Category Archives: Article

40k Reading Order: Silver Skulls – Sarah Cawkwell

Welcome to this 40k Reading Order article, the first of many where I’ll be taking a look at a range of Black Library series and providing recommended orders in which to read the various stories – in this case Sarah Cawkwell’s excellent Warhammer 40,000 Silver Skulls stories. If you’ve ever wanted to read this series but haven’t known where to start, then look no further than this article! With a little help from Sarah, including a handy page on her website, I’ve put together a comprehensive list of all of her Silver Skulls stories, along with a couple of other stories that link off at a bit of a tangent and some suggestions for what to read next.

As well as the recommended reading order, I’ve also included a breakdown of each story with the publisher’s synopsis, suggestions of the best way to get hold of each one, and links out to my review where they’re available.

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3 Wishes for the Black Library Celebration 2022

The annual Black Library Celebration has been running since 2018, an event which in the words of Warhammer Community offers a chance to “celebrate your passion for the fiction of the Warhammer universes”. It’s a great idea in principle, using Games Workshop stores (when they’re not all shut due to Covid) and the Warhammer Community site to bring the Black Library community together – readers, authors, and everyone involved in the community. Every year, however, I find myself disappointed that instead of actually celebrating the breadth of storytelling on offer across BL fiction or the incredible work that goes into writing these stories, this event is basically just an opportunity to release a bunch of new 40k books all on the same day, along with a new Games Workshop miniature of a BL character.

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Monthly Roundup – February 2021

Welcome to my Monthly Roundup for February. 2021 continues to be a bizarre year, but February seemed to fly past at speed and I can’t quite believe it’s March already! Over the last two months my Track of Words output has settled down to roughly four posts per week (give or take) which I think is about right, and February certainly felt busy in terms of writing but not crazily so. On the reading front, I got through a dozen books over the course of the month – I’ll talk a little bit later about some of the highlights from those books, but spending time reading and listening to audiobooks has really helped me stay sane of late! I hope you all had as good a February as possible under the circumstances…

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Black Library: Age of Sigmar Grand Alliances

If you’re familiar with Warhammer Age of Sigmar then you’ll probably know that in the game at least, the various armies are grouped loosely into four Grand Alliances – Chaos, Death, Destruction and Order – each containing a range of different factions and races, not all of which always see eye to eye. Recently I got to wondering about how this concept is represented in Black Library fiction, and whether I could think of one standout book for each Grand Alliance – one thing led to another, and the end result is this article. I’ve picked out four Age of Sigmar books that I’ve really enjoyed, and I’ll talk a bit about why each one is – in my opinion – the best place to start (so far) with its Grand Alliance.

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Found Family and the Characters of First Team – Robbie MacNiven Guest Post

Hello and welcome to the latest guest post here on Track of Words, where today I’ve got the fantastic Robbie MacNiven on board to talk about the characters and one of the main themes in his new X-Men novel First Team. The second instalment in the Marvel: Xavier’s Institute series from Aconyte Books, First Team is due to be published in global ebook and US paperback on the 2nd March, with the UK paperback following on the 15th April. To start things off, check out the cool cover art for First Team – by the talented Anastasia Bulgakova – and then take a look at the book’s synopsis.

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A Guide to Dan Abnett’s Inquisition Series

Dan Abnett’s trilogy of Inquisition trilogies – the Eisenhorn, Ravenor and Bequin novels – are among the best that Black Library has ever published, and certainly some of my personal favourites. With the upcoming release of Penitent, the second Bequin novel, there are now more than twenty individual stories across the overarching Inquisition series, with the nine novels (with at least one more still to come) accompanied by a dozen or so short stories. As with many Black Library series, the tricky part is knowing where to start if you’re keen to check out these stories, or where to go next if you’ve read some of them and are keen for more!

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Monthly Roundup – January 2021

Welcome to my first Monthly Roundup of 2021, in which I’m taking a look back over what’s been going on with Track of Words this January! As usual I’ll link out to all of the reviews, interviews and blog articles that I’ve published over the last few weeks, and then talk a bit about the month as a whole. After two months of posting something every day at the end of 2020 (in fact I managed 73 days in a row) I’ve slowed back down to a comfortable four posts per week, which is roughly what I’m going to aim to maintain for the majority of 2021. I might throw in an extra post here and there (potentially in the week I’m publishing this article, in fact), and maybe try for one a day again in November and December, but for the most part I think this is going to be the shape of things to come.

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February 2021 Releases From Aconyte Books

February is here, so it’s time for me to take a quick look at the cool new novels being published this month by Aconyte Books – this time around we’ve got two new books, set in the worlds of Legend of the Five Rings and Descent: Journeys in the Dark! After last month’s extended article, with its recap of all of Aconyte’s 2020 releases, I’m back to the usual format again, so I’ll give you the publisher’s synopsis for the two new novels for February, talk a little bit about each of them, and link out to my author interviews for both books and a review for one of them. I’ve now read 11 of Aconyte’s novels, and they just keep turning out fantastic books – if you haven’t yet taken the plunge, I really can’t recommend them enough!

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A Guide to John French’s Ahriman Series

Regular readers of Track of Words will probably know how much of a fan I am of John French’s Warhammer 40,000 series of Ahriman stories. I remember reading Ahriman: Exile back in 2012 and just being blown away by the atmosphere, the storytelling and the depth of this intriguing character, and as the trilogy progressed it developed into one of my all-time favourite Black Library series. It might not be for everyone, but I just love the narrative complexity and the detail of these characters! There’s more to this series than just a trio of novels (and counting) though, and one of its strengths is the way the books are complemented by a host of additional short stories. The only problem is, it’s not necessarily easy to know where to start – so that’s where this article comes in!

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Cover Reveal: The Splinter King by Mike Brooks

Today I’m thrilled to reveal the amazing cover for Mike Brooks’ upcoming fantasy novel The Splinter King, book two in The God-King Chronicles, which is due to be published by Orbit on the 15th July 2021. It’s an unusual situation as the first book in the series – The Black Coast – isn’t out yet (it’s coming very soon, on the 18th February in the UK), but the way I see it this just means we’ve got TWO awesome new fantasy novels in this series to look forward to in 2021! Along with the cover itself, I spoke to Mike to get a few of his thoughts on the artwork and what we can expect from the series as a whole – so read on to find out more.

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