Heresy outing for such a well-known 40k character. Set at an unspecified point pre-Gathering Storm, it sees Lucius and his dwindling warband – the Cohors Nasicae – at low ebb, much reduced from their glory days and forced into making decisions and alliances they would normally prefer not to make. Lucius himself is plagued by the voices of those whose bodies he’s usurped after having perished at their hands, struggling to maintain a grip on his mind and his warband.

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A Darker Shade of Magic – V.E. Schwab

Book one in the Shades of Magic series, V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic is a delightful, instantly engaging adventure story in a fantasy setting of linked worlds and blood magic. Each world is unique, but connected by a common factor – they each contain a city called London on the same spot, cities which were once linked freely but can now only be moved between by a tiny handful of individuals known as Antari. Kell, one of the last remaining Antari, is a risk taker – when luck catches up with him he finds himself trapped in the only London without magic of its own.

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QUICK REVIEW: Whispers – Alec Worley

Alec Worley’s third Black Library short story, Whispers sees the Adepta Sororitas in action, responding to the summons of missionary Marcus Amouris to a backwater world whose tribes he hopes to bring into the fold of the Imperium. Something has been hunting the tribespeople and Amouris needs it removing but as he and the Sisters of Battle, led by Dominion Superior Adamanthea, venture into the deep forests and reach the City of Whispers, his assertion that it’s merely a dangerous indigenous predator is quickly challenged.

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