Category Archives: Reviews

Storm of Damocles – Justin D. Hill

After a handful of excellent short stories, Justin D. Hill gets his first Black Library novel with Storm of Damocles, in the Space Marine Battles series. Tying in nicely with recent Deathwatch releases as well as the ongoing story of the Damocles Crusade, this follows Nergui of the White Scars, now Captain of the Deathwatch, as he investigates the loss of two full squads of his brothers. What he learns suggests that the war in the Damocles Gulf might be about to take a turn for the worse, unless he can find a way to neutralise the latest weapon in the tau’s arsenal.
Keep reading…

Legends of the Dark Millennium: Deathwatch – Ian St. Martin

Q3 2016 has been all about the Deathwatch, and in his debut novel Ian St. Martin takes us back to where it all started with Legends of the Dark Millennium: Deathwatch featuring Captain Artemis, who was first introduced back in the 2001 Inquisitor game. Now tying in with the latest iteration of the Deathwatch, this sees Artemis and his squad pulled into a huge conflict as a previous mission proves to have had horrifying unforeseen consequences. Facing both an ork Waaagh! and a tyranid hive fleet, the Deathwatch must resort to desperate measures in order to find victory.
Keep reading…

Killing Floor – Lee Child

Lee Child’s iconic ex-cop Jack Reacher first appeared way back in 1997 in the novel Killing Floor, since then returning in nineteen further novels and a 2012 movie, with a second movie and a new novel due for release in 2016. Rewind to 1997 and Killing Floor was the debut novel from the British author, introducing Jack Reacher as a drifter, ex-military police, rambling through America only to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Passing through an anonymous backwater town he’s arrested for murder – at first interested only in proving his innocence, he soon ends up entangled in a surprisingly personal mystery.
Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: Death’s Shepherd – Andy Smillie

One of Andy Smillie’s excellent Flesh Tearers stories, Death’s Shepherd is a micro-short that’s previously been available in the Black Library Anthology 2013/14 and Trial By Blood collection before its release as a separate e-short. On the blood-soaked world of Zurcon, a Flesh Tearers chaplain leads the last remaining loyal soldiers into battle to redeem their world. Full of rage and drenched in blood, the chaplain has forged the surviving guardsmen into a weapon with violence and well-chosen words, in order to retake Zurcon for the Imperium.
Keep reading…

The Serpent Beneath – Rob Sanders

SPOILER ALERT: make sure you’ve read Legion by Dan Abnett before reading this novella!

Originally released alongside three other Horus Heresy novellas in the New York Times bestselling The Primarchs anthology, The Serpent Beneath by Rob Sanders is a tale of tangled loyalties as the Alpha Legion goes up against…the Alpha Legion. Fearing a security breach at a secret Legion installation, Omegon and a small group of Legionaries infiltrate the mysterious Tenebrae 9-50 array in order to plug the leak, permanently. In true XXth Legion fashion however, things aren’t quite what they seem – plenty of surprises await Omegon and his men during the course of the mission.
Keep reading…

A Spool of Blue Thread – Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler’s 20th novel, A Spool of Blue Thread was published back in 2015 and subsequently nominated for both the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize the same year. Following the Whitshank family through three generations of life in Baltimore, it’s a sort of (largely) plot-free, rambling look at American familial life that bounces back and forth in time in a free-flowing, relaxed story of everyday life. It centers around the middle generation of Red and Abby, branching off to take closer looks at their children and at Red’s parents but always coming back to the pair of them.
Keep reading…

Watchers In Death – David Annandale (The Beast Arises Book Nine)

IMPORTANT: This is book nine in a series – there will be spoilers unless you’ve read I Am Slaughter; Predator, Prey; The Emperor Expects; The Last Wall; Throneworld; Echoes of the Long War, The Hunt for Vulkan or The Beast Must Die.

The ninth book in Black Library’s The Beast Arises series, Watchers in Death is David Annandale’s third and final contribution, following on closely from Gav Thorpe’s The Beast Must Die. With the Primarch Vulkan lost on Ullanor and the remaining Space Marine forces having taken a pounding, Koorland finds inspiration in an unlikely source, leading to a decision that’s as unpopular amongst the High Lords as it is inevitable given the title of this book. With the fate of The Beast unknown but the attack moon over Terra broadcasting terror across the airwaves, Koorland’s new tactics provide a glimmer of hope for the Imperium.
Keep reading…

Calgar’s Siege – Paul Kearney

Black Library’s long-running Space Marine Battles series continues with Paul Kearney’s Calgar’s Siege, Kearney’s first properly available Black Library novel after the seemingly cursed Dark Hunters: Umbra Sumus. Taking inspiration from a brief piece of background text, this deals with the Siege of Zalathras, where the Ultramarines’ Chapter Master Marneus Calgar held the gates against the greenskin hordes for a day and a night. It’s safe to assume that there’s more to the story than that, and Kearney fills in the gaps including where Zalathras actually is, and what Calgar was doing there in the first place!
Keep reading…

When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi

When Breath Becomes Air is the memoir of Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2013, and died two years later. Published a little under a year after his death it’s a distillation of his thoughts on life, seen through the lenses of a lifelong passion for literature and the arts, and a keen awareness of mortality. Not many people see both sides of the doctor/patient relationship, nor have the combination of medical understanding, emotional awareness and literary skill to be able to offer such an honest and vivid depiction of this awful illness.
Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: The Harrowing – Rob Sanders

First published in 2014’s Sedition’s Gate Limited Edition anthology, and then in 2016’s War Without End, Rob Sanders’ Alpha Legion short story The Harrowing now gets the e-short treatment as well. Planted among the crew of the Mechanicus ark freighter Omnissiax, an Alpha Legion infiltrator activates to support and facilitate a brutal, calculated assault on the vessel. While their operatives work to sow confusion, the Alpha Legion apply ‘sheer force and tactical relentlessness’ as they take on the vessel’s defence force, using every weapon at their disposal.
Keep reading…