Category Archives: Article

When Life Gives You Bushfires – Nate Crowley Guest Post

Hello and welcome to Track of Words, where today I’m handing things over to the wonderful Nate Crowley for a fascinating guest post discussing disaster-driven winemaking, Black Library novels about (among other things) “gigantic, roaring green killing machines”, and the difficulties of writing during 2020 and 2021! If that sounds like an unusual combination, well…it is, but it really works – I think this is a fantastic article with a compelling mixture of dark humour and brutal honesty, touching upon themes that a lot of us can relate to. Author of my favourite Black Library novel of 2021 – Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! – and some of the best, most entertaining books I’ve read over the last couple of years, if you haven’t yet checked out any of Nate’s work then I strongly recommend you remedy that very soon.

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The Most Popular Reviews in 2021

With 2021 almost at an end I thought it might be fun to take a look back at which reviews have been the most popular this year on Track of Words. I originally started this site purely as a reviews site, long before I started writing blog posts or publishing author interviews, and I’m always happy when visitors enjoy reading my reviews. In 2021 to date I’ve published 73 new reviews (55 book reviews, 18 short story reviews), which puts the total number of reviews at a whopping 1,119 – of which just three (so far) have been guest reviews, the remaining 1,116 written by me. To be honest that number came as a bit of a shock when I looked it up, as I hadn’t realised quite how many I’d written!

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Things I Read & Loved in 2021 – Lora Gray Guest Post

For today’s Track of Words guest post, please welcome author Lora Gray who’s here to look back at some of the best novels, short fiction and poetry they’ve read in 2021, all of which was published this year. Lora may be familiar to Track of Words readers from my reviews of their Warhammer Horror short stories – including He Feasts Forever, which is still one of my absolute favourites – but if you haven’t checked out any of their work I would strongly recommend it! If you’re on the lookout for some great speculative fiction recommendations as well though, you’ve come to the right place with this article! I know I can’t wait to make a start on some of these.

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Black Library in 2022

The Black Library online preview has just taken place, squeaking in at the end of 2021 to show off some of the books due for publication in 2022, so now seems like a good time to look ahead and think about what 2022 might be like from a BL perspective. For the first part of this article I’m going to talk specifically about the BL preview and give some of my observations on how it went (TL;DR overall I enjoyed it, even if I’m not keen on how it was structured), and what I think about the newly-announced books. After that I’ll recap the other BL books that have already been confirmed for 2022, and then go on to talk in a fair bit of detail about how I see the year ahead going on the BL front…or at least how I’m hoping it will go.

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Don’t Give Up: 2021 as a Debut Author – Marc Collins Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post, where today I’m handing the reins over to the brilliant Marc Collins to talk about what 2021 has been like as a debut author. Marc’s debut novel Grim Repast was published this year as part of Black Library’s Warhammer Crime range, and it’s an absolute belter of a book – and likewise all of Marc’s short stories I’ve read have been fantastic. It’s been great to watch Marc’s authorial journey from the outside, but in this article he’s kindly offered some fascinating insight into what it’s been like from his perspective, including his path through the Black Library Open Submissions process. It’s very much a tale of perseverance and determination, and I’ve no doubt these are only the first steps in a long and prosperous career.

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Mischief, Power and Tricksters – Gabriela Houston Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post, where today I’m thrilled to welcome author Gabriela Houston to the site to talk about the fascinating concept of tricksters in fiction! I read Gabriela’s debut novel The Second Bell earlier in the year and loved its Slavic mythology-inspired magic, and themes of family and community. With Gabriela’s second novel (and her Middle Grade debut) The Wind Child due out in February 2022, this fantastic guest post is a great opportunity to see how the familiar figue of the trickster relates to The Wind Child. Check out the publisher’s synopsis for this brilliant-sounding story of friendship, gods and monsters, then read on to enjoy Gabriela’s article on tricksters and the balance of power.

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Best of Black Library 2021

2021 is rapidly coming to a close, which means it’s time for my usual roundup of the best Black Library books I’ve read over the last year. As always, I want to open with the caveat that these are my personal highlights based solely on what I’ve read – I’m not suggesting that there haven’t been other excellent BL titles released this year, just that I haven’t read them! I should also point out that I’m basing my selections on books which were first published in 2021, which means I’ve chosen one that only had a Limited Edition release and won’t be more widely available until 2022, and that this year I’m almost entirely looking at novels. In previous years I’ve also covered other formats and split out my choices into different articles based on the main BL settings – 40k, Age of Sigmar and Horus Heresy – but this year I’m just going to do this one article, and concentrate on novels.

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Track of Words Advent Calendar 2021

Hello and welcome to the Track of Words Advent Calendar 2021! Every day from the 1st to the 25th December I’m going to be posting a new article on the site – it could be a book review, an author interview, a blog post, or something totally different! I’ve been running Track of Words since 2014 and every year I’ve published (at least) one post per day in December; it started off as a way of following the Black Library Advent Calendar series, where BL would release a new short story each day and I would publish my review of the story. Over the last couple of years it’s become less focused around BL reviews though as I’ve broadened things out to cover a wider range of SFF books, authors and publishers.

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Prologues & Premonitions – Peter McLean Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post, where I’m delighted to welcome fantasy author Peter McLean to the site. Author of the incredible War for the Rose Throne series (one of my absolute favourites of recent years), not to mention the brilliant Burned Man trilogy and a bunch of excellent Warhammer 40k short stories, Peter is here today to talk a bit about the current state of play for fantasy authors and the changes that 2022 might bring when it comes to fantasy fiction of the darker variety. This is a fascinating examination of what it’s like to be a fantasy author right now, along with some intriguing recommendations for fantasy books and series (and I should point out that Peter’s recommendations have never let me down)!

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Monthly Roundup – November 2021

Hello, and welcome to my Monthly Roundup post for November, here on Track of Words. Life continues to be up and down a little bit, and I’ve been kept busy this month trying to find a suitable balance between all the things I want to be doing now that I’ve started my new job out in the real world. Nevertheless, this is my tenth post on Track of Words in November, so that’s two up on October – I was aiming for 12 or 13 this month, but 10 isn’t bad. I’m also pretty happy with how these posts have come out, and (pleasantly) surprised that I’ve found both the time and headspace to write six reviews and publish the first ever guest review on the site. In these roundups I’ve repeatedly talked about being hopeful that I can get into a more productive headspace each month, but this time I’m actually quietly confident that I will be able to do that – check out the general update section later on for a few thoughts on what I’ve got planned for December!

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